THE

शब्द

GHOSTS कि कुनै पनि पुरुष छैन

(जारी)

INTO the mortal part of man are drawn together and concreted, beings from the four elements of the spheres. On the other hand, the physical world is an exteriorization of man. Both processes, that of precipitation and that of sublimation, go on continually but unconsciously to man, who cannot interfere directly with the operations of nature once he has started them. The elementals are the projections or specializations which composed man, when these are again divided up into the elements to which they belong.

An unformed element takes form through man. As the unformed elements pass through the individual organization of a man, his mind acts on them in such a manner that individual forms are given to the formless elements. All this is natural magic. The element thus put into a form has not mind. It is an elemental. It merely has a form indicative of the element from which it came. That is due to the action of the mind of man on the element, as the element passes through his body. The kind of elementals which are formed and the forms which are given to them, depend upon the particular element that is worked on, and upon the organs or parts of the body through which the element passes or which it contacts, and also upon the action of the desire of the man in connection with his mind. The elementals which are so formed have to do with the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms.

So the elementals are, so far as they are individually concerned, born through man. The good or evil qualities and attributes depend upon the disease or wholesomeness of the man’s body, upon the viciousness or naturalness of his desire, upon the development and orderliness of his mind, and upon his underlying motive in life.

The food with which the physical body is maintained is made up of the four elements. The food consumed is used to nourish the elementals presiding over the organs of the body, and the lesser elementals under them. Man cannot draw in directly from the elements what is needed to supply and keep active the forces in his body, which are elementals. He has to take what is necessary from the food materials furnished him, and he has to consume that kind of food from which his organs can best extract the elements, and most easily convey them and hold them for a time in his body.

By feeding, man transforms the four elements into his body, and after service there he separates them, and by circulation through his organization he forms and distributes them as nature ghosts or mere force into their elements.

So the general design of the elemental system remains the same through different epochs and periods; but a variation of forms of the elementals is caused by the variations of man’s desires, and the changes in the development of his mind. At certain periods there will be more elementals that have a disposition which is evil towards other beings, and comparatively few elementals which are friendly; at other times the friendly elementals will predominate. In certain ages the elementals are known to men and become their familiars and men may open up communication with the elemental races without difficulty. At other times there is no commerce, and so a general disbelief in the existence of elementals.

These changes come and go with the progress and development of man, and with his degeneration. The waves of these manifestations may be known during the progress of his civilization, or its dissolution.

The terms of existence of elementals range from a brief period less than that of the life of a day fly, to hundreds of years. The shortest life of an elemental may be the bounding of the element through a part of an organ, which gives a temporary existence to a sentiment or passion, like that of rage, and a long life may be the enlargement of a sentiment or passion into a term of a thousand years. The length of life of an elemental depends upon the clarity and intensity of the thought and sentiment attending the formation of the elemental being.

Man is not the only creator of elementals in the sphere of earth; other intelligences may call elementals into being out of the pure element. Intelligences call them into being by the Word, and according to the Word by which elementals are called into being will their nature, service, action and function be during their term of existence.

The intelligence gives no vocal utterance; but what the nature of the Word is which is pronounced, can be understood by man, as being in analogy to what occurs in the pronunciation of a sound. A sound causes the particles in the air to be adjusted in geometrical form, or plane form, or animal form, or even human form, if the sound is prolonged until the form is taken by the particles.

In the case of the sound made by a human the particles may not cohere long because he knows not how to give to the Word the binding quality, the quality of permanence; but the intelligence who calls beings out of the pure elements gives to the form the permanence which is necessary for the term of the existence of the elemental.

The hostility or the attraction which exists between man and an elemental or any set of elementals, depends upon the man’s attitude of mind toward the subject or thing with which that set of elementals is concerned and also upon the make-up of his body and the proportion of the elementals in the make-up. Owing to the attitude of a man’s mind and the particular combination of elementals of which his body is composed, he will attract or repel some elementals or classes of elementals. One class of elementals will seek him, another will avoid him, another will attack him. So apparent accidents are brought about, which affect an individual and sometimes a great number of people who are seemingly brought together by chance, as into a burning theater, or shipwreck, or into a community, at a time it is made to suffer from floods and storms. On the other hand, fortunate discoveries, like locating treasures, or mines, or oil, or botanical discoveries, or chemical inventions by individuals, and the well-being of a countryside, favored with fertility of soil, fat cattle, and rich harvests, and the prosperity of a whole community generally, depend not on luck, chance, nor even industry, but on the combination of the elementals in the human bodies and in nature which bring on these results. Those who are of like natures are attracted to such places; those who are of unlike natures will be repelled, or, if they remain, the ghosts about will be hostile to them. But all this is under the general law of karma, which brings appropriate relations between man and the elementals into existence.

