The Four Elements

“Now hear the fourfold roots of everything:

Enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus

And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears.”

The ancient Greek philosophers believed that there were four elements which combined together to create all things (material and immaterial). These four are Earth, Air, Fire and Water and are occasionally referred to as the Four Elements of Classical Antiquity.

The four elements didn’t stay within the realms of Philosophy for long, and were quickly adopted into belief, science and medicine. Later, through the work of the Hermetic Corpus and the Neoplatonists, the ideas of the four elements entered into mystical practices. The four occult elements found their way into grimoires, occult manuals, spells and rituals, and divination (astrology and Geomancy among them).

Due to this quick adoption, it was natural that Neopagan and Witchcraft practices would include the four elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth in their rituals and spells. You can see their presence at the four quarters during a ‘circle casting’, included in cleansing spaces or consecrating tools and items, as well as the wording for spells and chants.

I often teach an outline of the four elements in my ‘Occult Philosophy’ day workshop, and the ideas and theory is included in my Introduction to Geomancy course. [You can check out my upcoming courses here by the way].

After writing about the anatomy of a geomancy figure last week, I thought it was best to write an article on the where, when, what, why and how of The Four Elements as a reference resource to anyone. So here it is!

The Origin of the Four Elements

So let’s start with where did the idea of the four elements came from. What was the origin of the four elements?

We’ve always been concerned with ‘what is something made of’, even back in early recorded history. If you take a slice of cake and you consider what the components are that make it, you have two options. You could physically break it down into smaller and smaller pieces, until you cannot any longer cut the smallest crumb. Or you could inquire into what went into making the cake – flour, butter, eggs, sugar… etc. Here we are looking for the smallest, indivisible part – the part we can no longer break down.

And in similar fashion, early Philosophers wondered what the smallest ‘building blocks’ of all matter could actually be. Instead of breaking it physically down, they wondered what lead to it’s creation in the same way that a cake is made of it’s ingredients.

There were multiple theories as to what these ‘ingredients’ could be, but the one that became well known was the theory of the four elements by Empedocles. Actually, this ancient Greek (living in Greek Sicily) philosopher didn’t call them elements at this point, they were called ‘Rhizomata’ or ‘roots’. These roots of all things were Fire, Air, Water and Earth. Empedocles associated each of the elements with a diety – Zeus/Air, Hades/Fire, Hera/Earth, Nestis/Water. This is where the quote at the start of this article came from.

They were first called ‘Elements’ by Plato, another Greek Philosopher. The actual Greek word he used was ‘Stoicheion’, which means the smallest division of a sun-dial or syllable. Which implies, to me at least, the smallest measurable thing.

The Symbols of the Four Elements

In occult and hermetic traditions, the four elements each have a sign or symbol. These symbols you will see in many older texts, alchemical works, and even in some tarot cards. The four symbols are:

In teaching students over the years, I’ve had to use some little memory tricks to help them learn these symbols. So, to you dear reader – this is my suggestion in helping you forever remember the four symbols:

Fire Element Symbol

A triangle that points upwards. Imagine this upward pointing triangle as a camp fire, burning brightly. See the sparks and shoots of the fire reaching upwards and rising to the sky. This is the direction the symbol is pointing, as if it’s the head of a big arrow. So if you see this symbol, think campfire.

Water Element Symbol

A downward pointing triangle. Imagine this triangle as the top of a Martini glass. The triangular shape of the glass is holding a dirty vodka martini with an olive on a cocktail stick (purists be damned, a dirty Martini is much better with ice cold vodka than Gin in my opinion!). The numbingly pleasant cocktail moves down into the glass, as all water flows to the lowest point. So too does this triangle point downwards telling us that water moves down. So when you see the downwards pointing triangle, imagine a Martini glass.

