Elementary Spirits

The unseen entities said to inhabit the four elements; they are composed of the finest essence of each element. The creatures of the air are called sylphs; of the earth, gnomes; of fire, salamanders; and of water, nymphs or undines. The Abbé de Villars (1635-ca. 1673) is often cited as an authority on the subject, since he published a treatise entitled Comte de Gabalis (1670), from which a good deal of what follows is drawn.

According to this work, before the Fall, the creatures of the elements were subject to Adam in all things. By means of certain performances this ancient communication may be restored, and man may once more have at his command the elementary spirits. The abbot gives a brief sketch of the nature of these spirits.

The air, he says, is filled with a great number of sylphs, beings of human form, somewhat fierce in appearance, but really of a docile nature. They are interested in the sciences and are subtle. They are officious toward the sages and hostile toward the foolish and the ignorant. Their wives and daughters are of a masculine type of beauty, such as that of the Amazons.

The seas and rivers are inhabited as well as the air, and the beings dwelling there are designated undines, or nymphs, by the sages. The female population much exceeds the male, the women being so exceedingly beautiful that among the daughters of men there is none to equal them.

The Earth is filled almost to the center with gnomes, beings of small stature that guard subterranean treasure, minerals, and precious stones. They are ingenious, friendly toward men, and easy to command. They provide the children of the sages with all the money they require, asking no other reward for their services than the glory of performing them. The gnomides, their wives, are small of stature but very good-looking, and they dress very curiously.

As for the salamanders, the inhabitants of the region of fire, they serve the philosophers, but are not overanxious for their company. Their daughters and wives are rarely seen. Their women are very beautiful, beyond all the other elementals, since they dwell in a purer element. Their habits, mode of life, manners, and laws are admirable, and their mental brillance is even greater than their physical beauty. They know and religiously adore the Supreme Being, but have no hope of eternal enjoyment of him, since their souls are mortal. Being composed of the purest parts of the elements wherein they dwell, and having no contrary qualities, they can live for several centuries, yet they are much troubled because of their mortal nature.

It was revealed to the philosophers, however, that an elementary spirit could attain immortality by marrying a human being. The children born of such unions are more noble and heroic than the children of human men and women, and some of the greatest figures of antiquity—Zoroaster, Alexander, Hercules, and Merlin, to mention a few—are declared to have been the children of elementary spirits.

The salamanders, the Comte de Gabalis goes on to say, are composed of the most subtle particles of the sphere of fire, conglobated and organized by the action of the Universal Fire, so called because it is the principle of all the motions of nature. The sylphs are composed of the purest atoms of the air; the nymphs, of the most delicate particles of water; the gnomes, of the finest essence of earth. Adam was in complete accord with these creatures because, being composed of that which was purest in the four elements, he contained in himself the perfections of these four species and was their natural king. But since by reason of his sin he was cast into the excrements of the elements, there no longer existed the harmony between him, so impure and gross, and these fine and ethereal substances.

The abbot goes on to give instructions on how this state of things can be remedied and the ancient order restored. To attain this end mankind must purify and exalt the element of fire that is within all humans. All that is necessary is to concentrate the fire of the world, by means of concave mirrors, in a globe of glass. There will then be formed within the globe a solar powder that, having purified itself from the mixture of other elements, will become in a very short time a sovereign means of exalting the fire within us and make us, so to speak, of an igneous nature. Thereafter, the creatures of the fire will become our inferiors, and, delighted at the restoration of mutual harmony between themselves and the human race, they will show toward man all the goodwill they have for their own kind.

Sylphs, gnomes, and nymphs are more familiar with humans than are the salamanders, on account of their shorter term of life, and it is therefore easier to get in touch with them. To restore its dominion over the sylphs, gnomes, or nymphs, the human race must close a glass full of air, earth, or water and expose it to the sun for a month, after which its various elements must be separated according to science. This process is easiest in the case of water and earth. "Thus," states the Comte, "without characters, without ceremonies, without barbarous words, it is possible to rule absolutely over these peoples."

Other authorities prescribe other means of obtaining dominion over the spirits of the elements. The occultist Éliphas Lévi, for instance, stated that anyone desiring to subjugate the elementals must first perform "the four trials of antique initiation," but as the original trials are no longer known, similar ones must be substituted. Thus, he who would control the sylphs must walk fearlessly on the edge of a precipice; he who would win the service of the salamanders must take his stand in a burning building, and so on, the point of the ordeals being that the man should show himself unafraid of the elements whose inhabitants he desires to rule.

In medieval times the evocation and exorcism of elementary spirits was practiced extensively, the crystal being a favorite means of evoking them. The exorcism of earth was performed by means of breathing, sprinkling water, burning incense, and repeating a certain prayer to the gnomes. Air was exorcised by breathing toward the four cardinal points and by reciting prayers to the air spirits (sylphs). Casting salt, incense, sulphur, camphor, and white resin into a fire was considered efficacious in exorcising that element. In the case of water, breathing and laying on of hands, repeating formulas, mixing salt and ashes of incense, and other ceremonies were to be observed. In every instance, a special consecration of the four elements was a primary and essential part of the proceedings.

