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Elements

Water

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Origin 360 BCE to 320 BCE

Water is one of the four classical Western elements, the element of feeling, intuition, and the unconscious. Its qualities are cold and moist: yielding, flowing, and receptive, the most fluid and impressionable of the four. In astrology it forms the water triplicity of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, signs of emotion, depth, and empathy, and in tarot it is the suit of Cups, the suit of love, feeling, imagination, and relationship. In the doctrine of the four humors it corresponds to the phlegmatic temperament, ruled by phlegm, marked by calm, sensitivity, and slow depth of feeling. In the Golden Dawn scheme of directions it is placed in the West, the region of sunset, and its season is winter, the still and inward time. Water flows, dissolves, and remembers, carrying emotion and the tides of the inner life. It is the element of merging and reflection, joining what fire and air keep separate.

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
Old English waeter, from a Germanic root shared across the Germanic languages and cognate with Greek hydor. 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Cold and wet. Water is defined by its qualities and its downward motion; the association with emotion and intuition belongs to later schemes, not to this one. 1Tradition: Aristotelian physics: the four elements and the quintessence
Learn More
Water in the Western Scheme

Water is one of the four classical elements, and in the Aristotelian pairing of qualities it is cold and wet, heavier than air and lighter than earth, the element of flow, dissolution and the depths. Symbolically it stands for the emotions, the unconscious, intuition and the receptive, for everything fluid, adaptive and reflective, as water takes the shape of its vessel and mirrors what is above it. The tradition assigns the three water signs, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, to it, read as emotional, sensitive and inward.

In the humoral medicine of Hippocrates and Galen water corresponds to phlegm and the phlegmatic temperament, cold and moist, calm and slow. In Western ritual magic water is placed in the west, the quarter of sunset, associated with the chalice or cup and with love, purification and the emotional and psychic faculties. Its attribution to the tarot suit of Cups belongs to the Golden Dawn system of 1888. Water's constant symbolism is of feeling, cleansing, the subconscious and the mysteries of the deep.

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

Water in Western Practice

Water in the Western working traditions has the most consistent set of attributions of the four, and the consistency is worth pointing out because it is unusual.

In astrology water is a triplicity: Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. In the tarot it is the suit of Cups, and unlike the wand and sword pairing this assignment is not disputed by any significant school, since a cup holds liquid and there is nothing to argue about. In the Golden Dawn system water is placed in the west, given the cup as its working implement and the archangel Gabriel as its regent.

The cup carries more weight than the other three implements because it arrives already loaded. It is the vessel of the Grail literature, the chalice of the Eucharist, the cauldron of Irish and Welsh material, and any ritual use of a cup in a European context is working inside that inheritance whether or not the practitioner intends to. That is a genuine difference from the wand, the dagger and the pentacle, which the ceremonial revival largely had to furnish with meanings.

Aristotle gives water cold and wet, heavier than air and lighter than earth, the element of flow and of dissolution. The later tradition adds the emotions, memory, dream and the unconscious, a cluster that is modern in its vocabulary and older in its substance, since the classical writers already associate water with the phlegmatic humour and with what cannot be gripped. Where a source presents the psychological reading as ancient, the attribution is real and the framing is not.

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

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Africa, Continents

The water triplicity governs the southwest quarter of the inhabited world.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy
African Violet, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the African violet to Water, feminine in his reckoning.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Blue, Colors

The Golden Dawn assigns blue to Water in its elemental colouring, used for the water cup and the downward water triangle. Like the rest of the set it is that order's ritual convention, and other Western magical currents colour the elements differently.

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

Gabriel, Archangels
Hibiscus, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the hibiscus to Water, matching its Venusian rulership.

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

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets larkspur to Water, matching its Venusian rulership.

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

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the lotus to Water, which is also where the plant grows.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Morning Glory, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the morning glory to Water.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Peach Blossom, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the peach to Water, matching its Venusian rulership.

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

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the poppy to Water, matching its lunar rulership.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Practicus (Golden Dawn), Initiatory Grades

Practicus is the water grade of the elemental series.

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

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets sandalwood to Water, matching its lunar rulership.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
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 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 Hanged Man, Tarot

In the Golden Dawn Kabbalistic attribution, The Hanged Man is assigned to the element Water 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 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
Yew, Plants

Cunningham's magical herbalism sets the yew to Water, against the Saturnian rulership the old herbals give it.

Source Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical HerbsScott Cunningham
Yin, Polarities

Water, one of the two heavy and falling elements that make up the feminine signs.

Source TetrabiblosClaudius Ptolemy

Related To

Water, Tattvas

The tattva Water is paired with the Western element Water 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; water as cold and wet
Ancient Medicine
Vivian Nutton, Routledge, 2013phlegm and the phlegmatic temperamentView the Source
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
Ronald Hutton, Oxford University Press, 1999the Golden Dawn (1888) elemental attribution of the tarot suits and ritual quartersView the Source

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