Usefulness of sensing the elements?

[FaithNoMore]

I want to develop my skills as a healer and being able to sense what's going on with somebody is important.

So I get that having the elements in balance within your body is a good thing to help keep you healthy and strong on multiple levels, and being able to sense when one is too strong or weak in yourself or another would be very helpful.

But beyond that what use is knowing that some object contains more of one element than other? What practical things could such a skill/sense help with?

I'm just drawing a blank here. It all seems like chemistry class all over again lol.

[alwayson4]

Many many useful applications are explained in "Energy Work" by Robert Bruce, especially in regard to healing

[FaithNoMore]

Granted I've only read about half the book so far and skimmed through the rest but I'm not seeing much on them. I see a handful of pages grand total covering what the elements qualities are, how to feel and create them, how some of their imbalances play out and a part on making an elemental shield. There is part called "Using Elemental Energy" in those pages which is a few paragraphs long and at one point says "Elements can be mixed for various purposes" but I'm not seeing where it goes into those purposes. IE what the water element can be used for, why combine elements together rather than working with them individually, how akasha comes into the picture?, etc etc. Things along like that I'd be interested to hear people's experiences with. I get the sense that not many people do not work with them though, at least not consciously with their intent.

[Korpo]

I guess that is more the material of Hermetic magic. Maybe Bardon has more on it in "Initiation into Hermetics"?

As far as I can see Robert's "Energy Work" only uses the elements to try to add qualities to the body that are missing for balance in the body (like lack of grounding is countered by the "lower" elements). He also mixes them for efficiency - both water and earth have grounding properties, so he combines them into feeling the sensation of wet clay to counter ungroundedness and thereby applying both elements to the problem.

IIRC that pretty much covers what "Energy Work" says about the elements. It then goes on to work with different visualisations instead.

Sorry I cannot help you more there, but I'm not into this.

Oliver

[Ouroboros]

Yes, Bardon goes a lot more in depth into the elements, in fact that plays a huge role in the theoretical portion of "Initiation Into Hermetics." It's a worthwhile read especially if you want more information about how the elements can be used.

[CFTraveler]

But because I like to explain things simply (sometimes too simply, lol) I'll give you a general idea.
Bardon's theory on elements (and Hermetics in general) is of the theory that everything corresponds to an element- everything has an elemental characteristic that describes it and could be said to metaphysically be contained in it. So when you study the elements in detail, you can theoretically reduce any condition to it's elemental attribute, and instead of attacking a problem as a problem directly, you can deal with the element that it corresponds to and the problem will become undone.
This is not unlike the theory that everything that exists in the physical can be described as an idea in the mind of God, and this idea manifests symbolically. If you can figure out the symbol, you can find out what the situation symbolizes and go with that approach, instead of putting the attention on the situation or problem.
Same idea, sort of.
I can go on and on about this, but I think you get the idea.