Theosophy - Nature-Spirits - by Nizida [likely - Louise Off]
NATURE-SPIRITS
OR ELEMENTALS
by
NIZIDA [Likely
Louise Off]
reprinted
from “Theosophical Siftings” Volume - 1
- 1889
" Life
is one all-pervading principle, and even the thing that
seems to die
and putrify but engenders new life and changes
to new forms of matter.
Reasoning, then, by analogy — il
not a leaf, if not a drop of water,
but is, no less than
yonder star, a habitable and breathing world,
common sense
would suffice to teach that the circumfluent Infinite,
which
you call space
— the boundless Impalpable which divides
the earth
from the moon and stars — is filled also with its
correspondent
and appropriate life." — ZANONI.
[Page
3] Within
the last fifty years the human mind has been awakening
slowly to the fact that there is a world, invisible to ordinary
powers of vision, existing in close juxtaposition to
the world cognised by our material senses. This world,
or condition of existence for more etherial beings, has
been variously called — Spirit-world, Summer-land,
Astral-world, Hades, Kama-loca, or Desire-world, etc.
Slowly and with difficulty do ideas upon the nature and
characteristics of this world dawn upon the modern mind.
The imagination, swayed by pictures of sensuous life,
revels in the fantastic imagery it attributes to this
unknown and dimly conceived state of existence, more
often picturing what is false than what is true. Generally
speaking, the most crude conceptions are entertained; these
embrace but two conditions of life, the embodied and
disembodied, for which there are only the earth and heaven,
or hell, with that intermediate state accepted by Roman
Catholics, called Purgatory. There is, therefore, for
such minds, only two orders of beings, i.e., mankind,
and angels or devils, categorically termed "spirits";
but what would be the mode of life of those "spirits", is
a subject upon which ordinary intellects can throw no
light at all. Their ideas are walled in by an impenetrable
darkness, and not a ray of light glimmers across the
unfathomable gulf lying beyond the grave; that portal
of death which, for them, opens upon unknown darkness,
and closes upon the light, vivacity, and gaiety of the
earth.
The idea that the beings we would term disembodied do actually inhabit
bodies of an aerial substance, invisible to our grosser senses, in a world
exactly suited to their needs, surpasses the comprehension of an ordinary
understanding, which can conceive only of gross matter, visible and
tangible. Yet science begins to talk of mind-stuff, or soul-substance, in
reality that etherial substance which ranks next to dense matter, and which
it wears as an external, more hardened shell. For there is space within [Page
4] space. Once realising the existence of an inner world, we shall find that
all our ideas concerning space, time, and every particular of our existence,
and the world we live in must become entirely revolutionised.
The
principal source of knowledge which has been opened in
modern times concerning the next state of existence has
revealed itself in a manner homogeneous to itself. It
has come by an interior method — a revelation
from within acting upon the without. The inner world, although
always acting upon and through its external covering, in
a hidden or veiled way, as from an inscrutable cause, has
manifested itself in a manner more overt and cognisable by
the bodily senses of man. At least that which has usually
been termed, with more or less awe, the "supernatural", the "ghostly", has
impinged upon the mental incrassation of sensual man as a
thing to be reckoned with in daily life; no longer to be
relegated to the region of vague darkness d'outre tombe.
Hence the human mind is being awakened to study and dive
into the depths of that life within life, wherein dwell the
disembodied, the so-called dead, the angels, and, per contra,
the devils. Those hidden aerial and etherial regions, wherein
the souls of
things, and beings, draw life from the bosom of Nature: wherein
they find their active habitat: wherein Nature keeps a store
of objects more wonderful, and infinitely more varied, than
serve for her regions of dense matter: wherein man can discern
the occult causes and beginnings of all things, even of his
own thoughts; and whereupon he learns, at length, that he
possesses the power of projecting by thought-creation forms
more or less endued with life and intelligence, which compose
his mental world, and with which he, as it were, "peoples
space". He
finds the sphere of his responsibilities immensely enlarged
by this new knowledge, of which he is taking the first honeyed
sips, delighted with the self-importance which the heretofore
unsuspected power of diving into the unseen seems to bestow.
