Lets go a little into the ritualistic aspect of it all... That is used in some religions, although not as many as one may think.
That is... Well, lets say we take a stone and we set it on the ground in specific place at specific time. If that is done when stuff aligns, it has effect that reverberates through different levels of wholeness, depending how many of them we can see aligned before doing it.
Then setting a stone on the ground can change a lot.

For that aspect to work it needs to either have good enough understanding what we are doing and why, or at least to sense when/how to align it.

Lets say a practitioner is drawing a 5 pointed star in the air saying something that they think will balance their elements. At this point, they may be better of just standing in a balanced posture at 5 minutes in my humble view. Because...
Lets say we do it in a dim room with candles around.  We don't have fire in any strong form anywhere around, if we are on artificial light or on candles, that element will not be in balance with the others. It may be in balance on a day with blazing Sun and windows that aren't preventing too much of the light to enter, but then one won't be doing stuff like that, as they will likely enjoy the nice sunny day, as comes naturally.

There isn't much water, no rivers or flowing water anywhere around. Earth seems to be what is mostly around, in processed form, as the walls, ceiling and the floor. Air is kinda there, yet from this air then to the lively air at the beach there is a great difference, so saying its enough to balance the Earth doesn't seem to make much sense.

Now, the practitioner draws the symbol in the air, focusing on the lack of the balance in the elements at the place they are doing it. Yet ironically thinking they will balance anything with that symbol alone at that time. Symbols drawn in the air and our believe, can not replace rivers or the Sun, otherwise we won't need power plants, we would just use enthusiastic individuals drawing symbols... And with the idea that symbol will protect them, unclear from what, also unclear if they seek connection how would that protection play a role in that.

Similar to going to a meeting with a machine gun, but wanting to connect to the people there. Most will stay as far away as possible, because can't have that much focus on protection and open up at the same time in the same situation.

What happens after won't work any better, but lets stop here and look what happens so far. The person is trying to ignore their surrounding and accomplish balance by imagining a symbol that suggests balance. Similar to repeating a mantra saying "i can fly" we won't be able to fly with it, will just reinforce in us, the fact we can't. If we search for ways to silence the believe system, like drugs or some practices, that still won't help us fly, as we can see from all practitioners doing it and the lack of flying abilities in any of them. Will just pull us away from the world around that has specific rules, no matter what we believe in.
In the same way, that symbol will not balance the elements at the place, because we can't do that without opening up to the place and working together with it. Then the balance will happen most easily with very simple stuff, like moving specific item and setting it.

So then, lets imagine a practitioners that can calculate or sense where the balance actually is. And instead of drawing stuff, that isn't needed at that point if they just go and sit there, they can gain that balance for themselves. But they can't impose will on the surrounding and then expect that surrounding to obey their symbology, because they don't understand it enough to be able to change it.

Similar to karma and money in the East, this is one of the things that is just too complex to go into, in my humble view. As it includes the initiations and other stuff... But this is a part of it, in my view, if one tries to impose will on existence and their environment, some stuff may work, but all will be more harmful then good for everyone in the situation, in most cases. There are other paths out there.