Elemental (spirit)

“ Elementals formed unconsciously.
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. ”

“ Such elementals are formed out of the elemental essence lying behind the mineral kingdom. It is the monadic essence, or material used in creation, or it may be called the outpouring of Divine force into matter. This elemental essence is marvelously sensitive to human thought, however fleeting. It responds instantly to the vibrations set up consciously or unconsciously by human will or desire. ”

“ Materialism: all the phenomena of the world are founded upon material processes. Yet matter did not originally exist alone and then secondarily create force or mind. (6) Spiritualism: feeling is as fundamental a property of the atom as is attraction or repulsion. Every 'spirit' is inseparably united with some 'matter.' Yet force did not originally exist and then secondarily create matter. (7) The 'belief in immortality' is scientifically tenable only as a general proposition equivalent to the conservation of energy. The 'human soul' is simply a transient, developmentary phenomenon. ”

“ From this we may infer that the Elementals, properly speaking, are the Soul-forms of the elements they inhabit—the activities and energies of the world-soul differentiated into forms, endowed with more or less consciousness and capacities for feeling, and hours of enjoyment, or pain. But these, never or rarely, entering any more deeply into dense matter than enabled so to do by their aerial invisible bodies, do not appear upon our gross physical plane otherwise than as forces, energies, or influences. ”

“ When we read of a good or evil elemental, it must always be either an artificial entity or one of the many varieties of nature-spirits that is meant, for the elemental kingdoms proper do not admit of any such conceptions as good and evil. ”

“ The alchemist realizes that he himself is the Philosopher’s Stone, and that this stone is made diamond-like when the salt and the sulphur, or the spirit and the body, are united through mercury, the link of mind. Man is the incarnated principle of mind as the animal is of emotion. He stands with one foot on the heavens and the other on the earth. His higher being is lifted to the celestial spheres, but the lower man ties him to matter. Now the philosopher, building his sacred stone, is doing so by harmonizing his spirit and his body. The result is the Philosopher’s Stone. ”

“ Neither can I imagine, that an Immaterial substance, being without body, can have such a great strength, as to grapple with gross, heavy, dull, and dead Matter; Certainly, in my opinion, no Angel, nor Devil, except God Impower him, would be able to move corporeal Matter, were it not self-moving, much less any Natural Spirit. But God is a Spirit, and Immovable; and if created natural Immaterial participate of that Nature, as they do of the Name, then they must be Immovable also. Your Author, Madam, may make many several degrees of Spirits ”

“ Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in that, more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the body?—than the retention of that soul within that body by the breathing of material air, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists were right, and the soul were but a material product or energy of the nerves, and the sole law of the universe the laws of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more rational? ”

“ Neither am I against those Spirits, which the holy Scripture mentions, as Angels and Devils, and the divine Soul of Man; but I say onely, that no Immaterial Spirit belongs to Nature, so as to be a part thereof; for Nature is Material, or Corporeal; and whatsoever is not composed of matter or body, belongs not to Nature; nevertheless, Immaterial Spirits may be in Nature, although not parts of Nature. But there can neither be an Immaterial Nature, nor a Natural Immaterial; Nay, our very thoughts and conceptions of Immaterial are Material, as made of self-moving Matter. ”

“ Are they perhaps agglomerations of such monads as I have described and thus the media by means of which the highest spiritual powers perform their work?
We find the Elementals under all forms of existence, as mere natural forces, totally, to our perceptions, destitute of any self-conscious life; we find them also attaining a form very near the human. ”

“ It is for us, who have learnt a little more than they, to strive ever to think the high and holy thoughts which cause the evolution of a finer kind of elemental matter, and so to work in a field where at present the labourers are far too few. ”

“ What evidence does mortal mind afford that matter is substantial, is hot or cold? Take away mortal mind, and matter could not feel what it calls substance. Take away matter, and mortal mind could not cognize its own so-called substance, and this so-called mind would have no identity. Nothing would remain to be seen or felt.
What is substance? What is the reality of God and the universe? Immortal Mind is the real substance,—Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. ”

“ AN INTERMEDIARY ELEMENTAL SOUL IS ALSO INADMISSIBLE.
It is also absurd to see them introduce into the world, after the universal Soul, another soul said to be composed of elements. How could a composition of elements possess life? A mixture of elements does not produce heat or cold, humidity or dryness, or any combination thereof. ”

“ Thus in presence of the problem which is the crux of materialism, the origin of consciousness, he first propounds a gratuitous hypothesis that everything has mind, and then gives up the origin of conscious mind after all. He is certain, however, that the law of substance somehow proves that conscious soul is a mere function of brain, that soul is a function of all substances, and that God is the force or energy, or soul or spirit, of nature. ”

“ Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal self-existent Mind; material sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as something separate from God. Science reveals Spirit as all, averring that there is nothing beside God; material sense says that matter, His antipodes, is something besides God. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and Good. ”