Earth Element Symbol

A downward pointing triangle with a line through it. Imagine the line being the Earth or ground in a diagram. The triangle then is piercing the Earth, like a seed drill or a tent peg. The downward triangle is telling you that the element moves downward, just like water, but is pointing down to the ground or earth. So when you see this symbol, think “spike being driven into the ground”.

Air Element Symbol

This is the last one, and it’s an upward triangle with a line through it. Here imagine the line is a line of clouds in the sky, and the upward pointing triangle is the top of a hot air balloon or even an umbrella piercing the sky. The upward triangle is telling us the element moves upwards, just like smoke does, to join the clouds above. So this symbol is a pictogram for an umbrella or balloon moving up to the clouds.

I’ll be referring back to the symbols through this article, as they also visually tell us bits about the elements themselves. But keep in mind these images.

Geomancy Articles

The First Element – And the Order of the Elements

At this point, it’s wise for us to talk about which of the four elements came first in occult traditions. There are two main theories (or stories) that you will see, depending on the tradition and what it’s trying to teach you.

I. Fire as First Element – Teaching the Order of Density.

The first of these ‘stories’ names Fire as the Primary Element. The concept is that the four elements flowed out of Aether or Spirit. As Aether is everything the material world is not (ethereal, intangible, etc.) nothing solid and material is able to be issued directly forth from it.

As Fire is the least material, the least physically present out of all the elements, it made sense that Fire was the first to come out of the Aether. In this way Fire is a ‘plasma’, almost ethereal.

The next to emerge from Aether was Air, being slightly more dense than Fire but still not solid or touchable. Then Water, which flows and can be touched, yet cannot be grasped. And finally, Earth – the most physical and solid of all elements.

In this teaching story, we have the order of density of the elements. Stemming from the most subtle to the least (or most dense), this order is of great importance in Geomancy. This is the order that is used in the anatomy of a geomancy figure and teaches us a little about the sensory experiences of the four elements.

II. Fire and Water as the Primary Elements – Teaching Qualities of the Elements.

Fire and Water as the first and primary elements. Those that hold these as the primary elements see this teaching in the Bible in Genesis:

“And the Earth was without Form and Void, and Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”

(Genesis 1:2).

Here, the water is obvious and present. But where is the fire? Well, some interpret the Spirit of God as the Fire element – hovering over the dark waters.

Now these two elements are opposites, this is quite common sense if you think about it. To put out fire, we can use water – they destroy each other. So in this theory, we have the union of two opposite forces coming together. Where they usually would destroy each other, some harmony is found and from that union of opposites the other two emerged.

Franz Bardon, an occultist in the early 20^th Century, talks about how Air came about as an intermediary force between the powers of Fire and the powers of Water. It acts almost as a ‘cushion’ buffering the two opposite elements so they do not destroy each other. Here we can see Air as a communicative force, and those that are already knowledgeable about the associations of the four elements will note that Air is seen as the element for communication.

Bardon goes on to talk about how these three elements together are unstable. This is common sense as fire, air and water all move – they’re dynamic elements. Only with Earth do we get stability and structure. So when Earth is produced from the interaction, the three proceeding elements become stabilised. Franz Bardon calls this the ‘Tetrapolar Magnet’ in his work.

We see this theory in the symbols of the four elements, see this image:

You can see how the coming together of the upright triangle and the downward triangle (Fire and Water) combine to create a symbol that looks like the Star of David. From this symbol, it is easy to understand where the symbols for Earth and Air come from.

The triangle from each comes from the primary element (upright triangle of Air coming from the fire element, the downward triangle of Earth coming from the water element), and the ‘line’ or bar comes from the opposite element (The bar from Air comes from Water, and the bar from Earth comes from Fire). Thus Air and Earth is a combination of the two ‘primary elements’, Water and Fire.

You can see now that the upright triangles (those that point upwards) are referred to as the ‘active’ or ‘masculine’* elements. And the downward pointing triangles are the ‘passive’ or ‘feminine’* elements.

