Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-10
ELEMENTALS
By H. Addington Bruce


~ONAN DOYLE'S suggestion that Lord
q Carnarvons death may have been caused
49, by an elemental, summoned by Egyptian
occultism to avenge the opening Of Tutankh-
amen's tomb, has directed public attention to
quite the strangest of all types Of ghost. In
fact, elementals so fantastic that they may
fairly be termed futurist ghosts.
They are described as misshapen creatures,
sometimes of bestial, sometimes of almost
formless, appearance, whose only mission is
to terrify and destroy The mere sight of
them, whether at night or in the full glare of
noon sun, would seem to be cough to shock
any nervous person into collapse.
Here, for example, is an account of a typical
elemental that appeared in an Austrian hotel
bedroom to an English woman, Violet Twee-
dale, as reported in her book, Ghosts Have
Seem"
Now and again came the sound of some
thing soft, dragging about the floor. The room
was fairly light with the glow of a waning
moon, and judged the hour to be between
2 and o'clock.
cat last determined to ascertain what pro-
duced the curious sound. had an electric
light over my bed, and I sat up and suddenly
switched it on.
"Then 1 realized with horror that was in
the presence Of something 1 had never en-
countered before, but had often read and
heard of-an elemental of malignant type and
of grotesque form.
what looked like an enormous pillow, but
suddenly out of this grayish-green pillow
emerged a head of froglike shape. and two
bright yellow eyes were fixed on mine.
II suppose I was too terrified eve INTO re-
member what m ysensations were sort of
paralysis of fear and horror held me spell
bound. There it squatted, thrusting out it's
misshapen head, its yellow eyes regarding me
fixedly.
81 have no idea how long it remained there,
or how long we continued to gaze at one an
other. But I gradually became aware that
it was receding from view. 1t grew smaller
and smaller, and DINNER and more indistinct,
till at length it vanished altogether"
Other people tell of seeing elementals that
looked more like humorous growths than any
thing else. This reminds me that Elliott
O'Donnell, specialist in elementals. claims
that one variety of them, which he calls
morbas, are associated with certain diseases,
''if not the actual creators Of the bac1ll1 from
which these diseases arise"
Also-if one may accept at face value the
reports of persons who insist they have seen
them-there are elementals mailman, half
animal in appearance, and others resembling
different animals strangely fused together
Never do we hear of pleasant-look1ng ele-
mentals, of one calculated to inspire senti-
ments of delight rather than fear.
Which makes it doubly fortunate that ele-
mentals rarely appear to huma nbeings. Pos
sibly to be sure, they sometimes move around
invisibly. 1t has been suggested that the
bangings and tumblings and other noises oc-
casionally heard in haunted houses may be
due to the gambolings of elementals
1t is comforting to know, though, that there
usually less disquieting sources of such
noises. Comforting also Is the knowledge
that usually elementals are neither seen nor
hear deXcept by persons well advanced in Oc-
cultism-certainly an ample reason for not
advancing very far into occultism.