THE

WORD

GHOSTS THAT NEVER WERE MEN

(Concluded)

Task and Responsibility of Man

THE task of man with nature ghosts and his responsibility for performing it are not empty words, but each is a term weighted with the results of his long past. He was, and is, responsible for the nature ghosts in his charge. His task, whether he accepts it or not, was and is to impress matter and raise it so that it shall be conscious in ever higher degrees. Therefore, the relations of a man, which means essentially a mind, and the matter entrusted to him are continuous throughout all cycles of lives and time.

A mind, once it has come into relation with certain matter, can never free itself from that relation until the matter becomes self-conscious. The mind, of course, has identity throughout the ages, and the matter attributed to it, while lacking identity in the sense in which the mind is identical, is yet always the same, not other matter. This continuity of a mind, of the matter in its charge, and of the relations between them may be contemplated from many points. Here such views from four of these are singled out, as may be readily shown in frames which let the continuity of the relations between a mind and the ghosts in its charge appear in clear relief. Two of the subjects are parts of the history of man’s body; the third is concerned particularly with the building up of a human elemental; the fourth with various cycles in the relation.

The degrees and proportions in which matter is conscious are the measures for understanding any one of the four.

The task, relation and its continuity are not revealed by any aspect of the world that man’s senses can reach. Though events crowd in the life of everyone, their meaning is hidden, as it cannot be known by the senses. The meaning is revealed to man as soon as he is intelligent enough to understand it and assume the responsibility. The senses cannot solve these problems which are, as to them, presented by particular facts. Perception by the senses remains insufficient until it is met by a concept on the part of the mind of what meaning these events indicate. Conception is not a gathering of facts, nor of perceptions. Conception is the grasping by the mind of principles and of abstractions relating generally to facts perceived. To grasp what the responsibility of man means and where it rests, is to conceive his place in the universe, measured by degrees and proportions in which matter is conscious. That will show his relation to the past and to the future. His distant past is centered in the present, and, more, through the present is the promise or threat of his future.

The Universe is one. But there is a line dividing it into nature on one side, and on the other, mind; consciousness, unchangeable, is throughout everything in both. Nature is conscious, but is not conscious that it is conscious; mind is conscious and is conscious that it is conscious. No division which does not respect this disparity will, in the long run, serve to guide an inquirer through the stages in which matter is conscious to various extents on the different planes and in the different worlds. Classifications such as Man and Universe; God, Man and Nature; Spirit and Matter; Spirit, Force and Matter; Matter, Force and Consciousness; must result in confusion, and fail. To divide man into Body and Soul, or Body, Soul and Spirit, falls short of efficiency. Words like God, Gods, Supreme Spirit, Soul of the World, God in Nature, lack distinction. These categories and terms do not suffice in that they fail to disclose features from which an inquirer may get advice about correspondences and adaptations in the universe, and so may learn of the purpose of existence; they do not show how he can follow the progress of any one thing from its primitive and simple origin through each state in its course toward its highest possible attainment; nor do they enlighten him how all things are united in one comprehensive and harmonizing whole; still less do they inform him of the cause why things are as they are, bound by a lasting relationship. They fail to reveal his true, his essential being which is of mind. So they make impossible a demonstration of his responsibility, and of how he, as a mind, fits in with and works through the mechanism of nature by which matter, always in the form of ghosts, is refined and becomes conscious in higher degrees. Only an arrangement which takes note of the contrast between nature and mind, or elements and intelligences, will furnish to a seeker after truth marks by which to distinguish what in those various common classifications is missing, repeated, overlapping and confused.

To understand the tasks and responsibilities of man, does not require in general going beyond the races that have made and make up the fourth world in the present manifestation of the universe. This fourth world is marked off by the development of seven races. The first four comprise the breath race, the life race, the form race and the physical or sex race. These races are bodies. They belong to nature because they are elemental; none of them are minds. The history of these bodies shows that the workings on the side of mind are followed by an involution on the side of nature. With these distinctions the views from the four points which have been selected will be understood. The first aspect is a part of the history of the involution of matter and of the general shapes of what is now the human body.

I

The Breath Race. At the beginning of this, our world, the physical and fourth world, the breath race came into existence. The two factors there were nature and mind. That distinction is based on the state in which matter in each was conscious. Nature was matter, in its active and passive sides, as force and matter; the degree in which that matter was there, at the dawn, conscious, is, to give it a name, termed breath; its conditions were both breath matter and breath force. The mind aspect of matter was represented by intelligence. Intelligence is a term indicating a degree in which mind is conscious. The beings of the first or breath race were, on the nature side, fire elementals, on the mind side, intelligences. Among these mind entities, three classes may be discerned which had a particular connection with the make-up of what was later to become humanity. They did not incarnate, however, until much later when bodies had been made, and sex was developed in these bodies, and that took place at the middle of the third race of the fourth world. These three classes were minds which had come from the universe—or period of involution and evolution—just preceding the present, and where they had each left a personality germ in the matter, which had then returned to rest in its primal source, substance. These minds started the involution of the present universe by acting on a part of the Great Breath. Some of that part had been connected with them in the past universe, some had not been there connected with them, and some was new matter. There were then three classes of minds and three kinds of nature matter at the beginning of the first race.

The activity was begun by mind, and mind acted on nature. Three sources of this activity may be distinguished: activity out of the Supreme Intelligence, out of a first subdivision of the first class of minds, and out of a first subdivision of the second class of minds. The first source was an impulse given by the Supreme Intelligence. This impulse acted on the Great Breath, the fire sphere as a whole, including the three kinds of nature matter, and caused therein a tendency to separate the individual breath spheres from and within the universal breath sphere. Those minds of the first class, that were in line with the Supreme Intelligence, understood. They acted as the second source, directly in their own spheres, and made them distinct from the Universal Crystal-like Sphere. They acted on their own spheres in a manner like as the Supreme Intelligence had acted on the universal sphere. The individual breath spheres thus made up were crystal-like spheres of colorless light (See The Word, vol. 2, p. 3). The matter of the nature kind belonged to the element of fire, and was nascent mind, which is to say, potential mind, or, matter of the kind that can, under certain conditions, become directly conscious of its being conscious. That matter had been in intimate contact with minds in the past universe and will be in line to be raised to mind matter when the potential fire of mind in it will be lit as actual mental light. Each crystal-like sphere had in it both nature and mind, for it contained breath matter not lit up and it had also the light of the mind, that which had become mind at the end of the previous universe. The matter was throughout the same in kind, but conscious in the two different degrees. Of course, there was no physical division of these parts in the spheres, nothing like the distinction of what we now call body and mind. In the first stages, nothing was distinguishable within the spheres thus made up.

Gradually changes occurred. These were changes in the development of the elemental matter of the spheres. In the fire world the individual minds of the first class, each in its sphere, were acted on by the Supreme Intelligence, the first source of activity. Some individual minds knew this and some did not, according to whether they had previously, at the end of the last universe, arrived at a stage where they had put themselves in line with the Supreme Intelligence or had failed to align. Those who understood acted as the second source of activity in accordance with the Supreme Intelligence. Those who did not understand, a second subdivision of the first class, did not so act: they were quiet, they slept within their spheres. In these spheres, nature, that is, the element of fire, acted from the impulse given it by the Supreme Intelligence directly. In this manner all of the fire element in the individual spheres was acted on. From this proceeded an involution within each individual sphere.

The Life Race. When the individual crystal-like spheres, made up of the fire element as matter and the minds of the first class as mind, so involving had reached the middle or libra stage of their racial development, a change occurred in them. Up to that all were homogeneous crystal-like spheres. At that stage began to appear in the lower half of each a second sphere, the sphere of life. The second class of minds then came in. Among those minds were some which were the third source of activity and they acted intelligently, according with the Supreme Intelligence, on the matter of their spheres. The remainder, the second part of the second class of minds not yet understanding, acted under the impulse of the Supreme Intelligence. They were moved, and did not act voluntarily. So their work was not done as perfectly as that of the minds which acted intelligently under the direction of The Supreme Intelligence. The second class of minds caused a change from the homogeneous state to a difference, division, movement.

This movement was pulse-like and condensed into the life spheres within the lower half of the first spheres. The first class of minds are named, to distinguish them, capricorn minds, or knowers. Some of them acted intelligently and voluntarily with the law; others, the second subdivision of the knowers acted, though not voluntary or independently, yet under the impulse of the Universal Intelligence. The action of the capricorn minds in developing the life spheres, called the second class of minds to act. The second class are named sagittary minds, or thinkers. They did not begin to act until the time had come for the life race. Then they produced the second spheres. The third class of minds, named the scorpio minds, desirers or resisters, did not come in until later. The capricorn and sagittary minds worked together: some minds worked under the influence of others, and all under the influence of the Supreme Intelligence. Those second spheres were developed in the fourth or libra period of the breath race, and were the life race, the matter of which race was conscious in the degree called life, and belonged to the elemental sphere of air.