If hitherto he has had to hold himself responsible for the
consequences of his external actions, that they should not
militate against the order of society as regards the laws
of morality and virtue, he has at least acted upon the impression
that his secret thoughts were his own, and
remained with him, affecting no one but himself; were incognisable
in their veiled chambers, and of which it was not necessary
to take any notice: the transitory, evanescent, spontaneous
workings of mind, unknown, and inscrutable, which begin and
end like the flight of a bird, whence coming and where going
it is impossible to know.
By the first faint gleams of the light of hidden wisdom, which are beginning
to dawn upon his mind, he now perceives that responsibility does not end
upon the plane of earth, but extends into the aerial regions of that inner
world where his thoughts are no longer secret, and where they affect the
astral currents, acting for the good or detriment of others to almost infinite
extent, That he may act upon the ambient atmospheres, not only [Page 5] of
the outer but inner planes of life, like a plant of poisonous exhalations, if his
thoughts be not pure and good; peopling unseen space with the outcome
of a debased mind, in the shape of hideous and maleficent creatures. He
becomes responsible, therefore, for the consequences of his mental
actions and thought-life, as well as those actions carefully prepared to
pass unchallenged before this world's gaze.
Diving into the unseen by the light of the new spiritual knowledge now
radiating into all minds, we learn that there are three degrees of life in man,
the material, the aerial, and the etherial, corresponding to body, soul, and
spirit; and that there are three corresponding planes of existence inhabited
by beings suited to them.
The
subject of our paper will limit us at present to the
aerial, or soul-plane — the next contiguous, or astral
world. The beings that more especially live in this realm
of the soul, have by common consent been termed "Elementals".
Nature in illimitable space teems with life in forms etherial,
evanescent as thought itself, or more objectively condensed
and solidified, according to the inherent attraction which
holds them together; enduring according to the force, energy,
or power which gave them birth; intelligent, or non-intelligent,
from the same source, which is mental. These spirits of the
soul-world are possessed of aerial bodies, and their world
has its own firmament, its own atmosphere and conditions
of existence, its own objects, scenes, habitations. Yet their
world and the world of man intermingle, interpenetrate, and "throw
their shadows upon each other",
says Paracelsus. Again, he says: "As there is in our world
water and fire, harmonies and contrasts, visible bodies and
invisible essences, likewise these beings are varied in their
constitution, and have their own peculiarities, for which
human beings have no comprehension".
Matter,
as known to men in bodies, is seen and felt by means
of the physical senses; but to beings not provided with
such senses, the things of our world are as invisible
and intangible as things of more etherial substance are
to our grosser senses. Elementals which find their habitat
in the interior of the earth's shell, usually called "gnomes" are
not conscious of the density of the element of earth
as we perceive it; but breathe in a free atmosphere,
and behold objects of which we cannot form the remotest
conception. In like manner exist the Undines in water, Sylphs in
air, and
Salamanders in fire". The Elementals of the Air, Sylphs,
are said to be friendly towards man; those of the water,
Undines, are malicious. The Salamanders can, but rarely do,
associate with man, "on account of the
fiery nature of the element they inhabit". The Pigmies (gnomes)
are friendly; but as they are the guardians of treasure they
usually oppose the approach of man, baffling by many mysterious
arts the selfish greed of seekers for buried wealth. We,
however, read of their alluring miners either by stroke of
pick, or hammer, or [Page
6] by
floating lights to the best mineral
" leads." Paracelsus says of these subterranean elementals
that they build houses, vaults, and strange-looking edifices
of certain immaterial substances unknown to us. " They
have some kind of alabaster, marble, cement, etc., but
these substances are as different from ours as the web
of a spider is different from our linen".
