ANTHROPOLOGY 65 



living therein, and its qualities may be known to its 

 inhabitants. Thus the Gnomes may see all that is going 

 on in the interior of the earthly shell surrounding our 

 planet, this shell being as air for them ; the Undines 

 thrive and breathe in their watery world ; the Sylphs 

 live in the air like a fish in the water, and the Sala- 

 maTiders are happy in the element of the fire. A person 

 in whose organisation the element of earth preponderates 

 will have great talents for agriculture and mining ; a 

 soul sympathising especially with the watery element 

 will endow the person with a taste for a seafaring 

 life, &c. 



Spirit is perceptible to spiritual existences, and the 

 thoughts of mortals consequently appear visible and 

 material to spirits ; the Soul essence, with its currents 

 and forms, may be seen and felt by the Elementals and 

 beings that live in the realm of the soul ; and they are, 

 also, capable of reading such thoughts as are not of a 

 too refined and spiritual character to be discerned by 

 them, and to perceive the states of feelings of men by 

 the colours and impressions produced in the auras of the 

 latter ; but they cannot perceive divine and spiritual 

 things. Matter, in the state in which it is known to 

 us, is seen and felt by means of the physical senses; 

 but to beings who are not provided with such senses, 

 material things are as invisible and intangible as spiritual 

 things are to those who have not developed the power of 

 spiritual perception. 



The Spiritual Essence of Man comes from the highest 

 emanation of God. It is gifted with divine wisdom and 

 with divine power ; and if the higher elements constitut- 

 ing the normal man become conscious of the possession 

 of divine gifts, and learn to realise their powers and how 

 to employ them, they will be, so to say, superhuman, 

 and may rightly be called Divine Beings, or Sons of 

 the Almighty. Whenever a child is conceived, a word 

 proceeds, like a ray from God, which provides the future 



