Elementals and God

Spirits, Evocation & Possession
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So, last night, I was reading a book about the GD system, and it mentioned elementals. Every time I see them in books on ceremonial magick, it says that they love God, and that confuses me. Are they just left out of the Judeo-Christian dichotomy? Are you not allowed to work with them if you work with demons? And why are undines considered lustful? Isn’t God against sex for pleasures sake?

Alongside that, it asked “will you use gnomes to get rich? Will you use undines for sex?” as if these are considered bad things. I mean, why not? That is if they consent. Is the book saying we shouldn’t do these things at all? Or that we shouldn’t force them? Is this a matter of spiritual consent, or strict standards of purity?

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Yes, traditional Christianity generally recognizes only angels, demons, and God, though some sects don’t even recognize angels.

In some ceremonial magick systems, elementals are considered to be either a type of angel themselves or under the aegis of them. However, to my knowledge, there is nothing that says you can’t work with them if you also work with demons.

Undines are considered to be supernaturally beautiful and it is not that the undines themselves are overly lustful but that their beauty can captivate, beguile and bewitch the magician. In other words, if the magician can’t keep it in their pants, then, according to patriarchal religion, it’s the fault of the spirit, not the failure of the magician.

Undines are similar to the nymphs of Greek mythology in that they are carefree and enjoy life, which makes them, in the eyes of strict religion, “lustful.”

No, religion is. Do not confuse one for the other. They are not the same thing.

Enjoying life is not a crime. God wants you to have fun. Religion, however, does not because that makes you harder to control. For a thousand years, dance was used to celebrate God and to give thanks for being alive, for example, yet it was branded as sinful by the Church so nowadays communing with God mostly involves sitting on uncomfortable pews listening to some out of touch priest drone on about how everybody’s a sinner.

Does it say specifically that such desires are bad, or is the book simply posing the questions to make the reader think about what their magical intentions are? Remember, in magick, your intention matters and in high magick one is supposed to be pursuing the Great Work, also called one’s True Will, not material things.

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  1. Well, I’ll admit, Christianity might be more interesting if they included the elementals. But I guess the general populace isn’t into the mysticism. Kinda makes religion boring.

  2. The book did say “Curse the evil ones”.

  3. I remember reading a book on “Kinesthetic Magick” that said that sylphs are mischievous, salamanders are aggressive, gnomes are aggressive, and undines are lazy and don’t bother moving except for sex.

Sounds like some cheesy harem anime.

  1. It is asking them rhetorically, as if to say you shouldn’t and you know it. Imagine if I were to ask “would steal an old lady’s purse off the street?”. Obviously you wouldn’t, but it was like that.

Though, in context, the paragraph was on being respectful to the spirits. So, once again, would this be a out purity or consent?

And for the record, we are material beings with material needs. Only focusing on “higher” matters, while neglecting the material, is unhealthy. So, provided they’d consent, I would use these spirits for material things.

I have read somewhere that black Magick focuses on improving one’s environment and lot in life, and white Magick is about evolving the conscious. By that idea, I’d call myself a black magician first.

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If the context was about being respectful, then the questions are about intention, like I said. In other words, don’t use the undines like cheap whores and don’t use the gnomes like ATMs. It is about neither consent or purity but rather how you view the spirits. Take a look around this forum, for example, and you can see that a lot of people treat sexual entities such as succubi like disposable sex toys and the book is telling you not to do that.

It’s can be, but it is not automatically so.

In his early book, Works of Darkness, EA Koetting defines black and white magick thusly:

"White magick is the use of the currents and forces existing beyond the range of normal sensation to enact specific changes in the world and its inhabitants in the most beneficial manner possible. It is also the spiritual and ritual act of working with powers, archetypes, entities and symbols whose nature is altruistic or benevolent…

Black Magick…is the use of the powers both within and without the magician to bring about specific changes in the world and its inhabitants in the most sinister manner possible. Black magick is also the spiritual and ritual act of working with powers, archetypes, entities and symbols whose nature is malign and iniquitous."

Both forms of magick are used for material goals. It’s just the manner in which it is done that differs.

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  1. If they don’t treat me that way, I won’t treat them that way either.

  2. Even so, I still believe in using Magick for earthly concerns.

  3. C. Kendal said in one of his books that a black magician is one who explores different traditions, calling on angels, demons, gods, fae, and other such things. He even described the archetype as like Odin.

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That’s not a standard definition and fits a grey magician more than a traditional black one.

The split between material and spiritual is false. They’re two sides of the same coin. Everybody uses magick to improve their life, even the whitest of white magicians.