These
inhabitants of the elements, or "nature-spirits", may, or
may not be, conscious of the existence of man; oftentimes
feeling him merely as a force which propels, or arrests them;
for by his will and by his thought, he acts upon the astral
currents of the aerial world in which they live; and. by
the use of his hands he sways the material elements of earth,
fire, and water wherein they are established. They perceive
the soul-essence of man with its "currents and forms", and
they also are capable of reading such thoughts as do not
spiritually transcend their powers of discernment. They perceive
the states of feeling and emotions of men by the "colours and
impressions produced in their auras", and may thus irresistibly
be drawn into overt action upon man's plane of life. They
are the invisible stone-throwers we hear of so frequently,
supposed to be human spirits; the
perpetrators of mischief, such as destruction of property
in the habitations of men, noises, and mysterious nocturnal
annoyances.
Of
all writers upon occult subjects to whose works we have
as yet gained access, Paracelsus throws the greatest
light upon these tricky sprites celebrated in the realm
of poesy, and inhabiting that disputed land popularly
termed Fairydom. From open vision, and that wonderful
insight of the "master" or adept into the secrets of
nature, Paracelsus is able to give us the most positive
information concerning their bodily formation, the nature
of their existence, and other extraordinary particulars,
which prove that he has actually seen and observed them,
and doubtless also employed them as the obedient servants
of his purified will: a power into which the spiritual man ascends
by a species of right, when he has thrown off, or conquered,
the thraldom of matter in his own body, and stands open-eyed
at "the
portals of his deep within".
We
will quote certain extracts from the pages of this wonderful
interpreter of Nature. "There are two kinds of flesh.
One that comes from Adam, and another that does not come
from Adam. The former is gross material, visible and
tangible for us; the other one is not tangible and not
made from earth. If a man who is a descendant from Adam
wants to pass through a wall, he will have first to make
a hole through it; but a being who is not descended from
Adam needs no hole nor door, but may pass through matter
that appears solid to us without causing any damage to
it. The beings not descended from Adam, as well as those
descended from him, are organised and have substantial
bodies; but there is as much difference between
the substance composing their bodies as there is between
Matter and
Spirit. Yet the Elementals are not Spirits, because they
have flesh,
[Page
7] blood,
and bones; they live and propagate offspring; they
eat and talk, act and sleep, etc., and consequently
they cannot be properly called 'spirits'. They are
beings occupying a place between man and spirits, resembling
men and women in their organization and form, and resembling
spirits in the rapidity of their locomotion. They are
intermediary beings or Composita, formed out of two
parts joined into one; just as two colours mixed together
will appear as one colour, resembling neither one nor
the other of the two original ones. The Elementals
have no higher principles; they are therefore not immortal,
and when they die they perish like animals. Neither
water nor fire can injure them, and they cannot be
locked up in our material prisons. They are, however,
subject to diseases. Their costumes, actions, forms,
ways of speaking, etc., are not very unlike those of
human beings; but there are a great many varieties.
They have only animal intellects, and are incapable
of spiritual development".
In
saying the Elementals have "no higher principles", and "When
they die they perish like animals", Paracelsus does not stop
to explain that the higher principles in them are absolutely
latent, as in plants; and that animals in "perishing" are
not destroyed, but the psychical or soul-part of the animal
passes, by the processes of evolution, into higher forms.
"Each
species moves only in the element to which it belongs,
and neither of them can go out of its appropriate element,
which is to them as the air is to us, or the water to fishes;
and none of them can live in the element belonging to another
class. To each elemental being the element in which it
lives is transparent, invisible, and respirable, as the
atmosphere is to ourselves". "As far as the personalities
of the Elementals are concerned, it may be said that those
belonging to the element of water resemble human beings
of either sex; those of the air are greater and stronger;
the Salamanders are long, lean, and dry; the Pigmies (Gnomes)
are the length of about two spans, but they may extend
or elongate their forms until they appear like giants".
"Nymphs
(undines, or naiads) have their residences and palaces
in the element of water; Sylphs and Salamanders have no
fixed dwellings. Salamanders have been seen in the shape
of fiery balls, or tongues of fire running over the fields
or appearing in houses", or at physical séances
as starry lights, darting and dancing about.
