CHAPTER IX

ELEMENTALS AND DEVAS
FEW subjects connected with occult research present greater embarrassment to the student than those which attend an inquiry into the nature of Elementals. The term is vaguely understood to apply to beings of a superphysical order, and except for the broad statement that they are non-human, but subject to the control of human will, while varying in their nature over an enormous range of characteristics, the information available until considerable progress had been made with theosophical teaching clouded, more perhaps than it elucidated, the mysteries connected with their place and functions in evolution. In the beginning of that teaching out of which our present theosophical knowledge has been developed, information concerning the elementals was avowedly withheld on the ground that it was all but impossible to be explicit on the subject without revealing secrets that related to the exercise of occult power. It was by the intermediation of the elementals, we were told, that the physical plane phenomena of occultism were brought about; as also those which in a sporadic and un- scientific fashion took the shape of marvellous occurrences at some spiritualistic seances. In various theosophical books reference was made to elementals of earth, air, fire, and water, to gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines, — following the nomenclature of some mediaeval writers on occult mysteries, — but every statement of this kind darkened the whole subject instead of clearing it up, and left the mind of cultivated students disturbed by a feeling that the statements in question were not merely
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unintelligible, but designed rather to put a veil over, than to elucidate the subject.
Step by step, however, it has been possible for some of us to make a little progress in the comprehension of the deeply intricate mystery in question. As the number of modern theosophical students qualified to transfer their consciousness to the astral plane, and to retain in their normal consciousness a recollection of what they learn there, gradually increases, it becomes possible for others to push their inquiries nearer and nearer to the impassable barriers that separate the knowledge of the outer world from that of initiated occultists. And we thus know some- thing more about the elementals now, than at the outset of the Theosophical Movement. We can at any rate begin to disentangle scientific truth from poetical imagery, and to formulate conceptions concerning elemental agency which harmonise, as far as they go, with definite physical knowledge, and suggest a line of thought calculated to link on that knowledge with the deeper mysteries of Nature some appreciation of which is absolutely required to enable us to form even a partial comprehension of the vast theatre in which the evolution of life up to the human level, and beyond it, is carried on.
First, we have to get rid of the notion that elemental nature is simply represented by semi-intelligent creatures of a fairy-like order and of the kind mentioned above who can be seen and are seen by clairvoyants playing about in the surf of the sea-shore, in flower-gardens, in conflagra- tions in towns and cities, wEerever, in fact, natural activities are in progress. Elemental nature, — it would be a misuse of language to say the elemental kingdom, because it is so infinitely vaster than the animal, vegetable, or human kingdoms amongst ourselves, — elemental nature
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pervades the universe. In one way we can go back in imagination to its beginnings, and yet its beginnings must not be thought of as their remote condition in the past leading up to the complicated results we can now observe. Elemental beginnings are in progress amongst us at this moment all over the universe, and the activities of highly elemental beings are equally going on wherever worlds of life exist. To picture in imagination the beginning of elemental evolution, we have to think of the vast ocean of etheric matter pervading the universe, with every atom of which an elemental germ is somehow associated. Such atoms, of course, defy imagination by their minuteness. The smallest speck of matter that can be discerned in a microscope is a mountain compared to the etheric atom, and yet each atom carries with it the germ of elemental existence. To say life, would be almost a misleading use of the word, because that word is so inseparably associated in our own minds with some order of conscious- ness. The consciousness of an advanced elemental is so unlike our own, that the word is hardly applicable, and " semi-intelligent " is the term not inappropriately devoted to the description even of advanced elemental beings. But the whole subject is so complicated that when we begin to think of elemental evolution, we are merely thinking of the subject in one of its many aspects. In that aspect it must first be contemplated.
