CHAPTER XXIII

ANIMAL ELEMENTALS

Suggestion no doubt plays a large part in producing a belief in the power to change form at will, and the occult aspect of transformation is perhaps more interesting than any other view of the subject. Incantations, salves, herbs, drugs, perfumes, and other accessories of ritual are merely employed to strengthen concentrative force and to induce a suitable state of mind. In this sense the highest scientific method of transformation is known to the Yogi who, by performing _samyama_ on the powers of any animal, acquires those powers.[173]

_Samyama_ is the technical name for three inseparable processes taken collectively. The three processes are, firstly, contemplation, or the fixing of the mind on something, external or internal; secondly, the unity of the mind with its absorption, in which the mind is conscious only of itself and the object; and thirdly, trance, when the mind is conscious only of the object, and as though unconscious of itself. Trance proper is the forgetting of all idea of the act, and, still more important, the becoming of the object (such as the animal) thought upon. Thus, the three stages, contemplation, absorption, and trance, are in fact stages of contemplation, for the thing thought upon, the thinker, and the instrument (together with other things which are to be excluded), are all present in the first; all except the last are present in the second, and nothing but the object is present in the third.[174]

The Yogi believes that the mind can enter into another body by relaxation of the cause of bondage, and by knowledge of the method of passing. The bondage is the mind's being bound to a particular body. The cause of limiting the otherwise all-pervading mind to a particular spot is _karma_ or _dharma_ and _adharma_, i.e. good or bad deeds. When by constant _samyama_ on these, the effect of the cause is neutralised and the bonds of confinement loosened, then the mind is free to enter any dead or living organism and perform its functions through it. But for this purpose a knowledge of effecting this transfer is equally necessary....

We always think in relation to the ego within us, and therefore in relation to the body. Even when we direct our mind somewhere out of the body, it is still in relation with the thinking self. When this relation is entirely severed and the mind exists as it were spontaneously, outside and independent of the body, the Yogi finds the state of internal mind most favourable for passing from one corporeal shape into another, for it is nothing more than the _vrtti_ (or soul) severed from the body that travels from one place to another. The act of the mind cognising objects, or technically speaking, taking the shape of objects presented to it, is called _vrtti_, or transformation. Those familiar with the so-called spirit-materialisations will readily comprehend the somewhat obscure sense of this aphorism.[175]

Animal elementals or thought-forms were employed by magicians in the remote ages, and believed to be created entities which persisted throughout time and might be sent forth, somewhat in the nature of a familiar, to wreak harm on others. Such animal thought-forms are regarded as natural or possible by many occultists to-day and two modern stories exemplify this belief.

A certain Miss Carter went to have tea at a friend's house where she met a lady whom she knew, a Miss Thory, the sister of an eminent philosopher. Miss Carter asked this lady whether she would be kind enough to tell her fortune from the cards, but Miss Thory declined, saying that she felt tired. Shortly afterwards Miss Carter went away and, as soon as her back was turned, Miss Thory said to her hostess, "My dear, don't have much to do with that young lady, because she goes about telling people that she is beloved by an archangel who kisses her on the lips, but I have seen the creature which hovers about her, and which she takes to be an archangel, and it has the shape of a crocodile and is trying to influence people through her. It is an evil elemental."

The other story concerns two friends, Mrs. Harper and Miss Sylvester, who, travelling together on the astral plane, decided to visit the bottom of the sea. They believed they arrived there and saw an enormous octopus which was floating about amongst the wreckage on the ocean bed. Miss Sylvester immediately made the protective sign of the Pentacle and suffered no inconvenience, but Mrs. Harper neglected to take this precaution and the monstrous animal followed her about. They did not mention these strange experiences to anyone, and they were well-nigh forgotten when some time later it happened that Miss Sylvester introduced Mrs. Harper to one of her friends, a very well-known poet. Meeting Miss Sylvester a few days afterwards, he said to her quite frankly, "I suppose I ought not to say so to you, but I did not much care for your friend, Mrs. Harper. The night after you introduced me to her I could not sleep and whenever I thought about her I was aware of some elemental creature crawling beneath my bed. It had the shape of an octopus with horrible tentacles!"

Phenomena of this character are explained by the occultist as follows:--

The elemental essence which surrounds us is singularly susceptible to the influence of human thought. The action of the mere casual wandering thought upon it causes it to burst into a cloud of rapidly-moving, evanescent forms. Thought, seizing upon the plastic essence, 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.... A man 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...."

It is said that a magician who understands the subject and knows what effect he is producing may acquire great power along these lines and can call into existence artificial elementals which, if he be not careful, escape from his control and become wandering demons.

