It is in the lower levels of humanity that the night forces of nature are most active. Man sees clearly only during a portion of the day, and he sees only in part what is coming from any direction. His organs of sight record a limited range of vibration. I have met some members of the red Indian tribes who have what is known as nine-tenths vision, for they can see clearly at night things which escape the observation of most men.
In our study of nature we learn that the weight and pressure of the atmosphere is greater on the lower levels than on the heights, and the destructive side of elemental nature predominates in this density of atmospheric pressure. We also observe that nature has two great divisions—day and night. Man attracts the true levels of his own density; if he aspires and seeks union with God, the density of his body changes and he becomes immune from the elemental nocturnal inhabitants, who have their life and activity in these lower densities of atmospheric pressure.
The great beings of light and intelligence show themselves in the sunlight, but the earthbound spirits and elemental forms must have darkness in which to manifest—hence spiritualistic seances are held in the dark. The Bringers of Light may occasionally manifest at seances, but such are not their natural habitat.
Grown people do not realize how terrified children generally are of the dark, for their sensitivity registers fear. Sensitive children should always have a night light carefully shaded. They should not be told ghost stories or frightened with tales of invisible people who will catch them. Everyone is open to the suggestion of fear, yet it is something which must be conquered. Occasionally a child does not outgrow this sensitivity and fear.
I once knew a man in Scotland who would not walk on the main road, but preferred to tramp over ploughed fields and ground to the post office half a mile away. I once said to him, “Jock, why is it that you will not walk in the road at night?” And he replied, “To tell you the truth, sir, I am afraid of the invisibles.” Jock was evidently clairvoyant, for he had described me correctly to his friends a year before I arrived in the district, and he also described the new schoolmaster who, he said, would arrive in a top hat, which turned out to be absolutely true. He became greatly worried about a dream which he discussed with me. He had seen three people washed ashore, and his dream came true regarding two of these persons; then he became frightened, thinking that he himself would be the third, so he left the place. He had described the first two unfortunates correctly, and he had an idea that the third looked rather like himself. However, he volunteered for active war service and met his death in Gallipoli. The shepherds in the Highlands avoid those places where elemental fear is sensed. Some of these hauntings are caused by half-human, half-elemental monsters, and it is extremely difficult to bring the light to these intelligences, so that they will cease warring against humanity. Their atmosphere is that of a soul in hell, and they can spread an intensity of depression into atmospheres which they contact, and can magnetize an object, such as a book, so that it will bring depression and suffering to any honest mind.
There are some elemental monsters who seemingly never die. Often their activities are directed at great historical families which won power in the past through wars and destruction. I knew a man of magnificent character who inherited a title cursed through many generations. Within three months, after coming into the vibration of his ancestral home, I noticed a gradual coarsening and thickening of his physical vehicle. I talked to the elemental guardian of this place. It lives beneath the ground, in a dungeon-like apartment, and it informed me that the heads of the house had not hesitated to burn religious houses and holy places in the past, for the sake of personal gain.
Families, who own places such as these, would be doing a kindness to humanity if they razed them to the ground. Schools and universities, hoary with age, cause the minds of youth to be placed in the past, instead of the present and future, and such institutions should also be burned, beautiful as they are, for they are the charnel houses of the past. If you enter into conversation with the inhabitants of these ancient places, you will find that they talk chiefly of the past, and seldom of the present; the exceptions to this being in the scientific departments of learning.
Visiting the cathedral towns of England, we walk into the glamour of the past, but even in those places where the light has been bright, we can get only the shoddy impress of the past today, for the debris of the ages has not the intelligence of experience. It is in such conditions that the negative forces of nature exercise their greatest power over the mind of the individual.
All the great teachers say, “Be positive.” This does not mean to be egotistical. When we enter into the positive side of nature we encounter what the Egyptians called “the Lord Giver of Life.” Man is a solar system within himself and has nerve centers and diaphragms which register all the impulses of nature. Most people have heard of the solar plexus in the body, just below the sternum or chest bone, but they know little of the others. Man has a “moon center” between his eyes which, like the moon, reflects the solar light. The application to human affairs of this division of nature into day and night should be carefully observed by the seekers after knowledge.
Man has accustomed himself to the pressure of the normal radiation of sunlight, just as he has accustomed himself to the atmospheric pressure of which, until he ascends to a high altitude, or descends deep into the sea, he is unconscious. The student of Yoga however recognizes two essential and opposing forces in nature. The sun, with its pressure, holds in check the vital energy of the seed, until that vital energy becomes stronger than the power of the sun over it. The moon draws the vitality of a plant to the surface, whereas the sun represses it. The moon liberates the forces of nature, whilst the sun holds them in check.
