The fifth element is Spirit, also called Ether/ Space. In Sanskrit (the most refined and precise human language ever invented) Ether is Akasha, from the “akashic records,” which is a record of all knowledge pertaining to the material plane, existing in the astral world.

Ether is space, stillness, that which contains and holds. Ether is the element connecting us to spirit and intuition. The Ether element has no direction, yet encompasses all directions. It is the celestial energy that fills all spaces. It is beyond seasons and time, yet is all seasons and time. Ether is the pure spiritual element, the realm of the All. It is protection and justice, movement and mastery, life and death and rebirth. It is often symbolised by the turning wheel, the sign of Infinity. The Spirit element does not follow any particular rule of energy, but rather IS the rule.

Ancient Greeks saw Ether as being higher than the Earth Plane and also felt that Ether played a role in well-known phenomena like gravity. To the medieval alchemists, it was the philosopher’s stone that could turn lead into gold and prolong life. Aristotle brought this concept of heavenly air into the world of physics. His philosophy saw Ether as the 5th element, after earth, air, fire, and water. He believed the 4 terrestrial elements were changeable and transient, but the planets and stars were eternal and must be made of a different substance that transcended the earthly four. He called it Aether.

In Plato’s theory of the cosmos, he names different kinds of air and “the brightest part is called the aether.” Early modern scientists René Descartes and Nikola Tesla pointed to aether to explain fundamental natural phenomena like gravity and light. Descartes reasoned that empty space cannot be empty at all and must be filled with something. He believed that something was aether.

More recently, the spirit of aether has come back to the discussion of cosmos, thanks to the mysterious discoveries of dark matter and dark energy, the elusive force believed to be the cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe. Perhaps Ether will help to fill the gaps of understanding this new invisible, imponderable energy.