Theos-Talk Archives (December 2005 Message tt00036)

3	EXOTERICISM and ESOTERICISM



ELEMENTALS


[ Esotericism Of The Invisible Nature-Forces ]

 
ELEMENTALS – KARMA


STUDENT. - Permit me to ask you again, Are elementals beings?

Sage. - It is not easy to convey to you an idea of the constitution of
elementals; strictly speaking, they are not, because the word elementals has
been used in reference to a class of them that have no being such as mortals
have. It would be better to adopt the terms used in Indian books, such as
Gandharvas, Bhuts, Pisachas, Devas, and so on. Many things well known about
them cannot be put into ordinary language.


Student. - Do you refer to their being able to act in the fourth dimension
of space?

Sage. - Yes, in a measure. Take the tying in an endless cord of many knots -
a thing often done at spiritist séances. That is possible to him who knows
more dimensions of space than three. No three-dimensional being can do this;
and as you understand "matter," it is impossible for you to conceive how
such a knot can be tied or how a solid ring can be passed through the matter
of another solid one. These things can be done by elementals.


Student. - Are they not all of one class?

Sage. - No. There are different classes for each plane, and division of
plane, of nature. Many can never be recognized by men. And those pertaining
to one plane do not act in another. You must remember, too, that these
"planes" of which we are speaking interpenetrate each other.


Student. - Am I to understand that a clairvoyant or clairaudient has to do
with or is affected by a certain special class or classes of elementals?

Sage. - Yes. A clairvoyant can only see the sights properly belonging to the
planes his development reaches to or has opened. And the elementals in those
planes show to the clairvoyant only such pictures as belong to their plane.
Other parts of the idea or thing pictured may be retained in planes not yet
open to the seer. For this reason few clairvoyants know the whole truth.


Student. - Is there not some connection between the Karma of man and
elementals?
 
Sage. - A very important one. The elemental world has become a strong factor
in the Karma of the human race. 

Being unconscious, automatic, and photographic, it assumes the complexion of
the human family itself. In the earlier ages, when we may postulate that man
had not yet begun to make bad Karma, the elemental world was more friendly
to man because it had not received unfriendly impressions. 

But so soon as man began to become ignorant, unfriendly to himself and the
rest of creation, the elemental world began to take on exactly the same
complexion and return to humanity the exact pay, so to speak, due for the
actions of humanity. Or, like a donkey, which, when he is pushed against,
will push against you. Or, as a human being, when anger or insult is
offered, feels inclined to return the same. So the elemental world, being
unconscious force, returns or reacts upon humanity exactly as humanity acted
towards it, whether the actions of men were done with the knowledge of these
laws or not. 

So in these times it has come to be that the elemental world has the
complexion and action which is the exact result of all the actions and
thoughts and desires of men from the earliest times. And, being unconscious
and only acting according to the natural laws of its being, the elemental
world is a powerful factor in the workings of Karma. And so long as mankind
does not cultivate brotherly feeling and charity towards the whole of
creation, just so long will the elementals be without the impulse to act for
our benefit. But so soon and wherever man or men begin to cultivate
brotherly feeling and love for the whole of creation, there and then the
elementals begin to take on the new condition.


Student. - How then about the doing of phenomena by adepts?

Sage. - The production of phenomena is not possible without either the aid
or disturbance of elementals. 

Each phenomenon entails the expenditure of great force, and also brings on a
correspondingly great disturbance in the elemental world, which disturbance
is beyond the limit natural to ordinary human life. It then follows that, as
soon as the phenomenon is completed, the disturbance occasioned begins to be
compensated for. 

The elementals are in greatly excited motion, and precipitate themselves in
various directions. 

They are not able to affect those who are protected. But they are able, or
rather it is possible for them, to enter into the sphere of unprotected
persons, and especially those persons who are engaged in the study of
occultism. And then they become agents in concentrating the karma of those
persons, producing troubles and disasters often, or other difficulties which
otherwise might have been so spread over a period of time as to be not
counted more than the ordinary vicissitudes of life. 

This will go to explain the meaning of the statement that an Adept will not
do a phenomenon unless he sees the desire in the mind of another lower or
higher Adept or student; for then there is a sympathetic relation
established, and also a tacit acceptance of the consequences which may
ensue. 

