Elementals, Demons, Hungry Ghosts and Ancestral Spirits
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 4:30 pm
Some of the names in the topic are often used synonymously, as for example in the recent discussion on Mediumism and the Critique where we used various terms for approximately the same thing. I would like to invite discussion on the meaning of these names in order to find clarity on what unites them and what could possibly differentiate them from each others.
I will start by making mostly my own non-definitive interpretations based on my intuition rather than on any vastly studied base of knowledge. In other words, my suggestions should be subjected to criticism. Feel free to add names of certain groups of entities or pseudo-entities (as in without true individuality) that you think is worth mentioning in order to introduce vital distinctions.
Demons
A general term for "empty" beings who need to vampirize others in order to fulfill some limited aim*. Could be thought as circles repeating some specific function or ”hunger”. Still, they are neutral and can be tied to relevant functions of the whole: the natural hunger we feel is a demon informing us of there being a hunger which hopefully tells us relevant information of a need to eat. The demon can become detached from the whole and inform of hunger when no food is needed, and thus we recognize it in more negative light as traditionally thought of demons.
Hungry Ghosts
Same as demons, but the vampirizing function is emphasised by such a name. Sometimes the term is used of particularly detached demons; say a medium has meddled with the shells of the dead and halted their journey down on the ramp of disintegration. Thus the "ghost" is detained from integrating and doomed to roam the vibrant living Earth, blindly vampirizing the living.
Ancestral Spirits
Here we might have a closer affinity to the demonic beings, meaning we have personal ties to them through our ancestry. It could be seen a less general term, yet still quite a vast one. Easier to attach neutral or even positive meanings, but such ease mostly tells of our limited understanding of demons. It is questionable if this group of entites can be limited to the demonic, for we could think of an extremely positive guidance given to us for example a highly spiritual grandparent who are already passed away. Their positive influences can still work as a demon, as in posing a dead virtue rather than living guidance but it needed not be limited so.
Elementals
Material entities. Bodies of different densities of matter from Fire to Earth. Body as a vessel comes back to the circular nature of demons lacking the Logoic/Fohatic diameter of their own which ties spirit and matter in a moment of time. Despite spirit and matter are ultimately one, they are not so in the differentiated state of the manifested world, and need to be guided there by human effort. 'Elemental', like ’demon’, is a very broad term which may be still sharing an area with ancestral spirits in the sense that the ancestral spirits of whole humanity on our planet have created the elements in their occult alchemical work with the root matter and the differentiations since created. As we can see, here the ancestral spirits do not limit to personal close ancestry but portray ancestry in much more general sense. Ancestry relating to such things as the five senses and the instrumental differentiation of matter from the prima materia. But elementals are perhaps not the same as the ancestry who created them, rather elementals are the base substance forming the material shells, which we call demons. I remember reading from a book of female demons in Hindu traditions, and how their names meant something like jar or a vase. With such a thought we could think of all material existence as a shell or a jar which can be filled with life force and spirit (Will).
A quote from the Mediumism thread which can be also helpful when thinking of elementals:
(Skandhas)
An additional group which according to Encyclopedia Britannica means: ”skandha, (Sanskrit: “aggregates”) Pāli Khandha, according to Buddhist thought, the five elements that sum up the whole of an individual's mental and physical existence.”
From the Theosophical critique towards mediumism we learn that skandhas could be individually branded and thus relating to the karma of a specific immortal spirit. A curious doctrine to think about in terms of mortal temporality of material forms and eternal nature of energy/abstract base of matter (prima materia).
Searching for the aforementioned Hindu female demons, which I failed to find, I happened on a demon called Kabandha (literally ’headless torso’), which is curiously close to ’Khandha’. This demon seems to portray the elemental materiality separate from the spirit. Compare to the Rocicrucian and/or Templar Master portrayed by the Head, which could be here defined as the Spirit. * Human beings in the material condition also need to eat other beings to keep operating, and the archetypal beings also need their ”brothers” in order to be whole. In the case of humans, our material constituents are infact made out of these demons and thus we operate through them our own vampiristic deeds. In the case of archetypal beings, their individuality bases so definitely on Oneness that we could say such entities transcend vampirism in its conditioned state. This is one possible perspective how the two classes of magic according to the beings we communicate thereon could be seen defined as theurgy and goetia.
To put all these different thing in to perspective, it should be helpful to think of different densities of matter, from the root abstraction - mulaprakriti - of the Mother Immaculate towards the differentiated states of the elements. These make the whole of material existence and thus spirits of goetia. Then we can point more clearly the details from such a whole and ask questions how it all relates to the world of spirit.
