man. They have neither immortal souls nor tangible bodies; only astral
forms, which partake, in a distinguishing degree, of the element to
which they belong, and also of the ether. They are a combination of
sublimated matter and a rudimental mind. Some are changeless, but still
have no separate individuality, acting collectively so to say. Others,
of certain elements and species, change form under a fixed law which
Kabalists explain. The most solid of their bodies is ordinarily just
immaterial enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but
not so unsubstantial but that they can be perfectly recognized by the
inner or clairvoyant vision. They not only exist, and can all live in
ether, but can handle and direct it for the production of physical
effects, as readily as we can compress air or water for the same purpose
by pneumatic or hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation they are
readily helped by the 'human elementary.' More than this; they can so
condense it as to make to themselves tangible bodies, which by their
protean powers they can cause to assume such likenesses as they choose,
by taking as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory
of the persons present. It is not necessary that the sitter should be
thinking at the moment of the one represented. His image may have faded
away years before. The mind receives indelible impression even from
chance acquaintance, or persons encountered but once." (Pp. 310, 311,
vol. I.)
"If spiritualists are anxious to keep strictly dogmatic in their notions
of the spirit-world, they must not set _scientists_ to investigate their
phenomena in the true experimental spirit. The attempt would most surely
result in a partial re-discovery of the magic of old--that of Moses and
Paracelsus. Under the deceptive beauty of some of their apparitions,
they might find some day the sylphs and fair undines of the Rosicrucians
playing in the currents of _psychic_ and _odic_ force.
"Already Mr. Crookes, who fully credits the _being_, feels that under
the fair skin of Katie, covering a simulacrum of heart borrowed
partially from the medium and the circle, there is no soul! And the
learned authors of the _Unseen Universe_, abandoning their
"electro-biological" theory, begin to perceive in the universal ether
the _possibility_ that it is a photographic album of _En-Soph_ the
Boundless.--(P. 67, vol. I.)
"We are far from believing that all the spirits that communicate at
circles are of the classes called 'elemental' and 'elementary.'" Many,
especially among those who control the medium subjectively to speak,
write, and otherwise act in various ways, are human, disembodied
spirits. Whether the majority of such spirits are good or _bad_, largely
depends on the private morality of the medium, much on the circle
present, and a great deal on the intensity and object of their
purpose.... But in any case, human spirits can _never_ materialize
themselves in _propria persona_.[21]--(P. 67, vol. I.)
[Footnote 21: By which it is doubtless meant that the _full_
individuality is not present; the higher principles, the _true_ spirit,
having ascended to its appropriate house, from which there is no
attraction to earth. That which materializes would be an elemental, or
elementals molding their fluidic forms in the likeness of the departed
human being; or, on the other hand, considering and revivifying the
atomic remnants of the sidereal encasement, or astral body, still left
undissipated in the soul-world.]
In _Art Magic_ we find the following pertinent remarks, p. 322. "There
are some features of mediumship, especially amongst those persons known
as _physical force mediums_, which long since should have awakened the
attention of philosophical spiritualists to the fact that there were
influences kindred only with animal natures at work somewhere, and
unless the agency of certain classes of elemental spirits was admitted
into the category of occasional control, humanity has at times assumed
darker shades than we should be willing to assign to it. Unfortunately
in discussing these subjects, there are many barriers to the attainment
of truth on this subject. Courtesy and compassion alike protest against
pointing to illustrations in our own time, whilst prejudice and
ignorance intervene to stifle inquiry respecting phenomena, which a long
lapse of time has left us free to investigate.
"The judges whose ignorance and superstition disgraced the witchcraft
trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, found a solvent for
all occult, or even suspicious circumstances, in the control of 'Satan
and his imps.' The modern spiritualists, with few exceptions, are
equally stubborn in attributing everything that transpires in
spiritualistic circles, even to the wilful _cunningly contrived
preparations for deception_ on the part of pretended media, to the
influence of disembodied human spirits--good, bad, or indifferent; but
the author's own experience, confirmed by the assurances of
wise-teaching spirits, impels him to assert that the tendencies to
exhibit animal proclivities, whether mental, passional, or phenomenal,
are most generally produced by elementals.
