From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Subject: Re: Elements, Pairing
Date: 13 Sep 93 14:24:49

Tyagi@cup.portal.com (Tyagi Mordred Nagasiva) writes:
> Please someone defend this before I begin to assume that most of the
> occult world is simply silly.

Tyagi, most of the occult world is simply silly.  This is not entirely
a bad thing, but it's something to keep in mind :)...

> Yup, but consider that if your symbolic associations have within
> them some sort of TWIST, some PERVERSION, then your invocations will
> pervert YOU in the process.

This seems, to me, to be a very odd perspective.  You can, after all,
use *any* set of associations--you will just get different results
depending on what you use.  For example, I have a friend who
experiments with Tarot symbology.  As an experiment, he exchanged the
elemental correspondences for Swords and Wands.  He was surprised to
find that it worked just as well, but simply resulted in different
insights.

Opposing fire with water and earth with air works just as well as any
other arrangement.  You don't even have to go with a grouping of four;
many people use five (earth/air/fire/water/spirit) or three
(past/present/future or earth/air/water), or whatever.  Any set of
associations which produces a balanced tension externally to reflect
balanced tension within you will work, and the more strongly it
resonates with your own psyche the better.  On the other hand, working
with associations that *don't* come naturally to you can also be
valuable.

I'll stop here before I start sounding like Buckminster
Fuller... elemental tensegrity... what a concept...


Peace,

Amanda Walker