As etheric matter combines to form molecules, first of the higher ether and then, to concentrate our attention at the outset on the physical plane, of physical matter, the elementals may be thought of as advancing in the slow progress of their gradual evolution, and that evolution, be it remembered, just because it is universal, is as gradual and more gradual than the growth of worlds. A growth
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of any given world may be thought of as no more than an episode in the evolution of that department or section of elemental nature required to advance concurrently with itself. Keeping to the very broad conception of the whole subject which must be entertained in the mind to begin with, we may regard the whole stupendous development of elemental semi-consciousness as the downward or pre- paratory arc of a vast cycle, the upward arc of which constitutes what has been called, incorrectly enough, the " Deva kingdom." Devas in that way have a beginning on a scale of minuteness exceedingly difficult to deal with in imagination, and as they emerge from elemental nature, represent what mediaeval writers have described as Nature- Spirits. A Nature-Spirit is as definitely a natural agent, carrying out divine purpose, as the elemental in the begin- ning is a natural agent working out what we call the fundamental laws of nature, themselves the expression, in the inorganic world, of divine will and purpose. As the Nature-Spirit develops higher and higher capacities for dealing with the divine purpose in the regions of organic life, it gradually assumes the aspect described as that of the deva. And, again, in the higher developments of that wonderful natural agency, devas ascend to the region of existence, in which it would be a misuse of language again to describe them as semi-intelligent. The Nature-Spirit from which the deva grows was not more than semi- intelligent. The deva attains a rank in which he or it — one never knows what pronouns to use in cases like this — becomes the perfected agent, not merely for the fulfilment of divine purpose on the higher levels of natural and human evolution, but skilful beyond the range of our con- ception in adjusting the law to the complications of cir- cumstance arising from the play of human free-will.
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Every sentence I am putting down might be the point of departure for a long dissertation which at this moment it is impossible to condense into reasonable limits. But there is first of all the broad idea it is necessary for us to realise. Elemental and Deva Nature constitutes the stupendous agency employed to realise the divine purpose in physical and moral evolution.
The significance of the word " moral " in that sentence is due to the fact that on the higher levels of deva activity, devas become the instruments through which the law of Karma is carried out. Again condensing an enormous volume of knowledge, which has gradually accumulated on our hands, we have to think first of devas as actually guiding events on the plane of human life in order that they may fulfil the necessities of the Karmic Law. And what is that Karmic Law ? Again, the will of beings in- comparably higher in nature than the highest deva, we can think of, in turn the conscious agents of that infinite divine will which underlies not only all manifestations, but all moral and spiritual growth; beings to whom for our con- venience we must assign a name, although their plane in nature is so exalted that our thoughts concerning them cannot but be vague. These beings are sometimes spoken of as Lords of Karma, more definitely by a term borrowed from Eastern terminology, the Lipika.
As far as we know, the Lipikas represent an order of consciousness as widely diffused as the universe. But in- formation filtering down to us from levels of human evolu- tion far above that of ordinary humanity enables us to realise that a small group of Lipikas can deal with all the moral problems that the vast and complicated human family represents. In this hasty survey of the whole subject, we may think of four Lipikas presiding over
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different departments, if the phrase may be used, of the vast Karmic Law. They, working through hierarchies of deva agency, which, again, may be thought of in connec- tion with this very broad view of the subject as constitut- ing four great streams of agency, pervade human life.
The reader will see how difficult it is to frame one continuous statement aimed at clearing up thought in reference to this inconceivably elaborate agency em- braced by the term elementals and devas. But reserving for the moment some further attempts to explain elemental agency, let us dwell a little longer upon the deva agency, concerned with the fulfilment of the Karmic Law. That law, be it remembered, has sometimes been described, not incorrectly, as the uniform operation of cause and effect on the moral plane. In reference to the consequences ensuing from the causes set in motion by human action, good or bad, the Karmic Law may be thought of as analogous, on the moral plane, to the conservation of energy on the plane of inanimate natural force. But where inanimate nature can, so to speak, be relied upon to obey natural law, human free-will is continually fret- ting against it, with the result that deva activity, carrying out the Karmic Law in reference to the course of each human life, has to be employed on continual re-adjust- ments of circumstance required to fulfil the law in spite of the vagaries of that human free-will, which although working within limitations it does not altogether com- prehend, is actually competent to modify circumstances in a way which very often interposes distinct embarrass- ments in the way of those who are commissioned to vin- dicate the law.
I know that such attempts as I am making now to define the subtle machinery, by which the course of human
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activity is partly guided and partly left free, can do no more than broadly suggest ideas which it is impossible, within the limits at my disposal, to illuminate even to the extent that might be possible if I had nothing else to do but to elaborate this interpretation. But even in the broadest aspects, the teaching I am now endeavouring to pass on is essential to a proper comprehension of the condi- tion surrounding that growth of the soul which this volume aims at sketching, at all events in outline.