"The rapport with this realm of beings is generally due to certain
proclivities in the individual; or, when whole communities are affected,
the cause proceeds from revolutionary movements in the realms of astral
fluid; these continually affect the elementals, who, in combination with
low undeveloped spirits of humanity (elementaries), avail themselves of
magnetic epidemics to obsess susceptible individuals, and
sympathetically affect communities."
In the introduction to _Isis Unveiled_, we find the following definition
of elementary spirits:
"Properly, the disembodied _souls_ of the depraved; these souls, having
at some time prior to death, separated from themselves their divine
spirits, and so lost their chance of immortality. Eliphas Levi and some
other Kabalists make little distinction between elementary spirits, who
have been men, and those beings which people the elements and are the
blind forces of nature. Once divorced from their bodies, these souls
(also called astral bodies) of purely materialistic persons, are
irresistibly attracted to the earth, where they live a temporary and
finite life amid elements congenial to their gross natures. From having
never, during their natural lives, cultivated this spirituality, but
subordinated it to the material and gross, they are now unfitted for the
lofty career of the pure, disembodied being, for whom the atmosphere of
earth is stifling and mephitic, and whose attractions are all away from
it. After a more or less prolonged period of time these material souls
will begin to disintegrate, and finally, like a column of mist, be
dissolved, atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.--(Preface xxx.,
vol. I.)
"After the death of the depraved and the wicked, arrives the critical
moment. If during life the ultimate and desperate effort of the
inner-self to reunite itself with the faintly-glimmering ray of its
divine parent is neglected; if this ray is allowed to be more and more
shut out by the thickening crust of matter, the soul, once freed from
the body, follows its earthly attractions, and is magnetically drawn
into and held within the dense fogs of the material atmosphere. Then it
begins to sink lower and lower, until it finds itself, when returned to
consciousness, in what the ancients termed Hades. The annihilation of
such a soul is never instantaneous; it may last centuries perhaps; for
nature never proceeds by jumps and starts, and the astral soul, being
formed of elements, the law of evolution must bide its time. Then begins
the fearful law of compensation, the _Yin-Youan_ of the Buddhists. This
class of spirits is called the terrestrial, or _earthly_ elementary, in
contradistinction to the other classes." (They frequent seance rooms,
&c.)--(P. 319, vol. I.)
Of the danger of meddling in occult matters before understanding the
elementals and elementaries, _Isis_ says, in the case of a rash
intruder:
"The spirit of harmony and union will depart from the elements,
disturbed by the imprudent hand; and the currents of blind forces will
become immediately infested by numberless creatures of matter and
instinct--the bad demons of the theurgists, the devils of theology; the
gnomes, salamanders, sylphs, and undines will assail the rash performer
under multifarious aerial forms. Unable to invent anything, they will
search your memory to its very depths; hence the nervous exhaustion and
mental oppression of certain sensitive natures at spiritual circles. The
elementals will bring to light long-forgotten remembrances of the past;
forms, images, sweet mementos, and familiar sentences, long since faded
from our own remembrance, but vividly preserved in the inscrutable
depths of our memory and on the astral tablets of the imperishable 'Book
of Life.'"--(P. 343, vol. I.)
Paracelsus speaks of _Xeni Nephidei_: "Elemental spirits that give men
occult powers over visible matter, and then feed on their brains, often
causing thereby insanity.
"Man rules potentially over all lower existences than himself," says the
author of _Art Magic_ (p. 333), "but woe to him, who by seeking aid,
counsel, or assistance, from lower grades of being, binds himself to
them; henceforth he may rest assured they will become his parasites and
associates, and as their instincts--like those of the animal
kingdom--are strong in the particular direction of their nature, they
are powerful to disturb, annoy, prompt to evil, and avail themselves of
the contact induced by man's invitation to drag him down to their own
level. The legendary idea of evil compacts between man and the
'Adversary' is not wholly mythical. Every wrong-doer signs that compact
with spirits who have sympathy with his evil actions.
