It has already been explained that the elemental essence which
surrounds us on every side is in all its numberless varieties
singularly susceptible to the influence of human thought. The action
of the mere casual wandering thought upon it, causing it to burst into
a cloud of rapidly-moving, evanescent forms, has already been
described; we have now to note how it is affected when the human mind
formulates a definite, purposeful thought or wish. The effect produced
is of the most striking nature. The thought seizes upon the plastic
essence, and moulds it instantly into a living being of appropriate
form--a being which when once thus created is in no way under the
control of its creator, but lives out a life of its own, the length
of which is proportionate to the intensity of the thought or wish
which called it into existence. It lasts, in fact, just as long as the
thought-force holds it together. Most people's thoughts are so
fleeting and indecisive that the elementals created by them last only
a few minutes or a few hours, but an often-repeated thought or an
earnest wish will form an elemental whose existence may extend to many
days. Since the ordinary man's thoughts refer very largely to himself,
the elementals they form remain hovering about him, and constantly
tend to provoke a repetition of the idea they represent, since such
repetitions, instead of forming new elementals, would strengthen the
old one, and give it a fresh lease of life. A man, therefore, who
frequently dwells upon one wish often forms for himself an astral
attendant which, constantly fed by fresh thought, may haunt him for
years, ever gaining more and more strength and influence over him; and
it will easily be seen that if the desire be an evil one the effect
upon his moral nature may be of the most disastrous character.
Still more pregnant of result for good or evil are a man's thoughts
about other people, for in that case they hover not about the thinker,
but about the object of the thought. A kindly thought about any person
or an earnest wish for his good will form and project towards him a
friendly artificial elemental; if the wish be a definite one, as, for
example, that he may recover from some sickness, then the elemental
will be a force ever hovering over him to promote his recovery, or to
ward off any influence that might tend to hinder it, and in doing this
it will display what appears like a very considerable amount of
intelligence and adaptability, though really it is simply a force
acting along the line of least resistance--pressing steadily in one
direction all the time, and taking advantage of any channel that it
can find, just as the water in a cistern would in a moment find the
one open pipe among a dozen closed ones, and proceed to empty itself
through that. If the wish be merely an indefinite one for his general
good, the elemental essence in its wonderful plasticity will respond
exactly to that less distinct idea also, and the creature formed will
expend its force in the direction of whatever action for the man's
advantage comes most readily to hand. Of course in all cases the
amount of such force it has to expend, and the length of time that it
will live to expend it, depend entirely upon the strength of the
original wish or thought which gave it birth; though it must be
remembered that it can be, as it were, fed and strengthened, and its
life-period protracted by other good wishes or friendly thoughts
projected in the same direction.
Furthermore, it appears to be actuated, like most other beings, by an
instinctive desire to prolong its life, and thus reacts on its creator
as a force constantly tending to provoke the renewal of the feeling
which called it into existence. It also influences in a similar manner
others with whom it comes into contact, though its _rapport_ with them
is naturally not so perfect.
All that has been said as to the effect of good wishes and friendly
thoughts is also true in the opposite direction of evil wishes and
angry thoughts; and considering the amount of envy, hatred, malice and
all uncharitableness that exists in the world, it will be readily
understood that among the artificial elementals many terrible
creatures are to be seen. A man whose thoughts or desires are
spiteful, brutal, sensual, avaricious, moves through the world
carrying with him everywhere a pestiferous atmosphere of his own,
peopled with the loathsome beings he has created to be his companions,
and thus is not only in sadly evil case himself, but is a dangerous
nuisance to his fellow-men, subjecting all who have the misfortune to
come into contact with him to the risk of moral contagion from the
influence of the abominations with which he chooses to surround
himself. A feeling of envious or jealous hatred towards another person
will send an evil elemental to hover over him and seek for a weak
point through which it can operate; and if the feeling be a persistent
one, such a creature may be continually nourished by it and thereby
enabled to protract its undesirable activity for a very long period.
It can, however, produce no effect upon the person towards whom it is
directed unless he has himself some tendency which it can foster--some
fulcrum for its lever, as it were; from the aura of a man of pure
thought and good life all such influences at once rebound, finding
nothing upon which they can fasten, and in that case, by a very
curious law, they react in all their force upon their original
creator. In him by the hypothesis they find a very congenial sphere of
action, and thus the Karma of his evil wish works itself out at once
by means of the very entity which he himself has called into
existence. It occasionally happens, however, that an artificial
elemental of this description is for various reasons unable to expend
its force either upon its object or its creator, and in such cases it
becomes a kind of wandering demon, readily attracted by any person who
indulges feelings similar to that which gave it birth, and equally
prepared either to stimulate such feelings in him for the sake of the
strength it may gain from them, or to pour out its store of evil
influence upon him through any opening which he may offer it. If it is
sufficiently powerful to seize upon and inhabit some passing shell it
frequently does so, as the possession of such a temporary home enables
it to husband its dreadful resources more carefully. In this form it
may manifest through a medium, and by masquerading as some well-known
friend may sometimes obtain an influence over people upon whom it
would otherwise have little hold.
