---
title: "Andre Explains Elemental Magic: The Foundation As Taught by the Elementals"
url: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/post/andre-explains-elemental-magic-the-foundation-as-taught-by-the-elementals/
date: 2025-08-31
modified: 2026-07-03
lang: en
author: "Perseus Arcane Academy"
description: "Introduction In this interview Andre give more in-depth explanations about the Elemental Magic course - this course is quite profound - I think many (initially myself also) are just not..."
categories:
  - "Interviews"
tags:
  - "Evocation"
  - "Franz Bardon"
  - "Hermetics"
  - "Magic"
image: https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/1000008305-1024x768.jpg
word_count: 4024
---

# Andre Explains Elemental Magic: The Foundation As Taught by the Elementals

## Introduction

In this interview Andre give more in-depth explanations about the Elemental Magic course - this course is quite profound - I think many (initially myself also) are just not aware of how deep this course is, this is not something you can find very easily, an experienced magician willing to guide you every step of the way. I hope you find the answers that Andre provides here enlightening, if you still have questions, please let us know in the comments.

I also recommend you look at Andres contributions on the Perseus blog. We are very fortunate to have someone so well versed in these subjects.

Here is a link to [all of the posts on the blog](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/?s=Andre+Consciencia) connected to Andre Consciencia.

---

**PAA: In your Elemental Magic course, the very first Earth module is called *“Mirrors of the Earth,”* where students are introduced to perceiving the forces of the element and its beings directly through reflective practices. Can you explain how these “mirrors” work in practice, and what kind of contact with the gnomes or Earth intelligences a student should expect to experience at this stage?**

These mirrors are, in truth, our earth elemental bodies and organs spread throughout the three planes. At this stage, the student should not expect any contact with the gnomes. He is just starting to learn the tip of the iceberg of what a gnome means, which must be done by necessarily becoming a gnome. They are mirrors because in gaining these new perceptions the practitioner is yet far from becoming a gnome, but he starts to get an imprecise image reflected in him or herself. 

**PAA: The *“Gnome Bottle”* section of the Earth curriculum introduces a series of sensory trainings — *Training the Eye, Training the Ear, Training the Hand, Training the Heart,* and finally creating the *“Powder of the Senses.”* Why is this deep sensory cultivation so essential for working with elemental beings, and how does it prepare a magician to actually perceive and interact with gnomes?**

Again, a magician can simply evoke a gnome or a planetary being and feel a presence and get goosebumps and the work is done. Sometimes there will be abstract interactions. None of this is very useful, although it is better than nothing, and a start. Contacting the beings should be as real and complete as contacting your neighbour next door. You may, as well, contact the cat outside the door. Cats have a lot in common with humans in their body language and way of processing the world. But there are still a lot of differences. I remember my mother taught animals through violence, it seems like a universal enough language, all nature knows violence. Not my cup of tea. I could always teach them better by perceiving them and talking in their language. That is why Bardon has you study the elementals in the mirror, becoming like them, and only then meeting them. When it comes to planetary beings, there is a similar process in absorbing the planetary lights and consequent transformations. Bardon's approach being better than every other grimoire in this aspect, it could still be said we have a rudimentary methodology, it trusts the magician has become really proficient and attentive to details, so as to elaborate what this becoming is with the precision of a metaphysical biologist. However, for some reason, I do not see these traits in most. I believe a detailed method is required to extract more of this process, and even more so when we may be teaching beginners. 

Just yesterday a frog was jumping against my wall. When I talked to it, it thought it was food, and by seeing how he jumped against the wall I thought the frog was stupid. Merging barriers, I realized none of us was right, we were completely lost in translation. And, a gnome is stranger than a frog. 