"Except for the purposes of scientific investigation, or with a view to
strengthening ourselves against the silent and mysterious promptings to
evil that beset us on every side, we warn mere curiosity-seekers, or
persons ambitious to attach the legions of an unknown world to their
service, against any attempts to seek communion with elemental spirits,
or beings of any grade lower than man. _Beings below mortality can grant
nothing that mortality ought to ask._ They can only serve man in some
embryonic department of nature, and man must stoop to their state before
they can thus reach him.... Knowledge is only good for us when we can
apply it judiciously. Those who investigate for the sake of science, or
with a view to enlarging the narrow boundaries of man's egotistical
opinions, may venture much further into the realms of the unknown than
curiosity-seekers, or persons who desire to apply the secrets of being
to selfish purposes. It may be as well also for man to remember that he
and his planet are not _the all_ of being, and that, besides the
revelations included in the stupendous outpouring called 'Modern
Spiritualism,' there are many problems yet to be solved in human life
and planetary existences, which spiritualism does not cover, nor
ignorance and prejudice dream of.... Besides these considerations, we
would warn man of the many subtle, though invisible, enemies which
surround him, and, rather by the instinct of their embryonic natures
than through _malice prepense_, seek to lay siege to the garrison of the
human heart. We would advise him, moreover, that into that sacred
entrenchment no power can enter, save by invitation of the soul itself.
Angels may solicit, or demons may tempt, but none can compel the spirit
within to action, unless it first surrenders the _will_ to the investing
power."--(_Art Magic_, p. 335.)
From the _Theosophist_ of July 1886, we make the following extract,
bearing upon the subject of the loss of immortality by soul-death, and
the dangers of Black Magic:
"It is necessary to say a few words as regards the real nature of
soul-death, and the ultimate fate of a black magician. The soul, as we
have explained above, is an isolated drop in the ocean of cosmic life.
This current of cosmic life is but the light and the aura of the Logos.
Besides the Logos, there are innumerable other existences, both
spiritual and astral, partaking of this life and living in it. These
beings have special affinities with particular emotions of the human
soul, and particular characteristics of the human mind. They have, of
course, a definite individual existence of their own, which lasts up to
the end of the Manwantara. There are three ways in which a soul may
cease to retain its special individuality. Separated from its Logos,
which is, as it were, its source, it may not acquire a strong and
abiding individuality of its own, and may in course of time be
reabsorbed into the current of universal life. This is real soul-death.
It may also place itself _en rapport_ with a spiritual or elemental
existence by evoking it, and concentrating its attention and regard upon
it for purposes of black magic and Tantric worship. In such a case it
transfers its individuality to such existence and is sucked up into it,
as it were. In such a case the black magician lives in such a being, and
as such a being he continues until the end of Manwantara."
A good deal of highly interesting information on the subject of
elementals and elementaries is to be found in numbers of _The Path_. A
few of the points contained in these articles may be mentioned here, but
the reader is strongly recommended to study these articles, entitled
_Conversations on Occultism_, for himself. According to the writer:
An elemental is a center of force, without intelligence, as we
understand the word, without moral character or tendencies similar to
ours, but capable of being directed in its movements by human thoughts,
which may, consciously or not, give it any form, and endow it to a
certain extent with what we call intelligence. We give them form by a
species of thought which the mind does not register--involuntary and
unconscious thought--"as, one person might shape an elemental so as to
seem like an insect, and not be able to tell whether he had thought of
such a thing or not." The elemental world interpenetrates this one, and
elementals are constantly being attracted to, or repelled from, human
beings, taking the prevailing color of their thoughts. Time and space,
as we understand them, do not exist for elementals. They can be seen
clairvoyantly in the shapes they assume under different influences, and
they do many of the phenomena of the seance room. Light and the
concentrated attention of any one make a disturbance in the magnetism of
a room, interfering with their work in that respect. At seances
elementaries also are present; these are shells, or half-dead human
beings. The elementaries are not all bad, however, but the worst are the
strongest, because the most attracted to material life. They are all
helped and galvanized into action by elementals.
Contact with these beings has a deteriorating effect in all cases.
