| Continuing: “What I am about to tell you, we teach those of our discipIes whom we are not willing unreservedly to admit into the Sanctuary of Nature; yet whom we in no wise wish to deprive of the society of the Elementary Peoples because of the compassion which we have for these same Peoples. As you may perhaps already have grasped, the Salamanders are composed of the most subtle portions of the Sphere of Fire, fused together and organised by the action of the Universal Fire, of which I will discourse to you some day. It is called the Universal Fire because it is the inherent cause of every movement in Nature. Likewise, the Sylphs are composed of the purest atoms of the Air, the Nymphs of the most subtle essences of the Water, and the Gnomes of the finest particles of the Earth.” (38) Further along, we read: “This is the opinion held in every ancient philosophy. The Platonists and the Pythagoreans took it from the Egyptians, and the latter from Joseph the Saviour, and from the Hebrews who dwelt in Egypt before the crossing of the Red Sea. The Hebrews used to call these beings who are between the Angels and man Sadaim and the Greeks, transposing the letters and adding but one syllable, called them Daimonas. Among the ancient Philosophers these demons were held to be an Aerial Race, ruling over the Elements, mortal, engendering, and unknown in this century to those who rarely seek Truth in her ancient dwelling place, which is to say, in the Cabala and in the theology of the Hebrews, who possessed the special art of holding communion with that Aerial People and of conversing with all these Inhabitants of the Air.” (39) Montfaucon de Villars is of the opinion that these elemental spirits are what the Greeks referred to as the “daimones,” or at least, that is what he is relating in the story. We learned in Chapter 11 on Greek culture, how the Greeks perceived these daimones to be either healing deities or disease-causing deities and how they were related to the plant or fungal worlds. It appears that this episode of medieval alchemy sought to impose a type of distinction or classification upon the spirits which had not existed previously by using terms which give the qualities of air, fire, water and earth to these elementals. The idea being conveyed seems to suggest that the use of an eye opening medicine would make one prone to see these spirits. Continuing: The famous Cabalist Zedechias, in the reign of your Pépin, took it into his head to convince the world that the Elements are inhabited by these Peoples whose nature I have just described to you. The expedient of which he bethought himself was to advise the Sylphs to show themseIves in the Air to everybody; they did so sumptuously. These beings were seen in the Air in human form, sometimes in battle array marching in good order, halting under arms, or encamped beneath magnificent tents. Sometimes on wonderfully constructed aerial ships, whose flying squadrons roved at the will of the Zephyr. What happened? Do you suppose that ignorant age would so much as reason as to the nature of these marvelous spectacles? The people straightway believed that sorcerers |
had taken possession of the Air for the purpose of raising tempests and bringing hail upon their crops. The learned theologians and jurists were soon of the same opinion as the masses. The Emperors believed it as well; and this ridiculous chimera went so far that the wise Charlemagne, and after him Louis the Débonnaire, imposed grievous penalties upon all these supposed Tyrants of the Air. You may see an account of Fifth Discourse this in the first chapter of the Capitularies of these two Emperors. The Sylphs seeing the populace, the pedants and even the crowned heads thus alarmed against them, determined to dissipate the bad opinion people had of their innocent fleet by carrying off men from every locality and showing them their beautiful women, their Republic and their manner of government, and then setting them down again on earth in diverse parts of the world. They carried out their plan. The people who saw these men as they were descending came running from every direction, convinced beforehand that they were sorcerers who had separated from their companions in order to come and scatter poisons on the fruit and in the springs. Carried away by the frenzy with which such fancies inspired them, they hurried these innocents off to the torture. The great number of them who were put to death by fire and water throughout the kingdom is incredible. (40) “One day, among other instances, it chanced at Lyons that three men and a woman were seen descending from these aerial ships. The entire city gathered about them, crying out that they were magicians and were sent by Grimaldus, Duke of Beneventum, Charlemagne's enemy, to destroy the French harvests. In vain the four innocents sought to vindicate themselves by saying that they were their own countryfolk and had been carried away a short time since by miraculous men who had shown them unheard-of marvels and had desired them to give an account of what they had seen. The frenzied populace paid no heed to their defense, and were on the point of casting them into the fire when the worthy Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, who having been a monk in that city had acquired considerable authority there, came running at the noise, and having heard the accusations of the people and the defense of the accused, gravely pronounced that both one and the other were false. That it was not true that these men had fallen from the sky, and that what they said they had seen there was impossible.” (41) (38) ibid, p. 17-18 (39) ibid, p. 38 (40) Discourses on the Secret Sciences, p. 70-71 (41) ibid, p. 71-72 |