"There
are certain localities where large numbers of Elementals
live together, and it has occurred that a man has been
admitted into their communities and lived with them for
a while, and that they have become visible and tangible
to him".
Poets,
in their moments of exaltation, have an unconscious soul-vision
before which Nature's invisible worlds lie like an open volume,
and they translate her secrets into language of mystic
meanings whose harmonies are re-interpreted by sympathetic
minds. The poet Hogg, in his "Rapture of
Kilmeny", [Page
8] would seem
to have had a vision of some such visit as that described
above, into the fairyland of pure, peaceful Elementals.
"Bonny
Kilmeny gaed up the glen" — and is represented as
having fallen asleep. During this sleep she is transported
to " a far countrye," whose
gentle, lovely inhabitants receive her with delight. The
following lines reveal the poet's power of inner vision,
as will be seen by the words italicised. They are in wonderful
accord with the descriptions given by Paracelsus from the
actual observation of a conscious seer: —
"They
lifted Kilmeny, they led her away,
And she walk'd in the light of
a sunless day;
The
sky was a dome of crystal bright,
The fountain of vision and fountain of light;
The emerald fields were of dazzling glow,
And the flowers of everlasting blow."
It
needs but a brushing away of the films of flesh, which
occurs in moments of rapt inspiration, for the soul,
escaping from its prison-house, to revel in the innocent,
peaceful scenes of its own inner world, and give a true
description of what it beholds. The inner meanings of things,
the symbolical correspondences are revealed in a flash
of light, and the poet-soul becomes revelator and prophet
all in one. He sets it down to imagination and fancy,
when he returns into his normal state, and it is what
we call "a
flight of genius", — the power of the soul to enter
its own appropriate world. Certainly "les âmes de boue" have
no such power. It is, however, a proof
that world exists, if we will but understand it
aright.
There
has never existed a poet with a truer conception of "elemental
life"
than Shakspeare. What more exquisite creation of the poet's
fancy, which might be every word of it true,
for in no particular does it surpass the truth, than that
of Ariel, whom the "foul witch Sycorax", "by help
of her more potent ministers, and in her most unmitigable
rage", did confine "into a
cloven pine”;
for Ariel, the good "elemental", was "a
spirit too delicate to act her earthly and abhorred commands".
When Prospero, the Adept and White Magician, arrived upon
the scene, by his superior art he liberated the delicate
Ariel, who afterwards becomes his ministering servant for good,
not for evil.
In
the "Midsummer Night's Dream"” Titania transports a
human child into her elemental world, where she keeps him
with so jealous a love as to refuse to yield him even to
her "fairy
lord", as Puck calls him. Puck himself
is almost as exquisite a realisation of "elemental" life
as Ariel. As Shakespeare unfolds the lovely, innocent tale
of the occupations, sports and pranks of this aerial people,
he introduces us to the elementals of his own beautiful thought
world; and, although indulging in the "sports of
fancy"; there is so broad a foundation of truth, that, being
enlightened by the revelations of Paracelsus, we no longer
think we are merely entertained by the poetical [Page
9] inventions
of a master of his art, but may well believe we have
been witnesses of a charming reality beheld through the "rift
in the veil" of the poet's unconscious inner sight.
Indeed, one of the tenets of occult science is that there
is nothing on earth, nor that the mind of man can conceive,
which is not already existent in the unseen world.
