(1) Proceeding, therefore, to other peculiarities of them, we say, that with the Gods, indeed, there is acuteness and rapidity in the energies, which shine forth with greater celerity than those of intellect itself, though in themselves they are immoveable and stable. With archangels, the celerities are, in a certain respect, mingled with efficacious energies. Those of angels partake of a certain motion, and do not, similarly with archangels, possess a power which is effective by speaking. The operations of dæmons appear to be more rapid than they are in reality. In the motions of the heroic phasmata, a certain magnificence presents itself to the view; but in accomplishing what they wish to effect, their energies are not so rapid as those of dæmons. In the phasmata of archons, the first energies appear to be most excellent and authoritative; but the second have a more abundant representation, yet in actions fall short of the end. And the phasmata of souls are seen to be more moveable, yet are more imbecile, than those of heroes.

(50) The sylphs sometimes assume human form, but apparently for only short periods of time. Their size varies, but in the majority of cases they are no larger than human beings and often considerably smaller. It is said that the sylphs have accepted human beings into their communities and have permitted them to live there for a considerable period; in fact, Paracelsus wrote of such an incident, but of course it could not have occurred while the human stranger was in his physical body. By some, the Muses of the Greeks are believed to have been sylphs, for these spirits are said to gather around the mind of the dreamer, the poet, and the artist, and inspire him with their intimate knowledge of the beauties and workings of Nature. To the sylphs were given the eastern corner of creation. Their temperament is mirthful, changeable, and eccentric. The peculiar qualities common to men of genius are supposedly the result of the cooperation of sylphs, whose aid also brings with it the sylphic inconsistency. The sylphs labor with the gases of the human body and indirectly with the nervous system, where their inconstancy is again apparent. They have no fixed domicile, but wander about from place to place--elemental nomads, invisible but ever-present powers in the intelligent activity of the universe.

(3) But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations. Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject. The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration. The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams. The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious. The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God. The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life. The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior. The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing. The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good. The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart. The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life. The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.

(25) The gnomes are of various sizes--most of them much smaller than human beings, though some of them have the power of changing their stature at will. This is the result of the extreme mobility of the element in which they function. Concerning them the Abbé de Villars wrote: "The earth is filled well nigh to its center with Gnomes, people of slight stature, who are the guardians of treasures, minerals and precious stones. They are ingenious, friends of man, and easy to govern."

(3) Again, therefore, the phasmata of the Gods are entirely immutable, according to magnitude, morphe,[A] and figure, and according to all things pertaining to them; those of archangels approximate to those of the Gods, but fall short of the sameness of them; those of angels are subordinate to these, but are immutable; and those of dæmons are at different times seen in a different form, and appear at one time great, but at another small, yet are still recognized to be the phasmata of dæmons. Moreover, those of such archons as are leaders are immutable; but those of such as are material are multiformly changed; those of heroes are similar to those of dæmons; and those of souls imitate in no small degree the dæmoniacal mutation. Farther still, order and quiet pertain to the Gods; but with archangels, there is an efficacy of order and quiet. With angels, the adorned and the tranquil are present, but not unattended with motion. Perturbation and disorder follow the dæmoniacal phasmata; but spectacles attend the archons, conformable to each of the particulars which we have already mentioned; the material archons, indeed, being borne along tumultuously; but those of a leading characteristic, presenting themselves to the view, firmly established in themselves. The phasmata of heroes are subject to motion and mutation; but those of souls resemble, indeed,

(6) But the fact that they are named winds denotes their rapid action, passing almost instantaneously to all things, and their transporting movement in passing from above to below, and again from below to above, their elevating the second to the height above, and moving the first to a common and provident advance of the inferior Orders. But perhaps some one would say that the appellation of wind, to the aerial spirit, also denotes the Divine likeness of the Heavenly Minds; for this also bears a likeness and type of the supremely Divine energy (as we have demonstrated more fully in the symbolic theology, in our explanation of the four elements) in accordance with the moving and life-producing, and the rapid and resistless development of Nature, and the Hiddenness of the moving sources and terminations to us unknown and invisible. For He says, "Thou knowest not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth." But also the Word of God attributes to them the appearance of a cloud, signifying, through this, that the holy minds are filled super-mundanely with the hidden Light, receiving the first manifestation without boasting over it as such, which they distribute ungrudgingly to the second, as a secondary manifestation, and in proportion to capacity; yea, further, that the productive, and life-producing, and increasing, and perfecting power is enshrined in them, after the fashion of the intelligible production of showers, which summons the receptive womb of the earth, by fruitful rains, to the life-giving pangs of birth.

(48) Thence comes the power swift as thought, independent of instruments, and the mastery over matter.

(6) My beloved Reader, just thus is our Mind also. It is the indissoluble Band, which God by the Fiat in the moving Spirit breathed into Adam out of the eternal Mind, [from whence] the Essences are a Particular, or a Sparkle out of the eternal Mind, which has the Center of the Breaking, and in the Breaking has the Sharpness in itself; and that Will drives [forth] the Flash [or Glimpse] in the Breaking, and the Sharpness of the Consuming of the Darkness is in the Glimpse [or Flash] of the Willing, and the Will is our Mind. The Glimpse is the Eyes in the Fire-flash, which discovers itself in our Essences hin us, and without us, for it is free, and has both the Gates open, that [Gate] in the Darkness, and that Gate in the Light. For although it continues in the Darkness, yet it breaks the Darkness, and makes all Light in itself; and where it is, there it sees. As our Thoughts, they can i speculate a Thing that is many Miles off, when the Body is far from thence, and it may be never was in that Place; the Discovery or Glimpse [or piercing Sight of the Eye of the Mind] goes through Wood and Stone, through Bones and Marrow, and there is nothing that can withhold it, for it pierces and breaks the Darkness every where without rending the Body of any Thing, and the Will is its Horse whereon it rides. Here many Things must be concealed, because of the devilish Inchantment, (or else we would reveal much more here,) for the Nigromanticus [Necromancer] is generated here.

