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THE

WORD

Vol. 22 JANUARY 1916 No. 4

Copyright 1916 by H. W. PERCIVAL

GHOSTS THAT NEVER WERE MEN

(Continued)
Sending an Elemental

SO-CALLED Black Magic, which is the use of magical power for selfish purposes, employs all possible means to obtain the end in view. Many results are achieved by the use of elementals, which these magicians summon and direct, at times and at places which facilitate communication and permit the exercise of the power. The times are usually those when the lethal side and influences of the moon prevail. The place is often made artificially by consecrating it with rites to the purposes. To this line of black magic belongs the calling of an elemental into existence and then sending it out on a mission to do some bodily injury to, and even to cause the death of persons against whom it is sent. The elemental can be made to take a human or animal form when attacking. It may appear in the semblance of a person known to the victim. Usually the attack is made in a dim or dark place. Unless one is protected by karma against such attacks, he will be injured or destroyed, according to the plan of the magician, because the elemental, carrying with it a strange, uncanny influence, is, in addition, endowed with a supernormal strength which overcomes any physical resistance that might be made. Some mysterious deaths may have occurred in this manner. When one is attacked in this way, the elemental that is sent attacks the human elemental in the body of the victim. The human elemental then fights, feeling, by natural instinct, what it has to fight, and this human elemental, by reaction, produces in the mind of the victim the horror it feels in the presence and under the attack of the messenger of the magician. At such a time the resources of the mind are called upon. If the law does not allow death by such means, and if the mind of the victim does not give up and consent to death, but gives battle, then its powers are called into play. The human elemental, encouraged by the mind, is given new strength, and the mind finds powers ready at hand which it never supposed it possessed or could use, and in the end the elemental sent may be itself destroyed. The law is that if an elemental is destroyed the one who conquers it receives an increase in power equal to that represented in the elemental vanquished, and the one who sent it loses power to an equal extent. The one who sent it may even himself be destroyed. Whether or not he is destroyed is determined by the thought of the one who has vanquished the elemental sent. Those who are able to summon or create an elemental and send it on such a mission know of the law and that they themselves will suffer injury or death in case the elemental sent forth fails to do its work. They are, because of their knowledge of this law, very cautious about the creating and sending forth of these elemental fiends, and rarely take the risks which they must fear, and only where they want to gratify intense personal feeling. Were it not for this knowledge and fear by black magicians, there would be many more attempts to injure through ghostly agency. The priests of certain orders sometimes send elementals to bring deserters back into the fold. The deserter feels the power which is employed, and if he is not able to resist or overcome it, he returns to the order, or he may suffer an uncanny death through the attack on him by an elemental messenger. But the priesthoods know the risk, and fear to go beyond a certain point, lest the order suffer for the failure. No such practitioners, or assemblages of them, know the destiny and the power which may be behind the one attacked, however feeble and insignificant he might seem.

One of the reasons for the reaction is that the creator and even the mere sender of an elemental must put into it a portion of himself, that is, he must endow it with a part of his own elemental body, and, as the messenger is always, by an invisible cord, in contact with him who sent it, that which is done to the attacking elemental is transferred to the sender.

Devil Worship

Sometimes cults are formed for a low, a degraded kind of elemental contact and worship. This worship had and has many phases. It is not likely that at any time the earth is free from humans who take these means to obtain through elementals gratification of a horrible licentiousness. The places selected may be in the wilds of mountains or on deserted plains, in the open or in an enclosure, and even in crowded cities, in a chamber devoted to the cult. All such cults may be classed as devil-worship. The surroundings may be simple and even bare, or they may be sumptuous and artistic. The devil worship begins by ceremonies and invocations. Dancing is nearly always a part. Sometimes offerings in the form of libations are made, and incense, precious or common, is burned. Sometimes the votaries slash themselves or each other to draw blood. Whatever the ritual, there appears after a while a form, or many forms, sometimes a form for each worshipper. These elementals appearing, take form from the material furnished by the libation, the smoke of the incense, the fumes of the human blood, and the odors loosened by the movements of the dancers’ bodies. As soon as the forms appear, the dancers swing more, until they are in frenzy. Then wild and vile sexuality with the demons or among each other, follows, until all ends in disgusting orgies. The elementals thus worshipped are of a loathsome and low order, as there are, of course, in the elemental worlds beings which differ even more than humans differ.

It seems strange that the devil-worshippers do not suffer physically; there is a certain exchange of force received from the demons for their worship. Such worship, however, eventually brings the worshippers to a state where they lose their humanity, and so they become, if not in this, then in a future life, outcasts and wrecks from which the mind-man has separated. Such wrecks return to the elemental worlds, and thence into the elements—as bad a fate as can befall a person. In the Middle Ages, there was much of this worship and not all that is told of witches and sorcery is without a basis.