But so far, going back to the attempt to interpret elemental nature, I have dealt merely with what may be described as its natural course of evolution. Ele- mental nature begins by working out the laws of matter in connection with the inorganic world, and its natural functions may thus be thought of as divine in their origin. But just because elementals are in a way it is vain for us to attempt to realise in imagina- tion amenable to the Divine Will, they are also, in a limited, though very extensive way amenable to human will. And this thought brings us into relation with a vast range of phenomena, having to do with elemental nature in which, given elementals, or more correctly given volumes of elemental activity, becomes susceptible of im- press by human intention. As usual, the. mere abstract statement of a natural law may, or may not, convey a definite idea to a reader's mind, and the idea that I have to deal with now is so intricate that the mere abstract state- ment of it can hardly be expected to convey the complete meaning. The fact, however, is simply this — that human will, illuminated, of course, by a considerable volume of what we commonly call occult knowledge (gradually becoming less occult as time goes on), can, as it were, create artificial elementals designed to carry out a definite purpose.
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This purpose may be good or bad, and the thought may invest with a fuller meaning a phrase used at the outset of the present chapter, to the effect that information con- cerning elementals was allowed to pass into general know- ledge with some anxiety, so to speak, in the first instance, on the part of those who inaugurated the great Theosophi- cal Movement. And yet it was impossible to make human evolution intelligible without conveying some of this more or less dangerous knowledge. Dealing, how- ever, with the facts instead of with their surrounding embarrassments, we have to recognise that adequately com- petent human will, that is to say, human will invested with an adequate volume of occult knowledge, may practically create elementals destined to accomplish purposes that we may regard either as good or evil, as the case may be. As usual, there is little purpose to be served by dwelling per- sistently in imagination on possibly evil developments of natural forces. Let me rather further illustrate what I mean by concentrating attention on the possibilities of doing good by means of artificial elementals. Adept power, to begin with, can create an artificial elemental designed to protect any given individuality in the mazes of human life either from accidental injury or from malevo- lent attack by hostile agency. That elemental, perceiving that the person whom he is in charge of is approaching some danger, may contrive to give him an impulse which will turn his steps in another direction. Or if the person is adequately sensitive may convey what would be loosely described as an intuition, warning him off some contem- plated line of conduct. And in many varied ways, an elemental guardian, invested with a benevolent purpose, may soothe or encourage or invigorate, as the case may be, the human entity whom he is commissioned to protect or
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help. But to understand the idea correctly, we must not think of the guardian elemental as invested with the attri- bute of benevolence. In its own nature it is neither good nor bad. It is just a centre of energy working along the lines of the original intention which gave rise to its temporary creation, and we need not always think of this creation as due to the exalted capacity of an adept. Ordinary human thinking is a force of very much less effective value than the conscious will of an adept, but none the less capable in some circumstances of uncon- sciously creating artificial elementals of either variety, good or bad. Thus it may happen that the sustained loving thought of one person in reference to another at a distance may actually create an artificial elemental less powerful than in the case I have previously endeavoured to imagine; but still effective to a certain sense as a benevolent or pro- tective influence. And in some well-authenticated cases, where philanthropists have relied on earnest prayer to. provide them with the physical plane needs — perhaps even simply the financial needs of their enterprise, whatever it may be — definite results have been known to ensue. And such results can be comprehended by those who under- stand the mysteries of elemental nature, because that earnest prayer has created an artificial elemental, the duty of which is to impress upon somebody, competent to render the necessary aid, the desire to give such help.
There is another way in which human intelligence may direct elemental agency. Let us consider a heavy block of stone, which we wish to raise. The force which bears it down towards the centre of the earth is one which we can measure with great exactitude and call by a familiar name, but we do not know much about its mode of work- ing. We can only control it on the physical plane by so
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arranging matters that a preponderating volume of itself or some other force counteracts the tendency we wish to overcome. Occult teaching about all physical force, however, is that it is the physical plane manifestation of some elemental force. There must thus be an astral counterpart of gravity, and in its astral manifestation it must be in some measure alive and must come within the influence of a higher-plane volition. Here we get a c\\i? to the comprehension of the principle on which advanced occult power is known — not merely in former ages of the world, but in the present day — to manipulate heavy masses of matter by will power. The thing happens, also, in th..": experience of spiritualism continually. It is another illus- tration of the translation of force from one plane to another, which is merely a question of controlling elemental agency to an adequate degree.
But the mystery of such translation is something apart from the aspect of elemental agency on the astral plane. In reference to the process of translation we must be content for the present to know that the achievement is possible, and to realise in that way the continuity of natural forces — the coherence of the whole scheme of force on different planes — and to foresee the direction in which man's control of matter on the physical plane may be expected one day to extend. Let us now pass in imagination on to the astral plane altogether and take note of such information as we can gather concerning elemental agency as manifesting there.