**PAA: Within the same *“Gnome Bottle”* module you also include alchemical phases such as *Lunar fermentation, Lunar calcination,* and producing a *Lunar stone.* How do these alchemical processes connect to Earth elemental beings, and are they meant as symbolic inner transformations, or as literal magical operations carried out in partnership with gnomes?**

None of the above. These alchemical transformations are still perceptual, between inner and outer. We are molding our perception piece by piece, softening certain human hard parts and hardening some soft ones to be able to get as close as possible to a gnome's constitution, in terms of elasticity. The mirrors above work the mind's eye on all three planes according to the gnome scale, the lunar operations work the astral senses on all three planes in similar fashion. 

**PAA: One advanced practice in the Earth sequence is called *“Working with gnomes on the mental plane.”* How do you guide students to actually meet and communicate with gnomes in this subtle realm, and what kind of knowledge or skills can these Earth beings transmit when approached in this way?**

The course advances as the students advance, so these lessons haven't yet been recorded, and I may change my mind about some methodology upon recording (in video courses, I like the inspiration of the moment to guide me). The method is quite simple, you separate your gnome mental faculties from your body, forming a gnome mental body, and descend in the spiral to the bottom of the earth, either it be the crust of the planet, the bottom of a mountain, or your courtyard, depending on what you seek to find and explore. The key, though, requires effort in escalating through the levels and lessons up to this point, for without developing such gnome mental organs, it is all in vain. As for the final part of the question, I never know what to answer. When I contact a being, I expect anything to happen. I suggest you do the same or you will taint the operation.    

**PAA: The module *“Materializing the gnomes”* goes a step further, suggesting that practitioners can bring these beings into direct, perceivable presence. Can you describe what “materializing” an elemental really means — is it a physical manifestation, a clairvoyant encounter, or an energetic impression — and what conditions make it possible for a student to achieve it?**

It is an energetic impression that causes a clairvoyant encounter, in turn, it manifests on the physical plane with physical effect, either directly or in posterior events. Now, there is a lot to tell on the conditions that must come through by experience. Again, developing the gnome body is essential, not only in terms of perception as we understand it, but because the perception of a gnome itself implies harnessing the forces of what it perceives. This harnessing will be essential. As well, their very perception causes alchemical processes not only in the one perceiving as in the perceived thing, and such alchemical operations are important for the materialization. The Mirror of Uranus is a key not to miss, coupled with the onyx mirror in which by fusing in polarity with the gnome to be materialized, a substance is generated that permeates time and space to reveal purpose, which implies the causing of phenomena.  

**PAA: In the *“Kindergarten”* lessons, students are taught to study natural features such as trees, erosion, rocks, wells, and even experiment with *“weather control with trees.”* How does engaging with these aspects of the Earth train the student to sense gnome presences in the environment, and how do the elementals themselves respond to such exercises in the landscape?**

This is "gnome gym". We are doing all these things via the gnome organs we developed, and the elements respond by way of opening up and adapting to the transformations that generally occur during a dance, in this case a dance with the practitioner. By studying matter in depth and extension simultaneously we find its source within the subtle planes, and gnome presence should be expected.  

**PAA: The curriculum includes a *“Gnome Mirror of Uranus.”* What is the significance of connecting Earth elementals with the planetary force of Uranus, and how does this mirror act as a magical tool for contacting or amplifying the presence of gnomes?**

This mirror is yet another organ of perception, not a mirror as generally understood on the physical plane. Do wait until we get to the alchemy levels, these will allow you a series of physical objects, with creativity setting the limit and law the modus operandi. This is yet no such thing as a physical mirror, but it is greater. This mirror of Uranus is the state of grace within the gnome state, in which every phenomena, every movement, reveals the living mindframe of Divine Will. So, we are not exactly connecting earth elementals with the sphere of Uranus, we are seeing how the earth element itself hides, and therefore reveals, Uranus. Also this is inconsequential in contacting and amplifying the presence of gnomes except as one of the stages of gnome materialization, which is a way to say a real materialization comes from Divine Providence directly. 

