Path: shell.portal.com!shell.portal.com!not-for-mail From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (mordred) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick Subject: Re: Origin of Directional Correspondences Date: 21 Feb 1995 12:13:11 -0800 Organization: Portal Communications (shell) Lines: 33 Sender: tyagi@shell.portal.com Message-ID: <3idhgn$nm5@jobe.shell.portal.com> References: <9502132020.AA01323@chaos.intercon.com> Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com Xref: shell.portal.com alt.magick.tyagi:2255 alt.magick:38531 [from alt.pagan: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker)] In article , aithne@cris.com writes: > I am curious to know where exactly people believe the > directional correspondences originate from. [...] > Also, I have heard, in passing, angels associated with > directions/elements, though I could not find, in my handy-dandy copy > of the Bible more than two angel referenced as such. Some of them are in the Apocrypha (or Deuterocanonical books, depending on your terminology). Esoteric and Eastern branches of Christianity have a much more detailed angelology than survived in Western mainstream Christianity. Directional correspondences are a common feature of most religions. However, the ones in general use today (east/air/yellow/dawn - south/fire/red/noon - west/water/blue/evening - north/earth/green/night) are basically from the Kabbalah and esoteric Christianity. This is also where the archangelic correspondences (Raphael/Uriel/Gabriel/Michael) come from. Interestingly, the earliest "quarter call" I have found historically documented occurs just before the Gospel in the Armenian Rite of the Catholic Mass... Gardner's "watchtowers" are essentially minor variations of this, though it shows up even more obviously in other magical frameworks (the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram being the most popular example). Peace, Amanda Walker