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ELEMENTAL NATURE SPIRITS
(ref. Wikipedia)
According to Paracelsus, the elements of earth, water, air, and fire, were classed as the fundamental building blocks of nature. This system prevailed in the Classical world and was highly influential in medieval natural philosophy. The homunculus is another example of a Paracelsian idea with roots in earlier alchemical, scientific, and folklore traditions.
Paracelsus
In his 16th-century alchemical work Liber de Nymphis, sylphis, pygmaeis et salamandris et de caeteris spiritibus, Paracelsus identified mythological beings as belonging to one of the four elements. Part of the Philosophia Magna, this book was first printed in 1566 after Paracelsus' death. He wrote the book to "describe the creatures that are outside the cognizance of the light of nature, how they are to be understood, what marvellous works God has created". He categorizes each by where they live. The following is his archetypal being for each of the four elements:
Gnome, being of earth
Undine, being of water
Sylph, being of air
Salamander, being of fire
He noted that undines are similar to humans in size, while sylphs are rougher, coarser, longer, and stronger. Gnomes are short, while salamanders are long, narrow, and lean. The elementals are said to be able to move through their own elements as human beings move through air. Gnomes, for example, can move through rocks, walls, and soil. Sylphs are the closest to humans in his conception because they move through air like we do, while in fire they burn, in water they drown, and in earth, they get stuck. Paracelsus states that each one stays healthy in its particular "chaos," as he terms it, but dies in the others.
Paracelsus conceived human beings to be composed of three parts, an elemental body, a sidereal spirit, and an immortal divine soul. Elementals lacked this last part, the immortal soul. However, by marriage with a human being, the elemental and its offspring could gain a soul.
In contemporary times there are those who study and practice rituals to invoke elementals. These include Wiccans, and followers of nature-based religions
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WHAT ELEMENTALS DO
ref. Summit Lighthouse.org
GNOMES – Tending the Earth
The nature spirits of the physical level are called gnomes. Gnomes tend the earth through the cycles of the four seasons insuring that all living things have their daily needs. They process the waste and by-products & purge the earth of toxins—including industrial wastes, pesticides, acid rain & nuclear radiation that abuse the earth. They clean up the psychic imprints of discord and negativity carelessly scattered by humans.
War, murder, human trafficking, torture & abuse, profit seeking at the expense of the environment as well as hatred, anger, discord, gossip—all these create an accumulation of negatively charged energy that becomes a weight on the earth body and on the nature spirits.
UNDINES – Guarding the Gardens of the Seas
The elementals whose domain is the water element are undines. The mer-folk are subtle and swift in their movements and can change form rapidly. The undines control the tides and have much to do with the climate as well as oxygenation and precipitation. The undines also cleanse waters poisoned by sewage, chemicals, pesticides and other substances. They work ceaselessly to heal the seas & recharge the electromagnetic field of the waters with currents of the Spirit. Their bodies are conductors of cosmic currents resounding through the chambers of submarine life.
The undines cleanse not only the physical waters, but also that aspect of mankind’s life that relates to the water element—our emotional naggage such as anger, emotional abuse, hurtful speech, selfishness, anxiety and over indulgence.
SYLPHS – Aerating Life with the Sacred Breath
The sylphs tend the air element, directing the winds and atmospheric conditions. They purify the atmosphere and aerate every cell of life with the sacred breath of Spirit. They bring the life-sustaining prana that nourishes all living things. On subtle levels, the sylphs transmit the currents of the Spirit from heaven to earth.
The sylphs often have thin, streamer-like bodies that shape shift as they soar through the air. Sylphs are able to travel at great distances very quickly, and giant sylphs can actually span the skies and interpenetrate the earth, the water and the fire elements.
Like giant transformers, sylphs conduct the currents of the mind of God unto the mind of man. They purify the air of pollutants.
The air element corresponds to the mental level of existence, and thus the sylphs also have the job of purifying the mental plane. The mental plane can become polluted by negative thoughts that feed hatred, anger, prejudice, bigotry, resentment, pride, ambition, greed, jealousy and other poisons of the spirit.
SALAMANDERS – Infusing Matter with the Fires of Creation
The elementals of the fire element and are salamanders. Their job is crucial, for they serve at the atomic level of all organic and inorganic life, infusing the molecules of matter with the spiritual fires of creation that vitalize life. They control the spiritual-material oscillation of light within the nucleus of every atom.
Whether in electricity, plasma, firelight or the flame of a candle, they transfer the fires of the subtle world for mankind’s daily use. Without the spark of life sustained by the salamanders, life and matter begin to decay. Salamanders Force is the transformation of human’s irresponsible uses of resources. Were it not for the fiery salamanders transmuting society’s frustrations & bigotry, the crime and darkness would be much more advanced than it is today.
The very air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, at the most basic level, are utterly dependent on the selfless service of the nature spirits. The miracle of life is the miracle of the gnomes, sylphs, undines and salamanders.
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