We
reflect in the translucence, or "diaphane" of
our mental world those concrete images of things which
we attract by the irresistible magnetism of desire working
through the thought. It is a spontaneous, unconscious mental
process with us; but there is no reason why it should not
become a perfectly conscious process regulated by a divine
wisdom to functions of harmony with nature's laws, and to
productions of beauty and beneficence for the good of the
whole world. As the world is the concreted emanation of Divine
Thought, so it is by thought that man, the microcosm, creates upon
his petty, finite plane. Given the desire — even if
it be only as the lightest breath of a summer zephyr upon
the sleeping bosom of the ocean, scarcely ruffling its surface — it
becomes a centre of attraction for suitable molecules of
thought-substance floating in space, which immediately "agglomerate
round the idea proceeding to reveal itself", by means of
clothing itself in substance. By these silent processes in
the invisible world wherein our souls draw the breath of
life, we form our mental world, our personal character, even
our very physical bodies. The perisprit, or astral
body, the vehicle for formless spirit, is essentially
built up from the mental life, and grows by the accretion
of those atoms or molecules of thought-substance which are
assimilable by the mind. Hence a good man a man of lofty
aspirations, forms, as the nearest external clothing
of his inner spirit, a beautiful soul-body, which irradiates
through and beautifies the physical body. The man of low
and grovelling mind will, on the contrary, attract the depraved
and poisoned substances of the lower astral world; the malarial
emanations thrown off by other equally depraved beings, by
which his mind becomes embruted, his soul diseased, whilst
his physical form presents in a concrete image the ugliness
of his inner nature. Such a man never ascends above the dense,
mephitic vapours of the sin-laden world, nor takes into his
soul the slightest breath of pure, vitalising air. He is
diseased by invisible astral microbes, being most
effectually self-inoculated with them by the operation of
desires which never transcend the earth. Did we lift the
veil which shrouds from mortal sight the elemental world
of such a moral pervert, we should behold a world teeming
with hideous forms, and as actively working as the bacteria of
fermentation revealed by a powerful microscope, elementals
of destruction, death, and decay, which must pass out into
other forms for the purification of the spiritual atmosphere;
creatures produced by the man's own thoughts, living upon
and in him, and reflecting, like mirrors, his hideousness
back again to himself. It is from the presence of innumerable
foci of evil of this kind that [Page
10] the
world is befouled, and the moral atmosphere of our planet
tainted.' They emit poisoned astral currents, from which
none are safe but those who are in the positive condition
of perfect moral health.
From
the Fountain of Life we draw in the materials of life,
and become, upon our lower plane, other living fountains,
which from liberty of choice, and freedom of will, have
the power of so muddying the pure stream, that in its
turbidness and foulness it becomes death instead of life,
and produces hell instead of heaven. When we, by self-purification,
and that constant mental discipline which trains us upwards,
clinging to our highest ideal by the tendrils of faith,
and love, and continual aspiration, as the vine would
cling to a rock — have eliminated all that is impure
in our thought world, we become fountains of life, and
make our own heavens, wherein are reflected only images
of divine beauty. The whole elemental world on our immediate
astral plane becomes gradually transformed during the
progress of our evolution into the higher spiritual grades
of being. And as humanity en masse advances,
throwing off the moral and spiritual deformity of the
selfish, ignorant Ego, the astral atmospheres belonging
to our planet world become filled with "elementals" of
a peaceful, loving character, of beautiful forms, and
of beneficent influences. The currents of evil force
which now act with a continually jarring effect upon
those striving to maintain the equilibrium of harmony
with Nature upon the side of good,
would cease. That depression, agitation, and distress which
now, from inscrutable causes, assail minds otherwise rejoicing
in an innocent happiness, forewarning them of some impending
calamity, or of some evil presence it seems impossible to
shake off, would become unknown. The horrible demons of War,
with which humanity, in its sinful state of
separateness, is continually threatening itself, — as
if the members of one body were self-opposed, and revolting
from that state of agreement that can alone ensure the well-being
of the whole — would no longer be held,
like ravenous bloodhounds chafing against their leashes,
ready to spring, at a word, upon their hellish work; but
they will have passed away, like other hideous deformities
of evil; and the serene astral atmospheres would no longer
reflect ideas of cruel wrongs to fellow-beings, revenge,
lust of power, injustice, and ruthless hatred. We are taught
that around an "idea" agglomerate the suitable molecules
of soul-substance — "Monads" as Leibnitz terms them,
until a concrete form stands created, the production of a
mind, or minds. All the hideous man-created beings, powers
or forces, which now act like ravaging pestilences and storms
in the astral atmospheres of our planet will have disappeared
like the monstrous phantoms of a frightful dream, when the
whole of humanity has progressed into a state of higher
spiritual evolution. It is well to reflect that each individual,
however humble and apparently insignificant his position
in the great human family, can aid by his life, by the silent
emanation of his pure and wise thoughts, as well as [Page
11] by
his active labours for humanity, in bringing nearer this
halcyon period of peace, harmony, and purity — that
millennium, in short, we are all looking forward to,
as a dream we can never hope to see realised.