It will also help to understand the peculiar reluctance often of some
persons, who can perform phenomena, to produce them in cases where we may
think their production would be beneficial; and also why they are never done
in order to compass worldly ends, as is natural for worldly people to
suppose might be done, - such as procuring money, transferring objects,
influencing minds, and so on.

Student. - Accept my thanks for you instruction.

Sage. - May you reach the terrace of enlightenment!

W Q J Path, June, 1888

  
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ELEMENTALS - HOW THEY ACT


Student. - Is there any reason why you do not give me a more detailed
explanation of the constitution of elementals and the modes by which they
work?

Sage. - Yes. There are many reasons. Among others is your inability, shared
by most of the people of the present day, to comprehend a description of
things that pertain to a world with which you are not familiar and for which
you do not yet possess terms of expression. 

Were I to put forth these descriptions, the greater part would seem vague
and incomprehensible on one hand, while on the other many of them would
mislead you because of the interpretation put on them by yourself. Another
reason is that, if the constitution, field of action, and method of action
of elementals were given out, there are some minds of a very inquiring and
peculiar bent who soon could find out how to come into communication with
these extraordinary beings, with results disadvantageous to the community as
well as the individuals.


Student. - Why so? Is it not well to increase the sum of human knowledge,
even respecting most recondite parts of nature; or can it be that the
elementals are bad?

Sage. - It is wise to increase the knowledge of nature's laws, but always
with proper limitations. All things will become known some day. Nothing can
be kept back when men have reached the point where they can understand. But
at this time it would not be wise to give them, for the asking, certain
knowledge that would not be good for them. That knowledge relates to
elementals, and it can for the present be kept back from the scientists of
today. So long as it can be retained from them, it will be, until they and
their followers are of a different stamp.

As to the moral character of elementals, they have none; they are colorless
in themselves - except some classes - and merely assume the tint, so to
speak, of the person using them.


Student. - Will our scientific men one day, then, be able to use these
beings, and, if so, what will be the manner of it? Will their use be
confined to only the good men of the earth?

Sage. - The hour is approaching when all this will be done. But the
scientists of today are not the men to get this knowledge. They are only
pigmy forerunners who sow seed and delve blindly in no thoroughfares. They
are too small to be able to grasp these mighty powers, but they are not wise
enough to see that their methods will eventually lead to Black Magic in
centuries to come when they shall be forgotten.

When elemental forces are used similarly as we now see electricity and other
natural energies adapted to various purposes, there will be "war in heaven."

Good men will not alone possess the ability to use them. Indeed, the sort
of man you now call "good" will not be the most able. 

The wicked will, however, pay liberally for the power of those who can wield
such forces, and at last the Supreme Masters, who now guard this knowledge
from children, will have to come forth. Then will ensue a dreadful war, in
which, as has ever happened, the Masters will succeed and the evil doers be
destroyed by the very engines, principalities, and powers prostituted to
their own purposes during years of intense selfish living. But why dilate on
this; in these days it is only a prophecy.


Student. - Could you give me some hints as to how the secrets of the
elemental plane are preserved and prevented from being known? Do these
guardians of whom you speak occupy themselves in checking elementals, or
how? Do they see much danger of divulgement likely in those instances where
elemental action is patent to the observer?

Sage. - As to whether they check elementals or not need not be enquired
into, because, while that may be probable, it does not appear very necessary
where men are unsuspicious of the agency causing that phenomena. It is much
easier to throw a cloud over the investigator's mind and lead him off to
other results of often material advantage to himself and men, while at the
same time acting as a complete preventive or switch which turns his energies
and application into different departments.

It might be illustrated thus: Suppose that a number of trained occultists
are set apart to watch the various sections of the world where the mental
energies are in fervid operation. It is quite easy for them to see in a
moment any mind that is about reaching a clue into the elemental world; and,
besides, imagine that trained elementals themselves constantly carry
information of such events. 

Then, by superior knowledge and command over this peculiar world, influences
presenting various pictures are sent out to that enquiring mind. In one case
it may be a new moral reform, in another a great invention is revealed, and
such is the effect that the man's whole time and mind are taken up by this
new thing which he fondly imagines is his own. Or, again, it would be easy
to turn his thoughts into a certain rut leading far from the dangerous clue.
In fact, the methods are endless.


Student. - Would it be wise to put into the hands of truly good,
conscientious men who now use aright what gifts they have, knowledge of and
control over elementals, to be used on the side of right?

