Lewk wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 3:14 pm How long have you got?

You might be best off searching online for resources or books and seeing what resonates for you or what would work for your purposes.

There's a diversity of different schools and approaches, as well as different cultures to draw from. You'll find a bewildering array of diverse detail.

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram can be one place to start. The LBRP parts of this book get you started with the Archangels of the 4 directions, each representing one of the elements, and the colours associated with in the Golden Dawn system, which was highly influential in modern Western occultism.

https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Pillar-Ba ... 1567181406

I'm tempted to say another place to start is with the wisdom found in the final scene of the movie 'The Fifth Element'. You know, where Leeloo says: "Wind blows, fire burns, rain falls..." (or water is cold). That basic kind of understanding must be where humans began ordering their understanding of the elements.

So, Fire is usually assigned to the South, where most heat is experienced at noon and it gets colours like red associated with it. In cultures influenced by the Greek understanding of the elements, sayings found their way in to cultural mindsets a long time ago. So we may talk about someone having a fiery personality and so on.

Looking at how astrology categorises the elements may also be a good way in to it all.

Sorry but I can't think of one go-to place to get all the info you need. I think you'll most likely need to devote quite some time to studying and accumulating a good understanding of the elements.

In my case I can think of around 4 systems that I studied for maybe a year or more each, from which I drew most of my understanding of the elements.

Fyi there are also different ways of working with the elements, apart from with their associations. We can learn to communicate with the elements' spirits (eg sylphs, ondines, gnomes & salamanders) and with the elemental kingdoms. We can also channel elemental energy, either for ourselves or for workings in nature.

-arianna- wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 7:32 am Because most magickal traditions have some level of elemental magick woven into them, you can learn more about the elements, their powers, nature and associations if you pick up any beginners' book of any tradition (eg. Wicca, traditional witchcraft, hoodoo etc). You will, of course, find similarities and differences between these systems as to how they view the elements (for example the colors associated with each element and the direction assigned change from system to system, as it often has cultural connotations and is based on the geographical location and topography of the area where the system or tradition originated or was for the most part developed).

Off the top of my head I'd say check out "Initiation into Hermetics" by Franz Bardon and "Practical Elemental Magick" by Sorita d'Este.