“ A mind containing, or capable of containing something foreign within itself, and not merely one foreign substance, but a multitude of foreign substances, at the same moment, is no longer that simple indivisible existence, which we termed spirit. Any of the elementary atoms of matter is, indeed, more truly spiritual; the very notion of recipiency of any kind, being as little consistent with our notion of mind, as the notion of hardness or squareness. ”

“ Only a spiritual substance is able to unite spiritual substances. And only a material substance is able to unite material substances. Thus we are justified in assuming that while the medium which unites all bodies is the universal body of the elemental soul, the medium which unites all souls is the omnipresent soul-monad of this elemental being. ”

“ There seems to be a necessity in spirit to manifest itself in material forms; and day and night, river and storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali, preexist in necessary Ideas in the mind of God, and are what they are by virtue of preceding affections, in the world of spirit. ”

“ We give [Pg 255] 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. ”

“ This universal substance reveals to us two different aspects, two fundamental attributes: matter, the infinite extended substance-stuff, and mind (Geist) , the all-embracing substance-energy. It is God and nature at the same time; body and mind (or matter and energy) are inseparably connected. [17] God is not an external being, acting from without, but a divine power or moving spirit, the cosmos itself; the phenomena of surrounding nature, organic as well as inorganic, are merely different products of one and the same original force, different combinations of one and the same original matter. ”

“ So by slow degrees the thoughts, not only of man, but also of nature-spirits and devas, and even of animals so far as they do think, are evolving the elemental essence which surrounds them — slowly teaching here a few atoms, and there a few atoms, to respond to this or that different rate of oscillation, until at last a stage will be reached when all the particles of the essence shall be ready to answer at any moment to any possible rate of vibration, and that will be the completion of their evolution. ”

“ For the assumed substantial entity, spirit, which is supposed to underlie the phenomena of consciousness, as matter underlies those of physical nature, leaves not even a geometrical ghost when these phenomena are abstracted. And, even if we suppose the existence of such an entity apart from qualities—that is to say, a bare existence—for mind; how does anybody know that it differs from that other entity, apart from qualities, which is the supposed substratum of matter? Spiritualism is, after all, little better than Materialism turned upside down. ”

“ These substances are Divine in their nature and origin. They become spiritual as they recede from their source and form the atmospheres and earths of the spiritual world. They become a world distinct by itself, composed of spiritual substances and possessing all the excellences that belong to spirit. It is a mental world where the objects are thoughts, the forces are love in an infinite variety of forms. It is a world in which their environment is determined by the inhabitants, and consequently is perfectly adjusted to them. ”

“ Chemistry has already revealed the wonderful fact that no ultimate atom can perish. The subtle chemistry of Spiritualism steps in where science ceases, gathering up the ultimate atoms of thought into a spiritual entity and proving them imperishable. Already has this thought pervaded the popular mind, tinged the decaying forms of theology and external science with its glow, and made the life of man a heritage of immortal glory. ”

“ Now they belong to the creative essence, and now to the material-dynamic world. First they have one aspect, then another. The greatest god has both aspects. First he is the source of life. Then he is mystic dynamic lord of the elemental physical forces. ”

“ Is everything material? or is EVERYTHING spiritual? Can the distinctions we make between matter and spirit be nothing but relative modifications of one or the other? Thought which, although a product of the spirit, can be defined with positive science, is matter, but of fine and not coarse substance. Is whatever cannot be touched with the hand, spiritual? ”

“ What, after all, he exclaims, do we know of matter but as a something which possesses certain influences over us?—a something which is utterly unrepresented to us by the senses. And now this word "substance," which formerly expressed a thing so well known, and every moment handled and looked at, is transformed to an invisible, intangible, imperceptible substratum—an unknown upholder of certain qualities, or, in more exact language, an unseen power clothing itself in our attributes—an existence far more resembling what is popularly understood by spirit than by matter. ”

“ I answer, because I knew that 'spirit and element inseparately connected receiveth a fullness of joy.' I was then to get in touch with 'element' as I had been with 'spirit.' This world which I see with my natural eyes is the 'natural' part of Mother Earth, even as the flesh and bones and blood of my body is the element of myself, to be inseparately connected with my spirit and to the end that I might receive a fullness of joy. ”

“ Spirit realities respond to the drawing power of the center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their qualitative value, their actual degree of spirit nature. Spirit substance (quality) is just as responsive to spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical matter (quantity) is responsive to physical gravity. Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body. ”

“ Yes, the spirit body is as substantial as is the physical body, but of a finer expression of substance. You now are apart from your physical body, yet you are conscious that your spirit body is substantial, and where there is consciousness there is being, which is but another name for spirit. I may add that there is not an atom of the universe that is not, in a certain sense, conscious, hence, in a certain sense, individualized and intelligent. ”

“ To call it an element seems to clothe it in a vagueness which its character does not merit. If man were merely a phase of matter, we could employ the term element with propriety. That which can be only an element in a universe, at any rate may be a faculty or sense in man. ”