Sage. - The Masters are the judges of what good men are to have this power
and control. You must not forget that you cannot be sure of the character at
bottom of those whom you call "truly good and conscientious men." Place them
in the fire of the tremendous temptation which such power and control would
furnish, and most of them would fail. 

But the Masters already know the characters of all who in any way approach
to a knowledge of these forces, and They always judge whether such a man is
to be aided or prevented. They are not working to make these laws and forces
known, but to establish right doctrine, speech, and action, so that the
characters and motives of men shall undergo such radical changes as to fit
them for wielding power in the elemental world. And that power is not now
lying idle, as you infer, but is being always used by those who will never
fail to rightly use it.


Student. - Is there any illustration at hand showing what the people of the
present day would do with these extraordinary energies?

Sage. - A cursory glance at men in these western worlds engaged in the mad
rush after money, many of them willing to do anything to get it, and at the
strain, almost to warfare, existing between laborers and users of labor,
must show you that, were either class in possession of power over the
elemental world, they would direct it to the furtherance of the aims now
before them. Then look at Spiritualism. 

It is recorded in the Lodge - photographed, you may say, by the doers of the
acts themselves - that an enormous number of persons daily seek the aid of
mediums and their "spooks" merely on questions of business. Whether to buy
stocks, or engage in mining for gold and silver, to deal in lotteries, or to
make new mercantile contracts. Here on one side is a picture of a coterie of
men who obtained at a low figure some mining property on the advice of
elemental spirits with fictitious names masquerading behind mediums; these
mines were then to be put upon the public at a high profit, inasmuch as the
"spirits" promised metal. Unhappily for the investors, it failed. But such a
record is repeated in many cases.

Then here is another where in a great American city - the karma being
favorable - a certain man speculated in stocks upon similar advice,
succeeded, and, after giving the medium liberal pay, retired to what is
called enjoyment of life. Neither party devoted either himself or the money
to the benefiting of humanity.

There is no question of honor involved, nor any as to whether money ought or
ought not to be made. It is solely one as to the propriety, expediency, and
results of giving suddenly into the hands of a community unprepared and
without an altruistic aim, such abnormal power. Take hidden treasure, for
instance. There is much of it in hidden places, and many men wish to get it.
For what purpose? For the sake of ministering to their luxurious wants and
leaving it to their equally unworthy descendants. Could they know the
mantram controlling the elementals that guard such treasure, they would use
it at once, motive or no motive, the sole object being the money in the
case.


Student. - Do some sorts of elementals have guard over hidden treasure?

Sage. - Yes, in every instance, whether never found or soon discovered. The
causes for the hiding and the thoughts of the hider or loser have much to do
with the permanent concealment or subsequent finding.


Student. - What happens when a large sum of money, say, such as Captain
Kidd's mythical treasure, is concealed, or when a quantity of coin is lost?

Sage. - Elementals gather about it. They have many and curious modes of
causing further concealment. They even influence animals to that end. This
class of elementals seldom, if ever, report at your spiritualistic séances.
As time goes on the forces of air and water still further aid them, and
sometimes they are able even to prevent the hider from recovering it. Thus
in course of years, even when they may have altogether lost their hold on
it, the whole thing becomes shrouded in mist, and it is impossible to find
anything.


Student. - This in part explains why so many failures are recorded in the
search for hidden treasure. But how about the Masters; are they prevented
thus by these weird guardians?

Sage. - They are not. The vast quantities of gold hidden in the earth and
under the sea are at their disposal always. They can, when necessary for
their purposes, obtain such sums of money on whom no living being or
descendants of any have the slightest claim, as would appall the senses of
your greatest money getter. They have but to command the very elementals
controlling it, and They have it. This is the basis for the story of
Aladdin's wonderful lamp, more true than you believe.


Student. - Of what use then is it to try, like the alchemists, to make gold?
With the immense amount of buried treasure thus easily found when you
control its guardian, it would seem a waste of time and money to learn
transmutation of metals.

Sage. - The transmutation spoken of by the real alchemists was the
alteration of the base alloy in man's nature. At the same time, actual
transmutation of lead into gold is possible. And many followers of the
alchemists, as well as of the pure-souled Jacob Boehme, eagerly sought to
accomplish the material transmuting, being led away by the glitter of
wealth. 

