I've finished reading Wicca Covens by Judy Harrow and am in the middle of reading Witchcraft for Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente. Judy Harrow pointed out in her book that the correspondence of directions to elements is purely symbolic, and not something we should take literally. The elements are not literally found in different directions, because they are of course all around us. Harrow tells us that although most Wiccan covens follow the correspondence of North: Earth, East: Air, South: Fire, and West: Water, not all covens practice in the same way. It is important that we all practice in a way that makes sense to us. Doreen Valiente explains why the common Wiccan correspondence of directions to elements is used. She suggests that it is adapted to the British climate, as opposed to the Greek climate which Aristotle describes. Here we may see Valiente's correspondence in contrast to Aristotle's: I can see why she would describe Earth as "cold and wet" because ...

Last month, I finished reading Practical Elemental Magick by Sorita d’Este and David Rankine. There were some interesting facts in there, and this is a topic that I love to explore because when you look into the different beliefs that were held in the past you find a great amount of variety. I can't stand shallow books that tell you rather dogmatically "this is how it is" without suggesting that there may be other ways of looking at things. I drew the following diagram to show how I see the classical elements. To me, the elements represent the four fundamental states of matter. At the top of the scale, we have fire, which represents the plasma state of matter. Other examples of matter in a plasma state are lightning, electric sparks, fluorescent lights, neon lights, plasma televisions, and the Sun. When a plasma is deionised, it becomes gas, which is represented by the element of air. The air we breathe is formed of several types of gases, such as nitrogen, oxygen...