Symbols For The 4 Elements

The Greeks proposed the existence of five bones elements. Of these, 4 were the physical elements—fire, air, water, and earth—of which the unabridged globe is composed. Alchemists eventually associated four triangular symbols to stand for these elements.

The fifth element, which goes by a variety of names, is more rarefied than the four physical elements. Some call it Spirit. Others phone call it Aether or Quintessence (literally "the fifth element" in Latin).

In traditional Western occult theory, the elements are hierarchical: Spirit, fire, air, water, and earth—with the commencement elements beingness more spiritual and perfect and the final elements being more material and base. Some modern systems, such every bit Wicca, view the elements as equal.

Before we examine the elements themselves, it is important to empathize the qualities, orientations, and correspondences that are associated with the elements. Each chemical element is continued with aspects in each of these, and it helps correlate their relationship to 1 another.

Elemental Qualities

Four elements and their qualities — Catherine Beyer

In classical elemental systems, each element has two qualities, and it shares each quality with ane other chemical element.

Warm/Cold

Each element is either warm or cold, and this corresponds with a male or female gender. This is a strongly dichotomous system, where male person qualities are things like light, warmth, and activity, and female qualities are dark, common cold, passive, and receptive.

The orientation of the triangle is determined by warmth or coldness, male person or female. Male, warm elements indicate up, ascending toward the spiritual realm. Female, cold elements point downward, descending into the earth.

Moist/Dry

The 2nd pair of qualities is moistness or dryness. Dissimilar the warm and cold qualities, moist and dry qualities do not immediately correspond to other concepts.

Opposing Elements

Considering each element shares one of its qualities with i other element, that leaves one element completely unrelated.

For example, air is moist similar water and warm like fire, but it has nothing in common with earth. These opposing elements are on opposite sides of the diagram and are distinguished by the presence or absenteeism of the crossbar within the triangle:

Air and world are opposites and accept the crossbar
Water and burn down are also opposites and lack the crossbar.

Bureaucracy of Elements

There is traditionally a hierarchy of elements, although some modern schools of thought have abandoned this organisation. The lower elements in the hierarchy are more material and concrete, with the higher elements becoming more spiritual, more than rarefied, and less physical.

That bureaucracy tin be traced through this diagram. Earth is the lowest, virtually material element. Circling clockwise from earth you go water, and so air and and then fire, which is the least material of the elements.

Elemental Pentagram

Five elements and pentagram — Catherine Beyer

The pentagram has represented many various meanings over the centuries. Since at to the lowest degree the Renaissance, i of its associations is with the five elements.

Arrangement

Traditionally, there is a hierarchy among the elements ranging from the most spiritual and rarefied to the least spiritual and nigh cloth. This bureaucracy determines the placement of elements around the pentagram.

Starting with spirit, the highest element, we descend to burn, then follow the lines of the pentagram over to air, across to water, and down to earth, the lowest and almost fabric of the elements. The concluding line between earth and spirit completes the geometric shape.

Orientation

The issue of a pentagram being point-upward or point-down only gained relevance in the 19th-century and has everything to do with the system of elements. A point-up pentagram came to symbolize spirit ruling over the four physical elements, while a bespeak-down pentagram symbolized spirit being subsumed past matter or descending into matter.

Since and then, some take simplified those associations to represent expert and evil. This is generally not the position of those who commonly piece of work with bespeak-down pentagrams, and is often not the position of those associating themselves with point-up pentagrams either.

Colors

The colors used here are those associated with each element by the Gilded Dawn. These associations are commonly borrowed by other groups likewise.

Elemental Correspondences

Ceremonial occult systems traditionally depend on systems of correspondences: collections of items that are all associated in some style with the desired goal. While the types of correspondences are most endless, associations betwixt elements, seasons, time of day, elements, moon phases, and directions accept become fairly standardized in the West. These are frequently the basis for additional correspondences.

The Golden Dawn's Elemental/Directional Correspondences

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn codified some of these correspondences in the 19th-century. Near notable here are the cardinal directions.

The Golden Dawn originated in England, and the directional/elemental correspondences reflect a European perspective. To the south are the warmer climates, and thus is associated with fire. The Atlantic Ocean lies to the west. The north is cold and formidable, a country of the earth merely sometimes non a lot else.

Occultists practicing in America or elsewhere sometimes practise not find these correspondences to work.