The Form Race. After the life race had begun, the life matter was caused to pulse and to produce, at the middle period of the life race within the second or life sphere, an egg-like form with a loop in it, like a circle seen sideways. Thus when the middle point was reached the third race began. The third race was a form race and belonged to the element of water. The matter of the three races condensed, around that loop; and so form, figure, outline, body, commenced, and the human form, as it is at present, was first indicated.

The Sex Race. A distinction has to be drawn between the first two classes of minds and those of the third class. When the fourth period of the third or form race was reached, the form condensed and gradually became physical. There was the first of the physical races. The beings of that race were light in weight, graceful, natural, and contained within themselves both masculine and feminine powers. At this point the first subdivision of the capricorn minds, those who had the knowledge of and acted in accordance with the law, incarnated in those first and perfect bodies which were of the element of fire, that is, earth fire. They knew that was their duty and did it. The second branch of these capricorn minds incarnated too: not voluntarily, but under the urge of the Supreme Intelligence. The capricorn minds incarnated in these ways into the physical bodies of the first or cancer human race, at the middle or libra period of the third or form race. The second class of minds, those of the sagittary class, did not incarnate fully. They merely projected a portion of themselves into their physical bodies, which were of the second or leo degree of the physical human race. These minds, before they would incarnate any portion of themselves, hesitated and considered. One part of them determined that it was right and proper and so projected a portion of themselves; the other branch disregarded the question of its being right; but, lest they should lose the bodies ready for them, also projected a portion of themselves. These new bodies were produced when the old bodies began to wear out. The new bodies absorbed the old bodies, and the minds transferred themselves into the new bodies—reincarnated. Then came the later development of the physical bodies which were ready for the scorpio minds. They were virgo physical bodies. All these bodies, of the cancer, leo, and virgo branches of the physical race were handsome and healthy. None of them had cohabited up to that time.

The scorpio minds refused to incarnate, or even to project a part of themselves. Had the scorpio minds incarnated, then the bodies would have produced other bodies through their double sexed organs. The bodies ready for the third class of minds continued to develop. No minds incarnated. The sexes became pronounced, that is, the bodies which were dual had one side suppressed and the other side active, and gradually became male and female bodies. The capricorn minds withdrew and so did the sagittary minds, as they became perfected. The bodies for the scorpio minds began to cohabit, but had no issue until the desire seeds of the capricorn and sagittary minds made the issue.

When those minds withdrew, the desires let loose from some of them took form in the physical. These desires were the first animals and were given physical shapes through cohabitation of the mindless human race. The human animals, previously called the mindless human race, were different from the animals generated through sexual union. The distinction was that the human animals were personalities, that is, human elementals, the mere animals were not personalities and were not human. Up to this time none of the animals were four-legged. Thus were the seeds of some animal forms set at large into the world. These seeds were of two kinds: according to the motives which had prompted the incarnation of the capricorn and the projection of the sagittary minds, these seeds left by them were what are now called good or evil. Some were harmless, some ferocious. The good class were the desire seeds freed by those minds of the capricorn class which had incarnated according to law and willingly, and those of the sagittary class which had projected a portion of themselves into the bodies because they considered it to be right and proper. The seeds of evil came from those capricorn minds that had incarnated because urged by the command of the Supreme Intelligence, and from those sagittary minds that had been moved to projection by the fear of losing something, that is, by selfish motives. These desire seeds so let go by the withdrawal of the minds and the death of their physical bodies took physical form as the result of cohabitation of the mindless humans. The thing that bonded the two germs of the man and woman was a desire seed, so released. This was the second or sexual generation of human bodies. The first kind had been the production by the double sexed, without cohabitation, when the minds sent down a spark. The desire seeds contacted with the soil through cohabitation. The bodies, produced without minds, in turn gave birth to physical beings which were departures from the human type. Animals began to appear: some ferocious, animals that lived by killing, others harmless, those that lived on vegetables, according to the nature of the desires left by the minds. Some of the desire forms liberated at death obsessed the physical human bodies, and some of the obsessed physical human bodies united with the physical animals.

The scorpio minds observing what was going on and what was happening to the bodies prepared for them, either had a similar desire aroused in themselves or feared the loss of what should have been their physical bodies. Then they tried to incarnate. It was too late. A few succeeded in having a spark of their mind enter the head of their human body. But they were only a few. Others managed to make contact with their bodies from without. They did not get in. A third set lost all contact with their bodies. These bodies had left their crystal-like spheres and were not drawn back into them. Those human bodies which the minds managed to contact remained in touch with or were drawn back into their crystal spheres. The others were cut off from their crystal spheres and became animals.

From the physical races which remained in touch, are descended the human races of today, as were the Lemurians and Atlanteans. All members of these races are fourth race beings and belong to the element of earth, no matter by what name they may be known, Aryans, Turanians, Indians, Copts, Negroes, or whether they are white, yellow, red, brown, or black. All human beings with physical bodies belong to the fourth race. Further, some of the animals of today are variations of the types of the animals produced in the manner mentioned, from desires remaining after the minds had gone on. The minds that lost their bodies are responsible for them. That is where the responsibility appears.

This is one part of the history of what is now a human body. It is the history of what the three classes of minds have done or omitted to do with that part of the elements with which they were connected. The great mass of these two first classes of minds has passed on from this earth. Of those who are still on the earth rarely any move among men. Physical humanity as its history and qualities are known, is the humanity of which the third or scorpio class are the minds in charge, and which they have failed to care for, protect or train. The burdens of the people in the world today are largely the karma that the scorpio minds merited when they refused their task with the elementals which are now physical humanity.

II

Another side of the history of the physical body relates to the successive parts the elements were made to take in its fashioning, under the direction of the minds. The development in this branch relates and fits, of course, into the stages of the history so far given of the actions and omissions of the minds during the breath, life, form, and physical races: of the crystal-like sphere, the life sphere, the ovoid sphere and the incipient physical body.

The source from which the development of the physical body started was the personality germ left in the matter of the previous universe when that was dissolved. That source reappearing in this universe was matter of the pure element of fire. There were three kinds of personality germs at the close of the last universe. These were seeds or germs, not physical of course, from which were to come at the proper time future human physical bodies. Each of these personality germs had belonged to a mind in the previous universe. At the beginning of the present universe these personality germs were acted upon from the three sources already named, directly from the Supreme Intelligence and from the first of the capricorn and the first of the sagittary minds.

The Breath Race. At the beginning of the new universe these personality germs found themselves each in a crystal-like sphere, the sphere of the mind to which the germ belonged. There were differences in the action according to the three classes of the minds. The capricorn minds stimulated each their personality germ, by the use of their light faculty. The sagittary minds and the scorpio minds did not act at that period.

The stimulation by the minds of their personality germs called for the positive side of the sphere of fire, that is, the forces of the fire element, to come into action. Out of the result of this first action was developed later what made it possible for us to have the organs of the eye and of the generative system. This was the beginning in the crystal-like sphere of what later became a human organization. What is at present the eye, the generative system and their ramifications, came from that first action of the capricorn minds upon the fire element. The only element manifesting was the fire element. The other three had not been called into action. The only minds active were the capricorn minds. The organs, systems, and functions were in idea, not in form. After this idea and out of this idea, followed later all other organs, systems, and developments, of the human body. They are variations, each according to special functions and conditions, but the idea is preserved through all. The idea was received by the mind from the Spiritual World of Knowledge—a phrase used to designate the intelligence in the sphere of fire.

The Life Race. After the fire element had acted on the personality germ, it continued so to act and to involve the germ. When this personality germ had reached half way toward the development, in the first sphere, of what became later the eye and the interior organs of the brain connected therewith and the generative system, then each mind gave a new stimulus to its personality germ, and to the element of air which had begun to come into existence. This exciting was done by means of the time faculty in the case of the capricorn and sagittary minds, and in the case of the scorpio minds it was done under impulse from the Supreme Intelligence through the capricorn and sagittary minds.