What has been written above will serve to enforce the statement
already made as to the importance of maintaining a strict control over
our thoughts. Many a well-meaning man, who is scrupulously careful to
do his duty towards his neighbour in word and deed, is apt to consider
that his thoughts at least are nobody's business but his own, and so
lets them run riot in various directions, utterly unconscious of the
swarms of baleful creatures he is launching upon the world. To such a
man an accurate comprehension of the effect of thought and desire in
producing artificial elementals would come as a horrifying revelation;
on the other hand, it would be the greatest consolation to many
devoted and grateful souls who are oppressed with the feeling that
they are unable to do anything in return for the kindness lavished
upon them by their benefactors. For friendly thoughts and earnest good
wishes are as easily and as effectually formulated by the poorest as
by the richest, and it is within the power of almost any man, if he
will take the trouble, to maintain what is practically a good angel
always at the side of the brother or sister, the friend or the child
whom he loves best, no matter in what part of the world he may be.
Many a time a mother's loving thoughts and prayers have formed
themselves into an angel guardian for the child, and except in the
almost impossible case that the child had in him no instinct
responsive to a good influence, have undoubtedly given him assistance
and protection. Such guardians may often be seen by clairvoyant
vision, and there have even been cases where one of them has had
sufficient strength to materialize and become for the moment visible
to physical sight. A curious fact which deserves mention here is that
even after the passage of the mother into the devachanic condition the
love which she pours out upon the children she thinks of as
surrounding her will react upon the real children still living in this
world, and will often support the guardian elemental which she
created while on earth, until her dear ones themselves pass away in
turn. As Madame Blavatsky remarks, "her love will always be felt by
the children in the flesh; it will manifest in their dreams and often
in various events, in providential protections and escapes--for love
is a strong shield, and is not limited by space or time" (_Key to
Theosophy_, p. 150). All the stories of the intervention of guardian
angels must not, however, be attributed to the action of artificial
elementals, for in many cases such "angels" have been the souls of
either living or recently departed human beings, and they have also
occasionally, though rarely, been Devas.
This power of an earnest desire, especially if frequently repeated, to
create an active elemental which ever presses forcefully in the
direction of its own fulfilment, is the scientific explanation of what
devout but unphilosophical people describe as answers to prayer. There
are occasions, though at present these are rare, when the Karma of the
person so praying is such as to permit of assistance being directly
rendered to him by an Adept or his pupil, and there is also the still
rarer possibility of the intervention of a Deva or some friendly
nature-spirit; but in all these cases the easiest and most obvious
form for such assistance to take would be the strengthening and the
intelligent direction of the elemental already formed by the wish.
A very curious and instructive instance of the extreme persistence of
these artificial elementals under favourable circumstances came under
the notice of one of our investigators quite recently. All readers of
the literature of such subjects are aware that many of our ancient
families are supposed to have associated with them a traditional
death-warning--a phenomenon of one kind or another which foretells,
usually some days beforehand, the approaching decease of the head of
the house. A picturesque example of this is the well-known story of
the white bird of the Oxenhams, whose appearance has ever since the
time of Queen Elizabeth been recognized as a sure presage of the death
of some member of the family; while another is the spectral coach
which is reported to drive up to the door of a certain castle in the
north when a similar calamity is impending. A phenomenon of this order
occurs in connection with the family of one of our members, but it is
of a much commoner and less striking type than either of the above,
consisting only of a solemn and impressive strain of dirge-like music,
which is heard apparently floating in the air three days before the
death takes place. Our member, having himself twice heard this mystic
sound, finding its warning in both cases quite accurate, and knowing
also that according to family tradition the same thing had been
happening for several centuries, set himself to seek by occult methods
for the cause underlying so strange a phenomenon. The result was
unexpected but interesting. It appeared that somewhere in the twelfth
century the head of the family went to the crusades, like many another
valiant man, and took with him to win his spurs in the sacred cause
his youngest and favourite son, a promising youth whose success in
life was the dearest wish of his father's heart. Unhappily, however,
the young man was killed in battle, and the father was plunged into
the depths of despair, lamenting not only the loss of his son, but
still more the fact that he was cut off so suddenly in the full flush
of careless and not altogether blameless youth. So poignant, indeed,
were the old man's feelings that he cast off his knightly armour and
joined one of the great monastic orders, vowing to devote all the
remainder of his life to prayer, first for the soul of his son, and
secondly that henceforward no descendant of his might ever again
encounter what seemed to his simple and pious mind the terrible danger
of meeting death unprepared. Day after day for many a year he poured
all the energy of his soul into the channel of that one intense wish,
firmly believing that somehow or other the result he so earnestly
desired would be brought about. A student of occultism will have
little difficulty in deciding what would be the effect of such a
definite and long-continued stream of thought; our knightly monk
created an artificial elemental of immense power and resourcefulness
for its own particular object, and accumulated within it a store of
force which would enable it to carry out his wishes for an indefinite
period. An elemental is a perfect storage-battery--one from which
there is practically no leakage; and when we remember what its
original strength must have been, and how comparatively rarely it
would be called upon to put it forth, we shall scarcely wonder that
even now it exhibits unimpaired vitality, and still warns the direct
descendants of the old crusader of their approaching doom by repeating
in their ears the strange wailing music which was the dirge of a young
and valiant soldier seven hundred years ago in Palestine.