In Leibnitz’s Monads, I think we may see the very substance of the astral sphere, in which the elementary spirits “wrap themselves,” according to a statement in the Kabbala. We may even see more, we may even look upon them as the Elementals themselves.
If Leibnitz’s Monads may be considered not only as Elementals, but also the very substance of the astral sphere, and if it be so, that according to the Zohar, “the spirits, when they come down clothe themselves with air, or wrap themselves in elements,” then it becomes a subject of the greatest importance to us how or by what means we may influence the astral sphere, or in other words, it becomes very important by what kind of Monads we are surrounded.
As a help to the proper consideration of this momentous question, I shall offer some information regarding the natural auras or objective spheres, that surround us, and also some historic facts regarding the use of aromatic vapors, odors, &c.
Having come so far with my paper, I shall say a few words about our power over the elementals “clothed with air and wrapped in elements,” by defining the power of Mind and by describing those—almost unknown—small nerve centres of the human hand, called the Pacinian corpuscles.
I shall only stop to define these two tools, the head and the hand, and leave out, for the present, the third of the human trinity, the heart.
Having defined the power of mind and the hand, I shall come to a close with a few suggestions as to the use of these powers regarding the subject under consideration.
Elementary Spirits are defined in “Isis Unveiled” to be “the disembodied souls. The depraved souls have at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality. Eliphas Levi and some other Kabbalists make little distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature.”
The points to mark in this definition are these: (1) Elementary Spirits are disembodied souls; (2) they are disembodied souls of the good, and (3) of the depraved, i. e., of those, in whom the higher principles have never been developed, nor even born into light. They are the shades of those who, by their sins and moral misery, have closed the most interior principles of the constitution of man, and having closed the door against them, have no part in life, but sooner or later become dissolved and disintegrated in the surrounding elements.
In the manifestations common among Spiritualists, these Elementary Spirits play the most prominent parts. The Elementals do not. We shall concern ourselves mainly with the Elementals.