Step one in moving from rituals for enjoyment, to rituals that produce magic, is to understand the elements, and how we use them.
The elements are Water, Fire, Air and Earth. If you have read much about ancient beliefs you will spot these are universal, throughout the world and time. Today, many seem to think by element, we mean part of, as in items that make up everything. Water witches do not believe everything is made up of the elements.
We believe that each element, like people and everything else has balancing energy, you may like to think of it as plus and minus, overlaid so it appears to be zero. These vibrations for the need of a better word, melt together to form a greater unconsciousness, we can all sense some of these, but with practice the ability can be improved. These sympathetic energies are the basis of much of our magic.
If we take water for example, we all feel better and can sense the difference in the air after a rain storm, when walking quietly near a bubbling brook, or near a waterfall. Yes, the scientists can in part explain this by discussing ions, but its more than that its the sound, the smell, and its ability to move through physical distance. Air can make you feel uplifted and full of life, while another day it may make you feel a little down, fire is thought of by most people as a destroyer, yet we look on it as a healing force.
Crystals, rocks, are not just dead lumps but give off and absorb energy. We all have heard of crystal radio and know you can pick up radio stations with some rocks, but stop and think about the power of pendulums, dowsers, and other earth magic. You can go further into topics like ley lines, and energy storage arrangements that were build a number of thousands of years ago. Some of this energy by the way can be photographed and seen.
Often you do not use the elements directly but plants, and stafs from specific trees, incense, and items such as candles, salt and a variety of everyday items from the grocery shelves.
The fifth element is spirit, and this is generally where it starts getting too complicated for a basic explanation.
When a witch or a group of witches, sets up a circle, the elements etc, they crate a cone of power that reaches up to a point some height above them. This energy can be photographed, and on several occasions have been seen clearly in photographs taken by people having no interest or connection with witchcraft. You however cannot see the cone when you are in it, but you can sense it. Dowsers, and pendulums can detest it, and often a compass needle is effected by it. It is within this energy cone that most magic is performed.
As water witches, we use the power cone to energies our spells, and they are transferred to water, in water vapor, some that you can see and some that just makes up a part of the atmosphere. Water has a holographic type of memory, when you divide water both parts have the same constuents, and don't matter how much you dilute it it still contains the pattern that was added. This of course is the basis of Homoeopathy where medicines diluted in water so week that not a single atom remains is seen to work. We could fill many web sites talking just about water. Air, is then used to deliver the spell for us. Of course some spells also use fire and earth as well.
So what is spirit? we don't know, some legends say it is a concentrated presence of the superior being that is normally spread everywhere, some that it is specific personalities of the superior power that visits the circle at our invitation. Some also think it is the combined effect of the sympathetic energies of the 4 main elements.
Some think that the superior being, call her the goddess, is everywhere, but a coven within a circle can gain her concentrated attention. This means that although we all have the goddess within us, within a circle we might better explained as being within the goddess, and in this situation some personalities of the goddess can take form, or gain experiences by borrowing the bodies of some of those present. We are not talking about human sacrifice, but allowing the goddess and god to participate through one or two of you inviting them to.
Now we get even more complicated, within spirit, you can see things that cannot be filmed. You will clearly see things happen on occasions, but if you run a video camera or film camera from outside the circle it is shown never to have occurred. Some suggest it is mass hypnosis, unknown to each other, telepathically they all imagine the same thing happened. We don't have an explanation, and don't feel we really need one.
| Element | Normal | Magus |
| Water |
West |
West |
| Earth | North | North |
| Air | East | South |
| Fire | South | East |
Under many traditions including Water Witches, the elements are associated with the compass directions indicated as normal above. This arrangement is easy to remember, the largest expanse of water is to the west of us in Europe, the Atlantic, the hard earth is to the north (frozen), you go to the south if you want to be in the sun on your holidays, and for many in southern England you go east to London for hot air (politicians, AGM's etc). most of this will work in the USA, the hot air is in the east of their continent as well.
Magus means a super wizard, The magus column is used when a coven is going to undertake some more special magic, and sometimes when the high king of the water witches is present, or for rituals that are calling for magic in his name, and using his sign. The concept is partly connected with the need to balance fire against water and air against earth and partly to do with our view of the physical world being a reflection. Do not experiment with this arrangement, as it will not work for you without more knowledge than we are giving you here. You will not come to any harm using either arrangement. We remember this arrangement similar to above, but associate sun with fire, rising in the east. The Magus position has been used by a number of historic cultures.
Historically most witches took the point taken as north would not be set by a compass but being half way between the sunrise and sunset position. On level ground this 'witches north' would be the same a north, however, if one side was lower and one higher, it would be skewed slightly. Most stone circles, and many ancient buildings are based on the same method. If you choose to use a compass likewise you will find there is a difference detailed on Ordinance Survey maps between magnetic and true north. These differences will not effect normal personal or coven work, but you will find some traditional covens, shall be say skew things slightly, some of this skew being to do with local factors such as lay lines and running water. They will also on occasions switch the elements about.
Each and every tradition within witchcraft has its strengths and weaknesses, and we are not going to talk about others, however we will be open about our own.
Although the elements are only one part, they form a major part of the framework or scaffolding that the none explainable areas of our magic is based on. Clearly these do not effect directly herbal cures, psychology, life skills, or the other paramedical and social areas we include within our craft magic.
We believe that our strength is through the better understanding and application of the element water, we have a weaker working with the element earth, which we explain on the page devoted to it.
You will see we do not believe in hocus pocus, but cause and effect, its just that some times we have to admit that we don't understand why some things work. More and more has become understandable over the years, but unfortunately some knowledge has been lost, and there are reasons why some areas that used to work no longer do.
There are many areas that we do not understand, and many questions that we cannot explain, such as how did the universe come into being. No explanation or theory so far put forward, gives an explanation that bears close examination. We don't feel a need to make up a reason, or to accept others ideas just because we cannot come up with a better one. We just don't know so very much, and constantly are searching to understand more.