Clairvoyants see in the astral light surrounding a person the images of
people or events that have made an impression on that person's mind, and
they frequently mistake these echoes and reflections for astral
realities; only the trained seer can distinguish. The whole astral world
is full of illusions.
Elementals have not got _being_ such as mortals have. There are
different classes for the different planes of nature. Each class is
confined to its own plane, and many can never be recognized by men. The
elemental world is a strong factor in Karma. Formerly, when men were
less selfish and more spiritual, the elementals were friendly. They have
become unfriendly by reason of man's indifference to, and want of
sympathy with the rest of creation. Man has also colored the astral
world with his own selfish and brutal thoughts, and produced an
atmosphere of evil which he himself breathes. When men shall cultivate
feelings of brotherly affection for each other, and of sympathy with
nature, the elementals will change their present hostile attitude for
one of helpfulness.
Elementals aid in the performance of phenomena produced by adepts. They
also enter the sphere of unprotected persons, and especially of those
who study occultism, thus precipitating the results of past Karma.
The adepts are reluctant to speak of elementals for two reasons. Because
it is useless, as people could not understand the subject in their
present state of intellectual and spiritual development; and because, if
any knowledge of them were given, some persons might be able to come
into contact with them to their own detriment and that of the world. In
the present state of universal selfishness and self-seeking, the
elementals would be employed to work evil, as they are in themselves
colorless, taking their character from those who employ them. The
adepts, therefore, keep back or hide the knowledge of these beings from
men of science, and from the world in general. By-and-by, however,
material science will rediscover black magic, and then will come a war
between the good and evil powers, and the evil powers will be overcome,
as always happens in such cases. Eventually all about the elementals
will be known to men--when they have developed intellectually, morally,
and spiritually sufficiently to have that knowledge without danger.
Elementals guard hidden treasures; they obey the adepts, however, who
could command the use of untold wealth if they cared to draw upon these
hidden deposits.
N. B.--Nizida has quoted from _Man: Fragments of Forgotten
History_. The S. 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 S. 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_.
A WITCH'S DEN
BY MME. HELENA BLAVATSKY
Our kind host Sham Rao was very gay during the remaining hours of our
visit. He did his best to entertain us, and would not hear of our
leaving the neighborhood without having seen its greatest celebrity, its
most interesting sight. A _jadu wala_--sorceress--well known in the
district, was just at this time under the influence of seven
sister-goddesses, who took possession of her by turns, and spoke their
oracles through her lips. Sham Rao said we must not fail to see her, be
it only in the interests of science.
The evening closes in, and we once more get ready for an excursion. It
is only five miles to the cavern of the Pythia of Hindostan; the road
runs through a jungle, but it is level and smooth. Besides, the jungle
and its ferocious inhabitants have ceased to frighten us. The timid
elephants we had in the "dead city" are sent home, and we are to mount
new behemoths belonging to a neighboring Raja. The pair that stand
before the verandah like two dark hillocks are steady and trustworthy.
Many a time these two have hunted the royal tiger, and no wild shrieking
or thunderous roaring can frighten them. And so, let us start! The ruddy
flames of the torches dazzle our eyes and increase the forest gloom.
Our surroundings seem so dark, so mysterious. There is something
indescribably fascinating, almost solemn, in these night-journeys in the
out-of-the-way corners of India. Everything is silent and deserted
around you, everything is dozing on the earth and overhead. Only the
heavy, regular tread of the elephants breaks the stillness of the night,
like the sound of falling hammers in the underground smithy of Vulcan.
From time to time uncanny voices and murmurs are heard in the black
forest.
"The wind sings its strange song amongst the ruins," says one of us,
"what a wonderful acoustic phenomenon!"
"Bhuta, bhuta!" whisper the awestruck torch-bearers. They brandish their
torches and swiftly spin on one leg, and snap their fingers to chase
away the aggressive spirits.
The plaintive murmur is lost in the distance. The forest is once more
filled with the cadences of its invisible nocturnal life--the metallic
whirr of the crickets, the feeble, monotonous croak of the tree-frog,
the rustle of the leaves. From time to time all this suddenly stops
short and then begins again, gradually increasing and increasing.