Under this new inspiration the element of air was called into action. What later became the organs of the ear, the head organs connected therewith, the lungs and the organs of the respiratory system, were made possible by the result of the first activity of the element of air. These first results are, of course, hardly conceivable and would be inappreciable to the present senses. However, the intelligent minds in their states understood the processes and results and continued their work. These two elements, fire and air, it is impossible for our present senses to contact. The conditions of matter obtaining then were beyond even what would now be called spiritual. The positive side of the air element is the life force. That was started and kept moving by the fire under the influence of the light and time faculties of the upper classes of the mind.

The organs which are now the ear and the respiratory system are the present day results of the activity of the positive with the negative side of the element of air, under the influence of the minds. The plan followed the ideal conceived in turn from the idea of the Spiritual World of Knowledge. The idea was a variation of that which was the prototype of the organ of the eye and generative system.

There were at that time first the individual crystal-like spheres, in which the mind matter and the nature matter had become somewhat distinct. The element of fire composed the crystal-like spheres, which were conscious in the two degrees, named element and intelligence, or nature and mind. The part of the mind that was active was the light faculty. Into the individual fire sphere had come further a second sphere, in which the element of air was predominant. That element also was distinguishable into two parts, measured by degrees in which the element of air was conscious. The parts were nature and mind, more particularly, the element of air through which the time faculty of the mind was active. Mind gave distinction to matter. Without mind there could have been no distinction in matter. The activity of the two elements under the influence of the two faculties had so far produced first the prototype of what are now the organs of sight and of the generative system, which prototype had been developed during a half of a world period. Then the prototype of the organs of the ear and respiratory system had been just brought into existence by the element of air. There began the second period, the first being then still open; and it has not ended even today.

The Form Race. A new activity set in when the second period had reached its middle point. It was caused by the action of the image faculty of the minds. That called into action the active side of the element of water, which fashioned within the third sphere in which was the oval hoop, out of the passive element of water, the prototypes of what are now the organs of the tongue, palate, heart and the circulatory system. The matter of the element of water began to adhere and precipitate and certain particles remained around the loop, which elongated as the precipitation continued.

This lengthened zone within the oval sphere was the beginning of the human body of today. The element of water under the influence of the image faculty continued to form and hold in form the particles that were precipitated from the element of air. The loop was a magnetic band that confined around it the particles of the element of air. From the loop was developed gradually what have become now the spinal column and alimentary tract. In the ovate sphere the element of water condensed around the zone and was formed into what was the beginning of the present outer fleshly body, the hands, arms, legs, and feet. This primitive human form was the subjective aspect of what is now the physical body. At first, when the condensation was confined around the loop, there were no legs, no arms, no flesh, no outer organs of the eye or ear. There was no necessity for these, as the executive organs, the arms and hands, and the locomotive organs had no purpose and there was no use for them, nor had senses been developed for the organs.

The beginning only of these outer organs was there. The hands and feet represent today certain forces which formerly directed the action and caused the movement of the oval sphere. The movement was like that of a gyroscope, the ovoid band was like the inner wheel, the outer surface of the oval sphere like the outer ring. The movement was gyroscopic, that is, the ovoid band rotated within the oval sphere in the same or opposite direction. The ovate sphere propelled itself by its inherent force. As the elliptic body continued to condense, the oval form narrowed into the shape of a present-day body and was clothed with skin. The layers of skin were concretions from the outer spheres. Through the skin the crystal-like sphere, the life sphere, and the water sphere, were contracted. All this was at first in an astral condition. The body was astral. It had practically no weight. When this form body had reached its middle period, in the third period of the form race, then the outline, the plan of the physical body, was complete. These astral bodies had now the beginnings of the organs of the eye, the ear, and tongue and the corresponding generative, respiratory and circulatory systems. Yet the bodies had no senses. They could not see, nor hear, nor taste.

There were three classes of bodies descended from the three races, and were to become three classes of personalities for the three classes of minds. The breath race of the element of fire were to be the personalities of the capricorn minds. The life race of the element of air were to be the personalities of the sagittary minds. And the form race of the element of water were to be the personalities of the scorpio minds. Each of these elemental bodies was built from the personality germ carried over for each mind from the previous Universe. In order that these elemental beings or personalities might be made ready for the minds to incarnate or to work through them, a physical body had to be developed within them.

The Physical Body. When in this third period, that of the form race, fashioned from the element of water, the middle point was reached, the fourth period began. Then the active side of the element of earth commenced to manifest and work on the passive; that is, the earth forces started to work on the earth matter. These earth forces received their impetus from capricorn and sagittary minds, each of which acted through its focus faculty. The scorpio minds did not act at all at first, and then, those who did, acted under the impulse of the capricorn and sagittary classes. The physical body came into existence under the action of the focus faculty of the capricorn and sagittary minds. This was done by developing what became later the nose and the digestive system, out of the element of earth.

At this fourth stage the four elements had contributed each its share of its elemental matter under the stimulus of the light, time, image, and focus faculties of the minds, and so had built the form of rudimentary man with its incipient four systems and organs. The organs were not fully formed and there were no senses to use them. The senses had not yet been incorporated into that form. The systems and organs were being made ready to be inhabited later by the senses, as dwellings are made ready for their tenants.

These elements were drawn as systems into one body. By the continued action of the focus faculties of the minds, the elements were co-ordinated and continued to condense into systems and organs, until, with the beginning of the action of the nose and the digestive system the organization was completed.

There was at this period only a form of the physical body, but as yet no physical body. The capricorn and sagittary minds used their focus faculty; and slowly this focussing of the light of the minds stimulated the element of earth, through the other elements. Then there began a movement through the ovoid zone. As the movement continued, particles of the element of earth were attracted to the band through what developed into the sense of smell. All the elements were working through the element of earth, and by that were drawn into the ovate form, through what developed into the sense of smell. The organ of smell was gradually produced. The first physical bodies were built by the breathing in of earth particles. As these were breathed in, the incipient digestive tract was organized, and with that came the incipient physical circulatory system. The food of the bodies was what the beings drew in through the sense of smell. The food was carried to its appropriate parts of the circulatory system. In this way the organs were built up physically according to their astral prototype. The most primitive system of nerves came into existence. At this stage no solid or liquid foods were taken into the bodies; they had not then developed the need for solid nourishment. The bodies had no blood, only a fluidic vapor in place of blood. They had rudimentary organs of sense, but still had no senses. This stage was the human elemental without the senses. In this way it had been built up from the personality germ. The physical body was built within and around the human elemental. The nose and digestive systems were the first physical concretions, then the astral tongue and palate and circulatory system, then the ear and respiratory system and taste, then the eye and generative system became physical.

III

The third subject which brings out the continuity of the relationship between a mind and the matter in its charge, is the building up of a human elemental and fits in with what the two sketches so far have disclosed. When the need came for the senses to contact the world, then the senses of sight, hearing and tasting and smelling were drawn from their respective elements. This was accomplished in each case by four faculties of the minds. The light faculty of the mind drew from the element of fire an ultimate unit, fashioned around it out of the fire element a fire elemental, adjusted that to the organ of the eye, and drew and bound it into the human elemental. The time faculty drew from the element of air an ultimate unit, fashioned around it an elemental of the air, adjusted that ghost to the organ of the ear and drew and bound it into the human elemental. The image faculty and the focus faculty likewise selected ultimate units of the water and the earth, and similarly fashioned from these elements around the units ghosts and then adjusted and bound them into the human elemental. Thereupon the human elemental could see and hear and taste and smell by the use of these nature ghosts through their respective organs to which they had been bound. The human elemental was now able to contact through the elemental beings which had been incorporated into it each of the worlds to which the senses respectively belonged. It had both astral and physical vision, hearing, taste and smell.

These elementals had to be trained to their physical organs so that they would perform their functions of seeing, hearing, tasting and smelling. Even today a training is necessary, as can be appreciated by observing how an infant learns to adapt and to focus its sight to objects so that it can see. Before it learns to focus its eyes and sight, it sees nothing except a blur.

The sense of fire involves until it is a sense of earth; the sight descends until it is smell; a steady and orderly progress of involution obtains until the earth sense, or sense of smell, is ready to become a human elemental. This progress of nature in elemental forms is determined by the mind, and the mind is responsible. The relation is continuous through the stages of development while the elemental is bound in a human body. There are stages when the elemental is free in its own element or is bound in the earthly kingdoms. During those times the mind is not directly responsible, though it is even then responsible for the condition in which the elemental is. The sense of smell eventually becomes a human elemental, for, though smell is earthly and the lowest of the senses, it is yet farthest in development and has, descending while advancing, passed through all stages of the senses.

