Language—the Word—is spoken when an Idea or Spiritual Life is communicated. In the true sense, we only speak or pronounce the Word when the Highest finds a channel into the actual world by means of our vocal organs.
That is the Word! Now, about its Form. Whence comes its material? For form is something substantial. It is not enough that an architect has a design to a building in his mind, he needs actual material with which to erect the house if it is to be realized on the actual side of existence. As surely as he procures stones and wood, etc., so do we also need material substances with which to construct our mental edifices. From what world do we draw these substances? From the astral or ethereal molecules! From the Monads!
By a pre-established harmony, the suitable monads glomerate around the heavenly idea that proceeds to reveal itself upon our tongue when we speak the Word. Thus the thought gets its Form.
Thus far I have spoken of the thought or idea descending to utter itself upon our tongue, we being the mere tools of the idea. And such is almost always the case. We neither originate thought nor its form. Thought or Spirit speaks through us as the passive agents. Yet we all know how we boast of our oracles, of our prophets and our seers, even because they act as passive agents.
But there is a language still higher. It is possible for man to originate thought and to control the form to such thought. The adepts know this secret and they have arrived at that power by getting beyond the “ordinary” laws of life. They are not mere channels for the flux and reflux of thought; they originate and control thought.
Heaven’s first law is order. As we know some of the laws according to which we formulate speech in a logical way, so that other sphere outside (or inside, if you like), which is full of the germs of life, has its laws. Hence the adepts, too, follow certain rules or laws, when they want to originate or control thought and its form. Vulgarly, the laws or methods are called spells or incantations.
Before we consciously can work spells or control spirits and their energies, we must arrive at the state of the adept, where he is beyond the laws that govern, so to say, the surface of things. But we cannot come there on any highroads nor by any short cuts. We must travel the road of self-denial and that of illusion.
As it is possible to enter into the sanctuary of a temple by sheer brutal force, so it is possible to get into possession of formulas and spells which work wonders, though we be neither pure of mind nor strong of heart.
Would formulas and spells under such conditions be useful to us? They may! They may not! They may also work our destruction. We have been taught that they are more dangerous to us than a naked sword in the hands of a child. The child may accidentally do some useful work with its sharp instrument, but it may also destroy itself.
From this we should learn that the true course to pursue in regard to the performing of wonders by means of Elementals or Elementary Spirits is to first to attain to the state of an adept: to learn to control life and thought.