The magicians of Atlantis brought into being wonderful speaking animals who had to be appeased by an offering of blood lest they should awaken their masters and warn them of impending destruction.[176]

An even more terrible, psychic animal-being is described by occultists as the Dweller on the Threshold. In answer to the question, What kind of an animal is a human creature born soulless? Madame Blavatsky[177] explains that "the future of the lower Manas is terrible, and still more terrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that, after the separation, the exhausted soul, now become supremely animal, fades out in Kama Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the more material is the human mind, the longer it lasts, even in the intermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the present life of the soulless man is ended, he is again and again reincarnated into new personalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of _animal life_ is too strong: it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only. In rarer cases, however, when the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself by starvation: when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a lower light will, owing to favourable conditions--say, even a short period of spiritual aspiration and repentance--attract back to itself its Parent Ego, and Karma leads the Higher-Ego back to new incarnations, then something far more dreadful may happen. The Kama-Manasic spook may become that which is called in Occultism, the 'Dweller on the Threshold.'...

"Bereft of the guiding Principles, but strengthened by the material elements, Kama-Manas, from being a 'derived light,' now becomes an independent entity, and thus, suffering itself to sink lower and lower on the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one of two things happens; either Kama-Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba, the state of Avitchi on earth, or, if it becomes too strong in evil--'immortal in Satan' is the occult expression--it is sometimes allowed, for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Avitchi in the terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope, it becomes like the mythical 'devil' in its endless wickedness; it continues in its elements, which are imbued through and through with the essence of Matter; for evil is coevil with Matter rent asunder from Spirit. And when its Higher-Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or Kama-Manas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein's monster, will ever feel attracted to its Father who repudiates his son, and will become a regular 'Dweller on the Threshold' of terrestrial life."

Concerning the evolution of man-animal and animal-man, Madame Blavatsky[178] declares, "it is most important to remember that the Egos of the Apes are entities compelled by their Karma to incarnate in the animal forms, which resulted from the bestiality of the _latest_ Third and the earliest Fourth Race men. They are entities who had already reached the 'human stage' before this Round. Consequently they form an exception to the general rule. The numberless traditions about Satyrs are no fables, but represent an extinct race of animal men. The animal 'Eves' were their foremothers, and the human 'Adams' their forefathers; _hence the Kabalistic allegory of Lilith or Lilatu_, Adam's _first_ wife, whom the Talmud describes as a _charming_ woman with _long wavy hair_, i.e. a female hairy animal of a character now unknown, still a female animal, who in the Kabalistic and Talmudic allegories is called the female reflection of Samael, Samael-Lilith, or man-animal united, a being called _Hayo Bischat_, the Beast or Evil Beast (Zohar). It is from this unnatural union that the present apes descended. The latter are truly 'speechless men' and will become speaking animals (or men of a lower order) in the Fifth Round, while the adepts of a certain school hope that some of the Egos of the apes of a higher intelligence will reappear at the close of the Sixth-Root race. What their form will be is of secondary consideration. The form means nothing. Species and genera of the flora, fauna, and the highest animal, its crown--man--change and vary according to the environments and climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every Root-Race likewise, as well as after every geological cataclysm that puts an end to, or produces a turning-point in the latter. In the Sixth Root-Race the fossils of the Orang, the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee will be those of extinct quadrumanous mammals and new forms--though fewer and ever wider apart as ages pass on and the close of the Manvantara approaches--will develop from the 'cast-off' types of the human races as they revert once again to astral, out of the mire of physical life. There were none before man and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead on the monads of the unprogressed men of our race and lodge them in the newly evolved human frames of this physiologically regenerated baboon.

"This will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But the picture of this cyclic procession of all that lives and breathes now on earth, of each species in its turn, is a true one, and needs no 'special creation' or miraculous formation of man, beast or plant _ex nihilo_.

"This is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between ape and man and shows the former evolving from the latter."

The Indians believe that sinners are reborn as animals. "After having suffered the torments in the hells, the evil-doers pass into animal bodies,"[179] and their classification of such punishment has been carefully worked out.

Mortal sinners enter the bodies of worms or insects. Minor offenders enter the bodies of birds. Criminals in the fourth degree enter the bodies of the aquatic animals. Those who have committed a crime effecting loss of caste, enter the bodies of amphibious animals. Those who have committed a crime degrading to a mixed caste enter the bodies of deer. Those who have committed a crime rendering them unworthy to receive alms, enter the bodies of cattle. Those who have committed one of the miscellaneous crimes enter the bodies of miscellaneous wild carnivorous animals (such as tigers).

A thief (of other property than gold) becomes a falcon.