Each sense is a separate being; a ghost, belonging to one of the four elements. Each has a period of existence, when thus called into being from the element to which it belongs. It then exists in the human elemental and acts through the organ created for it while the life of that physical body in which it functions, lasts. At the death of the physical body it persists with the human elemental in all stages through which that human elemental passes. So if the human elemental goes to heaven, the senses are parts of it and go too. At the dissolution of the human elemental the sight, hearing, tasting, and smelling leave it and return each to the element from which it was taken. On the return to that element the senses are among the nature ghosts and form part of the elemental races. The sight becomes on its leaving the human elemental after death, a fire elemental of the element of fire, free from any human association. The like is the case with the other senses which thus become ghosts in the air, water, and earth elements. They are beings, not mere matter of the elements. Yet these beings have no identity. Only a mind has identity, that is, is conscious that it is itself and that it is conscious. In its element the ghost which was a sense in a human body, exists for a time as a member of one of the elemental races, and then ceases to exist. There remains of it something (not physical of course), and that is quiescent until the time when the human elemental is resurrected by the reincarnating mind, during the period of gestation. Then that something, of the sense of sight for instance, is brought into the human elemental and a sense developed from it and the sense is adjusted to and knitted into its new organs of sense and of the generative system. It follows the same course as it had passed through in the original formation. So the senses of human beings are nature ghosts serving the human elemental and the mind, and are at the same time trained by such service and by involution through elemental races and earthly kingdoms until the senses too in the course of development will become human elementals.

While they serve they are entirely dependent on the human elemental and on the mind. Whatever is done to them is done through the human elemental. They get their improvement or harm through the human elemental, but with the consent of the mind. The mind controls them through the human elemental and impresses them through the human elemental. The human elemental is not responsible for what is done to them; only the mind is responsible. The mind is responsible for its negligence in caring for the senses and for direct injury to them, which it causes, permits, or fails to prevent. (See The Word, Vol. 25, No. 2, Dangers to the Ghosts and Those Who Employ Them.)

The selection of an ultimate unit, around which the faculties of the mind fashion elemental matter and which they finally draw into the human elemental as one of the senses, is not arbitrary. A plan exists which is followed. One sense develops into another. An ultimate unit is steadily and consecutively advanced and involved until it comes as a sense of smell to the turning point and becomes a human elemental.

When the mind had grouped around an ultimate unit of the fire element other matter of the fire element and had trained it to act as a sense of sight, and such sight elemental had passed through all the training it could receive as a sense of sight, then the mind involved the unit into the element of air and grouped around that unit—which was then an air unit, no longer a fire unit—other matter from the element of air, and trained it to act as a sense of hearing in a human organization. A sense of hearing, according to the same plan, received training in a human organization, and when it had finished its training the mind brought the unit into the sphere of water. There the mind grouped around the unit—which having passed through the fire and the air was now a unit of the water element—other matter from the water, so fashioned a water elemental and caused it to act as a sense of taste and as a worker in a circulatory system. After long service and training as a sense of taste in a human organization, the unit was further involved by the mind into the sphere of earth. There the mind grouped around the unit—which was now a unit of the element of earth—other matter of that element, fashioned around the unit the matter into an earth ghost, and made that do service and gave it a training as a sense of smell in a human elemental. The sense of smell had to pass through a long course of training and development as a sense in a human body, and later as a nature ghost of an elemental race in the earth element, going back and forth into physical nature. There it was at first a nature ghost of the lower class, seeking fun and sensation. Later it became an elemental of a higher order which sought immortality through human association by becoming the vehicle of a mind, and eventually became a human elemental incorporating a set of sense ghosts in a human body.

How a smell elemental becomes a human elemental in the sphere of earth is explained by the peculiar function of that sphere. The sphere of earth is in a class by itself. It is not paired as are the fire-mind, life–thought, form–desire worlds. The earth sphere, being a pivot and being at the same time a balance, attracts to itself matter of the fire, air and water elements and then holds it securely in its grip and power. The earth is the last step which must be taken by nature, involving under the direction of mind, before evolution may begin. The earth tries to prevent all elemental matter from taking the evolutionary path and getting away from the earth. It resists the effort of the mind to raise elemental matter, and through elemental matter it holds the mind in its power. The sense of smell, being the function in the human body of the Great Earth Spirit, has therefore a position with regard to the other senses which resembles that of the earth sphere in relation to the three planes. The sense of smell is the limit of the involution of sight, hearing and taste. The sense of sight though the highest of the senses in point of quality is the lowest in point of progress; the sense of smell though the lowest in function is yet farthest advanced towards evolution. Smell is the central sense, and includes the other three. It is the involution of the sight, hearing, and taste. These are in the earth sphere not known as elementals of the pure elements, but are fire-earth elementals, air-earth elementals, water-earth elementals, and simply earth elementals. The central position of smell is indicated by the connection this sense has with the eating of food and breathing, for which moisture is necessary, and with the sex instincts. Smell is the sense for sex. This is shown directly by animals; they tell sex by smell. In man the sense of smell connects with the sense of sight through sex. The organs of sex are connected with the eye through the spinal cord. So smell completes and rounds out the involution, but is a separate thing, different from the other three senses in that it does not pair off with another elemental, as do sight, hearing, and tasting. The functions of the physical body could if man were living a life of purity, be maintained by smell alone. The physical body is a temporary focussing and adjusting of the three worlds of the fire, air, and water, through the earth element acting under the direction of the focus faculty of the mind. The focussing, adjustment, pivoting and balancing is done by smell, under the focus faculty of the mind. When the ghost that functions as the smell has been incorporated in a human elemental time and again, and has so received through that human elemental all impressions which it could receive from the mind, then it has reached the limit of involution. It joins the elemental races which seek mere amusement through human associations, until there is no further excitement nor sensation it delights in. Then the ultimate unit—which is the center or essential being around which was grouped first fire matter and after the disappearance of that, air matter, and after that had disappeared, water matter, and after that had gone, now earth matter—is urged from within itself to progress farther. The next step is the desire for immortality. Above was shown in the chapter, Children of Humans and Elementals, The Word, Vol. 25, No. 4, how this desire for immortality arises. The unit cannot get that except by direct association with mind. It cannot have that direct association through a human elemental. So it has to become a human elemental. As its desire is no longer for mere sensation but for immortality, it is repelled by ordinary humanity, which love and desire sensation. It must have association with a human being of a higher order, one who is healthy and whose senses and organs are fairly under the control of his mind. The manner of the association has already been shown. (See Children of Humans and Elementals, The Word, Vol. 25, No. 4.)

When the human body dies then the human elemental, as the personality, persists for a time or dissolves soon after the death. In the case of dissolution, each of the four senses returns to its element and becomes a member of an elemental race, and circulates through the mineral, vegetable and animal divisions of nature, returning between these embodiments to the freedom of its elemental race. This course is followed until the ghost is again incorporated as a sense into the body of a man.

There is a certain relation between the four elemental races of fire, air, water and earth, and the human elemental. That relation is effected through the organs and systems of the body which correspond to these elements. The contact between the four nature elementals and their organs and systems of the human body, with the human elemental, is made through the nerves. A special set of nerves belongs to each organ and its corresponding system. All the nerves connected with these organs have their ramifications through the whole body. The system of nerves which binds these nature elementals to the human elemental is the sympathetic or ganglionic nervous system. So that although the human elemental is a being not belonging to but existing apart from the four nature elementals, it is still bound to nature, and nature acts on and through it by means of the four classes of nature elementals through the organs and channels of sense.

Thus the ultimate unit involves through the fire, air, water and earth spheres until it becomes a human elemental, and the mind is responsible for what it permits. The distinctions between the human elemental, the linga sharira, and the personality, should be remembered. The human elemental is a psychic being, developed as here shown. The linga sharira, or form, is the prototype and astral support of the physical body. The personality is the complex entity made up of life, the linga sharira in which are the four senses, the human elemental, the physical body, desire, and two other senses hereafter mentioned. The personality is the mask through which the mind acts. By the presence of the mind there is impressed on the personality a semblance of mind. The human elemental and the astral body are upon the same plane, but they are not the same being. The astral body is on the line of involution, the human elemental is on the line of evolution. Both are similar in shape, but different in vigor. The astral is like a pale shade, compared to the human elemental when that is fully formed. The astral body is a ghost which is an automaton; the human elemental is a ghost which is vigorous.

So far one general kind of human elemental only has been spoken of. There are, however, three grades in the development of a human elemental, and each human elemental must eventually pass through them. These are distinguished as the sense of feeling, the moral sense, and the I-sense, answering to the three senses of the involution. The first grade is particularly psychic; the second is also psychic, but more in touch with and under the influence of the mind; the third is also psychic, but is still more influenced by the mind.

