When my friends and I performed our two rituals in Winona, I remember that
we would call corner by element - and they say that they read me as water.
My question is: do Wiccans believe in paraelementals?  What I mean by
paraelements is elements composed of 2 of the basic four.  The reason I am
asking is because I feel more like ice than water - patient for a while, but
ready to let my chagrin be known when something has been bugging me for a
while.  Further, if you do believe in paraelements and/or quazielements (later
on that one), are your paraelements: Air + Water = Ice (with the reference
to air being that it is cold), Fire + Earth = Magma, Air + Fire = Smoke, and
Earth + Water = Ooze (Mud), or are they different.  Certainly, I would say
that the combinations in here are probably about a fifty percent mix of each
element.

48 responses total.

        I remember that article from Dragon magazine.

Yes, well, I am a PlaneScape GM, so I learn these things that way.  I need
to get the Inner Planes book when it comes out and A Guide to the Etheral
Plane.  I also need an answer to this question that falls outside of the
gaming realm.  Thank you for your input though jazz.  Thanks in advance to
anyone who give me the anwer(s) I requested.

        That was your answer, you just didn't tilt it 90 degrees and look at
it sideways out of the corner of your eye.

        The concept of "para-elementals" and "quasi-elementals" is entirely
D&D.  Specifically, it was invented around 1986.  No religion shares that
concept (well, maybe Discordianism, hail Eris!), since no religion has
been founded in the last 12 years.  To the best of my knowledge.

Yes, but then Elemntals themselves are enitrely creatures of gaming.  I was
talking about Elements.

I also possess one shred of information that could prove you wrong as well,
for I have a Wiccan friend who believes in combined element forms, though he
sees mist as the air + water combo.  However, I can certainly accept
quasielements to be entirely gaming since they are made of one of the basic
four elements + either positive or negative energy.

        I have a Wiccan associate who believes he creates a light sabre with
the force of his will, too.  I've a theory - given X, there is a pagan who
believes it.

Aaaargh!!!!!
Jazz, your theory is entirely correct!  Hey, I know a Klingon-wiccan druid...
<sigh>
Bjorn, yes there is such a thing as an elemental spirit.  You won't meet one.
But they weren't created for D & D, the name was merely stolen.  As so many
things.  Don't get your notions of religion/spirituality/cosmology from a
gaming book without a LARGE dose of salt.  And yes, the elements combine in
each of us- the pure elements don't exist in this reality. Consider; earth
needs *some* water to keep it together, and has *some* air-space between
molecules.  Fire needs something (earth) to comsume, oxygen for combustion,
and exudes a liquid. And so on.  So it is not unreasonable for you to be
dominant Water, secondary Earth- you'd tend to solve emotional/intuitive
issues in practical, methodical ways.  In other terms, you'd tend to be
preoccupied with your feelings, but like a feeling of comfort or consistency
in life.

Yes, I was trying to pull this away from the gaming vortex that seems to
appear around some of my questions or as a direct result of my comments.  Try
as I may though, I may have to refute your attempt to pull away like this:
AD&D does admit that there are pockets of the elemental planes in all the
other elemental planes, thus presenting that even in gaming elements are not
"pure".  Further, the idea of the paraelements is simply where elemental plane
A touches elemental plane B more fully than the pockets of B, C, and D, which
permiate plane A.  Now gaming quasielements which rely on a single element
plus "positive" or "negative" energy can be left completly to gaming.

O, and I do take the large dose of salt, it's just that some things seem to
make a strange amount of logical sense.  I think it may be part of my attempt
to be somewhat universal in my beliefs that I consider some of the ideas
presented in gaming.  E.G. The tree by Community High School in the Magickal
Awakenings item, I feel a non-tree presence - and I think it houses a Dryad.
On the other hand, I am currently so confused as to what I actually belive
that I don't know what to think.

O well, it looks like my attempts to get any more useful information out of
my brain are failing.  Also looks like I again failed to pull away.

