Chapter:

Elemental Nature

IN the great sealed book of Nature I have read these words: “In everything there rests an absolute Presence,” and in other books of the Initiates we read similar thoughts. In everything rests the presence of the Absolute, or as the more developed Brothers have written: “The name of a body of matter if spelled or spoken correctly will evoke an answer; for in all substance there lies an intelligence that replies to the note in a spoken word, and this intelligence is not of the nature of its matter but of the objective minds that bind it to Nature.” 

As the student progresses he becomes familiar with and aware of the elemental intelligences of Nature. He learns that Nature is divided into two divisions: that the world is the lower counterpart of something that exists in the finer atmosphere of Nature, and that it has much information for him. As the records of the Brothers read: “And what others have not observed they take up and make known to their followers.” 

In these finer atmospheres the student contacts the mentalities of fire, water, and earth, and if he is pure enough he can enter their kingdoms and principalities; as we all know, our bodies are composed of such elements. 

Sooner or later man will return to his natural surroundings and regain that ancient wisdom to which he had attained ere plunging into the dense matter of this world. 

When the student contacts these great elemental forces he will enter a storehouse of wisdom and information far beyond our own, and if he can gain the confidence and interest of these forces his own sensitivity will be enlarged and quickened. 

Within us there is an atmospheric sheath that is the archive of our racial consciousness; its centre is situated in the knees, and man is more subject to his racial consciousness than he realises, and this explains why his knees tremble when anything endangers his body or the directing power of his race. 

We should remember that we are obnoxious to those pure beings of Nature’s higher altitudes. 

The mind must be vigorous and alert in order to gain entrance into Nature’s higher counterpart. Through Yoga it is possible to reach these realms if we possess courage; but without preparation it is doubtful if we would succeed. The method that brings us in touch with our secondary nature also contacts us with these elemental spheres. 

When in these higher realms we are above all those things that disturb our minds, and we do not demand anything from Nature that would retard our inner growth. 

We analyse things from a different angle when in these realms: that is, we study the causes of things instead of the effects, and a process of levitation: the power to pass from a dense state of mind-matter into a finer state. In a certain book a student relates such experiences.

Though active inwardly these vibrations do not register objectively. 

There comes a time when the student is taken out of his body in full consciousness by his teacher, and he learns to journey to other spheres. This is part of his education, when, like Paul of Tarsus, he will say: “I met such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I could not tell.” [2 Corinthians 12:2-3]

Remember Nature is our great mother and it is she who nourishes her children when they return to her. She is very stern but loving, and her joy when attaining her consciousness is deep: for she desires that her sons should regain their lost sovereignty, as man was born to command the elementals. 

As we pass through each division of Nature we are taught the laws and customs of each sphere. From these we learn what is known as Nature’s magic. The elementals working with us can manipulate mind-stuff and produce illusions that to the beholders would seem miracles. These helpers are our subjects and can give us the secret formulas of their magic. To distort the vision is one. 

Though the student may be instructed in such knowledge there is a law regarding the production of such phenomena, which is only shown to the initiated who will not use these powers illegitimately. It is regarded as a sacred science given alone to those who possess Nature’s intelligence. 

These elemental beings are called angels in sacred literature, and are important in man’s future evolution, as they were once in his past. There is magnitude in their expression and they give man a sense of majesty and power when he is immersed in their atmosphere. 

They teach us how to develop our minds so that we can magnify a thing till it can embrace the whole world. Meaning that a single line of verse can be enlarged and fixed into many minds by their magical power of focusing so that it can be constantly repeated. The great poets—who have been elemental—have given this power to thousands of minor poets. Something that is charged with beauty and is the forerunner of a virtuous thought. 

The great poet is the dominator of the world’s atmosphere, and this kingly substance has given him power to unlock his own elemental doorway. 