The first is the lowest grade. It registers physical pain and joy as the result of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and of what contacts it. It is the elemental that is borne along and usually carried away by emotions. Emotions rule this being. It is guided by instinct rather than by comparisons and judgment. The third grade is the very opposite of the first. It discourages or disregards the instincts and is guided by reasoning without sentiment or emotion. The opinions, which it registers and takes for knowledge, are strong, and stronger the more it believes in the superiority of its views. Egotism is the chief trait of the third grade, at present. The second grade is the moral sense. At the present stage of evolution it is the most important. Its characteristic is its attention to right and wrong. The stages of progression of the human elemental should be from the feeling through the moral to the I-grade. However, at present the second or moral grade is neglected, and the third is dominant before the second has been passed through. The human elemental if it is carried from the first to the third without having gone through the second, has little or no moral sense developed. It does not conceive of the rights of others when its own wishes are in question. It will brook no interference with its wishes. For it, its desires are right. All things which oppose it and its desires, are wrong. When the elemental has been raised from the first through the second to the third, it has taken the proper course and is fitly constituted to act in accord with mind. When it has reached the limit of its development in the third grade as the I-sense it is ready to be lighted up by the mind; and so it becomes a mind, that is, the mind potential within it becomes active. This is done by the continued action on the human elemental of the I-am faculty of the mind which is connected with it.

Thus appears the connection of the mind. The human elemental cannot raise itself. It is dependent upon the mind, to be raised. While there seem now three grades of one human elemental, there will be in the course of evolution three separate beings, elemental beings, senses, corresponding to the senses of taste, hearing, and seeing. That will, however, take place only when the human elemental is raised to the point of being conscious as mind and therefore ceases to be an elemental. The taste and feeling will be in the sphere of water, the hearing and moral sense in the sphere of air, and the sight and I sense in the sphere of fire. The ghost which acts now as the sense of smell, will be the binder for all in the physical body. So there will be three nature elementals and three humanized elementals, and the sense of smell will be the connecting link, as the physical body is the house today in which so many beings live that make up a man.

The third aspect then of the continuity of the relationship between a mind and a certain part of nature, is presented by the faculties of a mind drawing matter from the four elements and fashioning it into senses, which are ultimate units passing successively through the four elements. The stages through which these units pass are those of nature ghosts acting as senses, until the turning point is reached where the last involution is passed and desire for immortality arises and leads a part of nature matter to associate as a human elemental with the faculties of the mind, which have acted on that part. The constant evolution by the influence of the faculties of the mind, develops three further senses, corresponding to three nature ghosts. The importance and responsibility of the mind is evident from all this, and is emphasized by a fourth aspect which is concerned directly with the manner of the continuity of the relation between a mind and the matter in its charge.

IV

Generally the human elemental cannot develop and advance except as the mind to which it is linked develops. The mind must control and train its human elemental if that mind is to develop. It must not give way to the senses and allow itself to be controlled by them. The three grades of the human elemental are controlled respectively by the dark, motive, and I-am faculties of a mind. At present the dark faculty of the mind is all powerful. The senses are ruled at present by the dark faculty, the turbulent, unreasoning faculty of the mind. The other two faculties, the motive and the I-am faculties, are not active. No one of these three faculties is at present incarnate in the ordinary man. The only faculty of the mind that incarnates in the body, if that mind is incarnated at all, is the focus faculty. Through the focus faculty the dark, motive, and I-am faculties may act. But they do not act directly on the body. The great obstacle in coordinating and harmonizing the motive and I-am faculties with the focus faculty, is that the dark faculty forms a barrier and shuts out the higher faculties from that portion of the mind which is with the body. The dark faculty of the mind has as its corresponding sense the sense of feeling; the motive faculty, the moral sense; and the I-am faculty, the I sense.

The connection of the mind with the body is made through the central nervous system. The meeting place of the central and the sympathetic nervous systems is the pituitary gland. It is the organ where the two nervous systems, that which is of nature and that which is of mind, meet. Nature comes to the pituitary body through the organs and systems of the four nature elementals and through the sympathetic nervous system. Mind comes through the central nervous system. The pituitary body, where nature and mind meet, is the governing seat of nature or of mind, whichever holds the throne.

The mind reincarnates. The senses, for which the mind is responsible, are called together to prepare for the reincarnation of the mind. There is a fundamental distinction between the reappearance of the mind which is called reincarnation, and the reappearance of the senses, which is due to a summoning of the sense ghosts from the matter of the elements.

On the one hand the mind reincarnates—always taking that word with the limitations above indicated—at the completion of the part of its cycle ensuing upon the end of an earth life. That portion of the mind which reincarnates, or merely connects with the personality, does not during any of its incarnations, or connections, know itself as mind being distinct and apart from the senses. It conceives of itself as a personality made up of or through the senses. At death, and thereafter, it continues to conceive of itself as a personality; and so it perpetuates that personality through after-death states until the personality is dissolved and broken up. Then, after a rest, the mind sounds the call for the senses, which have been dispersed, and the senses come together—chickens coming home to roost. The mind has an inherent, constant knowledge of its identity, but the senses lack this “identity.” The distinguishing feature is that the senses are conscious, but they are not conscious that they are conscious, while the mind is conscious and is also conscious that it is conscious. The reason for the identity of the mind and for its inherent knowledge of its perpetuity and continuity is that it persists through the cycles of time as a unit, being of a seven-fold nature, that is, of the seven faculties of the mind. These seven faculties do not break up, are not dissociated, nor do they cease from being conscious that they are conscious. They are related. Each is a witness conscious of their relation. The faculty which reincarnates is the focus faculty. The other six, though they do not reincarnate, stand behind and reinforce the focus faculty. The focus faculty has in it a representation of the other six, as they act through it.

On the other hand, each of the senses is dissolved after death. The ultimate unit in each is not dissolved, but is the means of building up the new senses, each sense from its respective element. The senses depend upon the faculties of the mind. Each faculty has its corresponding sense. When the sense is liberated into its element from its personality and mind, it has no feeling of identity. It is a thing of sense, subject to change and decay. When it is drawn into a personality and feels the presence of the mind, then only may identity be reflected into it. Identity is here used to indicate a knowledge of or at least a feeling of, temporary continuity and prescience of immortality.

The unity of all beings in the universe manifests in man as a continuity of existence. Being conscious through all change is called here identity, that is, knowledge or feeling of identity according to the degree of development. The continuity exists in waking and sleeping, from birth to death, and lasts from death to birth. The gaps and changes in the lower worlds are nevertheless linked by the entity which is conscious through all. When death comes, the threads of the life are gathered and pulled together, the self-conscious entity withdraws and is followed by the personality with its form, the astral body. The death of one or more parts of man is not the death of all. The conscious entity does not die at physical death any more than it dies during a night’s sleep.

Each of the whole series of reincarnations is a wave, and all these waves are borne by a larger wave. The large waves too form a series, and all of them are borne by a wave of greater duration. This greater wave is again one of a series which with its companions makes up a whole or unit. There is a continuity which keeps the lesser waves, of which the earth lives are each a portion, in time and rhythm with the greater waves. All these waves are borne by the great wave of Universal Mind, and the Universal Mind is made up of the individual minds. The Universal Mind with its individual minds supports and causes the movement of all nature, all the elements, all their rhythmic motions of ebb and flow, appearance and disappearance, coming and going, rise and fall. At the beginning of a world, the movement of a mind wave starts the involution of nature with the breath wave. In the middle of the breath wave, begins the life wave; in the middle of that, the form wave; and midway in the form wave comes the physical wave. The physical wave supports many lesser waves, each a cycle of life and death. The impulse does not stop there, but continues down to every systole and diastole and every pulse beat. The weak beating of a dying man’s heart is still in harmony with and dependent on the greater swing that carried him into physical existence, that was his physical existence, and that is now taking him away. The dying breath is in harmony with the first gasp of the new born for breath. All intervening heart beats and breathings are dependent on and in harmony with the first and last breathing of an earth life. All changes in the life and functions of the body are due to the movement and swinging of the wave that ushered the man into the world. Especially the sexual functions are closely and accurately connected with the wave in which he was carried from beyond into physical existence in the world. At conception, there is present together with the father and mother the third factor, which is the personality germ of the entity to be born, which germ bonds the spermatozoon with the ovum, of the parents. This germ comes in through the breath of the parents while it is at the same time breathed out by its own mind. The breaths are not of the same kind, for the breaths of the parents are physical, while that breath of the mind is psychic. This shows somewhat the correlation of the different kinds of breath waves and life waves. The physical breathing of the parents is in turn dependent upon their psychic breaths, and their psychic breaths are dependent upon their mind breaths, which is life and thought. The same life wave by which the personality germ of the new pilgrim was brought into contact with the parents, is the wave by which or by one of the minor physical aspects of which the child is later born into its earth life, and the same wave is also the measure of the child’s maturity, functions, seed production, desires, thoughts, all on their respective planes. The term “wave” is used because of its power to illustrate symbolically. But the undulating motion is only one of the features. Others are those of a vortex and of a cycle. The same wave, cycle, vortex, then carries the personality out of the physical body, back into the psychic worlds and through purgation and separation into the heaven world of its ideals. After the senses are raised there in the heaven to the highest power possible for the senses, they are distributed into their elements, whence they circulate through nature forms. It is the same wave, cycle, vortex, that will bring them out of the forms and through the elements and back, to the fashioning of a new personality at the call of the mind, and then into another earth life. The wave that supports all this is the mind wave of the conscious entity on the basis of the wave of the Universal Mind.