You can also see that the four elements share “qualities” with each other in a special pattern. Let’s turn to these now…

The Four Qualities

Another wise ol’ goat, called Aristotle, related the four elements to the four “sensible” qualities. Now, I do not mean that these qualities go to bed at a reasonable hour, and they give sound advice. This is ‘sensible’ as in ‘apparent to the senses’ – that is to say, you can feel them.

The four qualities are actually two sets of two opposites – one which is focused on temperature, and one that is focused on moisture. We have:

• Hot/Cold
• Dry/Wet

Sometimes you see the ‘Wet’ as ‘Moist’, but I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to use that as some people don’t like the word. To them, I say:

MOIST MOIST MOIST MOIST MOIST…

Anyway…

Aristotle related each of the elements to two qualities in the following way:

• Fire is Hot and Dry.
• Air is Hot and Wet.
• Water is Cold and Wet.
• Earth is Cold and Dry.

As you can see, this is really about how we can ‘sense’ the elements in the everyday world. Each quality is shared by two elements, so that we can see a relationship between the four elements. For example, those things that are Cold contain one of the two heavier elements – Earth and Water. If it’s dry, then it might be Fire or Earth.

You can see this in my diagram here:

The ‘Hot’ is between Fire (top) and Air (Left), so both of those elements share the quality of heat. You can also see that elements opposite each other do not share any qualities, and thus they are truly opposite. Opposite elements are not friendly, and if they have direct contact they may destroy each other. This will be important when we look at the four elements in Medicine (or Humoural theory).

The image above is actually one of my slides from my Occult Philosophy workshop. On it you can see that Proclus proposed a different system of qualities, which can be useful to know. In this system we have three opposites (for a total of six qualities) –

• Sharp/Blunt

• Subtle/Dense

• Mobile/Immobile

If you’ve been reading from the start, you can see how these can tie into what we’ve been discussing.

Classifying Elemental Rulership Through the Four Qualities

The qualities of the elements provide us a way of ‘sensing’ or discerning through the senses what element is largely present in anything we find. We can ask ourselves ‘is it movable?’, ‘is it hot?’, ‘is it dry?’ and so and so forth until we arrive at an answer.

For example, in spices we know that Chili is a ‘hot’ spice. Applying it to the skin provides the sensation of ‘heat’. Chilli is also a ‘drying’ spice, in that it causes dryness on the skin. Thus, being both ‘hot’ and ‘dry’, Chilli has a large amount of the Fire element present and we can associate it with the element of fire.

Looking at seasons, we can see that Summer is a time that is Hot and Dry (well…. Not so much in England where I am, but let’s pretend!) so the season of Summer is attributed to the element of ‘fire’. When it is wet and cold, Winter, is attributed to water.

This is slightly simplistic, but does provide an understanding of how to classify things in the four elements.

The Four Elements in Medicine

So what about the four elements within us? In the body? Well, this is where Humoral Medicine comes in.

The body was seen as having four ‘humours’ or fluids. These humours were each aligned with the four elements, so:

• Fire in the body is Yellow Bile, or Choleric Humour.

• Air in the body is Blood, or Sanguine Humour.

• Water in the body is Phlegm, or Phlegmatic Humour.

• Earth in the body is Black Bile, or Melancholic Humour.

It is the presence of these four humours in varying amounts that contribute to our disposition and temperament, our physical attributes, our health and well-being, mental states, and symptoms.

For example, a high level of Choleric means too much fire in the body. This can be diagnosed by a hot and fiery temperament, hot or reddened skin, an unquenchable thirst, fast and quick movement, energetic, confident, a need for control… and so on.

Each person has their own ‘normal’. For example, at a healthy state I may have more black bile present (melancholy) than a friend of mine, who might feel better with more fire/Cholera present. My natural temperament at a healthy point may be more sullen, serious and studious and I may be naturally more prone to low mood and depression due to it, though this is my ‘normal’.

