“The Four Elements of the Wise” is deeply useful for all levels of magickal practitioners

Ivo Dominguez, Jr.‘s latest book, The Four Elements of the Wise: Working with the Magickal Powers of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, achieves an extremely tricky thing: It’s a book with useful information and practical ideas for all magickal skill levels, on a widely-studied subject, without making newbies feel overwhelmed and lost, or advanced practitioners bored to the point of skimming for the new stuff. There’s something valuable on every page, for every level practitioner: hundreds of eye-opening gems and food for thought, as well as easily-implementable tips to add power to all manner of magickal workings.

One thing that surprised me the most about this book was the writing style. I’ve read three of Ivo’s other books, and they are brilliant, but incredibly densely-packed with information, such that I end up intently studying each paragraph a few times over to make sure I’m grasping it in full. By contrast, the content in The Four Elements of the Wise has a bit more room to breathe, while still providing hundreds of useful insights throughout the book. The writing style is engaging, fluid, and friendly, much like Ivo’s presentation style when he delivers workshops.

One of Ivo’s frequently-used techniques is to offer a variety of connections and metaphors to explain a concept to a diverse audience. For example, there are multiple “aha” moments to be found for practitioners of astrology, tarot, alchemy, and Qabala, and plenty for magickal practitioners who use none of those systems. Sometimes he’ll talk about musical theory to explain a concept, or bring math or sacred geometry into the conversation. If one metaphor soars over your head, another one will surely click.

This book brought me to a new understanding of elemental symbols, the tattvas, the four tools used in many magickal traditions but particularly in Wicca, the sub-elements (i.e. Fire of Air), the modalities, the Platonic solids, and new ways to think about how the elements are and can be used for various magickal workings and rituals. I know I’ll be reading this one at least a couple more times, much like his other works: I get more out of them every time I read them.