Thus the continuity of and cyclic manifestation is shown of all with which the mind comes into contact. That the mind therefore cannot escape under any circumstances from the responsibility which is attached to its acts, and omissions, should be unmistakable.

PARTS GHOSTS WILL TAKE IN THE FUTURE

THIS is the last of the articles on Ghosts That Never Were Men. A summary of the series may be found in the article on “Ghosts That Become Men.” Then came that on the tasks of man with nature ghosts, in which the responsibility of man was considered from four different points. The present and last deals with the service to which man will put certain nature ghosts, when he shall be able to use them intelligently.

In the future, nature ghosts will be called and used by some men intentionally and efficiently to render service. The ghosts will be either in the form in which the ghosts exist in nature, or in a human form after these men have especially created them for their purposes. To understand this future it is well to bear in mind the present with its elemental groups and classes and their activities, in the earth sphere.

In nature the lower elementals exist in the three groups, causal, portal, and formal, throughout the four classes of the fire, air, water, and earth elementals. If man consciously creates an elemental it is not of one of the three groups, unless he specializes it according to the causal, the formal and the portal groups and in one of the four classes. He usually creates the elemental for some purpose requiring the activities of the three groups in one or more of the four elements. Therefore, a ghost created by him partakes more of the complex nature of a human being.

Some men will in the future and ahead of the rest of humanity, obtain knowledge of and command of nature ghosts. The results of the service of these ghosts seem, when outlined, extraordinary, even incredible. Nevertheless, as may be gathered even from what has so far been stated in these articles, light, heat, and power will be available to such men in manners and by means undreamed of; new forces will be revealed, reached and made servient to man; forces now latent will be made active; fire, air, water, and earth ghosts will disclose much of what goes on in their elements, and man will profit by the information; a new history, a new geography, a new astronomy will be known, together with new arts. Being free from some of the drawbacks of an independent mind, as well as being in close contact with nature, the ghosts will render service more efficiently than do humans. Ghostly shepherds for flocks, ghostly tillers of the soil and workers in gardens, ghostly servants in the home, ghostly mechanics and builders, ghostly policemen, will be used, and, at the end, ghostly soldiers, in the wars that will precede the disappearance of the continent.

There are two ways by which elementals can be made to serve humans. One way to obtain mastery over nature ghosts is to do it through the connection furnished by one’s own human body. This is done by using the occult faculties of the human mind. These faculties are the light faculty, the time faculty, the image faculty, the focus faculty, the dark faculty, the motive faculty, and the I-am faculty. The seven faculties are used through the focus faculty. The focus faculty is that portion of the mind, which incarnates, when the mind is incarnated. When a human commands elementals from within his own body by the power of his mind, he does it through the seven divisions of the focus faculty commanding and acting through the senses. This is the way of the mind-man.

The second way, the way of the sense-man, is for a human to obtain the service of nature ghosts by propitiation and commanding their ruler through the power given by seals, words, and special instruments. Propitiation is a gaining of the favor of the ruler by rites performed for him at certain times and places, by sacrifices offered, by chants and invocations and incense, by symbols and other magic means.

For use in magic work, then, nature ghosts are either specially created for the service, or ghosts already in existence are summoned and made to serve. Those already in existence belong to either the causal or portal or formal groups in one of the four elements. Those that are specially created by men partake of characteristics of more than one element and resemble man in the complexity of their nature. Both of these kinds of elementals, those that were not in existence, but are created for the purpose and those that being already in existence are called for service, may be used either by the sense-man or by the mind-man.

Manual labor, now done by humans, can and will be done in the future by elementals, and not only simple manual work, but many tasks of skilled artisans and public servants. If the elementals do the work they do it better than men, because men are moved by their own desires and wishes, which may interfere with carrying out instructions, whereas elementals obey orders implicitly. What is now done by humans with toil, drudgery, suffering and displeasure, and with the occurrence of physical injury and loss of life, may and will be had in the future by the aid of some simple physical instrument or without it, through the indirect or direct service of ghosts that never were men.

Light, heat, and power can be furnished in any degree and quantity by nature ghosts, when man knows how to bid them. These forces of nature are the same, whether furnished directly by elementals or whether obtained through the operations of physical machines. Machines, however complicated and delicate, are clumsy when compared with the direct working of elementals.

Light is now produced by burning wood, wicks in oil, electrically incandescent wires, or gases, and by the electric current turned into light—all of them laborious, and some expensive means. These lights consume matter in some of its forms. In days to come there will be a change. By preparing and magnetizing and focussing certain metals in relation to each other the force called light, which is ultimately derived from fire elementals, will be available directly and be inexhaustible. The light will be mild or intense, as may be desired. It will be turned on or off, by focussing these metals or by throwing them out of focus. Light so produced will be bright enough and extensive to furnish a city with light, or it can be limited to a room, if that is desired. By placing certain metals around a room, light will be generated by diffusion, so that the whole air will be luminous, without casting shadows of objects. To illumine a city, it will be only necessary to put certain metals, or even stones, at certain places and light will then fill the city. The air will respond to the influence of the light, if so desired, and no part of any given area be in darkness. All light now produced with various tolls paid by the consumer, comes from the element of fire and is indirectly evoked by clumsy means. To produce elemental light directly from elemental sources is no more wonderful than to obtain it through those physical heavy contrivances. The fire elementals are the bringers of light in each instance. The effect of sunlight could be brought forth in the night time. There could be a designated center of light casting shadows, or the light could be diffused without throwing shadows. The light could be accompanied by heat of any degree or it could be so evoked that it would give no heat.

Heat may be produced through the service of fire elementals directly. So the seasons may be changed for any given locality, and with the seasons the fauna and flora. A room, a building, a city, a whole countryside could be warmed by heat, either emanating from a given source or equally diffused through the air, as mentioned in the case of light. Boundaries of the heat, just as of the light, can be prescribed for a given space both in height above the earth and on the surface, or fire elementals in the earth can be made to cause the heat to come from underground and radiate from the surface.

Power, for driving machines or to do the work of machines, may be furnished directly by elementals, with or without mechanical contrivances. Carriages, boats, vehicles of every kind, on land and water or in the air, may be made to move slowly or swiftly at any desired speed, borne directly by elemental forces.

A certain current, an onward force, more rapid than man has means to measure, streams in all directions in and through and about the earth. This current can by the service of elementals be made to contact any vehicle and be made to push or draw it in any direction desired. The contact can be made by a physical connection or by the will of man. This current is one of the things which inspire the dreams of perpetual motion machines. By molecular or intra-molecular touch (that is by an etheric, non-physical touch) between any machines and that current, wheels can be turned forever, or, at least, until they are worn out. When the elementals connected with this force are known to man, then buildings and plants for generating light, heat, and power will be out of use. Carried by this current, letters, messages, packages, can be sent through the air or through underground passages to distant places. Even the underground channels may be not necessary in certain cases, where a package, a book, a letter, is given to the force which takes it and transmits it through seemingly solid objects to the place of destination, and that instantly, if necessary. Under elemental influences solid matter allows other matter to pass through it, as readily as water gives way to iron.

Air elementals can lift boats, wagons, building stones into the air and keep them there or take them to any distance. This will be done as naturally as electric cars are now moved on a track, yet it seems wonderful to man as the speeding electric car seems to an Eskimo. The thing necessary for the magic carrying is to make the contact between the particles of the boat or letter or rock with the air elementals, by causing contact between the formal elementals within the boat, letter or rock and the portal elementals of the air.

