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Element

Air

Origin 360 BCE to 320 BCE

Air is one of the four classical Western elements, the element of mind, speech, and connection. Its qualities are hot and moist: warm, light, and mobile, the most sociable and diffuse of the four. In astrology it forms the air triplicity of Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius, signs of intellect, relationship, and ideas, and in tarot it is the suit of Swords, the suit of thought, conflict, truth, and the power of the mind. In the doctrine of the four humors it corresponds to the sanguine temperament, ruled by blood, marked by cheerfulness, curiosity, and quick sociability. In the Golden Dawn scheme of directions it is placed in the East, the region of sunrise, and its season is spring, the season of fresh growth and rising breath. Air is thought and relationship in motion, the medium of communication that carries voices and links minds. It is the invisible connective principle among the elements.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
360 BCE to 320 BCE 1Tradition: Aristotelian physics: the four elements and the quintessence
Origin Period
500 BCE to 400 BCE 1Tradition: Greek natural philosophy: the four roots of Empedocles
Place of Origin
Akragas in Sicily, where Empedocles wrote, and the philosophical schools of the Aegean and of Athens. 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
Empedocles of Akragas, who names four roots; Aristotle, who assigns each its pair of qualities and adds the fifth, heavenly substance. 1
Origin of the Name
Through Old French air, from Latin aer, from Greek aer, meaning air or mist. 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Hot and wet. Air stands between fire and water in the scheme; the modern reading of air as intellect and communication is not in the source. 1Tradition: Aristotelian physics: the four elements and the quintessence
Learn More
Air in the Western Scheme

Air is one of the four classical elements, and in the Aristotelian scheme of qualities it is hot and wet, light and mobile, rising above earth and water toward fire. As an element it stands for the mind, thought, speech and communication, for the intangible and the moving, breath and wind, the medium of sound and of the spoken word. The tradition assigns the three air signs, Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, to it, read as intellectual, social and oriented toward ideas and relationships. In humoral medicine air corresponds to blood and the sanguine temperament, warm and moist, sociable and optimistic.

In Western ceremonial magic air is placed in the east, the quarter of the rising sun and of dawn, associated with the ritual dagger or sword and with the faculty of intellect and analysis. Its attribution to the tarot suit of Swords is part of the Golden Dawn scheme of 1888. Throughout, air carries a symbolism of intellect, communication, freedom and the swift-moving, the element least bound to place and most identified with the life of the mind.

Sources The Presocratic PhilosophersG. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield with The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie

Air in Western Practice

Air is the element with the least stable set of attributions in the Western working traditions, and the instability is instructive rather than accidental.

In astrology air is a triplicity: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. That grouping is settled, it is in Ptolemy, and no school disputes it. Everything downstream of it is less settled.

In the tarot, air is conventionally the suit of Swords and fire the suit of Wands, which is the Golden Dawn assignment and the one most modern decks follow. A substantial older current reverses them, giving the sword to fire as the forged and heated thing and the wand or rod to air as the breath-driven staff, and this is not a mistake in either direction: it is two schools reading the same objects by different logics. Anyone comparing two systems of correspondence should establish which convention each is using before concluding that one of them has made an error.

In the Golden Dawn system air is placed in the east, given the dagger as its working implement and the archangel Raphael as its regent. The eastern placement is the one attribution here that reaches back further, since dawn, breath and the beginning of the day form an old cluster.

The element's stable core, across every school that disagrees about the rest, is mind, speech and relation: air is what passes between things rather than what any one thing is made of. Aristotle gives it hot and wet, the qualities of expansion and of taking the shape of what holds it.

Sources The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie with TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Air
Filter Results1 entry

Mount Wutai

Air
Connections

Associated With

Asia, Continents

The air triplicity governs the northeast quarter.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
Date Palm, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the date palm to Air, against the solar rulership the old herbals give it.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Empedocles, Historical Figures

One of the four roots of his physics, the earliest statement of the four element scheme the West went on to inherit.

Linden, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the linden to Air.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Pine, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the pine to Air, against the martial rulership the old herbals give it.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Raphael, Archangels
Sanguine, Temperaments

In the classical Hippocratic-Galenic scheme this temperament, its humor blood, and its qualities warm and moist are paired with the element Air.

Source Ancient MedicineVivian Nutton
Sylphs, Elementals

Named as the elemental beings ruling the classical element Air in Paracelsus's Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris Spiritibus.

Source Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris SpiritibusParacelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim)
The Eighteenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Eighth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Eleventh Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Fifteenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Fifth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Fool, Tarot

In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, The Fool is assigned to the element Air by way of its Tree of Life path.