Bjorn, perhaps the reason that gaming keeps coming up in response to you is
that gaming has given you a part of the vocabulary you have to discuss the
questions.  I don't see that as aproblem.  We all get our vocabulary from
somewhere and until we discuss the issues outside that realm, it will colour
our perception somewhat.  Since I was a gamer some 20 odd years ago, I think
I understand your questions, and I will try to answer based in astrology,
which is the arean in which I have the most comfortable vocabulary to discuss
it.  ;)

Yes, you can and probably are influenced by more than one "element".

Most people know their "sun" sign -- that is, the sign the sun was in on the
day they were born.  They usually say "I'm a Leo" or "I"m a Scorpio".

But the sun is only one part of the equation.  The big three are the Sun, the
Moon, and the Ascendant.  Each sign and each planet are associated with
elements, so just looking at the big three, you have a potential for 6
elemental associations in your personality.  Say, though, that you were born
at dawn during a period when the sun and the moon were conjunct.  (apparently
next to each other in the sky) then you would have the same influence for all
three and would be pretty unidimensional (except of course that there are many
other planets to consider.)

If, though, you find that all three are different, you would feel the
influence of many others and would tend to respond to different elements under
different circumstances.

I, fo instance, am a Cancer sun -- water, with a Pisces Moon, water again,
but with my ascendent in leo -- Fire.  My husband is a Cancer sun, Cancr
Ascendant, Taurus moon -- Water, water, Earth.  Guess which of us likes to
be around people and on the move more.  ;)

The reason I suggested Ice is because I am usually pretty strong but under
the right pressure I'll break.  On the other hand, I could be magma - patience
of Earth, but temper of Fire.

Your idea about the coloring of my responses helps somewhat.  I do have
experiences outside of gaming and things I like to do outside of gaming, but
I'd say the gaming is probably the most restful of these activities save for
reading or watching t.v.

        My questions about gaming usually stem from terms and concepts that
I've seen in your posts that originate only from gaming;  there's no other
context in which to describe them, unless you accept parts of AD&D as
religious truth and worship that way.

        Since a dryad is a personification of a tree's spirit, and intimately
linked to it's life, wouldn't it *be* a tree presence?

Surely you aren't suggesting that the concepts of the four basic "elements"
is entirely gaming?  For I know for a fact that that isn't true.  Um, and
combined elements appear in science too you know.  Even one of the basic four,
water, is a combination of two scientific elements: Hydrogen and Oxygen.  So
although combinations of elements in science aren't called anything other than
the name of the result, paraelements sort of exist in science, now don't they?

Sorry to once again have to disappoint you, jazz, because the religous context
of paraelements comes far before gaming of the roleplaying vareity existed
(to our knowledge).  In the creation story in Norse mythology, Niflheim
(pronounced Nie-vell-HI-m), a realm of nine layers of Ice, Darkness, and Fog;
and Muspell, the realm of Fire where all that existed aside from the Vanir,
or first pantheon.  These realms were seperated by a large chasm, but
eventually they travelled near enough to each other to have effect on each
other.  (Incedentally, Muspell can even kill gods according to the legends)
From this, the world was brewing in the gap, and while there is more story,
it is not important to telling you why paraelements are NOT entirely gaming.
The word certainly is, but not the "elements" themselves.

As for AD&D as religious truth, no, I do not take it that way, but I do keep
my horozion open, and certain things said make a lot of sense logically. 
Heck, some parts of ascending from the material world are pretty solid from
whichever religion the learned the stuff from.  On the other hand, it does
not please me that TSR takes all its information on Norse gods directly from
Marvel Comics without any REAL research.

The *term* "para-elements" would seem to have come from gaming- it isn't a
common magickal term.
Pockets?  The elemental realms, by definition, would be nothing but the pure
element.  Think about it.  (Um, the explanation for that is getting pretty
complicated.  Can we leave it at that?)  They mix in this world- look, Bjorn-
the example you give, the Norse creation story, creates this world when the
elements mix; only the pure form lives in its own realm.
Misti, your explanations are so lucid.  I'll get it eventually.