In " Man: Fragments of
Forgotten History," we read: "Violence
was the most baneful manifestation of man's spiritual
decadence, and it rebounded upon him from the elemental
beings, whom it was his duty to develop"— those sub-mundanes, towards whom man is now learning
he incurs
responsibilities of which he is at present utterly
unconscious, but of which he will indubitably become more
and more aware as he ascends the ladder of spiritual evolution.
To
continue our extract from "Fragments": "When this
duty was ignored, and the separation of interests was
accentuated, the natural man forcibly realised an antagonism
with the elemental spirits. As violence increased in
man, these spirits waxed strong in their way, and, true
to their natures, which had been outraged by the neglect
of those who were in a sense their guardians, they automatically
responded with resentment. No longer could man rely upon
the power of love or harmony to guide others, because
he himself had ceased to be impelled solely by its influence;
distrust had marred the symmetry of his inner self, and
beings who could not perceive but only receive impressions
projected towards them,
quickly adapted themselves to the altered conditions". — (Elementals
as "forces", respond to
forces, or are swayed by them; man, as a superior force,
acts upon them, therefore, injuriously, or beneficially,
and they in their turn, poisoned by his baleful influence,
when he is depraved, become injurious forces to him by the
laws of reaction). — "At once nature itself took
on the changed expression; and where all before was gladness
and freshness there were now indications of sorrow and decay.
Atmospheric influences hitherto unrecognised began to be
noted; there was felt a chill in the morning, a dearth of
magnetic heat at noon-tide, and a universal deadness at the
approach of night, which began to be looked upon with alarm.
For a change in the object must accompany every change in
the subject. Until this point was reached there was nothing
to make man afraid of himself and his surroundings".
"And
as he plunged deeper and deeper into matter, he lost
his consciousness of the subtler forms of existence,
and attributed all the antagonism he experienced to unknown
causes. The conflict continued to wax stronger, and,
in consequence of his ignorance, man fell a readier victim.
There were exceptions among the race then, as there are
now, whose finer perceptive faculties outgrew, or kept
ahead, of the advancing materialisation; and they alone,
in course of events, could feel and recognise the influences
of these earliest progeny of the earth."
"Time
came when an occasional appearance was viewed with alarm,
and was thought to be an omen of evil, Recognising this
fear on the part [Page
12] of
man, the elementals ultimately came to realise for him
the dangers he apprehended, and they banded together to
terrify him". — (They reflected
back to him his own fears in a concrete form, sufficiently
intelligent, perhaps, to take some malicious pleasure
in it, for man in propelling into space a force of any
kind is met by a reactionary force, which seems to give
exactly what his mind foreshadowed. In the negative coldness
of fear, he lays himself open to infesting molecules
or atoms which paralyse life, and he falls a victim to
his own lack of faith, cheerful courage and hope). "They
found strong allies in an order of existence which was
generated when physical death made its appearance" (i.e.,
Elementaries, or Shells); "
and their combined forces began to manifest themselves
at night, for which man had a dread as being the enemy
of his protector, the Sun". [“Fragments of
Forgotten History”]
"The
elementaries galvanized into activity by the elemental
beings began to appear to man under as many varieties of
shape as his hopes and fears allowed. And as his ignorance
of things spiritual became denser, these agencies brought
in an influx of error, which accelerated his spiritual
degeneration. Thus, it will be seen that man's neglect
of his duty to the nature-spirits is the cause which has
launched him into a sea of troubles, that has shipwrecked
so many generations of his descendants. Famines, plagues,
wars, and other catastrophes are not so disconnected with
the agency of nature-spirits as it might appear to the
sceptical mind". [Fragments of Forgotten History]
It
is therefore evident that the world of man exercises
a controlling power over this invisible world of "elementals".