(4) And then that becomes greater which comprehends and knows than that which is comprehended and known. But if it descends to its nature it is less, for the incorporeal natures have not associated with any magnitude; thus endowed, they are everywhere and they are nowhere, since they are greater than every magnitude and less than every exiguity."

(110) For they are an imitation of his Mind, but that which is fabricated hath something of Body.

(11) Nor is it only by reason of knowledge acquired and intuitive that the soul of man holds the first rank among created things, but also by reason of power. Just as angels preside over the elements, so does the soul rule the members of the body. Those souls which attain a special degree of power not only rule their own body but those of others also. If they wish a sick man to recover he recovers, or a person in health to fall ill he becomes ill, or if they will the presence of a person he comes to them. According as the effects produced by these powerful souls are good or bad they are termed miracles or sorceries. These souls differ from common folk in three ways: (1) What others only see in dreams they see in their waking moments. (2) While others' wills only affect their own bodies, these, by will-power, can move bodies extraneous to themselves. (3) The knowledge which others acquire by laborious learning comes to them by intuition.

(2) It is granted to their Souls to come forth upon the Earth to do whatsoever their Genius willeth

(2) In addition to these things also, the magnitude of the epiphanies [or manifestations] in the Gods, indeed, is so great as sometimes to conceal all heaven, the sun and the moon; and the earth itself, as the Gods descend, is no longer able to stand still. When archangels appear, certain parts of the world are moved, and a divided forerunning light precedes them. But they exhibit a magnitude of light commensurate to the magnitude of their domination. The angelic light is less than the archangelic, and more divided, but in dæmons it is still more divided, and the magnitude of the manifestation is not always equal in them. The manifestation of heroes is still less than that of dæmons, but exhibits more of an elevated condition. Again, the manifestation of such archons as preside over mundane forms, presents itself to the view as above measure great; but such of them as are distributed about matter, exhibit in their manifestations an abundance of pride and arrogance. Those of souls are not all of them seen to be equal, but appear to be less than those of heroes. And, in short, the magnitude of the manifestation is appropriately present in each of these, according to the magnitude of their powers, and the amplitude of the empire through which they extend themselves, and in which they exercise their authority.

(7) Their numberless faces then, and many feet, manifest, as I think, their property of viewing the most Divine illuminations from many sides, and their conception of the good things of God as ever active and abundantly receptive; and the sixfold arrangement of the wings, of which the Scripture speaks, does not, I think, denote, as seems to some, a sacred number, but that of the highest Essence and Order around God; the first and middle and last of its contemplative and Godlike powers are altogether elevating, free, and supermundane. Hence the most holy wisdom of the Oracles, when reverently describing the formation of the wings, places the wings around their heads, and middle, and feet; suggesting their complete covering with wings, and their manifold faculty of leading to the Really Being.

(6) For we have a certain Ground of this, in that our Mind can find and conceive all whatsoever is in the Spirit of this World, which no Beast can do: For no Creature can conceive [further or] higher than [what is] in its own Principle, out of which its own Essences are proceeded in the Beginning: But we (that are Men) can certainly conceive [of that which is] in the Principle of God, and also [of that which is] in the anguishing Kingdom of Hell, where the Worm of our Soul in the Beginning in Adam originally is, and this no other Creature can do.

(19) And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land, and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there. And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, not will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor auther, nor vortex-swirl, nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond - if there be aught beyond the Cosmos; it is permitted thee.

(16) They are likenesses of the things which are exalted. They were brought to a lust for power in each one of them, according to the greatness of the name of which each is a shadow, each one imagining that it is superior to his fellows.

(12) "Yet," he adds, "the Elementals are not spirits, because they have flesh, blood and bones; they live and propagate offspring; they cat and talk, act and sleep, &c., and consequently they cannot be properly called 'spirits.' They are beings occupying a place between men and spirits, resembling men and spirits, resembling men and women in their organization and form, and resembling spirits in the rapidity of their locomotion." (Philosophia Occulta, translated by Franz Hartmann.) Later the same author calls these creatures composita, inasmuch as the substance out of which they are composed seems to be a composite of spirit and matter. He uses color to explain the idea. Thus, the mixture of blue and red gives purple, a new color, resembling neither of the others yet composed of both. Such is the case with the Nature spirits; they resemble neither spiritual creatures nor material beings, yet are composed of the substance which we may call spiritual matter, or ether.

(9) O nobly-born, the size of all these deities is not large, not small, [but] proportionate. [They have] their ornaments, their colours, their sitting postures, their thrones, and the emblems that each holds.

(7) The powers were good and were greater than those of the likeness. For those belonging to the likeness also belong to a nature of falsehood. From an illusion of similarity and a thought of arrogance has come about that which they became. And they originate from the thought which first knew them.