Okay, I've been reluctant to speak up before, but what the heck, I'll put in
my $0.02
Of course it wouldn't be a Good Thing to just take what any gaming system says
as the truth. But it sounds to me like that's not what bjorn's doing here.
 Suppose you're reading a novel, or watching a movie, or whatever, and
you come across an idea you'd never thought of before that really makes 
sense - a new way of looking at an old belief or yours, or a symbol that you
find especially meaningful, or whatever. Why not adopt it? I'd be willing to
bet a good number of the people in this conf. have their ideas of religion
affected by what they read, or listen to, or do in their spare time.
So why should gaming be any different? Okay, so there are plenty of gamers
who're interested in paganism because they think that demons and vampires are
cool and they want to meet one, and I'm not going to call that reasonable;
but if you're being intelligent about it, a good gaming universe is no worse
a place to find ideas than a good movie or a good book.

I think I'll try to explain elemental pockets, at least in gaming terms, later
if you wish.  If not, I will leave thins where they lie.  I do have another
example but that requires taking a look at the oriental 5 elements: Kick air
away from the basic 4, add metal (gold), and nature (wood).

        I'm aware of the Norse mythos (interestingly, my ancestors helped
write a portion of it in migrating north, conquering the original peoples,
and becoming diefied in the Norse mythos as the Aesir), but I don't agree
that any mention of ice or frost automatically validates a theory out of
Dragon as valid theology.

Now who's got the gaming fixation?  I understand that the closest you could
come to spelling the name of the second Norse Pantheon correctly on Grex would
be to write AEsir, but that is not the point.  If you refuse to see that as
anything other than a gaming reference, it is *you* who has the problem with
the insatiable need to defeat me.  Much as I am often ammused by having people
try to simply dismiss things as gaming references, it is obvious that you are
only trying to piss me off.  But I refuse to sink to your level since you
cannot accept that I actually have pulled away from gaming.  There's no point
in arguing when one side refuses to listen.

John, in the last item or so, you referred to mixing AD&D with religion as
"really, really sick" and yet go on here, dismissing Dragon and AD&D's as an
invalid theology because it's steeped in one person's sense of right and
wrong, and that that sense is overly simplisitc.
 
The Green Man on my altar is a Toxic Avenger figurine. He's green, and in the
cartoons stood for ecological awareness. Am I really really sick because I
chose an object from pop culture and saw religious significance in it?

My Loki figurine, likewise, is the Marvel Comics Loki. Sure, their mythology
is wrong (he's the half-borther of Thor, according to them). But it's a
tangible symbol that helps me focus.

If it helps bjorn to take the mythology of AD&D and expand and reflect upon
it for personal use, why is that really really sick? He isn't crawling around
the accessways of a major university trying to kill psychic demons. He's taken
a piece of pop culture and tried to see if he can get some personal religious
use out of it, and he's asking us, as seasoned religious teachers and as
cohorts, for some guidance, and you're calling him "really really sick."

Is that what Buddha would have done?
(To exploid a currently popular Christian question.)
(exploit)

        No, Paul, most Pagan traditions, and most Christian traditions, do an
awful lot of reconstructionism, since the Gardnerian - Golden Dawn
reconstructions, the Golden Dawn itself being reconstructionist.  Most schools
of thought are that modern symbols for a particular concept are as valid as
the classical symbols (though generally there seems to be a sense of the
authors I've read and the practitioners I've worked with that they're not as
powerful as their particular adopted older symbols).

        But what's the point of a theology discussion if skepticism isn't
allowed, and tracing the origins of a particular piece of belief isn't
allowed?  Furthermore, look at what you're defending ...

Bjorn, I suppsoe your questions make a lot of sense to me because 20 some-odd
years ago, I was a gamer and simultaneously exploring paganism.  I, too, saw
parallels and explored them to the extent that they went.  They do make a
pretty good shorthand for getting a grip on the concepts, and you seem more
aware than most that that's just what they are, shorthand for far more complex
concepts.

I don't think "pockets" of one element exist within beings of another element
so much as we are all collections of more or less concentrations of several
elements, and they peacefully (or not so peacefully in some cases) co-exist.

There's a far cry difference between skepticism and ridicule.

I'm defending another person's right to incorporate an element of popular
culture into their personal faith, and another person's right to ask for
advice and input without being called sick, or condescended to.

