The Elemental Conjury


The Elemental Conjury


It is by earth and living water,
The world's own breath and golden fire,
The power that alone masters all
That I conjure you back to the ground
Do not rise from your grave again
Instead sink, further to the world below
To the reward that awaits and rest.
We will be with you when it is time.


Elemental conjurations have to do with the concept of authority. When we look at the tapestry of forces that appear to our senses, when we examine the composition of the entire world, we can use ancient notions of the "four elements" to categorize our experience- it certainly seems that some things are of the nature of solidity, others of fluidity, others of a gaseous, diffuse nature, and then there is the pure energetic and rapidly moving nature of fire. To have an "earth, water, air, fire" perspective is a simple matter of accepting the four "states" that all things we see and experience seem to be moving through.

But it is more- the Weird would appear to manifest many of its powers through these basic states or through combinations of them. Thus, the "elemental signatures" of things can be considered almost like four "chief avatars" of hidden power, not unlike the western cabbalistic notion of each element corresponding to one of the four letters in the "name of God". To conjure "in the name of the elements" is to conjure through constraining other powers to obedience in the "name" of every way that spirits or powers appear to exist in the world.

There was an account of an historical elemental conjuration used during a necromantic working, a séance, by the witch Tamsin Blight who lived from 1798-1856 (she was also known as Tammy Blee i.e. Tammy the Wolf- Blee being Cornish word for wolf). She was hired to conjure the spirit of Jane Hendy for a male relative who wished to know were she had hidden the money she was supposed to leave him:

"Spirit of Jane Hendy, in the name of all the powers above and below, I summon thee to rise from the grave and appear before me and this man! By the spirits of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, I summon thee to arise! Come hither, appear, and speak to this man! Come!"

What is salient to notice here is that Tamsin Blight summons the dead by the authority of the spiritual powers that dwell within those elements.

Thus it is, in my own practice- I look to the elements not as "four major substances" but as four processes or conditions of power as it moves, and I note that other sentient powers seem to dwell alongside or within the elements- the many sentient spirits and powers of the land within earth, the water weirds or powers of rivers and lakes and other fluid bodies within water, the spirits of winds and other aerial powers in air, and of course the always mysterious and crucial powers of fire. To conjure through the elements is to call upon wholeness in a new way- to call for "all powers" that apparently exist to notice or give force to your conjury.

"By those powers that dwell in the wide earth, those that dwell in the waters, those who take flight in the airs, and the ephemeral force of the fire of the world, and by that power that masters them all, I conjure X. thusly... I constrain you by all powers that you fulfill X."

Naturally, "that power that masters them all" refers to two things- both the Binding Weird, the Weird itself that is origin and final truth of the elements, but also the mind of the sorcerer.

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This Essay is Copyright © 2008 by Robin Artisson. All Rights Reserved.