What is the Tetragrammaton

The Tetragrammaton refers to the four letters Yod, He, Vav, He, which represent the name of God. These letters correspond to the four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. The elements symbolize different energies and form the basis of our reality. The Tarot also incorporates these elements, with each suit representing one of them. The concept of the Tetragrammaton is seen in various cultures and is considered an archetype of self-unity. Carl Jung found healing in recognizing this archetype in himself and his patients. The significance of the number four will be explored further in the next episode. What is the Tetragrammaton? Tetragrammaton means four letters, Yod, He, Vav, He, the name of God, traditionally Romanized as Yahweh or Jehovah and spoken as Yahweh or Jehovah. In magic, this appears as the four elements. Yod is fire, He is water, Vav is air, and the second He is earth. These four elements are the energies that form our reality. They constitute the cross at the center of the world. The elements themselves are symbolized in a set of four triangles. Fire is up, just like heat rises. Spiritual fire goes up infinitely. Water is down. Just as mundane water follows the path of least resistance, spiritual water flows down infinitely. Air is like fire, an upward triangle, but rather than going up, it goes across, which is why the triangle has a line through it. Just as mundane air blows across the world, spiritual air is always blowing. Earth is like water, a downward triangle, but with a line across it, blocking the flow down, and thus it gathers and materializes. The first three elements are entirely spiritual. They are only realized and materialized through earth. Tetragrammaton is also seen as a family, where Yod and He are the father and mother, Vav and He are the son and daughter. In the Tarot, this appears as the four elemental suits. Wands as fire, cups as water, swords as air, and discs as earth. And again, in the court cards, kings are fire, queens are water, princes are air, and princesses are earth. And while each suit is in itself an element, each element has parts. So where all kings are fire, the king of cups is the fiery part of water, the princess of swords is the earthy part of air, and so on. This fourfold energy is a very prominent archetype cross-culturally. The concept even appears in the I Ching, in the four primary virtues or principles of the text. Yuan, which is the origin or the originating, which is fire. In Heng, which is a shrine, it means prosperity and penetrating, and it's air. In Li, which is grain and a knife, and means reaping, advantage. This is the earth. And in Ching, which is a vessel, which is purity, firmness, and represents water. From these four elemental energies, the entire world is formed. The world of the I Ching, the world of the Tarot, and our reality itself. Carl Jung identified the quaternity as the archetype of the self. The four parts that make up the whole. He saw this in the West and East in the form of mandalas, like the zodiac, the cross, and traditional Buddhist mandalas. They became a tool of healing for him and his patients. By recognizing the Tetragrammaton, not only in God and the world, but in our highest selves, we overcome the one-sidedness and blindness that plague us. But why four? Tune in next week for more.