When somebody comes forward and says, "I read this in an AD&D magazine, and
I was wondering if any of you have heard of anything like this in native
traditions," it isn't skepticism to say, "That's just AD&D," because you're
not refuting anything that the person is claiming. Skepticism relies on
refuting (or attempting to refute) claims made... what claim of Bjorn's are
you refuting?

No, you're not being skeptical. You're being dismissive. Entirely different.

        That's exactly what I said in #1, Brighn.  Re-read the item.

        Since the topic seems to have changed to whether my comments were
dismissive or skeptical, please forgive my further diversion into this in an
attempt to explain my responses.

        You'll note that #1 of this item was a paraphrase of your example of
a skeptical remark.  #2, the immediate response, was dismissive, including
a sarcastic "Thank you for your input though jazz.  Thanks in advance to
 anyone who give me the anwer(s) I requested."  #3 was my explanation of my
skepticism in #1, and #4 was a well-written rebuff, but note the phrase "prove
you wrong" - already at this stage, it's emerged at least in one party's mind
as a contest to prove the other party wrong.

        #5 was what I thought to be a bad joke.  Apparently Kami liked it. :P

        #6 is Kami's well-written response about theological and magickal ideas
that were borrowed rather than created by role-playing gaming.  You'll note
that this is an outright contradiction of bjorn's earlier comment, yet there
is no response along the lines of #2 to it.  #8 and #9 are discussions of the
symbols and definitions of elemental theory, and #10 is a refutation of my
use of gaming terms for concepts originating from gaming.

        In addition to #2, I urge you to look carefully at the wording and tone
of #11 - "Sorry to once again have to disappoint you, jazz,". 

        I'll stop for now, I'm probably boring the rest of the conference to
tears, and I don't think that metadiscussion really advances the conference's
indended purpose, but I do ask you to consider the tone and choice of words
in the items contained;  I freely admit that my "sick" comment was
inflammatory, but outside of that, I believe the remainder of my comments have
been politely skeptical, and the response those comments inflammatory.

#1 and #3 were dismissive. "No religion has been founded in the last 12 years"
is a purely absurd comment, and you should know it. What you mean is, "No
IMPORTANT religion..." PLENTY of religions (at least, cults and sects) have
been formed in the last 12 years.

The fact that bjorn is responded non-constructively is not a defense for your
own ill behavior.

My viewpoint of the conversation:
Bjorn: My friends and I played around with this framework, which I use these
terms for... is anybody familir with it.
John: Those terms are from D&D
Bjorn: Well, yeah, but I was curious to know if this framework has been used
by any other paths?
John: Those terms are from D&D. No serious religion uses those terms, ergo
no serious religion uses that framework.
Bjorn: I heard you the first time. Those are just the terms I'm familiar with.
I wanted to know if there was anybody else who's used the *framework.*
John: Well, sure. Pagans have used just about any framework you could come
up with.
And so on to a pissing contest.

I don't think it's irrelevant to the goals of this conversation to examine
how it w\e treat people who have genuine questions that might strike us as
stupid or mis-guided. *How* we teach and share knowledge is just as important
as what knowledge we teach or share. (goals of this conference, not
conversation)

Sure, there's a place for healthy skepticism.

there's also a place for healthy psychological viewpoints, one of which says
the extreme defensiveness that John is showing is indicative of his inability
to accept that, as a human, he can make judgment errors, and that these
judgment errors often go with some sort of remediation.

*waits for Kami to tell Brighn, but not john, to take it to private mails*
*another judgment error*

<robh is amused by the twelve-year comment, given that robh's
religious group was founded thirteen years ago>

        I guess like wishing I could retract the "religious views based on
gaming are sick" comment doesn't exactly qualify as admitting failure of
judgement?

        Hmm.  I guess what the thinker thinks, the prover does tend to prove.

I think the problem is, John is in the same mindset as Bill Clinton... that
it's enough to say, "I did it. I wish I hadn't."
 
I'm of a different mindset. I like to add, "I'm sorry."

But I realize now that I've made a failure in judgment in trying to force
somebody else to apologize in the way I would. I'm sorry for that, and will
drop the issue now.