As stated, it was thought possible for a human being to confer immortality on an elementary spirit through marriage. This does not always occur, however. Sometimes the reverse is the case, and the elementals share their mortality with their human mate. In literature, at all events, countless stories relate how men have risked and lost their immortality by marrying a sylph or an undine. According to the Comte de Gabalis, however, it would seem to be a matter of choice whether a man confers his immortality on his ethereal partner or whether he partakes of her mortal nature, for it suggests that those who have not been predestined to eternal happiness would do well to marry an elemental and thus spare themselves an eternity of woe.

Not every authority has painted so attractive a picture of the creatures of the elements as has the Abbé de Villars. Some have contended that there are innumerable degrees among these beings, the highest resembling the lower angels, while the lowest may often be mistaken for demons, which they are not. Not only do multitudinous variations of form and disposition characterize the elementals of this planet, the other planets and the stars are also the abode of countless hosts of elementary spirits, differing from those of our world perhaps more than the latter differ from one another.

All the forms of beasts, insects, and reptiles, as well as strange combinations of the shapes of different animals, may be taken by the lower elementals of Earth. The inhabitants of each element have their peculiar virtues and vices that serve to distinguish them. The sylphs are capricious and inconstant, but agile and active; the undines, jealous and cold, but observant; the salamanders, hot and hasty, but energetic and strong; and the gnomes, greedy of gold and treasures, but nevertheless hardworking, good-tempered, and patient. Anyone who would seek dominion over any of these must practice their virtues but carefully avoid their faults, thus conquering them, as it were, on their own ground.

Each species can dwell only in its own proper element. Thus a sylph may not invade the sphere of a salamander, or vice versa, while both would be decidedly out of their element in the regions of the nymphs or the gnomes. Four rulers have been set over the four species—Gob, ruler of the gnomes; Paralda, of the sylphs; Djin, of the salamanders; and Necksa, of the nymphs. The dwellers in each element are assigned a point of the compass, which is where their special kingdom lies. To the gnomes is given the north, to the salamanders, the south, to the sylphs, the east, and to the undines, the west. The gnomes influence those of a melancholic disposition, because they dwell in the gloom of subterranean caverns. The salamanders have an effect on those of sanguine temperament, because their home is in the fire. The undines influence the phlegmatic, and the sylphs those of a bilious temperament. Although the elementals are invisible to human eyes, they may on occasion become visible to those who invoke them, to the sages and philosophers, and even to the multitude.

It is said that in the reign of King Pépin, Zedekias, a ninth-century physician, suggested to the sylphs that they should appear to men, whereupon the air was seen to be full of them, sometimes ranged in battle, or in an aerial army. It was said by the people that they were sorcerers—an opinion to which Charlemagne and his son Louis the Débonnaire subscribed, the latter at least imposing heavy penalties on the supposed sorcerers. To witness the admirable institutions of the sylphs, certain men were raised up in the air, and while descending were seen by their fellowmen on Earth. The latter regarded them as stragglers of the aerial army of sorcerers and thought that they had come to poison the fruits and fountains. These unfortunate persons were thereupon put to death, along with many others suspected of ties to the sorcerers.

The nature of these spirits was collated in the Comte de Gabalis with the oracles of antiquity, and even with the classic pantheons of Greece and Rome. Pan, for example, was the first and oldest of the nymphs, and the news of his death, communicated by the people of the air to the inhabitants of the waters, was proclaimed by them in a voice that was heard sounding over all the rivers of Italy—"The great Pan is dead!"

The scholar of occultism and mysticism A. E. Waite considered the "angels" evoked in medieval magic, as well as the "devils" of the witchcraft sabbat, to be higher or lower elementals. Others see in the brownies and domestic spirits of folklore some resemblance to the subjugated elementary spirits. Even the familiar poltergeist, when not clearly identified as the spirit of a deceased person, may be regarded as an elemental. Spiritualists believe that elementals occasionally manifest as mischievous or evil spirits at séances.

Although the book Comte de Gabalis is probably an imaginative or allegorical work, it brings together preexisting legends of elementary spirits in an entertaining and philosophical format.

Sources:

Barrett, Francis. The Magus. London: Lackington, Allen, 1801. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1967.

De Villars, l'Abbé de Montfaucon. Comte de Gabalis. 1670. Reprint, New York: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply, 1922.

Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic. London: Redway, 1896. Reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970.

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts Including the Mysteries of Goëtic Theurgy, Sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy. London: George Redway, 1898. Revised as The Book of Ceremonial Magic. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1961.