Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Heron Michelle, author of the new Elemental Witchcraft.
In my new book, Elemental Witchcraft: A Guide to Living a Magickal Life through the Elements, I present a new symbolic structure for the occult mysteries taught by the elemental powers. Previously, these mysteries were known as the “Four Powers of the Sphinx,” and the “Witch’s Pyramid.”1 However, those constructs only covered half of the elemental mysteries now known to Modern Witches.2 After integrating the fullness of these rich lessons, I’ve renamed resulting symbol The Witch’s Jewel of Power. This jewel imagery is a 3D, diamond-shaped bi-pyramid, also known as the Platonic octahedron. The corners of the pyramid represent the classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and the vertices at top and bottom represent Spirit as The Great Goddess and The Great God, or The Two Who Move as One.
Each of the five classical elements teach both a projective outer mystery, and a receptive inner mystery along a range between poles. Much like the Taoist yin/yang, the upward pointing “yang” pyramid holds the projective lessons typically associated with divine masculine attributes. The downward pointing “yin” pyramid holds the receptive lessons typically associated with divine feminine attributes. The Witch’s Jewel symbol also illustrates the creation story called “The Pymander” within the Corpus Hermeticum texts. These texts found the Hermetic Philosophies by which the Hermetic Witchcraft I practice is inspired.
Light Theory vs. Pigment Theory
Like the white and black of the yin yang symbol, the top point of the yang pyramid is symbolized with the color of white light. In the Hermetic creation story, the upward trending masculine divine of the heavens was composed of Divine light, fire, and air, whereas downward-trending feminine divinity of the earth was described as a cloak of dark, watery substance. With a small poetic leap of metaphor, we can observe that the occult masculine principles operate a bit like light waves. Flip side of that, the occult feminine principles operate a bit like particles of pigment. The question quantum physics asked, is light a particle or a wave? Thomas Young’s double slit experiment of 1801 answered: Either, both; it depends on the expectations of the observer.3 Just like the Two Who Move as One.
Light and pigment behave in opposing ways. The primary colors of light are the secondary colors of pigment, which are red, green and violet. The Primary colors of pigment, are the secondary colors of light, which are magenta, cyan and yellow.
White Light = All Colors
Bright White Light, when directed through a prism, will reveal that it contains all the colors of the rainbow, on a band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Red is the longest wave length, and violet has the shortest. All the rainbow colors lay between. Mix all the colors of light together and white is the result.
Black Pigment = All Colors
Meanwhile, color in pigments works in the exact opposite way. Mix all the colors of pigment together, and black is the result. They appear black because the earthiness of the pigment is absorbing all the light waves that strike it, allowing none of the light waves to reflect and be perceived.
Moral of the Story
The bottom line of this mystery teaching, is that both spirit and matter, as both the Great Goddess and The Great God, all contain the full range of colors as a range between their poles, which doesn’t much sound like the either/or scenario of dualism. Neither are Goddess and God are in opposition of each other, like the intersecting pyramids of a blade and cup, or the 6-pointed star symbols known as the Star of David, or the Seal of Solomon. They are more like mirror reflections of each other, like sunlight reflecting off of deep water. Both the projecting and the receiving sides still contain the full rainbow range of possibility, complete in their infinite diversity and wholeness, no exclusions. As it is above, so it is below. As it is within us, so it is without us.
1Levi, Eliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by A. E. Waite. York, ME: RedWheel/Weiser, 1972. Page 30. Penczak, Christopher. The Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation, and Psychic Development. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2004, page 65.
2The widdershins, or feminine “passive” mysteries were first proposed by Roderick, Timothy. Dark Moon Mysteries: Wisdom, Power, and Magic of the Shadow World. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1996. Page 79.
3>Stark, Glenn. “Light.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Updated October 29, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/science/light.
Our thanks to Heron Michelle for her guest post! For more from Heron Michelle, read her article, “Eight Tides of Elemental Witchcraft for a Magickal Life.”
