Raphael's single scriptural home is the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, accepted as canonical scripture by Catholic and Orthodox Christians but excluded from the Hebrew Bible and from Protestant Bibles, a status that makes Raphael, unlike Michael and Gabriel, absent from Bibles used by Jews and by most Protestant denominations. In the story, Raphael travels in human disguise as a companion and guide to the young Tobias, instructs him to catch a fish and keep its heart, liver and gall, uses the burning heart and liver to drive off the demon Asmodeus who has killed each of Sarah's previous seven husbands on their wedding nights, and applies the fish's gall to cure the blindness of Tobias's father, the elder Tobit, before finally revealing his true angelic identity and returning to heaven. The story is the fullest narrative portrait of any archangel's direct action among human beings anywhere in scripture, canonical or deuterocanonical.
Air fits Raphael's later reputation as healer and guide reasonably well within the Golden Dawn's own logic, since the element governs mind, communication and the giving of counsel in that system, functions closer to Raphael's role as Tobias's travelling instructor than to any element more obviously tied to medicine or the body itself.