![](https://staging13.perseusarcaneacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/1000008306-768x1024.jpg)

**PAA: Another Earth lesson involves *“Consciousness transference to a solid, from a solid to time, and from time to time.”* Can you explain what this practice entails, and how merging consciousness with minerals or the temporal flow reveals the perspective of Earth elemental beings?**

That would be "consciousness transference to a solid; consciousness transference from a solid to time; and controlling time from inside a mineral." We as psychological sentient structures are used to perceiving time as something we walk through, and can't see the forest from the trees, yet solids understand time as something that flows around and through them. They are still. And from this stillness you can see the forest, you can see time and transfer your consciousness into it very much like you would transfer your consciousness into the vital fluid. Controlling time from inside a mineral or solid is about moving the flow of time backward or foreword, as you would in space move the vital fluid. You are not going back or forth in time, it is time that is going back and forth in you and around you. If it sounds like a rabbit hole in Wonderland, that is what this course is all about. The life perspective of Earth elemental beings is of merging with space, and space extends through time. The divine principle behind this element is omnipresence. Merging consciousness with minerals and the temporal flow is fundamental.  

**PAA: Later in the Earth sequence, students encounter *“Gnome colonies”* and *“Earth Quabbalah.”* How do you teach practitioners to experience gnomes not just as isolated beings but as collective intelligences, and what role does Quabbalistic work play in anchoring the magician’s contact with the Earth elementals?**

First, the gnome colonies. There are two ways to illustrate this. Look at the Himalayas, how do the peaks in the mountain range connect in terms of the consciousness flowing inside? How does your street and the one that squares it flow into one another? And how does every grain of tar hold together under your feet? Now look at your hand, what wilder consciousness is living inside its solid state? What is living inside the solid state of each of the pores in your hand? Engage the whole Himalayas deeply enough and you will find a gnome with a consciousness to match in astral substance the mass of the mountain range. Inside it, there is a gnome to match each peak. One for each grain of tar. One for your hand, and many within, for each pore. 

Engage directly in the elemental kingdom and you will find those lights that exist on top of gnome heads shining in the dark expanse, these represent their awareness. Enter them, and you will find they are spheres, and these spheres contain whole gnome kingdoms. Read my A Guide to the Elementals and you will find some descriptions of gnome colonies, but also more specifically how different vegetables work, from trees to mushrooms, in terms of the elemental colonies they compose.

Now, Quabbalistic work is the work of cosmic language, and everything is anchored in it. It is no surprise we can work with it to contact Earth elementals, but most importantly (because we already know how to contact Earth Elementals at this stage), we can work with it for anything, and learn it in greater depth through gnome quabbalists, the very unique way gnomes use it. 

**PAA: Moving to the Water curriculum, undines are introduced as the living beings of the element. What kinds of practices do you teach for invoking or perceiving undines — for example, meditations with natural water, scrying, or ritual invocation — and what qualities of wisdom or transformation do undines bring to the student who encounters them?**

Again, before thinking of invoking or perceiving undines, we must think of perceiving as undines. Meditation with natural water will certainly be present, scrying too, but ritual invocation is unlikely, unless an Undine asks me to include it. Undines seem to be indeed a bit more ritualistic than other elementals. But the point in this course is that you don't need ritual for anything. If you reunite the qualities of all sprites, you no longer need the theatricals to intermediate. Undines, most of all, teach a lifesaving ingredient of life, that in itself is the very core of life: surrender. Without it, the magician is but the visionary with a rope around their neck. 

**PAA: For the Air element, your course addresses sylphs as conscious beings of thought and movement. How are students instructed to approach and interact with sylphs? Do you emphasize breathwork, sky-gazing, and mental exercises, or do you also include ceremonial methods to call sylphs directly into awareness?**

The methodology will be similar from element to element. First, perceive as a sylph and so on, and work as a sylph works. But also, it will be important to transfix between the elements. This whole thing started when I attempted to transform my earth element body, as a gnome directly, to a water element body of an undine, and so on up to the akasha. This is considered impossible by most elementals. To do it (even if I cheated because I am not originally an elemental, just a travesti), meant total initiation and a journey from wise sprite to wise sprite to find the missing aspects. 