Sigh.
Wish we could all discuss ideas without getting egos involved.  I try really
hard, especially on line where there is no eye contact, and as John has
pointed out, where it's hard to retract stuff, to phrase my comments in a
non-inflamatory way, as "I think..." or "I have read..." or "Have you thought
about..." or "If..then..." etc.-- not "you're wrong" or "that's dumb" or "so
what" or other potentially agressive statements.  Now, you folks don't get
to hear me snorting loudly, or see me slapping the monitor (or my forehead)
in exasperation, or get to hear the sarcastic and dismissive things I think-
about any of us.  Those moments of self indulgence don't further the
discussion or build community between us.
And please folks, could we endeavour *not* to see- or express- personal
slights in this general forum?  Thanks.

Now that my anger has passed - mostly - I have a different Elemental question.
I should remember from the rituals in the Winona, but I have forgotten: which
direction represents which element?

The standard correspondences are:

        air   - east
        fire  - south
        water - west
        earth - north

Many traditions will move the correspondences around to better
suit their locales.  For instance, most northern hemisphere folks
would attribute the south with fire (the sun is always more
in the south than the north), while Australians would go vice
versa.  If you're in the British Isles, the water=west makes
sense (the Atlantic Ocean being a fairly large source of water),
but if you're on the east coast of the US, you might do water=east
instead.

So, it's really up to the individual coven.  I think I may have been calling
upon the wrong element when we called corner for our rituals, but we've only
had two, so I don't think it really matters.  I think we used what you go by
above in Winona.

        Hmmm, I'm not sure that there is a standard direction.  What I've seen
and read of Native American shamanism usually agrees on the colours and the
symbols for the directions, but not always, and tends to disagree on the
animals and elements ascribed to the directions.  I'm pretty sure that that
pattern's consitent with Gardner, and his influence Crowley, and his
influence, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but I'm not sure if the
four-element theory was primarily Greek in origin or existed in pre-contact
European people.

        Anyone know the answer to that?

The standard directions Rod described in resp:29 are the ones I use -- but
it's also qute possible to meditate on the quarters and see what they say to
you...

I guess I'll have to find where North, East, South, West are in relation to
the fire pit in my back yard.

Re #31: My friends in Winona discourage anything Crowley.  Just thought you
might like to know.

I've always gotten the sense that the dual-duality (i.e., four way) system
that Wiccans use is Platonic.

(Bjorn slipped in)
Wiccans who practice anything remotely Gardnerian and then universally scoff
at All Things Crowleyite have no sense of history and no real sense
ofCrowley's role in the development of Gardnerian Wicca... it's akin to
praising Carl Jung and dismissing All Things Freudian... sure, Jung had plenty
of his own ideas, but he also took what he saw as the best ideas of Frued and
incorporated them into his own theories, just as Gardner took what he saw as
the best of Crowley.

I'm not sure what flavor of Wicca my friends emulate, so to speak.  Heck, I'm
not even Wiccan, but I have been involved in definitively Wiccan rituals.

re: #36- Pretty accurate, Brighn.  
Bjorn, Alister Crowley had a lot of influence on Gardiner, and thus on Wicca,
but if there is a hard way to do something, an easy way and a really
convoluted way- he'll choose the convoluted way or at minimum the hard way.
So take anything he has written with a large pile of salt.

As to the directions of the elements- yeah, the standard ones came from Europe
and especially from the Greeks, and your locale might seem physically
different, but consider a)archetypal/sybolic reality- and participating in
a common symbol set b)being able to work with other people as desired, without
jarring differences in imagery c)the full range of associations which are
mapped around the circle including age and season; E/Air=Childhood/Spring,
S/Fire=Youth/Summer/noontime, W=Middle Age/Autumn/afternoon, N=death and
birth/Winter/night.  So if you go and swap Air and Water, the cycle goes
widdershins.  Other changes create other kinds of confusion.

Thinking about geographical location in relation to the "corners", I'd
practically have to place water in the north, since from our house, the
man-made lake is north north-east.

As for my friends, they're pretty much of the take any Crowley book and read
only the first 3 chapters then stop kind of attitude.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss