ELEMENTAL SYMBOL MEANINGS

I had a bit of a struggle trying to put this into my own words without causing confusion on my part and without being to wordy to explain a rather simple explanation of why the Elemental symbols from Alchemy look the way they do.

I thought it best to quote the source directly, as it takes having a little background on the elements and their ‘powers’ as expressed by the early Western Occultists. It seems counter intuitive after reading that Air should be associated with Moisture rather than Water, instead Water is associated with Cold. The indented texts below are excerpts from Henry Cornelius Agrippa’s The Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

Essences, or elements, are the third thing needed for a world of generation. These are; Fire, Air, Water and Earth. Attributed to them are the powers, respectively, hot, moist, cold and dry. Ocellus says: “But essences differ from powers; for essences are locally corrupted by each other, but powers are neither corrupted nor generated, for the reason of them are incorporeal.”

Pg. 720 The Three Books of Occult Philosophy,

Edited and Annotated by Donald Tyson

Simply written we can pair the elements up with their associated ‘power’ as thus:

Essence (Element)	Power
Fire	Hot
Air	Moist
Water	Cold
Earth	Dry

Two of these powers, hot and cold, are active and, as Ocellus says “subsist as causes and things of an effective nature...” (On The Universe [Taylor,12]), whereas the other two, dry and moist are passive. As Aristotle puts it: “On the other hand hot and cold, and dry and moist, are terms, of which the first pair implies power to act and the second pair susceptibility” (Generation and Corruption 2.2).

Pg. 720 The Three Books of Occult Philosophy,

Edited and Annotated by Donald Tyson

Simply written we can read the associated powers with their effective nature:

Power	Nature
Hot & Cold	Active
Dry & Moist	Passive

Ocellus goes on to speak of the ‘peculiarity’ of each element, saying: “heat is the peculiarity of fire, dryness of earth, moisture of air, and frigidity of water” (ibid., 15). Aristotle makes the same point: “Nevertheless, since they are four, each of them [each element] is characterized par excellence by a single quality: Earth by dry rather than by cold, Water by cold rather than by moist, Air by moist rather than by hot and Fire by hot rather than by dry” (Generation and Corruption 2.3)

Pg. 720 The Three Books of Occult Philosophy,

Edited and Annotated by Donald Tyson

Here both Ocellus and Aristotle specifically associate each element with its respective power; Hot with Fire, Dry with Earth, Moist with Air and Cold with Water

Hot	Cold		Moist	Dry
Active			Passive

Fire and Air expand and rise shown point upwards and Water and Earth contract and descend and are shown point downwards.

	Moist Passive Rises & Expands
	Hot Active Rises & Expands
Rise & Expand                               Contract & Descend
Cold Active Contracts & Descends
Dry Passive Contacts & Descends

In conclusion Air and Fire triangles point upwards to express that both rise and expand, Water and Earth triangles point downwards to express that they descend and contract. Respectively, of the two pairs; Air and Earth are passive and are shown with a bar through the middle; Fire and Water are active shown ‘unobstructed’ with no bar.