Some men who are favored in their make-up by the earth ghosts, may lack other of the nature ghosts; then such men will succeed in any calling or enterprise or sport with which the earth ghosts are concerned, but will fail or be hurt when so engaged as to come into contact with nature ghosts of those elements which are distinctively absent in the constitution of these men.

A man who lacks a certain element, may induce some of it by developing in himself the corresponding sense and by thinking in such a manner as to get into touch with the missing element. But usually man does not do this. Usually he dislikes the elements he lacks and is not inclined to cultivate the corresponding sense nor to develop a friendliness in himself to that element, and that dislike and the lack in him bring about the hostility. It is seldom that a man is harmoniously related in his make-up to all the four classes of nature ghosts.

The relation of the nature ghosts inside of a man and outside may continue to exist without his being conscious of the relation or of their existence. It is possible, though not likely, that men will become conscious of the existence of nature ghosts while there is such a general disbelief in their existence. As long as man denies the possibility of their existence he is not likely to see a nature ghost. Where one is not able to compel the visible or audible presence of nature ghosts, it is necessary for him to have at least an open mind and to admit the possibility of the existence of nature ghosts before he can understand their nature and activities or can have dealings with them.

Nature ghosts see humans not as humans see themselves, but as the humans really are. Men may see nature ghosts as the nature ghosts are, but men see them usually in the forms in which the nature ghosts wish to be seen. The nature ghosts will be seen as they wish to appear, unless the humans have the ability to see them as they truly are.

A nature ghost will often appear to a human in a natural way, without incantation or ceremony, where the human has the positive traits of that element of which the ghost has the negative side, or where the ghost has the positive and the human the negative traits of the same element. So a female water ghost may appear in human form by the side of a mountain stream to a shepherd boy in whose nature the opposite qualities of the water element predominate, and each, therefore, is attracted by the other. The water ghost, in this case, would see clearly the nature and tendencies of the boy, much clearer than the boy himself would know them; and the water ghost, seeing them, would take on a female form, as in that appearance it would be most attractive to the shepherd. Were the shepherd able to require the sprite to appear in the form which is most representative of the true nature of the sprite and of its place in its class, then the sprite might remain in that human form or change into part flesh, or it might lose the human form or change and appear as a jelly or an oval, nebulous mass. With a friendly relation established, the boy would give a certain tincture of his mentality to the sprite, and to the jelly-like or nebulous mass a tendency to more coherence of form, and the sprite would later assume a human shape from its association with a human being. The sprite also would confer on the boy certain benefits, such as giving him keener senses to perceive objects of which he might be in search.

The periods when humans are most likely to attract and be attractive to nature ghosts is during early childhood, before egotism is manifested in the child. Then the child and wood nymphs and fairies and sprites form natural associations, at which the child is in no way surprised, but in which it lives just as it would live in the company of other children. The sprites may be diminutive, not higher than a beetle, or they may be of the size of a butterfly, and up to the height of the child, and even taller. In every such case the bond of attraction and the kind of the sprites attracted depend on the respective negative and positive qualities of the same elements in the sprites and the child.

Fairy stories are not all the result of mere fancy. Many of them describe what has happened many a time and what still happens. The narrators may have described what they themselves knew to be, or the matter may have been suggested to them by nature ghosts. Little children may still see these elfish forms tripping through woodland or dancing in the moonlight, or standing by the little cot or perched above the fireplace, or they may see grown-up fairies of full adult size. These usually come to children to give them advice and often protect them in times of danger. But all of this is changed when the child becomes self-conscious and displays its egotism or shows tendencies to vice. In rural districts many children see these sprites, and some children see them even in crowded cities. But with the freshness and naturalness of early youth all memory of them is lost to the children. Only in a rare case will a man or woman have a faint memory of the early associations which were then so real.

When the children grow into men and women, the elementals no longer seek them, because freshness and wholesomeness is absent from the bodies. The elementals of the lowest degrees, the undeveloped elementals of the fire, the air, the water, and the earth are always around a human and make up his body. But the higher earth elementals shun man; to them the grown-up persons have a bad odor. The digestive system to which they are related, is usually in an unhealthy state, called auto-intoxication, from fermenting and putrifying food. The higher water elementals, connected with the circulatory system are not attracted, because the body seems stagnant to them. The higher air elementals stay away because of the impure and selfish thought, and because the man and woman produce a tone through their respiratory system, which tone is indicative of the thoughts and causes these elementals to stay away. The fire elementals shun grown-up people, inasmuch as the sexual system of these is drained and kept impure and their minds are so imbued with thoughts of sex that the higher fire elementals cannot receive any benefits from nor confer any benefits on grown-up people by direct association.

(फेरि जारी राखौंला)