- Book Title: The Way of the Four Elements: A Second Manual of Occult Training
- Author: John Michael Greer
- Published: 2024, by Aeon Books
- Guide Price: £19.99 GBP
- ISBN: 978-1-80-152-131-4
- Reviewed by: Emma Boon-Hartshorne
John Michael Greer is the author of over fifty books spanning spirituality and the occult, economics and politics, fantasy and science fiction works. He served twelve years as Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. Greer is also an initiate in Freemasonry, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Martianist order, and three Druid traditions.
The Way of the Elements is a slim volume of 137 pages encapsulating a study of the elements suggested over twelve months following the seasons of the year. The study pattern is very flexible so you can if you wish study through the book at any time of the year or just one element. The text is very much aimed at practicing magicians and recommends foundation training is completed prior to working through this text. The text in effect takes the reader to elemental initiation and includes a final temple ceremony after your own work in your lodge.
The text is laid out with requirements which follow the format of:
- An equinox or solstice ritual/ceremony
- Element symbols
- Elemental emblems
- Macrocosm attunement
- Microcosm attunement
- Practice working inner senses
- Scrying
- Elemental magic
- Making working tools
What I did enjoy very much from the text is Appendix 2. This section discusses related occult traditions which are thought compatible with using this text. My occult studies are of Aleister Crowley’s works, it was interesting to read about other occult orders. And information regarding possible substitutions for rituals to be completed as an alternative. So, this volume does bring greater flexibility and therefore greater appeal.
A person will need to be very motivated and dedicated to completing each 13-week season. Considering the volume is slim there is a large volume of information of working with the elements in occult practice. I envisage that the volume would be essential to a magical education and a resource for practitioners to work through several times to get the most out of it.
I don’t intend to work slavishly through the text, I will work through the parts of it that interest me the most. As a tarot reader who mainly uses elemental dignities to read tarot, I am interested in working with the elements more closely. Whilst I won’t complete rituals and ceremonies within the text, I will explore the other parts of the chapter to attune more closely with the elements in relation to my tarot practice.
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