Of Senses and Humors

The ancient notion of humors that pertain to the elements is utterly ubiquitous in nearly every great world culture except the modern industrial one.  Unlike Western medicine, traditional Chinese and Indian medicine never discarded humoral diagnosis and treatment.  The humors pertain to the spirit of place in the most obvious of ways: the weather.  The spirit of place is a type of weather.  It is a set of conditions that characterize the place and its ecosystem.  The hot dry end of August pertains to Fire.  The cool, crisp time when crocuses burst out of ice scrims in front yards pertains to Air.  Nothing could be more Water than an ocean or a lake in Autumn.  As far as Earth, an underground stash of apples and squash in the winter cellar as the snowstorm rages outside fits the bill. 

I think one of the reasons our culture has such a difficult time recognizing the magic of humors is because it is so plainly obvious.  Though it has been a few hundred years since mainstream medics understood the importance of the humors, they are still a part of our language.  To describe someone as “sanguine” means he or she has a positive and uplifting outlook.  “Choleric” still means irritable and bad-tempered.  I would argue that we never lost the ability to sense humors; we just forgot about them for the most part.  Superstitions stuck but on-the-ground analysis flew away. 

It is my opinion that it is high time we westerners reclaimed our own majestic traditions, and that includes the restoration of sciences like astrology, homeopathy, and alchemy that come to us from Western occultism and provide a hand-on glimpse into Renaissance insights about the Universe. 

The Tarot, whose first wide usage came about during the European Renaissance, is divided into four suits that relate to the elements.  Swords for Air, Wands for Fire, Cups for Water, and Disks or Pentacles for Earth. 

The Tarot are a perfect gateway towards understanding how the elements influence our daily lives. Let’s say I do a daily three card Tarot divination.  For the most immediate or Me card, I get the Three of Cups ill-dignified.  Cups rule the emotions, so I’ll be conscious of how emotional I am and I will look for emotional imbalances to root out.  Am I snippy or butthurt when one of life’s inevitable setbacks occurs?  Am I depressed for no reason, or am I suppressing the way I feel with too much force?  For the Situation card, I draw the Queen of Disks well-dignified.  Disks rule Earth and day-to-day dealings like making a living.  From this card, I know that my material living isn’t likely to be in any significant jeopardy for the duration of the reading.  I also will see that it is a day to reflect on my own past materialism.  For the Outcome or Karma, I draw The Star ill-dignified.  The Star is ruled by Aquarius or Air, so I will look for imbalances of my own ego: too puffy or not strong enough?  The Tarot may be warning me that I’ll have a not atypical day of being an air-head where I miss obvious social cues or act like a ditz. 

It is helpful to assign stereotypes – yes, stereotypes - when we are dealing with the character traits of the four humors.

For the Air humor, otherwise known as Sanguine humor, we’ll invoke the stereotype of Mr. Popularity.  Everyone likes him.  He’s the class clown and has been known to get in trouble on occasion, but his humor is never aimed at anyone directly and he does his level best not to make fun of people who aren’t as popular as he is.  He effortlessly pulls in good grades as a young person and has no trouble supporting himself and his family when he comes of age.  His problems tend to come from a puffy ego, false transcendence, and imagining that all problems can be solved if everyone in the world adopts his friendly attitude.  He tends to be a solutions guy but often blunders through life situations with the assumption that one size fits all.

For the Fire Humor, otherwise known as the Choleric humor, let’s visit a tormented young artist.  She dyes her hair bottle black as an adolescent.  She is at once crippled by shyness and the urge to make her creative mark on her surroundings.  She has an extremely dynamic personality and is a most loyal friend, but her strong approach can be off-putting.  Most normal people keep her at arm’s length for fear of what lies beneath.  She can be extremely socially inept.  She is an artistic genius with extraordinary willpower.  Because she tends to be intense and passionate about whatever she is into, it is crucial that she curates and limits the people and activities in her life with extreme care, because she doesn’t do anything half-assed.

For the Earth humor, otherwise known as Melancholic, we can imagine a high strung, conscientious, perfectionist young man with several anxiety disorders and nervous tics.  He often has trouble getting along with other people, including within his own family.  Though he is not a natural leader, he can be an exceptionally driven worker, especially if he is able to work with his hands.  As he ages, he tends to shun other humans.  He will either have one special person in his life or none at all.

For the Water humor, otherwise known as Phlegmatic humor, we have a fun-loving, vivacious, well-liked girl who suffers from frequent mood swings.  She is more of a follower than a leader, but as they say, sometimes you can have too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  She may have a potent desire to be the star of the show, but chances are she will always either be backstage doing the real work of production or an equally necessary member of the audience.  She may have trouble that stems from her natural tendency to be promiscuous, whether or not she acts on that tendency. 

Every human has bits and pieces of these temperaments.  Western medicine used to employ them as diagnostic tools for treating mind, body, and spirit at once.  Traditional Eastern medicine such as Ayurveda and TCM retained their holistic humorism.

Though Western medicine wisely discarded barbaric practices from its elder days such as trepanning, it has enthusiastically replaced bad with worse.  Stomach stapling, tricyclic antidepressants, and MRNA hijackers mislabeled as vaccines represent complete ignorance in the classic sense of key pieces of knowledge being ignored to satisfy bias confirmation and profit motives.  If you've followed the writings of this blog, you know I've railed against modern medicine any number of times, so I will nix any further ranting for now.