I will start by making mostly my own non-definitive interpretations based on my intuition rather than on any vastly studied base of knowledge. In other words, my suggestions should be subjected to criticism. Feel free to add names of certain groups of entities or pseudo-entities (as in without true individuality) that you think is worth mentioning in order to introduce vital distinctions.
Demons
A general term for "empty" beings who need to vampirize others in order to fulfill some limited aim*. Could be thought as circles repeating some specific function or ”hunger”. Still, they are neutral and can be tied to relevant functions of the whole: the natural hunger we feel is a demon informing us of there being a hunger which hopefully tells us relevant information of a need to eat. The demon can become detached from the whole and inform of hunger when no food is needed, and thus we recognize it in more negative light as traditionally thought of demons.
Hungry Ghosts
Same as demons, but the vampirizing function is emphasised by such a name. Sometimes the term is used of particularly detached demons; say a medium has meddled with the shells of the dead and halted their journey down on the ramp of disintegration. Thus the "ghost" is detained from integrating and doomed to roam the vibrant living Earth, blindly vampirizing the living.
Ancestral Spirits
Here we might have a closer affinity to the demonic beings, meaning we have personal ties to them through our ancestry. It could be seen a less general term, yet still quite a vast one. Easier to attach neutral or even positive meanings, but such ease mostly tells of our limited understanding of demons. It is questionable if this group of entites can be limited to the demonic, for we could think of an extremely positive guidance given to us for example a highly spiritual grandparent who are already passed away. Their positive influences can still work as a demon, as in posing a dead virtue rather than living guidance but it needed not be limited so.
Elementals
Material entities. Bodies of different densities of matter from Fire to Earth. Body as a vessel comes back to the circular nature of demons lacking the Logoic/Fohatic diameter of their own which ties spirit and matter in a moment of time. Despite spirit and matter are ultimately one, they are not so in the differentiated state of the manifested world, and need to be guided there by human effort. 'Elemental', like ’demon’, is a very broad term which may be still sharing an area with ancestral spirits in the sense that the ancestral spirits of whole humanity on our planet have created the elements in their occult alchemical work with the root matter and the differentiations since created. As we can see, here the ancestral spirits do not limit to personal close ancestry but portray ancestry in much more general sense. Ancestry relating to such things as the five senses and the instrumental differentiation of matter from the prima materia. But elementals are perhaps not the same as the ancestry who created them, rather elementals are the base substance forming the material shells, which we call demons. I remember reading from a book of female demons in Hindu traditions, and how their names meant something like jar or a vase. With such a thought we could think of all material existence as a shell or a jar which can be filled with life force and spirit (Will).
A quote from the Mediumism thread which can be also helpful when thinking of elementals:
Aperiemus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 10:22 am there is a difference between an entity with a relatively strong agency (will), and an elemental, that may interact with the physical (like by blowing up lightbulbs, talking through radio), but onto whom I project my feelings, giving it a pseudo-personality.
(Skandhas)
An additional group which according to Encyclopedia Britannica means: ”skandha, (Sanskrit: “aggregates”) Pāli Khandha, according to Buddhist thought, the five elements that sum up the whole of an individual's mental and physical existence.”
From the Theosophical critique towards mediumism we learn that skandhas could be individually branded and thus relating to the karma of a specific immortal spirit. A curious doctrine to think about in terms of mortal temporality of material forms and eternal nature of energy/abstract base of matter (prima materia).
Searching for the aforementioned Hindu female demons, which I failed to find, I happened on a demon called Kabandha (literally ’headless torso’), which is curiously close to ’Khandha’. This demon seems to portray the elemental materiality separate from the spirit. Compare to the Rocicrucian and/or Templar Master portrayed by the Head, which could be here defined as the Spirit. * Human beings in the material condition also need to eat other beings to keep operating, and the archetypal beings also need their ”brothers” in order to be whole. In the case of humans, our material constituents are infact made out of these demons and thus we operate through them our own vampiristic deeds. In the case of archetypal beings, their individuality bases so definitely on Oneness that we could say such entities transcend vampirism in its conditioned state. This is one possible perspective how the two classes of magic according to the beings we communicate thereon could be seen defined as theurgy and goetia.
To put all these different thing in to perspective, it should be helpful to think of different densities of matter, from the root abstraction - mulaprakriti - of the Mother Immaculate towards the differentiated states of the elements. These make the whole of material existence and thus spirits of goetia. Then we can point more clearly the details from such a whole and ask questions how it all relates to the world of spirit.