Let the wise of our century who have locked themselves into a prison cell of materialism scoff from the heights of their ignorance at the superstitions of savages, but there is a profound truth in the legends about gremlins, penates, and tares, those good-hearted and mischievous tiny spirits of the home. Ancient paganism was far more aware of that truth than we, more than Jews and Muslims, more than Christians, all of whom heaped slander and lies on those harmless creatures. One cannot help but be amazed at the injustice of the tales told of gremlins. Such fables were born of one spirit alone-the same spirit peculiar to fanatic believers in monotheism, hypocrites and dry moralists who proclaim as evil everything that does not enter into their canon. How much more fairly did the ancients treat those beings, regarding fares and penates as their loyal friends!
The land of those small elementals who nestle in human dwellings is called Maniku. The landscape of that world resembles a room and has a certain coziness about it. But it is dark and cold outside, and heaven forbid that those beings be driven from their warm shelters. The form they take is unlike the form possessed by the majority of elementals: there is nothing fluid or flowing about them. To the contrary, like the Nibrusks and the inhabitants of Duggur, they have a solid, sharply defined body, or rather, bodikins. They are tiny, fun-loving, and mischievous, and some go out of their way to be kind. They are a singular kind of philanthropist and love to do people small services in such a way that no one notices it. Others, it is true, permit themselves more or less harmless pranks on people. Generally speaking, they treat us case by case. But they try to protect and take care of the home as best they can, because if it is destroyed their shelter on the plane of Maniku is destroyed as well, and the little ones, left homeless, will in most cases perish. Only a few ever manage to reach another shelter.
I have virtually nothing to say about Kattaram, the land of mineral elementals connected to the upper layer of the Earth's crust. I have not had any personal experience of it, while my invisible friends told me only a little about their world. All I learned was that the landscape of Kattaram consists of self-illuminating minerals amid pockets of underground space. It has a fairy-tale beauty but would nevertheless appear lifeless to us. The population of Kattaram is rich in variety (think of The Mistress of Copper Mountain, on the one hand, and trolls on the other), and interaction with these elementals can sometimes pose many otherworldly dangers. I know even less of Ron. Its landscape resembles that of Kattaram, but it is enlivened by a reflection- just a reflection-of the sky. It is the land of mountain elementals, a motley world of beings who are often battling with each other.
Shalem-the Olirna of the elementals of the four previous planes-should be regarded as the highest of the planes in that
sakwala. Its landscape could in part be likened to huge oaks standing in the middle of a desert. Where the oaks are concentrated, the dominant color is blue-green, with yellow and gray on the outskirts. There the elementals acquire full Light and majesty. Awaiting them is not death but a transformation leading to Faer and Usnorm, though almost complete immobility is the price they pay for it. They are compensated for their immobility by the deep and focused character of the spiritual meditation in which they are immersed. Some peoples in Enrof, sensing the existence of those beings, regarded them as the spirits of individual mountains, waterfalls, springs, or other natural landmarks. In reality they are not spirits but fully embodied beings, and the perpetual link between them and the natural landmarks of Enrof is only an appearance, conditional upon their immobility, all of which the ancients interpreted in concordance with their level of understanding similar truths. The truth is that even if a spring dries up, a waterfall is blocked, or a mountain is thrown down by an earthquake, the elementals of Shalem will remain unwavering at their spots until the inner work on their own beings has finally readied them for transformation.
5.2. Elementals of Light
I am weary of listing more and more new names and introducing more and more new planes. True, there are only a few left, for we are approaching the end of our survey of the structure of Shadanakar. But I would like to point out that I have not been introducing all these names for my own amusement or on a whim. No matter how strange they may sound now, and no matter how much they may seem empty figments of the imagination to the overwhelming majority of people, a time will come when every high school student will know these names as surely as they now know the names of the republics of Central America or the provinces of China. Had I thought differently, I would never have presumed to draw the reader's attention to these names. What is the point of compiling a «geography» or «geology» of some planet in the Aldebaran system if no one will ever go there, and if even our descendants only see it as a faint star in the sky? What need is there for such intellectual exercises? But a handful of people now have need of the metageography of Shadanakar, soon hundreds will, and some day, no doubt, millions will discover a need for it. After all, some two hundred years ago, in the age of Madame Prostakova, only a handful of people had any use for ordinary geography.
How glad I am that our descent into the demonic worlds is at an end and that we can now look forward to planes of beautiful beings who are undoubtedly well-disposed toward humanity. But it is always a great deal more difficult to describe things of Light, especially things of other worlds, than that which is dark or monstrous. I am afraid that I too will suffer the fate of the majority of those who write, finding graphic words for dark and woeful images, yet suffering from writer's block when faced with brilliant radiance.
Radiant and shining indeed are the monads of elementals of Light in lofty Flauros, as they send out their shelts like rays to the zatomis, where they wrap their souls in astral coatings. The souls remain there in the intervals between incarnations. When incarnating in the worlds of elementals of Light, they in turn wrap themselves in the materiality of ether, a denser substance. It is those worlds that will be described in the present chapter. None of the elementals of Light, with the exception of the elementals of Arashamf, engage in procreation, just as they do not experience incarnation in Enrof. Each independently coats itself in the matter of the four-dimensional worlds. Such is incarnation without procreation. After a chain of incarnations, every elemental, instead of the death we are accustomed to, undergoes a transfiguration that takes it to Faer and Usnorm.
They perceive Enrof, and particularly humans, through touch and another sense that we do not possess. They are not indifferent, of course, to humans.
Their attitude toward each of us is determined by our own attitude toward Nature. As mentioned earlier, the natural elements in Enrof are best understood as the outermost concentric circle of their habitat. It seems that only music and poetry have thus far succeeded in conveying the interconnection between elementals and the natural elements, their wondrous life of frolic, games, love, and joy. One need only recall Wagner's brilliant score-the so-called Rustling Forest- where it is no longer the case that the wind speeds over a sea of trees and blooming meadows, but through the wind the elementals themselves kiss each other and the beautiful Earth.