Though the student may enter Nature’s kingdoms she will not always unveil her face to him, after consulting his past records. Yet sinners as well as saints have entered them; it depends upon the material of their clothing whether they will reach the Innermost, whilst the more ignorant will grope for instruction in her lower spheres wherein they can obtain knowledge that will give them power over the lower elemental forces. 

The ancient prophets all taught their pupils to go to Nature and learn of her systems of government, then pass such laws down to humanity. For if we are to govern wisely we must be given that wisdom Nature holds for us. 

We must be impersonal; for personality cannot enter these kingdoms. Individuality possesses nothing that is outside one’s rightful domain, but if we are personal Nature recoils from our demands as this quality is dreaded by her subjects. Real individuality is the light of our intelligence shining through us. 

We are kin to Nature if we are producers of real wealth, but such wealth cannot be purchased in the world’s market-places; the greatest wealth being that which was engendered in us at the beginning of our creation—it is the great hub upon which we place our whole being, our central seats of government that will restore to us those possessions Nature has in her keeping. 

Few students realise that if they wish to contact their own inner systems of government it is necessary for them to ally themselves to Nature, and if they first prefer to accumulate a fortune and succeed in business then afterwards study the secrets of Nature it will be more difficult for them. Possessions beyond the amount that will give us a clean, healthy life in clean surroundings often accumulate passions and desires that will govern the brain and shut us out from our sovereignty in Nature’s higher counterpart. 

The law of Proserpine is needed so that man will first acquaint himself with his own inner possessions ere entering the world of Mammon. 

Nature will seek us if we will but open the way to her understanding; but as man destroys her work she withdraws her interest in him. The destruction of animals regardless of their proper use also destroys our approach to these higher elementals. 

The different properties of matter that are under their jurisdiction are worked over and evolved as we are evolved. 

Those who are cruel to animals and dominate them are often open to a concerted attack from the higher elemental spheres, and substances are discharged upon them that will hamper the normal functioning of their minds. 

By loving an animal we protect its intelligence, but if we are cruel to it after we have gained its affection we have to pay the penalty; for it has its protection—a bodyguard similar to its master—and the evil we send it is quickly returned to us. 

When elemental beings appear to us they are clothed in garments that represent their place and position in their own sphere. It is imperative that the student should know this, for the black magicians of the lower elemental planes can appear before him “clothed like the sun,” though, if properly challenged, their hideous characteristics are quickly unmasked. Everything has its own keynote and colour, and when responding cannot hide them. “By a man’s light is he known.’’ 

In these higher spheres the Beings have neither the sadness nor the so-called virtues of this world in their atmosphere. They are a creation apart and look upon us as objects of compassion. When they enter our world it is like coming amid decayed conditions where the odours are disagreeable and the atmosphere unpleasant. 

Many of the world’s great teachers were fathered by the Lords of the elemental worlds. Appolonius of Tyana, Merlin—a professed Christian born in the fifth century—and others. They possess the mingled bodies of elemental and human nature—such men are natural magicians. We have also magicians of a lower nature fathered by evil elementals who aim at personal power and who evoke abnormal appetites in men’s minds. 

There are also people in whom the elemental forces are most prominent and such are of an unmoral nature. We should not judge them too harshly; they are dominated by the lower conditions of these realms. But the higher types are Nature’s sensitives and their bodies recoil at the approach of an unclean atmosphere. This can be noticed among children before their sensitivity is dulled by their surroundings. For this reason teachers of the young should be examined for their mental atmosphere and bodily cleanliness, as such can retain the love of their pupils all their lives. As is well known, it is in the child’s first seven years that its future character can be determined. 

Races receive their stimulation in the arts and sciences from these elemental worlds. Once in conversation with a sylph, who instructed me in the attainment of a certain kind of purity, he suddenly paused and said: “Do you not realise that the Christ consciousness works through our spheres as well as through yours? And sends its teachers to us as well as to you.” Yet this Being, that the uninitiated would mistake for the ideal representation of Jesus in a shining amber robe, was but a sylph, who, according to ecclesiastical history, was one denied the kingdom of God. 

