Reference · Elements
Air
Air is hot and moist and contrary to Earth. The 1651 English prints the name Aire.
Its two qualities, and who says so
- Hot
- Oxford translation by H. H. Joachim, Book II, chapter 3, 330a30–331a6
- Moist
- Oxford translation by H. H. Joachim, Book II, chapter 3, 330a30–331a6
- Contrary to
- Earth — the one element it shares no quality with, which is what makes them contrary rather than merely different.
It remains that I speak of the Aire. This is a vitall spirit, passing through all Beings, giving life, and subsistence to all things, binding, moving, and filling all things.
In plain English Air gets the least physical description of the four and the widest claim: not a substance among substances but a medium, passing through everything and carrying life. The chapter then has it carry impressions and images too, which is where the later doctrine of the astral light starts.
Agrippa goes on, in the same chapter, to report that the Hebrew doctors did not reckon Air among the elements at all but counted it a medium joining the others. That sits against the Sefer Yetzirah material this study holds elsewhere, where Aleph is Air and one of the three Mothers — so the two readings are recorded rather than reconciled. The sentence is cited and not quoted: the only transcription reachable glosses two of its words inline, and those brackets are a transcriber's and not Agrippa's. Book I, chapter vi.
Its letter, where it has one
Sefer Yetzirah makes Aleph one of the three Mother letters and gives it to Air.
- Westcott translation, 3rd edition, 1911 (first published 1887) — Chapter II, section 1
- Westcott translation, 3rd edition, 1911 (first published 1887) — Chapter III, section 5
Its triplicity: three signs of the zodiac
The zodiac divides into four groups of three, one per element, and each of the three takes it in a different mode — cardinal, fixed or mutable. Ptolemy gives the scheme in the Tetrabiblos; this study seeds his reading and Lilly's locator beside it.
Its suit: fourteen cards
The Golden Dawn gave each suit of the minor arcana an element, and this study carries the attribution on all fourteen cards of each rather than on the suit as a label, so a single card's page can name its own source.
Air is the Swords, and all 14 cards of the suit carry the attribution.
Its weapon
Air Dagger — The Golden Dawn consecration manuscript names this the Air implement in its four-weapon set. This assignment belongs to that set; it does not make every airlike object in every grimoire equivalent.
Four of the listed implements carry an elemental assignment in the Golden Dawn material. The other implements come from sources that do not assign them to this four-element set.