Daily, Monthly, and Yearly Cycles

Cycles are important facets of many occult systems. Looking at daily, monthly, and yearly natural cycles, we discover periods of growth and dying, of fullness and barrenness.

Fire is the element of fullness and life, and information technology is closely associated with the Sun. Therefore, information technology's unsurprising that noon and summer would be associated with burn down. By that same logic, the full moon should also be in the same category.
Earth is in the opposite direction every bit burn down and therefore corresponds with midnight, winter, and the new moon. While these things might stand for barrenness, more oftentimes they are representative of potential and transformation; the point where the old gives way to the new; the empty fertility readies to feed new creations.
Air is the element of new beginnings, youth, increment, and creativity. Every bit such, information technology is associated with spring, the waxing moon, and sunrise. Things are growing warmer and brighter, while plants and animals give birth to a new generation.
H2o is the element of emotion and wisdom, particularly the wisdom of age. It represents a fourth dimension past the peak of livelihood, moving toward the end of the cycle.

Burn

Burn down is associated with strength, activeness, blood, and life-strength. It is likewise seen equally highly purifying and protective, consuming impurities and driving back the darkness.

Burn down is traditionally seen every bit the about rarefied and spiritual of the physical elements because of its masculine properties (which were superior to female properties). It besides lacks physical existence, produces light, and has a transformative ability when it comes in contact with more physical textile.

Qualities: Warm, Dry out
Gender: Masculine (active)
Elemental: Salamander (Here referring to a mythological lizard creature which could burst into flames)
Golden Dawn Direction: South
Golden Dawn Colour: Red
Magical Tool: Sword, athame, dagger, sometimes wand
Planets: Sol (Sunday), Mars
Zodiac signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Season: Summertime
Time of Day: Noon

Air

Illustration of tree leaves blowing in the wind — Getty Images/Glow Images

Air is the element of intelligence, creativity, and ancestry. Largely intangible and without permanent form, air is an agile, masculine chemical element, superior to the more textile elements of h2o and earth.

Qualities: Warm, Moist
Gender: Masculine (active)
Elemental: Sylphs (Invisible beings)
Aureate Dawn Direction: E
Gilt Dawn Color: Xanthous
Magical Tool: Wand, sometimes sword, dagger or athame
Planets: Jupiter
Zodiac Signs: Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
Season: Spring
Time of Day: Morning, Sunrise

Water

Water is the element of emotion and the unconscious, as opposed to the conscious intellectualism of air.

Water is 1 of ii elements that have a physical being that tin interact with all of the concrete senses. H2o is withal considered less material (and thus superior) to earth because it possesses more movement and activity than earth.

Qualities: Cold, Moist
Gender: Feminine (passive)
Elemental: Undines (water-based nymphs)
Golden Dawn Direction: West
Gilt Dawn Color: Blue
Magical Tool: Cup
Planets: Moon, Venus
Zodiac Signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Season: Fall
Time of Day: Sunset

Earth

Globe is the chemical element of stability, groundedness, fertility, materiality, potential, and stillness. Earth tin also be an element of beginnings and endings, or decease and rebirth, as life comes from the ground and and so decomposes back into the earth after death.

Qualities: Cold, Dry
Gender: Feminine (passive)
Elemental: Gnomes
Gold Dawn Direction: North
Aureate Dawn Color: Greenish
Magical Tool: Pentacle
Planets: Saturn
Zodiac Signs: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Season: Winter
Time of Twenty-four hour period: Midnight

Spirit

A swirling artistic mass of color — Raj Kamal/Getty Images

The chemical element of spirit does not have the same arrangements of correspondences as the concrete elements since spirit is non physical. Various systems may associate planets, tools, and and so forth to information technology, only such correspondences are far less standardized than those of the other four elements.

The element of spirit goes past several names. The most common are spirit, ether or aether, and quintessence, which is Latin for "fifth element."

There is as well no standard symbol for spirit, although circles are mutual. Eight-spoked wheels and spirals are also sometimes used to stand for spirit.

Spirit is a bridge between the physical and the spiritual. In cosmological models, the spirit is the transitory material between the physical and celestial realms. Within the microcosm, the spirit is the bridge between body and soul.

Golden Dawn Direction: Above, Below, Within
Golden Dawn Color: Violet, Orange, White