Humorism can be used in natural magic as a map to navigate which forces are being affected or potentially affected.  If the humors fall into four basic categories of Air/Intellect, Fire/Drive, Water/Will, and Earth/Stability, natural magic can also be partitioned roughly into four humor-corresponding categories.

Natural Air Magic

The most basic natural magic practice that affects the air is burning incense.  The smoke of certain resins and herbs has a purifying effect that reverberates through the planes.  Ancient religions knew this, and that is why old Catholic cathedrals and old Muslim mosques veritably reeked with incense pouring from censers.  Wearing any form of scent, or otherwise controlling one’s scent such as the use of antiperspirant and deodorant, is natural magic.  When I prevent other people from smelling the natural pungent odor of my armpits by using antiperspirant or deodorant, that is a form of natural magic.  If I wear too much perfume and cause someone to have an allergic reaction, that is also natural magic.  If I boil a pot of water with orange and grapefruit rinds with a dash of lavender essential oil to make my house smell fancy, that is natural air magic. 

Anything sound-related falls under the category of air magic.  When I practice piano or guitar, that is a form of air magic.  I am practicing in order to improve my brain utilizing sound and electrical signals traveling from head to hands.  Bells are air magic.  In ancient times, the sound of church bells was thought to dispel evil spirits and vampires.  A common superstition about wind chimes is that they attract ghosts.  I talk to the spirits of the dead all the time – I have never noticed any prevailing opinion among the dead that they are attracted to wind chimes.   

 

The cacomagic of television is mostly air magic.  Televisions create noise pollution, especially during commercials which are purposefully louder than aptly-named programming.  The sound of television is designed to hypnotize and demoralize so its victims will buy more stuff. 

Natural Fire Magic

Fire magic has been used nearly since the human race climbed out of trees.  Candle magic is the most self-evident, which can vary in forms from simply lighting a candle in honor of a person or a god or formally dressing a candle by anointing it in oil and addressing it with one’s intentions. 

Cut and clear spells often use fire with great efficacy.  Fire is the ultimate cleanse of energy, which is why monotheist religions become fixated with the idea of destroying the wicked world in a ball of flame.  The basic fire cut and clear involves writing a person’s name on a slip of paper and jumping over it while it burns.  This is obviously better done outdoors in flame retardant clothing.  

 

Cooking is fire magic. Whether it is by stove, air fryer, solar oven or (gasp!) microwave, the transformation of basic ingredients into sustenance is an alchemical process. The energy that goes into the growing, harvesting, chopping, heating, processing and serving of the food can all be considered fire magic.

Natural Water Magic

Any form of bath done with intention is water magic, including showering.  A hot bath to relieve stress at the end of the day is magical, but so is the quick shower.  The hoodoo bath with its cold, ice-temperature water, vinegar, salt, and hot-peppers is the most intentional and potent of all baths.  When we stink, we take a shower or bath.  Remember that the etheric body is one grade more subtle than smell, so to remove the pungent outer layer that is causing a miasma also strongly affects the etheric.  Swimming in a lake or a pool is a form of bath.  When I was a child and my extended family went on a hotel trip, we kids would entertain ourselves by jumping from the cold swimming pool to the hot tub over and over again.  Little did I know this is a form of etheric stripping.  Many cultures around the world have their own version of the etheric stripping as a health practice.  In the Japanese on-sen or bathhouse, bathers scrub themselves clean with a brush in a cold shower before climbing into the extremely hot pool or hot spring.  The ancient Finnish practice of sauna involves repeatedly going from heated sauna to dips in icy lakewater and rolling in the snow, potentially dozens of times.  The practice is so revered that it spread to Sweden and other Nordic countries.  The sauna is perceived as the ultimate cleansing ritual.  Before the era of hospitals, women often gave birth in the sauna. 

Home cooking also counts as water magic.  The crafting of soup especially is nothing less than a magical potion formed with intention to nourish and heal.  This is why homemade food is often more nourishing than prepackaged food that was canned or boxed in a factory. 

Natural Earth Magic
       

Any activity where you work with your hands is Earth magic.  Making the bed, vacuuming and sweeping, sewing and needlework, cooking, woodworking, painting, decorating, and handicrafts are all Earth magic.  Gardening is absolutely Earth magic as it involves working with one’s hands and literally moving dirt around while adding blood (hopefully in the form of blood meal and not from your own mishap), sweat, and tears. 

Construction, repair, and remodeling are Earth magic. All three can range from a few minutes unclogging a sink to years constructing a building, but the magical intention is often the same: manipulate the etheric plane via improvement of the physical plane.

The spirit of place as a concept falls under the realm of Earth magic.  When we allow ourselves to respect material things and mundane activities that come and go in our daily lives, the result is anything but idolatry, or at least it is anything but idolatry in my personal case.  As I appreciate and become grateful for my cup of tea, the result is not a worship for the cup of tea or the tea farmer.  Instead, I become aware of the effort it took for the cup of tea to arrive in my hands.  Gratitude is a kind of awareness.  It is waking up to the divine from the shallow trance of materialism in which we take all our privileges for granted.  The gratitude I put out there diffuses into other areas of my life and gently and slowly improves everything around me.