Empedocles - SCP Foundation

Hippocrates,

I have heard about your research into the composition of man. Your methods are impeccable, and I commend you on not focusing on the realm of gods, but on nature itself to determine the course of the disease.

I have been told your method of taking a draught of blood and allowing it to settle without clotting, to cause the four humors to form. Having a surfeit of blood myself, I performed the experiment, and in fact did witness the split into the red blood, white phlegm, and yellow and black bile. The fact that it is then connected back to the elements of the world: air, water, fire, and earth, demonstrate how man is a world unto itself.

But here is where I found something further in my own fluids. Perhaps you have not found this humor? I say this because there are not four elements, but five, as seen in the mysteries of Pythagoras' pentagram. Asclepius himself had five daughters, and so, there must indeed be a fifth humor. I know not what this fifth fluid I found is, but know that the fifth element is the Void, the space between stars and the element that conveys light. You will find the fifth humor when you see the space between the stars.

Empedocles

Socrates,

We have not had opportunity before to speak, but I must commend you and speak with you, demigod to demigod. You might claim you are no demigod, but I have been speaking with a close traveling companion who assures me it is the case. You are one of five great men to walk this earth, proclaiming to make sense of what we perceive and conceive. The other four, in far-off lands, are here to chase out gods and bring wisdom. My companion has shown me the joyous flow of life of the Twenty-Fourth, the storm's calm center of an Enlightened Prince, the bright embrace of action and inaction by Li Er, and the solid statesmanship of the Great Kong, and has proven that your influence will be more diaphanous still, floating weightlessly like starlight through the hearts and minds of all men.

It must be this way, for when the time for an idea comes, the idea comes. Time is relentless, at once both epochal, marking history by stelae, and interval, changing moment to moment. May we embrace the changes necessary to prevent stasis from gaining hold. Embrace the teachings of the four you will never meet and know you are yet that fifth.

Empedocles

Euripides,

It warms my heart to see your tetralogy do so well. Weep not for the play you lost in creating them. Philoctetes and Dictys were moving to the core, and we can all laugh raucously with Theristai, but it is Medea that stands out the most. Fear not that her killing of her sons caused everyone to recoil in horror; it will play far after any of us have passed. I am fortunate that my traveling companion brought my eyes and ears to Athens to feast upon the spectacle.

One thing I must offer: fear not your belief in passion. Far too often the people turn to the gods to explain themselves, but as a strict physician and naturalist, I am well aware that gods die in threes, but stars rise in fives. That Medea kills her brood is only the natural way; if we ever fully embrace love, or embrace strife, we will see the world end. End it will by an order as everything crystallizes into a single moment, or by a chaos as all falls apart, all decays to nothingness. Life exists only in the balance, and sometimes the drastic must be done.

Empedocles

Anaxagoras,

Your views on atomism, aggregation, and disruption have been crucial in my development of the balance between love and strife that our universe depends on. For that, I thank you.

And yet, I feel I must inform you of the greatest of Pythagorean secrets. Yes, with the pentagram, there is necessary reverence in the number five. However, the secret is this: just as there is another sense behind our ears in addition to our five we cannot perceive, just as there is another digit, invisible and intangible, on each of our hands, there is another number between one and five. It is not a sixth number, as that would be six, but a hidden number, impossible to count. What this means is that the five elements of the universe are insufficient to explain it, but there is another, one without substance.

It is only now, as the world pushes away from superstition from gods, and finds solace in the thoughts of man, that this new element, this element of the uncountable number, can be found. My traveling companion tells me that this is Time, the only item that even allows for the possibility of change. It is through time that aggregation and disruption have any meaning, that holds the universe between freezing in stasis, and blown like scattered dust to irrelevance.

The world is thinking in unison. Aggregation is dominant. I fear the state of love and the end of all Time comes soon.

Empedocles

Pausanias,

My great love, it pains me to write to you. You have always studied so willingly at my feet, taken care of me as I age, and know that you will continue my work when I am no longer here. I love you more than anything.

The world approaches consensus, is killing gods with abandon and replacing them with thoughts. Pythagorean tuning theory has grown, and the world beneath our feet hums in harmonics as the song reaches a crescendo.

Far to the north, past the sea and impassable mountains, far into barbarian lands, stands a temple to this harmony, this love. It is as magnificent as any temple, even moreso, and timeless in its nature, a tribute to Alagadda. You must never go there. It is there I must travel with my companion, instill strife upon the world, ensure that all time does not freeze as one moment. Not now. Not yet.

Weep for me, Pausanias. Your tears and cries will help feed the starving maw of disruption the world so desperately craves.

Empedocles

These letters have been dated back to approximately 430 BC and are held in the Foundation's non-anomalous records archive. Note that despite their non-anomalous nature, they have been classified as top secret at Level 4 access. Research into what they refer to is ongoing.

Of note is that Empedocles is believed to have ended his life by throwing himself into Mt. Etna in 430 BC. Pausanias, his eromenos, reported finding a single bronze sandal of Empedocles, tossed from Mt. Etna. He also mentioned that the volcano smoked heavily for days afterward.