Witches

As for witches, and the feats credited to them, there has been much ridicule. One of the things people think most improbable is the alleged riding through the air on a broomstick to a satanic gathering. It is quite possible that a human body may be levitated into the air and carried for a considerable distance, with or without the special aid of air elementals. When one understands and can regulate the vital airs in the body, and has mastery of the sympathetic and central nervous systems, and can direct his course by thought, then he is able to rise into the air and to go in any direction he pleases. But levitation has been observed in cases of persons who probably did not have such occult power. As to the witches, air elementals may have lifted the sorceress voluntarily or by order. The addition of the broomstick is immaterial, but may be credited to the taste of fancy.

Why Men Desire Magic

Magic is generally sought for purposes which are by no means lofty. People wish to accomplish by magic what they cannot bring about in an ordinary, honest way, or at least not without danger to themselves, if their part in the event were known. So magic is generally sought to get information and the revelation of secrets of the past and of future events; to get riches; to find buried treasure; to gain the love of one of the other sex; to get esteem or envy for being a wonder-worker; to cure disease; to inflict disease; to disable an enemy; to commit crimes without danger of recognition, and of punishment; to afflict with plagues and pests; to strike the cattle and live stock of enemies with diseases. Seldom is there one who has a desire for the real magic, sometimes called White Magic, which is to change and raise his human elemental into a conscious human being by endowing it with mind, and to raise himself from a human intelligence to a divine intelligence, and all to the end that he may better serve humanity.

Narcotics, Intoxicants, Open Door to Elementals

Certain stones, jewels, metals, flowers, seeds, herbs, juices, have peculiar properties and produce strange effects. Little wonder is shown at these effects, once they are known and made common use of. The chewing of the narcotic betel nut, the smoking or drinking of bhang and hashish and opium, the chewing and smoking of tobacco, the drinking of wine, brandy, gin, whiskey, produce sensations of languor, passion, fighting, visions, dreams; the chewing of hot red pepper will burn the mouth and stomach; eating a cherry gives the sensation of sweetness. To say, as do the chemists, that such are the qualities of these plants and their products, does not account for the results produced. Not all persons are affected alike by these substances. So red pepper will burn some more than others; some are able to eat large quantities of it and relish it; others cannot endure the fiery taste. The same kind of cherry tastes differently to different people. The reason for the qualities of the capsicum and the cherry is that the constituents of these fruits, both of which are in the main of the element of water, are dominated, the capsicum by the fiery and the cherry by the watery element.

The effect of narcotics and intoxicants are so common as not to cause wonder. Yet these effects are magical and produced by elemental influence. The juice of certain plants, fermented or distilled, is a special link between the physical world and the elemental worlds. When the juice, that is, the life taken from the plants, comes into touch with the human elemental, it opens a door by which the elemental world and the physical world are separated. Once the door is open the influences of the elemental worlds rush in and are through the juice, which is called intoxicating, sensed by the human elemental. When the door is open, then not only elementals may come in, but there is always the danger of horrible seizures by the desire ghosts of dead men. (See The Word, October, 1914).

Narcotic juice and smoke are links, which put the user into direct touch with the elemental worlds. Being under the influence of intoxicants or narcotics is being under the influence of elementals—a conquest of mind by elementals. If the effects of these plants were not generally known, and someone were to see the effects produced in another, or experience them himself after taking a draught of these fluids or after the use of a drug, then he would consider the effect magical, as much so as if he were to see one walking along a street ascend into the air.

Signatures of Plants

The reason why both pepper plant and cherry tree may grow in the same soil and each extract therefrom and from the air such different qualities is due to the seal or signature which is in the seed and which permits the use of certain combinations only and forces the concentration according to the effect of the signature. In the seal of the pepper, the fiery element is concentrated; in the seal of the cherry seed, the watery element. Every element must follow its seal. Each seal has many variations; so there are sweet peppers and sour cherries. The sensation produced by the taste, is due to the manner in which the human elemental is affected by the seal. The human elemental is most agreeably affected when the fruits and juices have the same or a similar seal as it has. The craving of the human elemental is for those foods or qualities which its own seal favors.

The Seal of a Human Elemental

This seal is, in the case of a human elemental, determined before birth. It is decided on at the time of conception when the invisible germ, or seed of the new personality, causes the bonding of the male seed with the female soil. Pregnant women are often noticed to have abnormal tastes and cravings for peculiar odors, drinks, foods, and surroundings. This is due to the seal of the human elemental of the child the mother is bearing. The seal summons and attracts elemental influences to build up the physical ghost, that is, the human elemental, of the new personality to be born. Yet this wonderful charm which is exercised by the seal given to the invisible physical germ, over ghosts in the four elements of the earth sphere, and to which seal all ghosts have to make obeisance, is not considered magical. Certain things cannot be done against a certain seal, and certain things must come to a personality whose human elemental bears a certain seal.

(To be continued)