These elemental people have a great regard for those seeking to enter their world and express themselves very frankly when we are accepted. They can give us information that cannot be heard by the listeners-in of the lower spheres or the magician of the Secret Enemy. 

Also they allow us to see the workings of the internal organs of the physical body, and show us how one mind-body functions against the wishes of another mind-body. They can cause the evil that a man sends forth to return to him. 

The properties of matter vary as the seasons change, just as the substances that surround our physical bodies do. And this change of season should warn us that our mental vestures will also undergo another change. 

We do not realise what beauty and form can attain to until we enter these kingdoms: for the elementals can manipulate mind-stuff till its loveliness leaves us breathless. As an instance: a queen elemental can arrange precious stones as a garment; not only beautiful in design and arrangement, but with the hidden luminosity within the stones revealed. 

After an illumination, when the student contacts the higher forces of Nature, he is sent to study these kingdoms; beginning with the mineral. 

THE GNOME ELEMENTALS 

In the mineral kingdoms are intelligences that learn to communicate with human beings. They live, as they express it, in the interspaces of rock. Their higher orders are like quicksilver in their activity, but they can appear in bodies similar to ours, and by their power over mind-stuff can clothe themselves in the fashions of the people to whom they appear. As they live for many centuries they generally adopt the costumes of an old-fashioned style. People in whom the mineral properties predominate are easily impressed by their vibrations and they inspire the giants of the engineering world in their inventions. 

Such men are industrious, they will drive others’ to work for them and profit by their labours. They seldom respond to the finer things of life, though they often possess bold, buoyant spirits and great capability for exactness in detail and construction. Such men, if married to women of sylphlike natures, dominate and cause them great anxiety and suffering. They cannot realise that above their machines there is another country filled with beauty and activity. They are also fond of manufacturing destructive weapons. Nature’s great stumbling-blocks, they seek to dominate her, and will be unheaved and remorselessly destroyed when she again levels all opposition to her manifestations that periodically sweep over the world. These men are the reincarnation of the Atlantean engineers, and the new architecture in America is similar to that which once rose on that sunken continent; but in Atlantis they dug deeply into the earth for security from their enemies’ engines of warfare. Thus American architecture has not been created solely through economic conditions. 

Students are extremely interested in the constructive work of the gnomes; for their material substances differ from ours as ours differ from those of the East, and they can manipulate substances to harmonise them. They call this distilling the perfume of minerals, and tell us that each mineral has its distinct odour. Gnomes recognise our individual atmosphere as a dog does, and this they use instead of sight. The gnomes resemble the dog in many ways; like it they are most egotistical, and are easily affected by ridicule or laughter. The more ignorant gnomes are great pretenders, and I have seen a gnome wearing ancient spectacles, goose-quill pen, ink horn attached to his girdle and a doctor’s hood. He brought me an ancient tome nearly as big as himself. 

We learn to love these little fellows with their grey beards and august mien. They can give us valuable information, and their lives are an example for any clean man to follow. 

By listening to our conversation they remember the topics of the day, and also take charge of troops of children in their sleep—usually the children of the poor—to unite their minds with theirs. Thus, small children often pass a happy time with them before they awake. Children dream of these gnomes and tell us about them. We could relate many quaint tales about these people, and in a later work hope to do so. 

The higher gnomes are always aware of the atoms of the Advocate and will often ask the student for his Advocate’s blessings, and for the student’s true wisdom. 

They have strong religious tendencies, and, as they can see and hear better in semi-twilight, know much about the Scriptures by listening to old people reading their Bibles in the evening. 

Sometimes their attraction to a student is the result of some early life when he had evoked them by white magic, and they can remind him of secret things he had hidden away in the past. 

A king elemental directs them. They have great constructive ability, but do not permit their architectural works to last, disintegrating them when they wish to create new forms. This they constantly do. 