**PAA:The Fire sequence inevitably involves salamanders, who are known for their intensity and transformative force. What safeguards or preparatory steps do you teach students before attempting contact with salamanders, and what kinds of initiatory challenges or gifts typically arise when a magician successfully connects with them?**

First of all, when the practitioner eventually gets there, a long long way has been walked. Just in the earth element stage, for the sake of example, the practitioner has become a fully equipped alchemist. So most of the safeguards are in the robustness acquired. On the other hand, contact with elementals in this course, not being the main objective, happens almost naturally, since like attracts and sees like: the main objective is for the practitioner to be able to operate as an elemental him or herself.  

**PAA: Throughout the course, you emphasize that elementals are independent, conscious beings rather than mere forces. How do you train students to approach these intelligences with respect and discernment, and what are the key differences in practice between manipulating an element as energy and communing with an elemental as a living guide?**

We must start by addressing the issue of considering these two words, "mere forces", put together, and then comparing it with independent, conscious beings. Hermetically speaking, substance is a state of force, and force also a state of substance. In a way, all is force and all is substance, but this one thing expresses in two ways, from there in four ways, then eight, sixteen, thirty two, and so on. Hinduism explores the sixteen, thirty two, sixty four and further extensions quite well, but hermeticism derives mostly the plus and minus or electric fluid and magnetic fluid, the four elements, and then the two polarities of each element. So, if everything is force, "mere" is misplaced. Where there is force there is pattern generation, and pattern is also force, and this force is called consciousness, in which the force of consciousness is independence, force within force. It is another way to say all forces are conscious and independent. To consider otherwise is to accept firsthand a materialistic philosophy that exists in its own extreme, in which only quantity is real, and there is the quantity of force, the quantity of consciousness, and they, in an impossible paradox, touch not, wherefore I affirm the quality of force is consciousness, and the quantity of consciousness is force. 

That being said, in this course, we discern the beings by way of becoming equal, we respect them because we truly see them. Is it possible for there to still be abuse? I think so. It is enough to look at my country, where the celtiberians and lusitanians were so abused by the Romans and Christians that very much everything disappeared except the megalithic temples, that they also had to cover with chapels and churches, in order to baffle. The people that lived here were in deep alliance with the sprites, and sprites being made of the devil, spitting on the floor, making the sign of the cross, and everything everyone did a hundred times in one day was believed to exorcise them. Are the sprites still here? Oh yes, pretty much everywhere. It was the people that went blind to them, victims of their christian witchcraft, spells and superstition. That is, it is not so easy to abuse an elemental, you will likely end up just abusing yourself. 

Now, the last portion of the question is interesting because it goes back to the supposed dichotomy between force and consciousness. Truth is when we manipulate the elemental fluids, these fluids bear elemental intelligences. When we commune with an elemental as a living guide, this elemental inevitably bears elemental force. The difference is when we are simply moving the fluids we are not so aware of the intelligences. But if you become so aware of them, you will fair much better. 

**PAA: A challenge many practitioners face is distinguishing real contact with an elemental from imagination or projection. What criteria or “signs” do you teach for recognizing the authentic presence of a gnome, undine, sylph, or salamander, as opposed to a product of one’s own mind?**

