Five

There are four elements that together lie in a dormant balance, and the fifth can be seen as the (individual) action, the movement in time and space. Sometimes the fifth binds the four together or represents the totality of the four. Compare the quinqunx, a formation with five points that we mainly recognize from the dice; here the four are in each corner, and the fifth in the middle. It can in certain contexts be seen as a whole: “The four” plus what binds them together (the four functions in Jungian theory, which are united with the Self; the four evangelists with Christ in the center, etc.).

The alchemists referred to the fifth as the totality of the four as “the quintessence,” associated with the philosopher's stone; the integration itself – the essence of – the four elements; or to speak with Jung, again the functions. (In dream interpretation, Jung often refers to his typology's four functions, where “the fifth” indicates the totality of humanity.)

Our first encounter with the number five is the five fingers of the hand, which connects the number to ten and twenty; a symbolic thinking that can reappear in dreams.  

Five is sometimes associated with humanity as such, both as a symbol but also with her physical body and senses. (A person with outstretched arms and legs forms a pentagram; the four limbs and the head as the quintessence.) While “five as the totality of the four” can represent the philosopher's stone, the number five as such is the deviation, the natural imperfection, and the bodily existence; an uncertainty regarding the four and the unity. In other words, the number five can represent each respective opposite – the perfect and the naturally incomplete.  

Five can also negatively be linked to the illusion of matter, or matter in general. The number was associated with mother goddesses, such as the protective Hera (or Juno) and the eerie Hecate. (Mercury is also sometimes associated with the number five but more often with four and three.)  

The number five as structure never represents wholeness, as the number four does, but rather prima materia as a chaotic state.

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