In the Masonic guilds they have a knowledge of ceremonial Masonry that would be of great interest to the Masonic Lodges of today. The early Jews, owing to their constant association with metals and precious stones, were also in close harmony with these interesting elementals. 

When we enter our past consciousness we find that we also possess such a gnome nature within our own submerged atoms, and that we can contact these little beings of our past.

WATER ELEMENTALS 

We will now deal with the protean or water states of consciousness. 

Our bodies are mainly fluidic, and the protean forces of Nature are closely allied to them; and, as students know, we are entering the Aquarian age that can be symbolised by water. 

As we go inward we contact these higher water elementals and enter a cloud of singular density—the atmosphere in which they live—it is not water, but a peculiar etheric vapour. They can play upon our sensitivity as a musician plays upon an instrument, more especially when the moon reaches fullness, and can intensify our impressions of a thing or mood. 

As their wisdom deals with the wisdom of the moon this study will need great preparation by the student, for the greatest wisdom that has reached the earth came from a remote moon period—incidentally, the Sphinx is the symbol of the wisdom of that time—and in an inner sphere we can visit the Temple of the Sphinx and meet the great elemental intelligence that guards its teachings. Many monuments left by ancient civilisations are the graven images of elemental forces. 

We have so many protean elements in our nature that when we enter such realms we almost lose consciousness of our own individuality by plunging into the memories of eons ago when on our pilgrimage into the density of matter. 

When a water elemental first appears before a student it is like a starry cluster that slowly takes form as it manipulates mind-stuff till it takes on the guise it wishes to represent. [See page 46.] 

Nature will respond to us when we love her, and the elemental kings bring to us a remembrance of that time when Nature was worshipped and they were appealed to by the Arcadian peoples who called them the “Sons of the Morning.” To these water gods the first fruits of the earth were offered in token of their power to fertilise the land and send it welcome showers. The student can enter such past days when he lived according to Nature and possessed her intelligence he has now lost. This was a time when semi-divine beings taught him the craft of tillage, the shaping of tools, and how to dig and delve in Nature’s storehouse. 

The soil in those days was different from the soil of the present; for man has distorted Nature by destroying her loveliness and peace. 

The water elementals have never, to my knowledge, been reproduced or analysed in a painting save by some Chinese adept artists and some primitive Japanese Buddhist priests. 

Sometimes they will appear as women wearing wonderful enrichments and hair that has the sheen of an otter’s back with an electrical quality. They are apt to devitalise the student at first, as they have to absorb from the surrounding atmosphere those properties that endow them with density. When one studies their powers of adorning themselves one will realise how limited in range is the art of today. Their materials and designs are foreign to us. For example: a fluidic material, that when stationary looks like pumiced coral or greyish-pink sandstone, is used and seems to be the natural flux for all their range in colour and decoration. Unlike the gnomes they keep subdued harmonies in their designs and would seem to have a wonderful control over colour notation. 

They radiate the light of pure minds and will reveal to the student his own similar qualities till he will suddenly realise with a shock the density of his own mind and body. 

Those who attract the lower water beings, and the student is impressed by his teaching not to do so, as curiosity often leads the student astray, are frequently enslaved by a jelly-like elemental that can travel and partly materialise, being seen by sensitive people. It appears during the sleeping states of its dissipated victims. This parasite collects in brothels and places where vice abounds. It is called an octopus elemental and is created from the diseased thoughts and passions of different races united in a composite unit. It can also impress its weight upon its victims. 

The higher elementals have little reverence for our laws and customs; for we have not yet allied ourselves to the teachings of our Initiates. 

Their methods of communication are like a machine gun in their rapidity: a swift moving screen of sentences wherein certain words are particularly impressed upon the memory, so that after hearing a dozen sentences we find that the accented words form themselves into a sentence meaning something different, and is the key to the meaning of the conversation. 

The complexions of these beings are generally blonde and a phosphorescent odour emanates from them. Their kings usually signal their appearance by the symbol of the trident. 