I have been asked this question virtually in every interview I ever gave on occult topics, and by most students as well. I have always answered it differently but of the same mind. I enjoy answering it because there seems to be a lot of necessity for such an answer, and since I am the one being asked, I suppose my answer could now and then quench a thirsty person. Before getting practical I must first and foremost consider this question a philosophical one, or rather one that chooses the premise of a certain philosophy over all others. The matter is not so different than the one addressed when we came to force and consciousness. The philosophy implied is one in which reality and imagination are opposed. The thing is so appalling to all my senses and all my reason that I confess some intolerance, and thus confessed impotence, towards it. WIthout imagination there would absolutely be no consciousness of reality, in any of the three kingdoms, I must boldly put out. We can conjecture that without any reality to draw on, imagination would become vacancy of mind, but that is false, since this vacancy is in itself a reality, the reality imagined by a mind without further objects. If we consider the word projection instead of imagination, it might appear we are in more sound hands. However, again hermetically speaking, there comes another philosophical problem, in which I am reminded of Aleister Crowley's passage "Man is a microcosm: that is, an image (concentrated around the point of consciousness) of the macrocosm, or Universe. This Theorem is guaranteed by the hylo-idealistic demonstration that the perceptible Universe is an extension, or phantasm, of the nervous system. It follows that all phenomena, internal and external, may be classified for the purpose of discussing their observed relations, in any manner which experience may show to be the most convenient. (Examples: the elaborate classifications of science, chemical, physical, etc., etc. There is no essential truth in any of these aids to thinking: convenience is the sole measure.)" So, in a way, we can only be conscious of our own consciousness, and however, it follows, by Newton's principles, that something external must be the cause of its motion, even if by means of projection. But if we return to Hermeticism, the Corpus Hermeticum tells us “He who knows himself goes into the All, and having once embraced the All, he becomes one with the All, no longer himself but All, and thus he is in God” and "“If you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God. For like is understood by like. Make yourself grow to a greatness beyond measure, by a leap free yourself from the body… believe that nothing is impossible for you; consider yourself immortal and able to understand all things, all arts, all sciences, the nature of every living being… Then you will understand God.”

Such regards refer no longer to the limited self, but to the self that has become "light and life returned to Life", which we know as real Adepthood and integration of the four divine ecstasies, Godhood. If I am to take myself seriously, during my work, am I projecting elementaries from the limited self, or elementals and celestials from Divine Providence directly? If the first, I have forgotten all principles, for during the operation there is to be God, not me. So, you see, this is a matter of maturation. Whatever the case is, the main difference is in the universality of the beings. And yet, this is not exactly the concern of our course, at least not in its earlier stages. It tells if you do not make yourself equal to an elemental, you cannot understand and elemental. In making yourself equal to an elemental, there will be a visionary wildness in you that will substitute the dialogue of conscious/subconscious for ecstatic revelation, unlike the feeble dead ends of the egoic mind.  

**PAA: Beyond inner transformation, the curriculum hints at tangible outcomes — such as weather influence through trees, stability through Earth beings, inspiration through sylphs, or creative fire through salamanders. In your view, what kinds of practical magical results can arise from genuine alliances with elementals, and how should students ethically integrate those results into their lives?**

In extension, truly anything is possible. By experience I tell you many kind of "miracles" are a bit fun, but like a night drinking hard, you will likely wish to avoid repeating it for a while. Sprites appreciate truth, self-honesty, that is what is most ethical to them, irrespective of the element in question. They inspire the four divine ecstasies, all-power, all-knowing, ever-presence and omni-presence. All that does not move towards this should be avoided.  

**PAA: Why would someone pursue this course over MMI or other magical paths?**

Personally, I hope people do not pursue my courses over MMI, but along with MMI, except maybe when it comes to [The School of Visionary Hermeticism curriculum](https://courses.perseusarcaneacademy.com/b/the-school-of-visionary-hermeticism). This is because without introspection all magic is distraction. That being said, while MMI uses quality to change quantity, in the Elemental Magic course we work with the quantities to potentiate the segregation of the qualities. You cannot move from earth to water without surrender, from water to air without even greater surrender, and from air to fire, it takes a divine leap of faith. These things will be pushed forward alchemically, which means internal changes will occur regardless of how consciously you process them, whereas MMI ([Magic & Mystical Introspection](https://courses.perseusarcaneacademy.com/b/pJtvd)) is all about keeping consciousness by all means. Nevertheless, surrender requires you to reach that which is greater than yourself, and it will be your safeguard. The cherry at the top of the cake is traversing from fire to the Akasha, the final step of the elemental magic course, akin to the creation of the Lapis Sapientiae.

**PAA: Many thanks for providing more insight into the Elemental Magic Course. **

---