I've been struck by synchronicity. A number of old issues have come up for one reason or another, all of them connected in some way with quintessence. In modern parlance, quintessence is the refined or fundamental nature of a thing, the essential quality of its idealization. This definition draws from some murky medieval philosophy, in turn stolen from the Greeks.
Once the atomic theories of Leucippus and Democritus gained a broad acceptance, ancient Greek scholars engaged in a professional rivalry, not unlike that of modern physicists, to determine the nature of the most fundamental particles. The first guess was that water was the basic matter; it was so much more fluid than matter, it must be disorganized collections of discrete atoms, rather than the densely-packed solids we deal with most of the time. Then somebody pointed out that air was even more rarefied, and thus must be more basic. Then the argument escalated to fire, and some philosopher, more out of good politics than good reasoning, suggested a compromise that all four were different types of basic matter, and everything was composed of combinations of them.
Alchemists tried sorting out what was which, and made the natural associations: earth with any solid, water with any liquid, air with any gas, and fire with light and heat and lightning and energy generally. They also made some more dubious associations. For example, the sea is deep and dark and mysterious, so water must be tied with the soul and emotions and similar facets of humanity not readily subject to objective examination. Airy environments, like mountaintops, are cold and clear, provide excellent vision, and must therefore be intimately connected with clear thought and perception. There were four bodily humors, four seasons, four cardinal directions, four gospels, all arranged in elaborate and implausible equations to the four elements.
Medieval scholars thought these were pretty spiffy ideas, and took them on faith, as they did much of ancient philosophy. But the ones who had really done their homework (and were willing to flirt with ideas not sanctioned by the Catholic church) knew the Pythagoreans, who had a thing for fives anyway, had played the ultimate trump card. There was, they claimed, a fifth form of matter so rarefied that nobody could detect its existence. Whoa.
Now, that's not really playing fair. Anything a rival philosopher could point to was, by definition, baser matter. And, since nobody could produce a hunk of it, there was no fear of contradiction of any properties you might care to assign it. A little bit of this fifth element, or quint essence, in mangled Latin, was in everything, just too little and too thinly spread to find. But if you could distill this primal matter in an appreciable quantity, you'd have God's modeling clay. Since quintessence is basic matter, it can be anything if arranged properly; all you have to do is impose your will upon it. Ultimately, quintessence became associated with the heavens and their supposed perfection, with mysteries, and with cosmic oneness. There is no fortune, just the synchronicity, the rarefied ether affecting the universe in regular ways.
So when I want to perform a brief experiment in random spatial grouping and pull out a special five-suit deck to help me place random darts, then read about quintessence as a game mechanic for influencing probability, then find old notes on designing a fortune-telling system with five elements, well, that's just quintessence at work. Or so ancient scholars and new-age groupies would have you believe.