Although many occult organisations use symbols few of them understand their right use. Few people have been given the wisdom of using elemental substances in symbol forms. Symbols handed down to us have their higher counterpart and when properly used will pass us through inner schools of instruction. This knowledge has never been given to the uninitiated. Each division in Nature has its key symbol and the keepers of these measure the aspirations and worth of those seeking entrance to their realms. 

By close allegiance to these beings man is often privileged to give them part of the substance of his Innermost and thus confer upon them an immortality akin to man.1 

THE AIR ELEMENTALS 

In Nature’s higher counterpart of air her beings play an important role in the evolution of man. In their worlds we find the ancient inheritance of our minds; for we should constantly remember that Nature is the storehouse of our past records, and it is quite possible for the man with literary or artistic tendencies to again find those works of worth he had long ago created. The student will then realise why we reverence these higher intelligences, and will never again take an interest in the phenomena of spiritualism wherein swarm earth-bound spirits. 

The higher sylphs and sylphides are great scholars and possess remarkable memories. As they prolong their lives to a considerable period they can draw upon a tremendous range of experience and information, remember what has been written by the world’s scholars, and present different systems of philosophy in a naive manner. They view these studies from an entirely different angle to ours; we approach subjects with the desire to know what the philosopher has to impart; but they will tell us what they did not impart.  

They will tell us about the processes that take place at the moment of death; a section of them volunteering to shield us during our passage through the hallucination realms known as Purgatory. 

When a sylph stands beside us he radiates a sun-like quality that stimulates us to greater thought. Their method of instruction is often through vision, creating pageants of pastoral life of an Arcadian nature. It is as though one had a touch of cosmic consciousness when one becomes part of a past that becomes real. They also give us the knowledge of Nature’s rituals when we worshipped the gods and the stars; we can also learn about the lost books of antiquity. 

They consider that a thing is of value only when it possesses the impregnation of the sun’s atoms, just as the water beings judge the worth of a thing by the moon or Neptunian qualities in it. For they say: “Where real worth is hidden there the sun’s rays shine.” It is interesting to note that they will say of certain religious vestments and images that the possessors had drawn into their atmosphere the rays of the sun. They also speak about the intolerance and cruelty of humanity. 

They impress upon the student the importance of gaining what is called the “Knower consciousness,” that is: to know a thing without thought. An instantaneous method. For example: if you were to ask an advanced Yogi where you would be at ten o’clock the following morning, he would immediately reply, as you would later discover, correctly. All of us possess this principle of sudden direction, but sporadically. This can explain the meaning of the old saying: “He who hesitates is lost.” 

Animal life uses this method, for when danger threatens it knows what to do without any thought operation, neither does it in its natural state suffer from anxiety, as man, after the danger has passed. The sylphs say that when danger threatens, meet it; but do not think of it until it happens. 

They have recorded the sayings of many prophets and possess the secrets of many hidden organisations that still flourish. 

The skins of beautiful sylphides glow as though illumined by a hidden sun, and show the ripeness and abundance of health. They have whimsical natures and think that the vanities of our women are somewhat backward. The type of sylph or sylphide the student contacts is the reflection of his own. They are past-masters in reading and analysing one’s thoughts, nothing escapes their observation, and they can remind us of all our thoughts during the day; including those we would like least known. 

To an occult artist they have a wonderful power of presenting any costume he wishes to see; though this is tantalising, for they flash by in all their splendour and leave in the mind but the memory of an alluring smile. 

The lower divisions of these air elementals is a world about which we care very little; for we enter the fields of necromancy, witchcraft, and magic. These lower sylphs and sylphides can supply sensitives by their impersonations of historical characters, and inflict a medium with illness and disease. They can destroy the fluidic elasticity of the astral envelope by what occultists call broken vowel sounds, and send into it qualities of a mineral nature. This is like shell shock, though of a different kind, and brings about mental disturbances and sometimes insanity. Incidentally, we think it would interest the student to know something about the place and position the true medium should occupy in Society. 

