Elemental and spiritual gravity copyright Taylor Ellwood 2022
I’m currently writing Walking with Elemental Spirits, which is a book that explores my system for elemental magic. One of the central arguments of that book is that the 5 element model of earth, water, fire, air, and quintessence is a bit outdated. It has worked well as a model, but its evident that there are more elements than just the aforementioned elements. Why are we holding onto an outmoded model that was used to describe reality a long time ago, as a taxonomic means of categorizing the experiences of the world? I’ll be bold and just say we hold on to such models because we are taught that something which is old is typically considered better and if it works why change it.
I don’t agree with this sentiment. While I think the 5 element model is a great foundational tool, I also think that when we hold onto an old model and never question it we’re missing out on an opportunity to evolve magically, as well as to evolve the overall discipline of magic. I’ve been practicing elemental magic since I first started practicing magic, and for many years I did rely upon the 5 element model because it was what was available. Yet being the magical experimenter that I am, I inevitably ended up questioning it.
One of the problems I discovered is that the 5 element model has been held onto and used to try and force a fit with various natural forces that are conveniently lumped into a given element because there’s no desire to challenge the model. For example sound (vibration) is associated with air, instead of being treated as a separate element. Gravity (see above for the elemental and spiritual portals) is lumped in with earth. These are just a couple of examples, but this tendency to conflate any and everything into the 5 element model instead of exploring the possibility of other elements demonstrates a prevalent weakness in Western occultism, namely the tendency to hold onto old models of magic instead of challenging them because its what we’ve always had available to us.
The benefit of expanding our taxonomy of elements is that we open ourselves to discovering new approaches to elemental magic that may prove helpful for evolving magic as a discipline. My choice for example to work with vibration as an element instead of lumping it in with air is fruitful because when vibration is treated as its own element we open ourselves to exploring how vibration will show up as an elemental power and how that elemental power can be applied to various other magical workings.
Of course, a good question someone might ask me is, “How do we discover these ‘new’ elements and work with them?” My answer is that we can build off the existing foundation we already have access to and use the available methods as part of the way we discover the elements. We can also develop techniques of our own. I’ve done both and I’ll be sharing them in Walking with Elemental Spirits. But I do want to answer that question in this blog.
In the picture above you’ll see two portals. One is the elemental gravity portal and the other is spiritual gravity portal. The elemental gravity portal is a circle within a circle, while the spiritual gravity portal has a triangle included at the core of the circle. The elemental gravity portal is the portal that connects to our material plane while the spiritual gravity connects to the elemental plane of gravity. If you meditate on these portals you will experience the elemental force of gravity and be able to connect with elemental spirits of gravity. They aren’t the same as the earth elementals. They are a separate force, a separate elemental power. I came up with these portals by meditating on gravity and asking for symbols to be provided that would allow me and other people to work with gravity as an elemental force. Feel free to meditate on the symbols and see what you discover.
You can take a similar approach by picking an elemental force that falls outside the classic 5 elements and then start working with it. Meditate on it, do pathworkings and invite the elemental force to share information with you that you can then test further. If you’re not sure how to pathwork or work with spirits, I invite you to check out my book Walking with Spirits, which shares some of my methods for this work.
I’ve been working with other elements, outside the 5 element model since 2004. Why have I waited almost 20 years to share this work? Part of it is simply that I was doing a lot of internal work with the elements and really exploring the possibilities when it came to working with an expanded taxonomy of the elements. Part of it was simply being told by the powers that I work with that now is the time to share this work. What I hope this blog post, and my forthcoming book will do is show you that there is much more for us to explore when it comes to elemental magic, and magic in general, and that we need to challenge the outdated models we’ve held onto, if magic and also we as magicians are to evolve.