One who has appropriated a broad passage, becomes a serpent or other animal living in holes.

One who has stolen grain becomes a rat.

One who has stolen water becomes a water-fowl.

One who has stolen honey becomes a gad-fly.

One who has stolen milk becomes a crow.

One who has stolen juice (of the sugar-cane or other plants) becomes a dog.

One who has stolen clarified butter becomes an ichneumon.

One who has stolen meat becomes a vulture.

One who has stolen fat becomes a cormorant.

One who has stolen oil becomes a cockroach.

One who has stolen salt becomes a cricket.

One who has stolen sour milk becomes a crane.

One who has stolen silk becomes a partridge.

One who has stolen linen becomes a frog.

One who has stolen cotton cloth becomes a curlew.

One who has stolen a cow becomes an iguana.

One who has stolen sugar becomes a Valguda (kind of bat).

One who has stolen perfumes becomes a musk-rat.

One who has stolen vegetables becomes a peacock.

One who has stolen prepared grain becomes a boar.

One who has stolen undressed grain becomes a porcupine.

One who has stolen fire becomes a crane.

One who has stolen household utensils becomes a wasp.

One who has stolen dyed cloth becomes a partridge.

One who has stolen an elephant becomes a tortoise.

One who has stolen a horse becomes a tiger.

One who has stolen fruit or blossoms becomes an ape.

One who has stolen a woman becomes a bear.

One who has stolen a vehicle becomes a camel.

One who has stolen cattle becomes a vulture.

He who has taken by force any property belonging to another or eaten food not first presented to the gods, inevitably enters the body of some beast.

Women who have committed similar thefts, receive the same ignominious punishment: they become females to those male animals.

Then having undergone the torments inflicted in the hells and having passed through the animal bodies the sinners are born as human beings with marks indicating their crime.

These transformations came about by the insistent wickedness of human thoughts and deeds. Eliphas Levi discusses the magic power of the spoken word in bringing changes of shape to pass. "In the opinion of the vulgar," he says,[180] "transformations and metamorphosis have ever been the very essence of magic.... Magic really changes the nature of things, or rather modifies their appearances at pleasure, according to the strength of the operator's will and the fascination of aspiring adepts. Speech creates forms, and when a person reputed infallible gives anything a name, he really transforms the object into the substance which is signified by the name that he gives it....

"The life of creatures is a progressive transformation, having forms which may be determined and renewed, preserved longer, or else destroyed sooner. If the motion of metempsychosis were true, might we not say that debauch, represented by Circe, changes men really and materially into swine, for the chastisement of vices would on this hypothesis be a lapse into those animal forms which correspond to them? Now metempsychosis, which has been frequently misunderstood, has a perfectly true side. Animal forms communicate their sympathetic imprints to the astral body of man and are soon reflected on his features, according to the force of his habits. A man of intelligent and passive mildness assumes the ways and inert physiognomy of a sheep; in somnambulism, however, it is no longer a person of sheep-like appearance but a sheep itself that is seen, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced times out of number. Thus we can really change men into animals--it is all a question of will-power."

"The fatal ascendancy of one person over another is the true rod of Circe," he continues. "Almost every human countenance bears some resemblance to an animal. That is, it has the signature of a specialised instinct. Now instincts are balanced by contrary instincts, and dominated by others which are stronger. To govern sheep, the dog evokes the fear of the wolf. If you are a dog and would be loved by a pretty little cat, be metamorphosed into a cat, and you will win her. But how is the change to be accomplished? By observation, imitation, and imagination.... By polarising one's own animal light in equilibrated antagonism with an opposite pole."[181]

Paracelsus has written at length on the same aspect of the subject. "Men have two spirits," he explains,[182] "an animal spirit and a human spirit in them. A man who lives in his animal spirit is like an animal during life, and will be an animal after death: but a man who lives in his human spirit will remain human. Animals have consciousness and reason, but they have no spiritual intelligence. It is the presence of the latter that raises man above the animal, and its absence makes an animal of what once appeared to be a man. A man in whom the animal reason alone is active is a lunatic, and his character resembles that of some animal. One man acts like a wolf, another like a dog, another like a hog, a snake or a fox, etc. It is their animal principle that makes them act as they do, and their animal principle will perish like the animals themselves. But the human reason is not of an animal nature, but comes from God, and being a part of God, it is necessarily immortal."