Every branch of occult teaching will always be found to gear in with others. The natural history of elemental agency in its first and broadest outlines recalls attention to the fundamental principles of planetary evolution. In the beginning of a planet's life, before the evolution of its
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mineral body — not to speak of its vegetation and animal life — the nucleus of cosmic activity which is going to be a planet is the arena of certain elemental evolutions fol- lowing one another in due order. Before the formation of the mineral kingdom, we have been told, the scheme of things to which we belong provides for the successive evo- lution of three kingdoms of elementals. The statement at first carried no very definite meaning for uninitiated hearers, but even at first it conveyed, in a grand faint out- line, the idea that those kingdoms of nature of which we have cognisance were the outcome of mysterious forces acting on matter of a finer order than that into which it was ultimately kneaded. It now appears that the three kingdoms of elementals which preceded the mineral evolu- tion are in no sense extinct. We are concerned with a later stage of the process, but the earlier agencies are still in activity. Cognisable in fact in varying degrees there are three kingdoms of elementals still in touch with the evolution of the planetary chain, — force, that is to say, looking at the matter from another point of view, in three orders of manifestation. They do not all belong to the astral plane, and the two higher must be thought of as belonging properly to more spiritual planes though inter- penetrating the astral. Remember that the astral plane is a sphere of activity for higher faculties than those which properly belong to it; also that it is sub-divisible into planes as described in a preceding chapter that differ one from another in a marked degree. Remember also that in speaking now of the two " higher " kingdoms of elementals we are looking back along the course pursued during the descent of spirit into matter. The higher elemental kingdoms were the earlier in the order of manifestation, the first to emerge from non-manifestation.
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The lowest of the three is most highly developed or organised, the nearest to the still more elaborately evolved, finished, or materially perfected physical plane.
The higher kingdoms can only be got at, so to speak, by powers on a level spiritually with that to which they belong. In order to deal with them at all a human being must have passed up the cycle of evolution again till his consciousness and will are in activity once more (plus the experiences of physical incarnation) on the higher planes. The thought will present no difficulty to anyone who has grasped the first principles of occult teaching in regard to cosmic evolution, and the bearing of it on the subject in hand tends to simplify rather than to embarrass the in- quiry before us. For the present we may ignore the two higher or earlier elemental kingdoms. The third, or that nearest to physical manifestation, is the one with which human consciousness of the ordinary type is most nearly concerned. All varieties of elemental agency visible to explorers of the astral plane who are able to cognise its phenomena without being as yet on the more exalted levels of spiritual evolution, belong to the third kingdom, which, however, is varied to an extent that renders its division into different orders and classes a task of considerable difficulty. Let us attempt to realise some of the principles on which that classification must proceed.
The elemental forces, to begin with, — I will endeavour later on to deal with the subject of elemental beings, — are divisible according to the states or conditions of matter with which they have to do in their manifestations on the physical plane. We all know of the solid, liquid, and gaseous states of matter, and occult students know some- thing of four other states in an ascending series. The corresponding elemental forces are those described in
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poetical language, as gnomes, undines, sylphs, and sala- manders. The gnome does not mean a sub-human dwarf inhabiting mines. This is the caricature of the idea developed by imperfect information grafted on an ill- trained imagination. The gnome or earth elemental is the astral force related to the phenomena of solid matter. So the undine, or water elemental, is not a fairy dancing in a fountain, but a natural force related to liquid matter; the sylph, or air elemental, is the similar force related to gaseous matter; and the salamander, or fire elemental, to the vibrations of the ether.
At this point, however, the classification may seem too crude to be scientific. There are common attributes in all three states of matter. Weight, for instance, is as much an attribute of hydrogen as of lead; molecular vibration is going on in the motionless rock as well as in the waves that dash against it. There is no force we can think of which belongs exclusively to either liquid, solid, or gaseous matter. In the same way, however, the various elemental agencies do not act singly and independently of each other, but in infinitely varied alliances. The important point is that whatever combination of forces may be recognised as operative in any given case on the physical plane, the counterpartal combination is operative on the astral, and assumes the relatively living aspect which renders it more directly than here amenable to the human will.
But the astral plane is divided, as we have seen, into seven sub-divisions. Appropriate to each we find special varieties of elemental agency presenting themselves for examination, and the distinction just noticed between the elementals of earth, water, air, and fire runs up through them all.
Again, there is a mysterious classification of attributes,
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tendencies, or characteristics running through Nature — through all the planes of Nature, the physical included — which is too subtle to be very readily interpreted, but which may be dimly indicated by saying that every plant, animal, and man, as well as every mineral and every manifestation of elemental agency, is " on " one or other of seven great " rays " proceeding in the first instance from exalted regions of spiritual influence, which imagination penetrates with difficulty. The ray classification has to be taken into account in grouping the elementals.