The treasures resting on the ocean bed may, by the use of water elementals, be raised to the surface. With elemental help man may himself go down to the bottom of the sea, unharmed and without risk, and discover the secrets of the waters, and learn to know of strange creatures living in the depths. Without dikes or ditches, flumes or channels or watercourses, stagnant pools, swamps, marshes and moorland may be dried and reclaimed by the use of water elementals. This will all be done in a natural way, just as naturally as if dried by drains laid out by engineers. It is done by water elementals opening up the ground and drawing off the water to the interior of the earth, or by evaporating the moisture and drawing it into the air. Great stretches now uninhabitable and fever-laden may be turned into fertile fields, and be made to support millions of humans. Arid deserts, former beds of the ocean, may have life-giving streams, or moisture from above, brought to them by elementals at the behest of men. Dried lakes may be refilled, and riverbeds be flooded with rushing waters, streams turned into new beds or made to disappear into the ground, by elementals under the control of man. Many water currents are now running underneath the surface. When the water ghosts make an opening the currents rush to the surface, as springs and swirling waters. If a course is to be stopped, the elementals cause particles of matter held in solution, to be precipitated as deposits, and so they fill the outlets.

With elemental aid man will learn the geography of the earth. At present he knows little about the earth and its structure. All he knows is something about the seeming outline of the surface, the outer skin of the earth. Aside from this so-called geography there is an occult geography. Of this he can know nothing except what he will learn with the aid of earth ghosts, or by the use of some faculties of his mind (see The Word, Vol. 11, page 193) which are now unworkable as adamant. Within the skin of the earth are other earths and earth organs, of which man has not as yet even dreamed. Within the earth are other earths and oceans and airs and fires, each of them peopled by beings, some of them human in form and others strange beyond fancy. Earth ghosts are one of the means by which man can gain knowledge of all this. With the aid of earth elementals he can have mountain sides open before him and close about him after he gains admittance to the inner worlds, all as naturally as the water now lets a swimmer pass. The earth, even granite and marble, can be made elastic under elemental influence to permit the passing of bodies, even as the earth can be made fluid by heat.

The ghosts of the fire, the air, the water and the earth can be made to tell what is happening in each of those elements and to predict what may happen there. So earthquakes, floods, storms, fires in any part of the earth and at any time, may be known in advance and in certain cases, prevented if that is desired. This information can be given directly by elementals to man, or indirectly through instruments which are made and adjusted to the influences of the ghosts of any of the elements. By looking at such an instrument man may see and know the conditions in question, or the instrument may be made to speak and so to give the information audibly.

An instrument may be constructed and through an elemental put into touch with a ship or an airship so as to give the record of the voyage and of the position at any time and of everything that happens to or on the ship, however far it may be away. A human may communicate through ghost messengers with any other human no matter how far distant. This can be done directly through a ghost or by the aid of an instrument which is worked through a ghost. Letters may be sent by elemental carriers and be received in a few minutes thousands of miles away.

The sound of words spoken may be transcribed by an elemental. Such transference is not made through the air, but through the ether, a subdivision of the sphere of water. The sound of the word merely gives a form that is vitalized and impelled by the thought put into it, which gives the meaning to the spoken word. The spoken word makes contact with the elemental and the thought directs the elemental to the person at the other end.

Mirrors can be made which will show where a certain person is and what he is doing, just as though he stood before the mirror, and even mutual speech may be had through such a mirror, the ghosts transmitting pictures and sounds.

Elementals will serve better than humans in subordinate positions because the elemental is prompted by natural instinct to obey the order of its master, whereas humans have minds which are in constant rebellion against other minds as well as against their own human elemental in charge of the animal body in which the mind dwells.

In all occupations requiring more or less mechanical service, elementals will in the future be made to do for some men at least, that is the more advanced, what is now done by human labor so onerously.

Elementals will make the best shepherds, herdsmen of cattle and horses. They will take these animals from shelters to pastures, and back without loss or accident. These herders will know the weather, the best grazing grounds and the nature of the beasts, and the beasts will obey them. These ever watchful ghosts will guard their charges against predatory attacks from other animals and against men. The only way a human can overcome such a ghostly herdsman is by having greater power than the guardian’s power and by being able to control elementals. However, one having such power is not likely to steal cattle. While these shepherds and herders are here called ghosts their outward appearance may be human or in the likeness of a man. But they will be without mind, only nature ghosts and employed in human service to herd flocks.

The soil will be worked by elementals which will take the place of human toilers. Ghostly husbandmen in human form will do the tilling and sowing and weeding and reaping of all crops. These elementals will not suffer from heat, nor rain, nor storms. Their working hours and tasks will be not subject to dispute with their masters. They will enjoy and take pleasure in obeying orders. They will be constantly attentive and watchful of their work beyond what is possible for humans. They will care with zeal for the plants given into their charge. They will prevent injury to plants from beetles, bugs, spiders, worms, moths, lice, and ants, from rats, mice, and rabbits, and from the various blights and fungus diseases which spoil crops. Thus elementals will work the soil and guard the crops in their care. Fruits, better than any men have now, will be produced under the care of ghosts which will tend orchards and vineyards. Such ghosts will prepare the soil, and sow and nurse and tend to their plants and vines and bushes and trees, and cause fruits of the kind and shape and with the odors and flavors to be produced which the master who commands the ghosts orders. Ghostly gardeners will grow flowers fuller in color, more delicate in shade, richer in fragrance than any we now have.

Not earth ghosts only will be used as tillers, husbandmen, fruit growers, and gardeners, but from all four classes of the earth and water and air and fire ghosts of the earth sphere will the ghostly servants of future humanity be called, to work the soil and help and protect the growth of plants. Soil, not having a proper plant food, will be supplied with what the soil lacks. An elemental can be summoned to conduct the force needed into the soil from any of the four elements, as bacilli, on the roots of crimson clover and Canada peas, are now known to draw nitrogen from the air into the soil. So nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash will be liberated, precipitated, circulated in any quantity and strength for the plants, to produce the field or garden fruit as the master of the elementals orders. Water ghosts can be made to lead underground streams to the surface and water arid lands, or condense moisture into rain clouds, and precipitate water into a designated place. Air elementals will be made to carry germs and aid in pollenization, and conduct the life currents. The fire ghosts will be made to impregnate plants and to change the varieties of fruits and grains and flowers. The fire ghosts can be made to measure out the color, the water ghosts the flavor, and the earth ghosts the odor of fruits and flowers, as the master of the ghosts wills.

Domestic service will be done by elementals. They will be the best cooks, because from their own nature they will be close to the elemental which in man acts as the sense of taste. They will be able to combine the foods best suited to the maintenance of human bodies and to please human tastes. The work of chambermaids, slavies, dishwashers, butlers, will be done more tidily than by humans, and the friction will be avoided which comes from the ignorant human rebellion against service. No dust, flies, bugs, rubbish will be where are ghostly house servants. Everything will be as neat and clean as the master of the ghosts is able to direct. Nor will there be any dishonesty of the servants, unless the master is dishonest himself. One cannot get better than what he gives.

Stokers, blasters, mechanics, metal workers, machinists, pilots on the water or in the air will be elementals. With those servants there will be no union troubles, union hours, union scales of wages, to protect mediocrity and demagoguery and to fatten labor politicians. What to the laborers of today seems the goal they strive for, will be without value to the elementals. The elementals wish nothing but to serve and get the sensation of doing the work and having association with the humans, who are able to summon them and be their masters. Of course, the elementals must receive compensation and what this is and how this is paid to them has been indicated heretofore. The employers in their turn will be not able to goad and sweat and bleed their elemental servants as is now done by many who employ human labor, because he who would goad and bleed could not command elementals.

In public service, those at the head of the government will employ elemental servants as guardians of streams, forests, parks, flowers, and as policemen to preserve public order and health rules, and will so govern the infant minds in the nursing class of humanity (See The Word, vol. 7, pp. 325, 326). No detective known to police records or painted in fiction is the equal of a nature ghost set to ferret out crime, if any ferreting, indeed, be necessary. The ghosts know at once, and by instinct go directly to the guilty, who will find it impossible to escape these ghostly messengers of the law.

Machines will be built of wood or stone or metals, some of these still to be discovered. Any such machine will have bound and sealed unto it an elemental, which will cause the machine to do what it is constructed to do. Such machines will need no human attendants or operators and will do the work more perfectly and accurately than any run by careful and efficient humans, who, after all, are subject to the influences of fatigue and distraction. The elemental attends only to that with which it is connected and cannot be swerved.

