CHAPTER XXIII
ANIMAL ELEMENTALS
Suggestion no doubt plays a large part in producing a belief in the power to change form at will, and the occult aspect of transformation is perhaps more interesting than any other view of the subject. Incantations, salves, herbs, drugs, perfumes, and other accessories of ritual are merely employed to strengthen concentrative force and to induce a suitable state of mind. In this sense the highest scientific method of transformation is known to the Yogi who, by performing samyama on the powers of any animal, acquires those powers.[173]
Samyama is the technical name for three inseparable processes taken collectively. The three processes are, firstly, contemplation, or the fixing of the mind on something, external or internal; secondly, the unity of the mind with its absorption, in which the mind is conscious only of itself and the object; and thirdly, trance, when the mind is conscious only of the object, and as though unconscious of itself. Trance proper is the forgetting of all idea of the act, and, still more important, the becoming of the object (such as the animal) thought upon. Thus, the three stages, contemplation, absorption, and trance, are in fact stages of contemplation, for the thing thought upon, the thinker, and the instrument (together with other things which are to be excluded), are all present in the first; all except the last are present in the second, and nothing but the object is present in the third.[174]
The Yogi believes that the mind can enter into another body by relaxation of the cause of bondage, and by knowledge of the method of passing. The bondage is the mind's being bound to a particular body. The cause of limiting the otherwise all-pervading mind to a particular spot is karma or dharma and adharma, i.e. good or bad deeds. When by constant samyama on these, the effect of the cause is neutralised and the bonds of confinement loosened, then the mind is free to enter any dead or living organism and perform its functions through it. But for this purpose a knowledge of effecting this transfer is equally necessary....
We always think in relation to the ego within us, and therefore in relation to the body. Even when we direct our mind somewhere out of the body, it is still in relation with the thinking self. When this relation is entirely severed and the mind exists as it were spontaneously, outside and independent of the body, the Yogi finds the state of internal mind most favourable for passing from one corporeal shape into another, for it is nothing more than the vrtti (or soul) severed from the body that travels from one place to another. The act of the mind cognising objects, or technically speaking, taking the shape of objects presented to it, is called vrtti, or transformation. Those familiar with the so-called spirit-materialisations will readily comprehend the somewhat obscure sense of this aphorism.[175]
Animal elementals or thought-forms were employed by magicians in the remote ages, and believed to be created entities which persisted throughout time and might be sent forth, somewhat in the nature of a familiar, to wreak harm on others. Such animal thought-forms are regarded as natural or possible by many occultists to-day and two modern stories exemplify this belief.
A certain Miss Carter went to have tea at a friend's house where she met a lady whom she knew, a Miss Thory, the sister of an eminent philosopher. Miss Carter asked this lady whether she would be kind enough to tell her fortune from the cards, but Miss Thory declined, saying that she felt tired. Shortly afterwards Miss Carter went away and, as soon as her back was turned, Miss Thory said to her hostess, "My dear, don't have much to do with that young lady, because she goes about telling people that she is beloved by an archangel who kisses her on the lips, but I have seen the creature which hovers about her, and which she takes to be an archangel, and it has the shape of a crocodile and is trying to influence people through her. It is an evil elemental."
The other story concerns two friends, Mrs. Harper and Miss Sylvester, who, travelling together on the astral plane, decided to visit the bottom of the sea. They believed they arrived there and saw an enormous octopus which was floating about amongst the wreckage on the ocean bed. Miss Sylvester immediately made the protective sign of the Pentacle and suffered no inconvenience, but Mrs. Harper neglected to take this precaution and the monstrous animal followed her about. They did not mention these strange experiences to anyone, and they were well-nigh forgotten when some time later it happened that Miss Sylvester introduced Mrs. Harper to one of her friends, a very well-known poet. Meeting Miss Sylvester a few days afterwards, he said to her quite frankly, "I suppose I ought not to say so to you, but I did not much care for your friend, Mrs. Harper. The night after you introduced me to her I could not sleep and whenever I thought about her I was aware of some elemental creature crawling beneath my bed. It had the shape of an octopus with horrible tentacles!"