The habits of mind engendered by thinking of the three dimensions of space will enable us to construct in imagina- tion not a tabular view of this triple classification, but a solid figure embracing the three categories. How shall we expand this, however, so as to make it significant of the fact that the same triple classification must be made to run all through the three kingdoms of elementals? For this we seem in need of a fourth dimension of space. But, at all events, without going beyond the experience of life around us, a living creature may at the same time be a mammal, a quadruped, a pachyderm, and a male, so the elemental varieties, though too complicated to be repre- sented by a diagram or even by a solid figure, need not be altogether unmanageable in thought.
So far we have been considering the elemental agencies in their most general or indeterminate aspects as forces rather than entities, and that is the most important idea concerning them, to establish in the mind as the founda- tion of all maturer conceptions. It is disastrous to run away with the first idea apt to invade the understanding on the subject, that the elementals are to the astral plane, what its beasts, birds, and reptiles are to the forest. But,
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none the less, early experience on the astral plane is very likely to support this notion. Forces on the physical plane are always abstract energies associated with matter, but forces on the astral plane, are not only, as has been already said, in some sense alive, they are ready to take shape under the influence of the will, whatever it may be, that directs them, and may be in the same way imbued with a benevolent or malevolent character for the time being, which has no resemblance, as far as any internal conscious- ness goes, to goodness or badness of disposition, but leads them to be of good or bad efficiency, just as physical plane forces may be of good or bad efficiency. The fire which directed to a useful end cooks food may, directed dif- ferently, inflict suffering on a living organism. Gravity which pulls down a clock weight usefully may kill a man standing below if the chain breaks. Electricity may carry good tidings or explode a parcel of dynamite without being in itself good or bad electricity; and the dynamite may use- fully clear a rock out of the path of navigation or blow up a building and mutilate the inhabitants. Per se, force is neither good nor evil, and the same idea has to be applied to the consideration of elemental beings, called into existence by will power and invested with attributes by conscious intention. Undoubtedly, the astral plane teems with such beings of both good and evil efficiency, and at the first blush it might well be imagined that they con- stitute the animal life of that plane. But they are entities only in so far as a bucketful of water drawn up out of the sea is a specific volume of water, taking the shape of the interior of the bucket for the time being. If you break the bucket the water falls back into the ocean, neither the better nor the worse for having been detached for a while therefrom. Or it may have gone through various
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adventures in the meantime. It may have been converted into steam in a boiler, may have driven a ship on her course, or it may have burst from its confinement injuring living beings in the neighbourhood; it may even have entered into chemical combinations with other matter and have played an elaborate part on the stage of the earth's physical mani- festation, but still it is so much water all the while, and will ultimately, by some road, return to the ocean from which it came. So with the detached and temporarily individualised elemental life or force. The will which moulds it, or the thought energy, operative, perhaps, with- out any conscious will being at work in the transaction at all, may invest it with a very considerable tenacity of separate life and tendency, easily mistaken for inherent purpose. Its very shape may be enduring, unless it comes in contact with some will force that breaks it up, and thus we are presented with all the external characteristics of a living astral creature. The horrible or repulsive shapes encountered on the astral plane by rash intruders are of this nature. They may be the creatures of evil or male- volent thought, and though powerless to harm human beings collected enough to oppose a courageous will to their attack, may seriously torment or even injure invaders of their territory whose inherent forces are paralysed by terror. Just as real and definitely existing as entities for a time, other elemental shapes may be beautiful in appear- ance and beneficent in action if called into being by thoughts emanating from love and beneficence, but their tenacity of life will depend on the strength and persistence of the will that has called them into being, and when they have fulfilled their mission, or have lost coherence by the relaxation of the will that evoked them, they will resolve themselves again into the ocean of elemental agency to
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which they belong and be available for any new purpose, good, bad, or indifferent.
This part of the explanation may help to supply an (occultly) scientific interpretation for stories connected with the presiding " gods " of some Indian temples — treated, of course, as empty superstitions by Western in- telligence alive to the incredibility of the local belief as crudely stated, and destitute of the occult knowledge which might discern the natural possibility in the background. Elemental agency clothed with form and inspired with purpose by some adequately powerful human will in the first instance, may persist in that shape for long periods of time and manifest potencies along the line of the original impulse which would easily be mistaken by an ignorant populace, in contact with them, for the supernatural power of a demi-god.