Source The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie
The Fourteenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Fourth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Ninth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Seventeenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Seventh Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Sixteenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Sixth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Tenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Third Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Thirteenth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
The Twelfth Call, Enochian Calls
Source A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some SpiritsJohn Dee, edited by Meric Casaubon
Theoricus (Golden Dawn), Initiatory Grades

Theoricus is the air grade of the elemental series. The order's attribution of air to Yesod is its own and does not follow every kabbalistic table.

Source The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie
Yang, Polarities

Air, one of the two light and rising elements that make up the masculine signs.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
Yellow, Colors

The Golden Dawn assigns yellow to Air in its elemental colouring, used for the air dagger and the air triangle. The set is internally consistent inside the order's grade system and should not be read as a general Western attribution.

Source The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie

Held Differently

Athame, Magical Weapons

Some Wiccan lineages assign the Athame to Air; a genuine variation between lineages, not an error. See the paired Fire variant for the other reading.

Source The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan WitchcraftRonald Hutton

Corresponds To

Butterfly, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Censer, Magical Weapons
Source The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan WitchcraftRonald Hutton
Condor, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Dragonfly, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Eagle, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Hawk, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Hummingbird, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Ibis, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Owl, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Raven, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Swan, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Sword / Dagger, Magical Weapons
Source Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western CultureWouter J. Hanegraaff
Vulture, Animals & Totems
Source Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical ThinkingAlice Beck Kehoe
Wind, Godai (Five Elements)

The godai element Wind (fu) is the Japanese Buddhist rendering of the Indic mahabhuta wind, conventionally identified in English-language scholarship with the Western classical element Air.

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Element Of

Aquarius, Religious Symbols
Source Astrology.com: Aquarius Zodiac Sign
Bhastrika, Practices
Source Bhastrika (Wikipedia)
Gemini, Religious Symbols
Source Astrology.com: Gemini Zodiac Sign
Libra, Religious Symbols
Source Astrology.com: Libra Zodiac Sign
Mount Wutai, Sacred Sites
Source Tsem Rinpoche (Kechara): The Holy Mountain, Jiu Hua Shan

Related To

Air, Tattvas

The tattva Air is paired with the Western element Air in the tattva work the Golden Dawn took into its curriculum.

Source The Golden DawnIsrael Regardie
Sources
1. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012Aristotle: physics and cosmologyView the Source
The Presocratic Philosophers
G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, Cambridge University Press, 1983Empedocles and the four roots; air as hot and wet
Ancient Medicine
Vivian Nutton, Routledge, 2013
  • blood and the sanguine temperament
  • Associated With: Sanguine
View the Source
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
Ronald Hutton, Oxford University Press, 1999
  • the Golden Dawn (1888) elemental attribution of the tarot suits and ritual quarters
  • Corresponds To: Athame
  • Corresponds To: Censer
View the Source
The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014Corresponds To: Wind, s.v. mahabhuta / godai; wind (fu)View the Source
Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris Spiritibus
Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim)Associated With: Sylphs
Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Cambridge University Press, 2012Corresponds To: Sword / Dagger, The doctrine of correspondences underlying the elemental-weapon attributions
Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking
Alice Beck Kehoe, Waveland Press, 2000
  • Corresponds To: Butterfly
  • Corresponds To: Condor
  • Corresponds To: Dragonfly
  • Corresponds To: Eagle
  • Corresponds To: Hawk
  • Corresponds To: Hummingbird
  • Corresponds To: Ibis
  • Corresponds To: Owl
  • Corresponds To: Raven
  • Corresponds To: Swan
  • Corresponds To: Vulture
Bhastrika (Wikipedia)
Element Of: Bhastrika, Lead section
Quote, Element Of: Bhastrika, Lead section
Bhastrikā is an important breath exercise in yoga and pranayama.
View the Source
Tsem Rinpoche (Kechara): The Holy Mountain, Jiu Hua Shan
Tsem Rinpoche (Kechara)Element Of: Mount Wutai, Body text
Quote, Element Of: Mount Wutai, Body text
Mount Wutai represents the Aind/Air element
View the Source
Astrology.com: Gemini Zodiac Sign
Astrology.comElement Of: Gemini, Element
Quote, Element Of: Gemini, Element
Gemini's element is air , a light and dispersive element thought by ancient astrologers to be an expression of matter that represents formlessness and dissolution.
View the Source
Astrology.com: Libra Zodiac Sign
Astrology.comElement Of: Libra, Element
Quote, Element Of: Libra, Element
Libra's element is air; a light, dispersive element, thought by ancient astrologers to be an expression of matter that represents formlessness, adaptability, and dissolution.
View the Source
Astrology.com: Aquarius Zodiac Sign
Astrology.comElement Of: Aquarius, Element
Quote, Element Of: Aquarius, Element
Aquarius' element is air , a light, dispersive element, thought by ancient astrologers to be an expression of matter that represents formlessness and dissolution.
View the Source

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