Heavens! What teeming life, what stores of vital energy are hidden under
the smallest leaf, the most imperceptible blades of grass, in this
tropical forest! Myriads of stars shine in the dark blue of the sky, and
myriads of fireflies twinkle at us from every bush, moving sparks, like
a pale reflection of the far-away stars.
* * * * *
We left the thick forest behind us, and reached a deep glen, on three
sides bordered with the thick forest, where even by day the shadows are
as dark as by night. We were about two thousand feet above the foot of
the Vindhya ridge, judging by the ruined wall of Mandu, straight above
our heads.
Suddenly a very chilly wind rose that nearly blew our torches out.
Caught in the labyrinth of bushes and rocks, the wind angrily shook the
branches of the blossoming syringas, then, shaking itself free, it
turned back along the glen and flew down the valley, howling, whistling
and shrieking, as if all the fiends of the forest together were joining
in a funeral song.
"Here we are," said Sham Rao, dismounting. "Here is the village; the
elephants cannot go any further."
"The village? Surely you are mistaken. I don't see anything but trees."
"It is too dark to see the village. Besides, the huts are so small, and
so hidden by the bushes, that even by daytime you could hardly find
them. And there is no light in the houses, for fear of the spirits."
"And where is your witch? Do you mean we are to watch her performance in
complete darkness?"
Sham Rao cast a furtive, timid look round him; and his voice, when he
answered our questions, was somewhat tremulous.
"I implore you not to call her a witch! She may hear you.... It is not
far off, it is not more than half a mile. Do not allow this short
distance to shake your decision. No elephant, and not even a horse,
could make its way there. We must walk.... But we shall find plenty of
light there...."
This was unexpected, and far from agreeable. To walk in this gloomy
Indian night; to scramble through thickets of cactuses; to venture in a
dark forest, full of wild animals--this was too much for Miss X--. She
declared that she would go no further. She would wait for us in the
howdah on the elephant's back, and perhaps would go to sleep.
Narayan was against this _parti de plaisir_ from the very beginning, and
now, without explaining his reasons, he said she was the only sensible
one among us.
"You won't lose anything," he remarked, "by staying where you are. And I
only wish every one would follow your example."
"What ground have you for saying so, I wonder?" remonstrated Sham Rao,
and a slight note of disappointment rang in his voice, when he saw that
the excursion, proposed and organized by himself, threatened to come to
nothing. "What harm could be done by it? I won't insist any more that
the 'incarnation of gods' is a rare sight, and that the Europeans hardly
ever have an opportunity of witnessing it; but, besides, the Kangalim in
question is no ordinary woman. She leads a holy life; she is a
prophetess, and her blessing could not prove harmful to any one. I
insisted on this excursion out of pure patriotism."
"Sahib, if your patriotism consists in displaying before foreigners the
worst of our plagues, then why did you not order all the lepers of your
district to assemble and parade before the eyes of our guests? You are a
_patel_, you have the power to do it."
How bitterly Narayan's voice sounded to our unaccustomed ears. Usually
he was so even-tempered, so indifferent to everything belonging to the
exterior world.
Fearing a quarrel between the Hindus, the colonel remarked, in a
conciliatory tone, that it was too late for us to reconsider our
expedition. Besides, without being a believer in the "incarnation of
gods," he was personally firmly convinced that demoniacs existed even in
the West. He was eager to study every psychological phenomenon, wherever
he met with it, and whatever shape it might assume.
It would have been a striking sight for our European and American
friends if they had beheld our procession on that dark night. Our way
lay along a narrow winding path up the mountain. Not more than two
people could walk together--and we were thirty, including the
torch-bearers. Surely some reminiscence of night sallies against the
Confederate Southerners had revived in the colonel's breast, judging by
the readiness with which he took upon himself the leadership of our
small expedition. He ordered all the rifles and revolvers to be loaded,
despatched three torch-bearers to march ahead of us, and arranged us in
pairs. Under such a skilled chieftain we had nothing to fear from
tigers; and so our procession started, and slowly crawled up the winding
path.