"The animal soul of man is derived from the cosmic animal elements," he writes elsewhere,[183] "and the animal kingdom is therefore the father of the animal man. If man is like his animal father, he resembles an animal; if he is like the Divine Spirit that lives within his animal elements, he is like a god. If his reason is absorbed by his animal instincts, it becomes animal reason; if it rises above his animal desires, it becomes angelic. If a man eats the flesh of an animal, the animal flesh becomes human flesh; if an animal eats human flesh, the latter becomes animal flesh. A man whose human reason is absorbed by his animal desires is an animal, and if his animal reason becomes enlightened by wisdom he becomes an angel.

"Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his soul was born, and animals are the mirrors of man. Whatever animal elements exist in the world exist in the soul of man, and therefore the character of one man may resemble that of a fox, a dog, a snake, a parrot, etc. Man need not, therefore, be surprised that animals have animal instincts that are so much like his own; it might rather be surprising for the animals to see that their son (animal man) resembles them so closely....

"A man who loves to lead an animal life is an animal ruled by his interior animal heaven. The same stars (qualities) that cause a wolf to murder, a dog to steal, a cat to kill, a bird to sing, etc., make a man a singer, an eater, a talker, a lover, a murderer, a robber, or a thief. These are animal attributes and they die with the animal elements to which they belong; but the divine principle in man, which constitutes him a human being, comes from God. Man should therefore live in harmony with his divine parent, and not in the animal elements of his soul."

The object of human life is therefore to realise that one is not an animal, but a god-like being inhabiting a human animal form. If man once realises what he actually is, he will be able to use his divine powers and be himself a creator of forms.[184]

The same writer describes beings which are neither animal nor man, but which have characteristics of both, and which he calls Nature-spirits or Elementals. To these he gives the names of the Gnomes, the Nymphs or Undines, the Sylphs or Sylvestres, the Salamanders, the Pigmies and the Sirens. He attributes to them curious qualities and shapes. They can, for instance, pass through matter, yet they are not spirits, rather occupying a place "between men and spirits." They are not immortal, and when they die they perish like animals. They have only animal intellects and are incapable of spiritual development. The Nymphs live in the element of water, the Sylphs in that of the air, the Pigmies in the earth, and the Salamanders in the fire. Each species moves only in the element to which it belongs. To each elemental being the element in which it lives is transparent, invisible, and respirable. The Gnomes have no intercourse with the Undines or Salamanders, nor the Sylvestres with either. Animals receive their clothing from Nature, but the spirits of Nature prepare it themselves. The Elementals 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 are of the length of about two spans, but they can extend or elongate their forms until they appear like giants. The Elementals of air and water, the Sylphs and Nymphs, are kindly disposed towards man; the Salamanders cannot associate with him on account of the fiery nature of the element wherein they live, and the Pigmies are usually of a malicious nature.

Men live in the exterior elements and the Elementals live in the interior elements. They are sometimes seen in various shapes. Salamanders have been seen in the shapes of fiery balls, or tongues of fire running over the fields or appearing in houses. Nymphs have been known to adopt the human shape, clothing, and manner, and to enter into a union with man. The Undines appear to man but not man to them. They may meet him on the physical plane, marry him and keep house with him and the children will be human beings and not Undines, because they receive a human soul from the man. If an Undine becomes united to man she will thereby receive the germ of immortality. As an Undine without her union with man dies like an animal, likewise man is like an animal if he severs his union with God. If any man has a Nymph for a wife, let him take care not to offend her while she is near the water, as in such case she might return to her own element.

The Sirens are merely a kind of monstrous fish, and are related to the Undines much as giant and dwarf monsters are related to the Sylvestres and Gnomes. The monsters have no spiritual souls and are comparable to monkeys rather than to human beings.

Such creatures seem almost too elusive to be labelled as human-animals, but the description given of them by the great occultist at least opens the mind to the possibilities of classifying beings not defined by material limitations or by animal senses. Of this character are the spirits or elementals called up in strange, and sometimes even gruesome, animal form by magicians when at work casting spells.

FOOTNOTES:

[173] "The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali." Translated by Manilal Nabhubhai Dvivedi, 1890, p. 66.

[174] _Ibid._, p. 56.

[175] _Ibid._, p. 71 and pp. 73-4.

[176] "The Secret Doctrine," Vol. II, p. 247.

[177] _Ibid._, 1897, Vol. III, pp. 524-6.

[178] _Ibid._, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 262-3.

[179] "The Sacred Books of the East," ed. by F. Max Muller, 1880, The Institutes of Vishnu, Vol. VII, pp. 144-5.

[180] "Mysteries of Magic," 1897, pp. 233-4.

[181] _Ibid._, pp. 237-40.

[182] "De Lunaticus."

[183] Hartmann, F., "Life of Paracelsus and Substance of his Teaching," 1896, pp. 60-2.

[184] _Ibid._, p. 62.