ELEMENTAL MAGIC · LESSON 1 OF 7 · 14 MIN · FREE
Empedocles' four roots, Plato's solids, Aristotle's qualities and Galen's humours — the oldest framework in Western magic.
Before the planets, before the Tree, there were the four elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. They are the oldest framework in Western magic and medicine, and you will meet them in almost every rite in this course.
Before the planets, before the Tree, there were the four elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. They are the oldest framework in Western magic and medicine, and you will meet them in almost every rite in this course.
Around 450 BCE the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles taught that everything is made of four eternal "roots" — fire, air, water and earth — mixed in different proportions. Two forces move them: Love, which draws them together, and Strife, which drives them apart. The world is their endless dance. (Empedocles, legend says, ended his life by leaping into Etna.)
In the Timaeus, Plato gave each element a regular solid: fire the sharp tetrahedron, air the octahedron, water the rounded icosahedron, and earth the stable cube. The fifth solid, the dodecahedron, he gave to the heavens as a whole.
Aristotle explained the elements by four qualities in two pairs — hot and cold, moist and dry. Each element is one of each:
| Element | Qualities |
|---|---|
| Fire | Hot and dry |
| Air | Hot and moist |
| Water | Cold and moist |
| Earth | Cold and dry |
Because elements share a quality with their neighbours, they can turn into one another: water heated becomes air (steam); air cooled becomes water. To these four Aristotle added a fifth, the aether, the unchanging stuff of the heavens — the "quintessence", which has its own lesson.
Greek medicine, perfected by Galen in the 2nd century CE, found the elements inside the body as four humours. Health is their balance; illness, an excess of one. Each gives a temperament:
| Element | Humour | Temperament | Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air | Blood | Sanguine — cheerful, sociable | Spring |
| Fire | Yellow bile | Choleric — energetic, quick-tempered | Summer |
| Earth | Black bile | Melancholic — thoughtful, careful, gloomy | Autumn |
| Water | Phlegm | Phlegmatic — calm, steady, slow | Winter |
This scheme ruled European medicine until the 17th century, and our words for character still come from it. The Elements & Temperament tool lets you test your own balance.
From these roots grew everything the magician uses:
Go through one ordinary day noticing the elements: the warmth of a drink (fire), the breath of wind (air), washing (water), the ground underfoot (earth). In the evening, note which element you met most — and which you barely touched.
4 questions — choose an answer to check it.
1.Who first taught that everything is made of four 'roots', moved by Love and Strife?
2.According to Aristotle, which pair of qualities makes Water?
3.Which humour belongs to Fire, and which temperament does it give?
4.Which solid did Plato give to Earth?
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