Even in the most remote and inaccessible haunts of nature,
where we may imagine halcyon days of an innocent bliss
elapsing in poetic peace and beauty for the more harmless
of these irresponsible, evanescent offspring of nature's
teeming bosom, they must inevitably, sooner or later,
yield up their peaceful sovereignty to the greater monarch,
man; who usually comes with a harsh and discordant influence,
like the burning sirocco of the desert, like the overwhelming
avalanche from the silent peaks of snow, or the earthquake,
convulsing and tearing to atoms the beauty of gardens,
palaces, cities. It is said that elementals "die";
it is presumable that at such times they die by myriads,
when the whole surface of the earth becomes changed from
the unavoidable passing away of nature's wildernesses, the
peaceful homes of bird and beast, as the improving, commercial,
money-grasping man — that
contradiction of God, that industrious destroyer, who lives
at war with beauty, peace, and goodness — appears upon
the scene. These may be called poetical rhapsodies: yet poetry
is, in a mysterious way, closely allied to that hidden truth
which has its birth on the soul-plane, and the imagination
of man is, according to Eliphas Lévi, a clairvoyant
and magical faculty — "the wand of the magician".
To
speak of elementals dying, is to use a word which
expresses for us [Page
13] change of
condition;
the passing from one sphere of life to another, or from
one plane of consciousness to another. This to the sensual
man is "death". But there is no death — it
is merely a passing from one phase of existence to another.
Hence the elementals lose the forms they once held, changing
their plane of consciousness, and appearing in other forms.
We
have shown somewhat of the mysterious way in which man
acts upon these invisible denizens of his soul-world,
and by which he incurs a certain responsibility. By the
dynamic power of thought and will it is done — as
everything is done. The elementals pushed by man, as by a
superior force, off that equilibrium of harmony with pure,
innocent nature, which they originally maintained when our
planet was young, have been transformed into powers of evil,
which man brings upon himself as retribution — the
reaction of that force he ignorantly sets in motion when
he breaks the beneficent laws of nature. Originally dependant
upon him, and capable of aiding him in a thousand ways when
he is wise and good, they have become his enemies, who thwart
him at every turn, and guard the secrets of their abodes
with none the less implacable sternness because they are
probably only semi-conscious of the functions they perform.
It is nature acting through them — the great Cosmic
Consciousness, which forbids that desecrating footsteps shall
invade the holy precincts of her stupendous life-secrets.
But to the spiritual man — the god — these
secrets open of themselves, like a hand laden with gifts,
readily unclosing to a favourite and deserving child.
Giving forth a current of evil, and sinking therefrom into a state of bestial
ignorance, man has enveloped himself in clouds of darkness which
assume monstrous shapes threatening to overwhelm him. A wicked man is
generally a coward, because he lives in a state of perpetual dread of the
reactionary effect of the evil forces he has set in motion. These are
volumes of elemental forms banded together, and swaying like the
thunderclouds of a gathering storm.
To
disperse these, his own spiritual mind must ray forth
the light reflected from the Source of Light — Omniscience.
