I need not tell you that the Ideas now spoken of are not merely Conceptions, such as we, according to common usage, are wont to believe. Ideas to the antique world, were exactly the same thing as Leibnitz called monads, and the Kabbala Elements and Elementary Spirits. Plato, for instance, attributes to ideas an independent, singular existence and hypostative power. He calls them Gods (in the Timœus), and asserts that movement, life, animation, and reason belong to them, (in the Sophistes).
The nations of the earth, all those not belonging to the chosen few, have indeed been—for good and for evil—guided by the Spirits, now called Elementals, now Ideas and now Gods. Therefore, if any one will study the history of mankind, he must begin with a knowledge of these occult powers. If any one will guide mankind’s history, he must follow the laws of these occult forces.
If we recognize the translation of the Septuagint as given above, and find ourselves outside the pale of the chosen people, whose work is in “the plan of salvation,” we know where to look for the intermediate powers between ourselves and the Deity, we know that they are the Elementals, the powers of Nature, the silent, but invincible giants of the Elements.
The importance to Theosophists of the modern school of clear conceptions on these points are evident. I need not point out to you why and wherefore.
In the Zohar it is stated that, “when spirits come down, they clothe themselves with air or wrap themselves in Elements.” It is also stated that, “some spirits have a natural affinity for the air-(elements), others for fire-(elements), and when they come down to the earth, they envelop themselves either in air-(elements) or fire-(elements), according to their nature.”
These statements, which can easily be supplemented with many more like them, are of the greatest importance, when the question is of spirit manifestations, for it becomes a matter of grave consequence by what kind of monads we are surrounded.
But, before speaking of the atmosphere of monads that surround us, I must define the auras or emanations that proceed from all objects in nature.
As an aromatic scent emanates from a flower, so all other bodies emit either colors or rays of “imponderable” matter. Copper and Arsenic send out auras of red matter; Lead and Sulphur emit a blue colored substance; Gold, Silver Antimony green, etc. In short, Science teaches that all matter is luminous, i. e. shines by its own light.
Human beings, be they spiritual-minded or not, are also surrounded by their spheres. We all know this. We have all felt these sphere influences, and some of you have perhaps seen them. It it said that persons of a high and spiritual character have beautiful auras of white and blue, gold and green, in various tints; while low natures emit principally dark red emanations, which in brutal and vulgar persons darken almost to black.
The impulse or motive power, the cause, if you choose, of these emanations is the soul of man, of course. According to the condition of the soul, these emanations are more or less powerful, more or less extensive, more or less clear. The stuff they are made of, what is it? It is of course physical, though they may not be measured and weighed by any scientific instrument known at this day.