The earth current, flowing to the magnetic pole, is strong enough to keep a magnetized needle always pointing in one direction. This current flows through a man’s body into the ground; hence, if we kept our bare feet upon the ground at night, when we would have no protection from the solar forces to retard this flow, we would become devitalized. It is noticeable that although fur is a non-conductor, furry animals do not sleep with their foot pads on the ground at night. Chickens get off the ground to roost, and the red Indian sleeps on a buffalo robe, a bear skin, or a heavy woolen blanket.
For centuries Yogis have practiced what is known as the “cold water” treatment. It is an interesting experiment and beneficial to the health. In the early morning, run or exercise barefooted in the wet grass, or along the water’s edge at the seashore, or in your bathtub. The water should never be above the ankles. You should take active exercise, running until you begin to perspire, and it is better to do this in the country, if you can. When you have thus increased the voltage of the life forces within you, then insulate yourself. Yogis and Indians sit on fur, as it is a non-conductor, but a woolen rug on the ground is also suitable.
You should sit quietly, aspiring to enter nature’s consciousness. In this way you charge yourself like a battery with nature’s current. Send out your love to nature in your aspiration, for this is the first step the student must take to enter nature’s consciousness. At first you may be conscious of fear. This is brought about by the lower elemental intelligence in nature, which rebels at the destructive agent, man, entering her realm. But if you persist in this practice, and send out all your love to nature, you will suddenly become conscious of a change. It is as if you were in some great cathedral of nature, where you apprehend its peace, its love, and its intelligence. Then the higher beings, and the elements of fire, earth, water, and air will become known to you, and for this entrance into nature you must thank the sovereign sun.
You will find that a great change in your health will take place, if you charge your battery in this manner, and all I can say is, “Try it!” It took the writer a year and nine months of practice and hard work, living close to nature, before he could receive the instruction and be worthy of the notice of these overlords of nature. Many people wonder why ascetics and Yogis need so little food. One of the most vital men I have ever met, ninety-two years of age, demonstrated this secret.
The hermit life has its compensations and they very often come, as they did in the writer’s case, after the quest has been renounced as hopeless. Nature teaches us to aspire earnestly for the light and wisdom which are within us. If we fail to gain that which we seek after patient effort, and reverently renounce the search saying, “Thy will be done,” a vacuum is formed within us, and that which we earnestly desired makes its appearance in the form which the Lord God of Truth within knows is best.
The sun gives us the power to restrain ourselves, and patiently to conserve and build up power in order to break our way into the greater truth. There will come a time when we receive a knowledge of the elemental side of the sun, whose symbols Chinese initiate artists have so often portrayed, but which in our ignorance we pass by, without close observation.
The presence of the elementals of the sun, moon, and planets has much to do with the plan of our horoscopes, and the Yogi will often find a sun elemental in the form of a full grown African lion standing by his side. In these sun elementals the nose is extremely broad, and the countenance looks somewhat human.
The sun elemental has power over mind stuff matter and will often transform itself into a golden lion, which you may sometime see sitting on your mantelpiece, radiating rays of crackling, brilliant sunshine. Before the beginning of the Great War, three of these elementals walked around my bed, wearing Sam Browne belts, as humans would wear them, and they projected a picture of a well-known railway station, with many troop trains departing.
Great beings come to this earth both from the sun and from the moon to become guardians of certain nations. They appear at various places on our earth, and Yogis, and others who are highly evolved, journey to certain retreats where at times these higher beings show themselves. The great goddess of the moon, especially worshipped by the Chinese, appears at regular intervals in a retreat in China. At the moment of her appearance the Chinese hold up linen cloths to saturate them with the moisture of the moon, which is then squeezed out of the cloth. They call this the elixir of life.
However, the sun elementals are beneficent, and are of a scientific nature. They tell us of the seven great suns, of which our sun is one. A number of years ago a great adept passed away in Egypt. He had received from an angelic being information of a scientific nature, which was scoffed at by the astronomers, but today many of these pronouncements have been proved to be correct. Our physical sun has its higher counterpart, just as man has within him a higher self, the man of nature. Man also has atoms of the sun, moon, and stars in his body, so his real light and guidance comes from the sun behind his own sun.
Man has within him an elemental nature pertaining to the sun, as well as to the moon. We are told that the greatest of the wisdom teachers came from the moon, and passed into the higher realms of consciousness. From the solar elementals we learn that the seven great suns are constantly giving of themselves, in order to bring about the formation of a greater sun, the globe of arcanum.
A great Eastern nation at the present time is under the administration of the sun. In the course of a few years she has come up out of obscurity and become a world power. Furthermore, she has never been defeated in arms.