But an Adept has no need for transmutation, as I have shown you. The stories
told of various men who are said to have produced gold from base metals for
different kings in Europe are wrong explanations. Here and there Adepts have
appeared, assuming different names, and in certain emergencies they supplied
or used large sums of money. But instead of its being the product of
alchemical art, it was simply ancient treasure brought to them by elementals
in their service and that of the Lodge. Raymond Lully or Robert Flood might
have been of that sort, but I forbear to say, since I cannot claim
acquaintance with those men.

Student. - I thank you for your instruction.

Sage. - May you reach the terrace of enlightenment!

W Q J Path, July, 1888


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"FORMS" OF ELEMENTALS


STUDENT. - What principal idea would it be well for me to dwell upon in my
studies on the subject of elementals?

Sage. - You ought to clearly fix in your mind and fully comprehend a few
facts and the laws relating to them. 

As the elemental world is wholly different from the one visible to you, the
laws governing them and their actions cannot as yet be completely defined in
terms now used either by scientific or metaphysical schools. For that
reason, only as partial description is possible. Some of those facts I will
give you, it being well understood that I am not including all classes of
elemental beings in my remarks.

First, then, Elementals have no form.


Student. - You mean, I suppose, that they have no limited form or body as
ours, having a surface upon which sensation appears to be located.

Sage. - Not only so, but also that they have not even a shadowy, vague,
astral form such as is commonly ascribed to ghosts. They have no distinct
personal form in which to reveal themselves.


Student. - How am I to understand that, in view of the instances given by
Bulwer Lytton and others of appearances of elementals in certain forms?

Sage. - The shape given to or assumed by any elemental is always subjective
in its origin. It is produced by the person who sees, and who, in order to
be more sensible of the elemental's presence, has unconsciously given it a
form. Or it may be due to a collective impression on many individuals,
resulting in the assumption of a definite shape which is the result to the
combined impressions.


Student. - Is this how we may accept as true the story of Luther's seeing
the devil?

Sage. - Yes. Luther from his youth had imagined a personal devil, the head
of the fraternity of wicked ones, who had a certain specific form. This
instantly clothed the elementals that Luther evoked, either through intense
enthusiasm or from disease, with the old image reared and solidified in his
mind; and he called it the Devil.


Student. - That reminds me of a friend who told me that in his youth he saw
the conventional devil walk out of the fire place and pass across the room,
and that ever since he believed the devil had an objective existence.

Sage. - In the same way also you can understand the extraordinary
occurrences at Salem in the United States, when hysterical and mediumistic
women and children saw the devil and also various imps of different shapes.
Some of these gave the victims information. They were all elementals, and
took their illusionary forms from the imaginations and memory of the poor
people who were afflicted.


Student. - But there are cases where a certain form always appears. Such as
a small, curiously-dressed woman who had never existed in the imagination of
those seeing her; and other regularly recurring appearances. How were those
produced, since the persons never had such a picture before them?

Sage. - These pictures are found in the aura of the person, and are due to
pre-natal impressions. Each child emerges into life the possessor of
pictures floating about the clinging to it, derived from the mother; and
thus you can go back an enormous distance in time for these pictures, all
through the long line of your descent. It is a part of the action of the
same law which causes effect upon a child's body through influences acting
on the mother during gestation. 1


Student. - In order, then, to know the cause of any such appearance, one
must be able to look back, not only into the person's present life, but also
into the ancestor's past?


Sage. - Precisely. 

And for that reason an occultist is not hasty in giving his opinion on these
particular facts. He can only state the general law, for a life might be
wasted in needless investigation of an unimportant past. 

You can see that there would be no justification for going over a whole
lifetime's small affairs in order to tell a person at what time or juncture
an image was projected before his mind. Thousands of such impressions are
made every year. That they are not developed into memory does not prove
their non-existence. Like the unseen picture upon the photographer's
sensitive plate, they lie awaiting the hour of development.


Student. - In what way should I figure to myself the essence of an elemental
and its real mode of existence?

Sage. - You should think of these as centres of energy only, that act always
in accordance with the laws of the plane of nature to which they belong.


Student. - Is it not just as if we were to say that gunpowder is an
elemental and will invariable explode when lighted? That is, that the
elementals know no rules of either wrong or right, but surely act when the
incitement to their natural action is present? They are thus, I suppose,
said to be implacable.

Sage. - Yes; they are like the lightning which flashes or destroys as the
varying circumstances compel. It has no regard for man, or love, or beauty,
or goodness, but may as quickly kill the innocent, or burn the property of
the good as of the wicked man.