In the astral atmospheres of the spiritual man, there
are no clouds, and fear is unknown. In the mental world
of the innocent and pure, those are only forms of gracious
beauty, as lovely as the shapes of nature's innocent
embryons, which reveal themselves in the forests, the
running streams, the floating breeze, and in company
with the birds and flowers, to the clairvoyant sight
of those nature-lovers before whom she withdraws her
veils, communing with their souls by an intuitional speech
which fills them with rapturous admiration. It is not
only the learned scientist who may read Nature's marvellous
revelations ; for she whispers them with maternal tenderness
into the open ears of babes, where they remain ever safe
from desecration, and are cherished as the soul's innocent
delights in hours of isolation from the busy, jarring
world.[Page
14]
The spiritual soul is ever looking beneath nature's material
veils for
correspondences. Every natural object means something
else to such penetrating vision — a vision which
begins to be spontaneously exercised by the soul when it
has fairly reached that stage of spiritual evolution;
and to this silent exploration many a secret meaning reveals
itself by object-pictures, which awaken reflection and
inquiry as to the why and wherefore. Thus the spiritual
man drinks, as it were, from nature's own hand the pure
waters of an inexhaustible spring — that occult knowledge
which feeds his soul, and aids in forming for him a beautiful
and powerful astral body. And Nature becomes invested to
his penetrating sight with a beauty she never wore before,
and which the clay-blinded eyes of animal man can never
behold. Such a man would enter the isolated haunts of the
purer nature-spirits with gentle footsteps, and loving
thoughts. To him the breeze is wafted wooingly, the streams
whisper music, and everything wears an aspect of loving
joyousness, and inviting confidence. Beside the rigid material
forms, he sees their "aromal counterparts”: every
thing is life; the very stones live, and have a consciousness
suited to their state: and he feels as if every atom of
his own body vibrated into unison with the living things
about him — as if all were one flesh. To injure
a single thing would be impossible to him. Such is the
soul-condition of the perfect man, to whom evil has become
impossible.
An
Adept has written — "Every thought of man upon being
evolved passes into another world and becomes an active entity
by associating itself — coalescing, we might term it — with
an Elemental — that is to say, with
one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms. It survives
as an active intelligence — a creature of the mind's
begetting — for
a longer or shorter period, proportionate with the original
intensity of the cerebral action which, generated it. Thus,
a good thought is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power,
an evil one as a maleficent demon. And so man is continually
peopling his current in space with the offspring of his fancies,
desires, impulses, and passions: a current which redacts
upon any sensitive or nervous organization which comes in
contact with it, in proportion to its dynamic intensity.
. . . The Adept evolves these shapes consciously, other men
throw them off unconsciously".
Therefore, man must be held responsible not only for his outward actions,
but his secret thoughts, by which he puts into existence irresponsible
entities of more or less maleficent power, if his thoughts be of an evil
nature. These are revelations of a deep and abstruse character; but would
they have come at all if man had not reached that stage of evolution when
it is necessary he should step up into his spiritual kingdom, and rule as a
master over his lower self, and as a beneficent god over every department
of unintelligent nature ?.
We
note the closing words of the Adept's letter; — "The
Adept evolves [Page
15] these
shapes consciously, other men throw them off unconsciously" In
the Adept's soul-world then — the man who has ascended,
by self-conquest primarily, into his spiritual kingdom,
and who has graduated through years of probation and
study in spiritual or occult science — i.e.,
the White Magician, the Son of God, the inheritor, by
spiritual evolution, of divinity
— there would reign peace, happiness, beauty, order,
absolute harmony with Nature on the side of good. No
discordant note, no deformed astral production to embarrass
or obstruct the current of divine magnetism he
emanates into space — the delicious, soul-purifying,
healing, and uplifting aura which radiates from him as
from a centre of beneficence to the lower world of struggling
humanity. The semi-intelligent forces of nature, the
innocent nature spirits, would, in such a soul-world,
find an appropriate and harmonious habitat, clustering
in waiting obedience upon the behests of a Master, whose
every thought-breath would be as an uplifting life.
To such a state and condition of complete harmony with God and Nature
must the truly perfect spiritual man ascend by evolution.
N.B.—"Nizida" has
quoted from "Man: Fragments
of Forgotten History."
The T.P.S. desires to say that while some of the statements
contained in that work are correct, there is also in it a
large admixture of error. Therefore, the T.P.S. does not
recommend this work to the attention of students who have
not yet learned enough to be able to separate the grain from
the husk. The same may be said of "Art-Magic".
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