If I felt unwell, a Doctor would look at my symptoms and try to restore them to my own personal balanced state. So, if I was in a highly depressed state then I might have increased the amount of black bile in my body which would need to be rebalanced. Or, if I exhibited a snotty nose, and I felt cold (i.e. I had a cold or virus) then I have too much Phlegm (or Water element) present which would need to be reduced.

Make sense? So humoural medicine is about finding a balance of the four elements in the body to keep a person healthy.

The concept of the four humours has been attributed to Hippocrates, that bastion who is considered the ‘Father of Medicine’. He is still famous for his Hippocratic Oath, which is still taken by medical practitioners on the completion of their studies.

Galen, considered one of the most accomplished of medical professionals in the ancient world, was hugely influenced by the concept of the four humours. It was his work that formed the backbone of western medicine for many centuries. In fact, some of his ideas were still taught into the 19^th century. Humorism started to fall out of favour in the 17^th Century, with it being finally disproved in the 1850s.

The Four Elements in Occult Traditions

Finally, we get onto the occult traditions!

As we’ve mentioned, the four elements are just a system (or ‘Blueprint’ [LINK]) of association. We can attribute everything in existence to the four elements. For example, using kitchen spices:

Rose and Cardamon to water, Chilli and Black Pepper to Fire, Fennel to Air etc etc.

By doing this, we can work out the interaction between those spices – adding a watery spice to a fiery blend will cool down the spices etc.

In occult traditions, the four elements have sets of attributions that help us with this categorisation.

With this an occultist can work out the dominant element, just as a doctor worked out an excess of a humour.

In occultism the elements are not just the building blocks of all matter, they become forces in their own right that the practitioner or witch manipulates. Whether weaving a spell, or crafting a ritual a witch who uses the four elements may ensure the inclusion of each of these four ‘forces’ to ensure that the spell or ritual is complete. That by including the four elements, a practitioner in effect brings something into ‘being’ and into life.

In Wicca and other forms of modern witchcraft, you will often see the inclusion of the four elements at the four compass points of a working space. These are referred to the ‘four quarters’, and they are frequently assigned as North/Earth, East/Air, South/Fire and West/Water. There are differences to these correspondences, and sometimes differences between those living in northern or southern hemisphere (usually the flipping of Fire in the south to the north, as the hot midday sun appears in the North in the South Hemisphere).

You may also see the use of the four elements on an altar of a modern pagan represented by certain objects. Sometimes these are in ritual tools, where chalice will symbolise Water, the Pentacle will represent Earth, and Athame (or ritual knife) symbolises Air, and a Wand symbolises Fire. Some traditions flip the ritual knife and the wand around. You may also see them on the altar as representations, so a candle flame representing Fire, a bowl of water for Water etc.

*Please Note: Where gendered terminology is used, this is merely ‘conception’ and nothing to do with gender or its expression in everyday life. The use of Male/Masculine and Female/Feminine has a historical place within occult tradition when describing ‘forces’ and can appear very outdated to us nowadays. Whilst I still use these terms to teach historical concepts and ideas (to remain true to their sources), I usually state clearly that the terminology is used only to define an apparent opposition of forces. Whether you want to use yin/yang, active/passive, masculine/feminine for this, the discussion of these principles is irrelevant to the wider discussion about gender and it’s expression in people and our daily lives. They are attributes, and it is up to us whether we associate or correlate ourselves to whatever attribute or correspondence regardless of sex, gender, or it’s expression.

The above paragraph was written merely to provide a quick ‘disclaimer’ only, and shouldn’t be seen as a well-thought out, well worded, and considered response to the place of gender within magical and other traditions. It’s a quagmire of issues, and there are better versed people than myself to discuss these issues and how they relate to LGBTQIA+ issues.

I’m always happy to hear from those who are trans or non-binary that have found their own way through these issues of gender in magical traditions.