Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/38

34 spear and shield for Mars and a silver mirror in a golden necklace for Venus. In Shushup, it is said, guests for all the signs of the zodiac are received—but of these I have seen but two, a charming young lady from Virgo and a mahatma from Sirius who bore the badge of a great dog or wolf.

The sixth class are elemental essences. These may be either mineral or monadic in their nature, this depending on their origin. Usually they begin as a thought, aspiration or association of ideas, permeated by its appropriate variety of the deva or life principle, hence capable of floating or drifting about through etheric or astral space, until at last crystallized as an ego and embodied as a man. The history of these monadic essences is still obscurely known, as few adepts have the patience to watch them continuously through their centuries of development and incarnation. These often pass through the stage of animal essentials, some of whom are at last incarnated as animals, and the learned author of the 'Secret Doctrine' describes his encounter with a number of these essences 'embodied in anthropoid apes, already individualized and ready to take human incarnation at the next round or even sooner.'

Then in the etheric plane are swarms of nature spirits, the tiny emanations of the sunny banks of moss, the foamy waterfall or the fragrance of the roses. Some of these are dim and gigantic, the products of the mighty cañon, the roar of the sea, or the awesomeness of the forest. These may assume all forms at will, but when at rest they take the shape that is most befitting their natures. Ordinarily they are out of human sight, but they have the power of self-materialization, or they can be formed into visual clearness by the effort of a powerful will. Such essentials are known to us of the east as djinns and sprites and peris, but in the west they have many names, fairies, gnomes, elves and imps, and the Greeks called them fauns and satyrs. Those which live in water are called undines, those which live in air are sylphs and those in fire are salamanders. The wild essential spirits do not like, the presence of man, though they often try to help him or sometimes to play little tricks on him for their own amusement. They have no real dislike for humanity, but the constant rush of astral currents set up by the restless ill-regulated desires of Europeans disturbs and annoys them. In India, they are more at ease and lie about under the palms and the bulbul trees. In Olcott Sahib's beautiful gardens in Madras, Ram has spent many joyous evenings in commune with them. Similar creatures are ever present in California, giving your state the indescribable charm of which you all talk so much and feel so little. In a quiet stroll in the woods near Alcalde with Madame Hhatch, Earn found them in myriads, some of them lurking in the branches of the eucalyptus trees, others had burrowed in the dry ground to form fairy homes. In Ram's visit to Angels he found them thick under Abner