In the remote past such people were treated with care and reverence; for sometimes the elemental gods spoke through them and they were called semi-divine on that account. In the future we will hold our sensitive in respect, and care for their moral and social welfare, and give them opportunities to develop their higher powers without endangering their gifts in their struggle for a livelihood. 

The law in the East is that no one should take money for such gifts. This is known as the Great Law. 

The sensitive is one who has developed an astral and lower mental body that can respond to a higher vibration. It is here that the sylphs take their place by the side of those sensitives who are pure in heart in order to shield their precious armour from those minds controlled by the Secret Enemy, and we pity that mind that demands of a sensitive those things that are beyond their natural range of receptivity. Trance subjects are often dominated by the hypnotic minds of others and, similar to the third degree of the police, are forced to enquire into the private affairs of other people. But as the hypnotic mind seeks to break the laws of Nature so will it eventually meet those guardians of Nature who will demand justice. For the sylphs of the higher planes often speak of their own Innermosts who direct them and group them together in order that they may work destruction upon their enemies. 

The world is honeycombed with people who prey upon the credulity of the public, and often through poverty a sensitive, worthy of great attainments, is brutalised by the ignorant. Because of this mediums should be examined for their moral, physical, and spiritual worth, and again placed as oracles within their temples. 

Today, many people overshadowed by their Secret Enemy, ask the sensitive to do things that they themselves would reject. This, being against the inner law, injures their astral membranes as well as the body that could be used to enrich the mind with knowledge far beyond human perception. 

The sylphs dislike those who boast of their own powers and possessions. 

They can magnetise an object to which devout minds have prayed, and entering into the atmosphere of such an image can give it at times a radiance and movement to the eyes—the lids opening and closing—and sensitive minds seeing this say that a miracle has occurred. The reason they do this is that the adoration sent to these images possesses elements similar to their own. Teraphim, or speaking images, of which there are more than is realised, are of a like nature. 

THE FIRE ELEMENTALS 

When we enter the kingdoms of fire we enter a vast territory that has more to do with the inner development of man than he realises. From fire we gain the directing force that moulds and leads towards a loftier standard of spiritual enlightenment. This force can intermittently lead and control the welfare of a nation; it deals more with masses than with individuals. The sincere student should not fear if brought in touch with it; for it brings harmony to the world. It should be known that we do not speak of the physical side of fire but of its higher counterpart, and these Beings will cause the student to pass the ordeal of being faced with self; his higher nature facing his lower nature. He will then know his degree of attainment, and it will suggest to him the greater possibilities in his life and the original plan of his evolution through matter; but he will also be conscious of a void he cannot pass in his mental travels save through far greater aspirations towards his Innermost. If the student were to ask what lies beyond the spheres of flame, the fire Beings would reply: “It is not for us to answer.” 

We sense their dominant power and a consciousness far beyond human beings. Nothing escapes them, nothing moves them, and among the higher ones there is a Jove-like serenity and austerity that is particularly felt when they take on the form of an adept Pharaoh or Greek god. 

These powers who have been worshipped as gods have spoken through the mouths of the prophets for the betterment of the nations, and in Greece the great fire elemental known as Apollo guided through his pythoness at Delphi their spiritual welfare and that of the surrounding nations.1 Sometimes they can impress a sensitive to lead a nation out of its moments of peril. Joan of Arc is an example. 

The Delphic oracles have moulded many minds with their illuminative qualities, and Initiates speak with great reverence of those whom they call the “Stillborn Children of the Flame.” This means those who appear in this world but are not of it. 

When the student can evoke the element of fire within his body he creates a shield of protection from his lower nature; for as the lower elements of the body resist this flame they are consumed by its energy. The awakening of this force is the instrument of the godlike man, and with this we will deal in a later chapter. The reason for its importance is that within such realms Nature preserves our highest records. 