Even now there are evidences of the possibility of entities directing the operation of machines with which they are connected. The direction is at present mostly of a negative character, and is expressed noticeably so that a machine like a certain locomotive, motor boat, or motor truck, will seldom run without accidents. Some such machines are by those who know of them said to be hoodooed, because of certain occurrences not caused by human volition. Old railroad men and miners especially, know of such pieces of machinery. The cause of the elemental presence there is that the maker connected one of the mischievous nature ghosts with a part of the machine, through impressing into the machine a part of his own human elemental which was connected with that mischievous nature ghost. To break the hoodoo, the part or parts which cause trouble should be replaced. Then the machine will run properly. If a ghost is connected with the machine as a whole, then the nature ghost must be cut off by demagnetizing the machine. Sometimes the bond may be released by the death of the one who caused the connection. With the dissipation of his human elemental the tie may be broken.

In those future days the men at the head of the government will be able to command and use the service of elementals in the erection of excellent public roads, water courses, and vast public buildings and structures for the dissemination of light and heat and power as indicated before.

In vast theatres in the open air, parts of the history of mankind and of the earth will be re-enacted. There, in sound and color, scenes will be produced showing the formation and change of the continents, the cataclysms of fire and water by which continents were created and disappeared, the changes in the fauna and flora of past ages, the types of early humanity and their passing to the type of those future days where some of humanity will be masters ruling some of the nature ghosts. All these scenes will be accurately reproduced. The time of these enactments can be hastened or shortened or be made to occupy the length of the original event. The productions will be accurate, because elementals will reproduce from the astral light the pictures with sounds accompanying them, and the elementals cannot deviate from the record, which they are made to copy. But they may be made to condense or extend the time of the occurrence. Evolution, as taught in this way will not be subject to guesses and speculations of scientists who have incomplete data upon which they build mere theories, and who find that links are missing. Pictures of the plants and their history and of the heavens and the movements on the firmament will be shown as they were and as they then really are. There will be no chances for guessing, nor for calculations of astronomers, which after all will then be seen to have fitted a state entirely different from what will then be perceived as true. Elementals will produce music, they will reproduce songs, and sounds of insects and lives which are now indistinct to man. They will render and make audible sounds which are now inaudible, either because too low or too loud or too indistinct. Sounds which are like discords or rasping and harsh will be shown to be a part of melodies in nature blending into harmonies. The disconnected sounds of nature heard in the field, like the soughing of trees, the croaking of frogs, screeching of birds, the noise of locusts and humming and buzzing of insects, are if properly understood parts of one harmony which tells the story of the day. Man can hear the disconnected sounds, not the connected harmony. In those days elementals can be made to produce the whole and so enable man to understand the harmony of nature. These and many other forms of instruction and enjoyment will be had in the great places of assembly where nature ghosts will reproduce at the behest of some men what are now secrets and unknown workings of nature.

Elementals will be used by their masters for purposes of war in place of soldiers as well as in place of weapons, missiles and means of destruction and defense. The soldiers will be officered by humans. The elemental soldiers will be elementals specially created and will have human forms with the germ of a personality just as the shepherds, gardeners, policemen, cooks, machinists, and engineers, before spoken of. Some elementals now in nature or then to be in nature have human forms and they can be drawn in and made to act as soldiers. Elementals not having human form, such as a fire cloud, a bolt of lightning, solidified air, will be used as instruments of destruction. These elementals will not be specially created, but, being in nature, will be used in the war. The warfare will change from what it is at present.

Bayonets and guns will not then be used. They will be crude and obsolete instruments. The weapons used will be more deadly than poison gas and machine guns and barrage firing. The destruction of the elemental soldiers will be not as great as the loss of men at present. The ghost soldiers will be less subject to mortal wounds and better able to evade injuries from weapons than would be humans. The weapons in use will be instruments, metallic or otherwise, made to direct the forces of fire, air, water, and earth in their many applications against the soldiers. Chemically pure metals of certain shapes will be used to direct bolts like lightning, or streams of steam or of molten earth, over an army. The soldiers will be prepared with certain guards or shields to ward off the bolts and vapors. If a cloud of fire is precipitated on an army, those in command of that army—if they had the power and knowledge—could divert the fire or turn it back against the army of those who have invoked it, or they could split up the fire into various harmless elements or make themselves immune against the fire clouds.

Warfare will be a war based on knowledge of the elements and their ghosts. In those wars there will be a war of earth currents, earth tremor and shakings to bring down buildings, to swallow up armies. Tidal waves, whirlpools to engulf navies will be used. Air, or the oxygen in the air, will be shut off so as to stop the breathing of the soldiers. In aerial warfare, the currents of the air will be changed, so as to make the air unnavigable and make the air boats sink to the earth. The sunlight will be shut off, deflected, so that the moisture of the air will be precipitated and armies and countries will be embedded in sheets of ice. The air boats will be different from any now in use. An air or fire elemental can be made to envelop and make invisible whole armies by shutting off the rays of vision. There elements will meet elements in form or without form. It will be a war of mass against mass and force against force, all directed by the minds of humans. The armies meeting can fight on the earth, in the waters, or in the air.

The purposes of such war will not be to acquire territory, increase commerce or gain a fancied prestige. When such wars are waged they are waged for law and against disorder. The forces are, generally speaking, the forces in the service of the senses opposed to those in the service of the mind. These armies will be ruled by those minds who have learned to control the elemental forces outside of themselves, but not the elementals in themselves, and by those minds, as their opponents, who control the elementals in their bodies as well as the elementals outside, in nature.

The combat will be between nature worshippers and the worshippers of Divine Intelligence, between worshippers of sex and the conscious mental servants of the Divine Intelligence.

Such conscious and intelligent use of elementals, specially made or pressed into service as factors in warfare, indicates generally that the worldly civilization of a people is coming to an end. The race by which this magic is employed is destroyed with the continent on which it lives. The end comes by submersion. Then the purifying waters of the ocean will in time break up and dissipate the conditions under which the inhabitants of the continent lived. The last case was that of Atlantis.

In all wars so far fought, elementals have been employed by men, but they were and are employed unconsciously. In the present war, which began in 1914 in Europe, all classes of elementals were drawn in and take part in the fighting. Men do not usually know that the unseen elemental races of the fire, air, water and earth are fighting in the battles of the men. Some men suspect it and are jeered at by the others. The elementals which now take part represent all the vices and passions developed for centuries in Europe and which have been held in suspension. These are among the lower elementals of the four elements of the earth sphere. Above these stand the upper elementals which at times, under the guidance of the Intelligence, take a hand and lead the turmoil so that it is held within the bounds of law.

These are some of the things which will be done in the future when some men can command elementals, either those found in nature or those they have specially created. Elementals will be used for public services as well as for private uses and so will largely supplant humans in menial and mechanical work. This will not free the humans from work, but the working classes will have the time they now clamor for, to improve, if they want, their minds and gain refinement.

In agriculture and allied callings, in manufactures, in business, in police service and in war the aspect of civilization will be changed from what it is at present. An indication has been given how the more general employment of elementals in scientific work will reveal an occult cosmogony, an occult geography and a new astronomy showing our present beliefs to be in many respects infantile and erroneous.

H. W. Percival.

To the Readers of The Word:

No further issues of The Word will be published for the present. But this number, which ends the Twenty-fifth Volume, is not expected to be the last. For the present, the publication of The Word will cease. The readers will be notified when The Word begins a new series.

Appreciation is due from all readers to the various contributors to The Word.

I have written an editorial for every published number of The Word, since my message was written in October, 1904, and have answered the questions in “Moments With Friends,” which appeared from time to time. The editorials written by me were not signed with my name. Information not before given, so far as is known, will be found in these editorials and in some of the “Moments.”

The main object of my writings was to bring the readers to an understanding and a valuation of the study of Consciousness, and to stimulate those who choose to become conscious of Consciousness. To that end a system has been made known by me. I have called it the Zodiac.

I would not state these facts, as to purpose and authorship, except that it is advisable, so as to guard against misrepresentation by some persons who have claimed and some who may claim to have found these teachings elsewhere than in The Word, and by some who attempt to change, distort or obscure what is stated in these Editorials. The information I have given in The Word is for those who will use it as a sacrifice to the plan of raising matter to Consciousness.

If The Word is taken up again it is my intention to write other articles. They will lead some of the Readers to know what it is to be Conscious of Consciousness.

HAROLD WALDWIN PERCIVAL.

New York, April 15th, 1918.