Student. - What next?

Sage. - That the elementals live in and through all objects, as well as
beyond the earth's atmosphere.


Student. - Do you mean that a certain class of elementals, for instance,
exist in this mountain, and float unobstructed through men, earth, rocks,
and trees?

Sage. - Yes, and not only that, but at the same time, penetrating that class
of elementals, there may be another class which float not only through
rocks, trees, and men, but also through the first of the classes referred
to.


Student. - Do they perceive these objects obstructive for us, through which
they thus float?

Sage. - No, generally they do not. In exceptional cases they do, and even
then never with the same sort of cognition that we have. For them the
objects have no existence. A large block of stone or iron offers for them no
limits or density. It may, however, make an impression on them by way of
change of color or sound, but not by way of density or obstruction. 


Student. - It is not something like this, that a current of electricity
passes through a hard piece of copper wire, while it will not pass through
an unresisting space of air.

Sage. - That serves to show that the thing which is dense to one form of
energy may be open to another. Continuing your illustration, we see that man
can pass through air but is stopped by metal. So that "hardness" for us is
not "hardness" for electricity. Similarly, that which may stop an elemental
is not a body that we call hard, but something which for us is intangible
and invisible, but presents to them an adamantine front.

Student. - I thank you for your instruction.

Sage. - Strive to deserve further enlightenment!

Path, October, 1888

----------------	Footnote	-------------------
1 See Isis Unveiled [ I 380 - 404 ] in the chapter on Teratology. 
 
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THEOSOPHY and KARMA


THEOSOPHY links cataclysms with KARMA -- the universal law of compensation.
"As ye sow, so shall you also reap."

There is no reason for a world-wide apocalyptic catastrophe, and none is
forecast that I am aware of. There does, in recent months, seem to be an
intensification of large earthquakes, cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, etc,
And I saw a scientific forecast saying that we may expect such an
intensification
in the coming 11 years ( 2006 – 2017 ) -- probably having to do with one of
the Sun cycles
that relate to our entire system and also to our Earth. Our civilization
seems to be inviting rehabilitation in certain areas. And to those areas
will be drawn persons
who because of their individual Karma have to undergo those conditions.


Ask -- why this wide-spread fear?

What have individuals done secretly that might demand a purge of such
enormous magnitude?

Have we in our earlier life done anything so bad that we are required to
undergo any unreasonable stress?

Does anyone seriously think that penance and sacrifice now -- in terms of
material goods and new disciplines -- are in any way compensatory ? If they
do, then they ought to search for the CAUSES that can do this and cease from
generating them as of now.

Do you know about Karma -- in general ?

Do you know about Catastrophes and their cycles?

Do you know about the attraction of certain people to or from areas of
catastrophe?

A careful study of universal history shows: there are some general and
invariable rules of Nature (our World and Universe), These are not confined
to, or defined by, any one religion.


Some examples ---

1 Nothing happens without a cause. The name given to this law is
KARMA [action and reaction]. It is always compensation, always seeks to
restore 'balance.' It is educative and not punitive. The same law operates
whether it be a case of "good," or "evil."

2 Every atom of life exists and progresses under this single, uniform
law. What does not get balanced in this life may be adjusted in a future
one.

3 No atom, no soul, no spirit can ever be destroyed. All these
"Life-units" are as ancient as the "beginning of Time." This means we have
been living together for billions of years.

4 Each human, by their free choice, makes causes: good and bad.

5 Everyone has an innate and ineradicable sense of VIRTUE. [The
criminal pretends to be virtuous. Why?]

6 The rules and laws of morality and ethics are the same for all,
regardless of religion or politics. The "golden rule" prevails everywhere:
"Do unto other as ye would have them do unto you."

7 It is in fact a working, sensitive, UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD.

8 All great prophets in every age have taught the same rules and
ethics of living.

9 There is but one "God" in the Universe. IT IS THE UNIVERSE. WE LIVE
IN IT. People give IT many names.

10 Mankind is a great family of Immortal Spiritual Souls. They live
from life to life, ALWAYS PROGRESSING. This is called reincarnation.

11 The ultimate goal for all is WISDOM. [ And, the unrelenting and
continual PRACTISE of wisdom, whether in public or in secret. ]

12 Wisdom teaches us compassion and continued care for and assistance
to others - our brothers and sisters in this enormous scheme.


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DTB