When the student can work from this fire consciousness he is given a greater conception of the Reality’s manifestation in humanity. 

Having accustomed himself to the vibratory range of fire he will then possess and understand the characteristics of an oracle. These sovereigns of fire can then unite in a future period wherein are those laws that are to be given to man in his approach to his own Innermost. 

The student should always bear in mind that when he wishes to enter these kingdoms he must be clean in body and mind, otherwise he will be like a savage attempting to enter the portals of a university. 

Just as the world is divided into continents and countries so is there a map showing the divisions and the king or queen elementals that reign over them. Similarly in our world each nation has its special protector who guides it and strives to keep it true to its intended unfoldment. 

One of the turning-points in the student’s life is when his prayers and aspirations are answered by the appearance of one of these great Beings. Advanced occultists call them by name such as: “The Green-faced Man who instructs one in the wisdom of the moon,” or “the Beautiful Greek” or “the Great Atlantean.” 

Students find it pleasant to compare notes with their brothers regarding similar experiences, and though each has his own individuality to develop, there is a likeness in their initiations. 

Where fires break out the lower fire elementals are attracted with great rapidity. As a fireman once told me: “It is uncanny the way a fire will suddenly spread just when you think you have controlled it.” People impregnated with this element are often stimulated by the Secret Enemy to destroy by this means. Pyromaniacs should not be imprisoned but should be treated as mental cases where a different atmosphere might slowly heal such tendencies. 

Far from expecting heat the student will experience just the opposite when entering such realms. And we are told that the reason why the sun radiates heat is because its density rebels against its higher counterpart known to the occultist as the Sun behind the sun. 

History records many stories about the appearance of these elemental Masters to the great men of the past. 

Here we include a message from a fire elemental to a student: “Before you were born I was acquainted with you in the inner spheres and we agreed to meet when you would return and harmonise yourself to my intelligence. After this long period I have come over to you in order to instruct you in the work that had interested both of us. The fire that you perceived to-day with your sixth sense was the signal we will always give you when we are here; for I have a following that will help and support you. We once spoke about your work at a time when you were born in Egypt; and I witnessed your insurrection in a certain province. You gained great power in your efforts to undermine the authority of the ruler under whose sceptre you had command. You failed in this conspiracy and were decapitated. But you were able to win the interests of the great elementals of the Fire mists. Much of your knowledge was locked; but we can unlock this and serve you faithfully.” 

•    •    •    •    •

In the Temple of the Sphinx there is a lawchamber wherein are hung festoons of Nature’s essences that vibrate to her rhythm and gives to the mind the power to analyse their elements; and overhanging this chamber is a dome-shaped vessel that can be called Nature’s sounding board. Thoughts are things possessing sound, colour, and form, and are formed by this instrument into visible speech—for it registers the silent chords of music that shape our thoughts—and the student is permitted to watch his thoughts materialise. This knowledge will teach the student how to place in his thoughts that activity that will stimulate other minds to think and to enable him to project his thoughts into any part of the world. As Nature also possesses this power, he is taught how to protect himself against the lower side of elemental creation and the astral world. This is also the method used by the Yogis when they wish to telephone to any part of the earth. 

The College of the elemental Sphinx is the half-way house to Nature’s understanding, and here we are introduced to her laws. 

Our minds are not disturbed in this chamber and we aspire to the great Reality Whose presence is ever within it, and place ourselves in its manifold time. Here we realise that the urge we have felt throughout life has been Nature’s signalling to us from her Innermost to gain her attributes. None can escape this strong urge: Nature’s call to return to her. 

The elemental sovereigns give their atmospheres to the students, and this clarifies and transmutes the debris in their auras into another substance. It awakens their sleeping sentinels who open their doors to the inflow of cosmic energy, and he is lifted into their source from whence springs the immortal hour of remembrance. 

The kingly purpose of Nature is to destroy all illusion in our atmospheres and instil into us her expression, and an instructor awaits us all in the elemental paradises.