Elementary Beings
Many years before the formulation of anthroposophy, and well be-
fore Leadbeater or Hodson appeared on the scene, Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, laid down the secret
doctrine about "elementals." Though invisible to human beings, they
were, she said, the true cause of all that takes place behind the veil of
terrestrial phenomena.
To endow matter, about which nothing is really known, said Ma-
dame Blavatsky, with an inherent quality called force, or energy, the na-
ture of which is still less known, "is to create a far more serious
dificulty than that which lies in the acceptance of the intervention of
'nature spirits' in every natural phenomenon."
To Blavatsky, nature spirits, which she defined as cosmic agents, each
confined to its own element of earth, water, air, or fire, "exist in the
etheric and can handle and direct etheric matter for the production of
physical effects as readily as humans can compress air for the same pur-
pose with a pneumatic apparatus.They condense etheric matter so as to
make themselves tangible bodies, which they can cause to assume such
likeness as they choose, taking as their models the portraits they find
stamped in the memory of the persons present."
This belief in nature spirits, revived by theosophists, flourished in
every civilization of every age. The mythologies of Persians, Mongo-
lians, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and Egyptians as well as many tribal
peoples abound with accounts of spirits, benevolent and malevolent.
The Greeks had nymphs, dryads, and sprites of fountain and forest.
The ancient Celtic druids had tree spirits, inhabiting sacred groves of ash,
oak, and other trees. The Irish have their leprechauns; Teutonic tribes
were convinced of the reality of the Nibelungen gnomes and dwarves.