irth; though it must be
remembered that it can be, as it were, fed and strengthened, and its
life-period protracted by other good wishes or friendly thoughts
projected in the same direction.

Furthermore, it appears to be actuated, like most other beings, by an
instinctive desire to prolong its life, and thus reacts on its creator
as a force constantly tending to provoke the renewal of the feeling
which called it into existence. It also influences in a similar manner
others with whom it comes into contact, though its _rapport_ with them
is naturally not so perfect.

All that has been said as to the effect of good wishes and friendly
thoughts is also true in the opposite direction of evil wishes and
angry thoughts; and considering the amount of envy, hatred, malice and
all uncharitableness that exists in the world, it will be readily
understood that among the artificial elementals many terrible
creatures are to be seen. A man whose thoughts or desires are
spiteful, brutal, sensual, avaricious, moves through the world
carrying with him everywhere a pestiferous atmosphere of his own,
peopled with the loathsome beings he has created to be his companions,
and thus is not only in sadly evil case himself, but is a dangerous
nuisance to his fellow-men, subjecting all who have the misfortune to
come into contact with him to the risk of moral contagion from the
influence of the abominations with which he chooses to surround
himself. A feeling of envious or jealous hatred towards another person
will send an evil elemental to hover over him and seek for a weak
point through which it can operate; and if the feeling be a persistent
one, such a creature may be continually nourished by it and thereby
enabled to protract its undesirable activity for a very long period.
It can, however, produce no effect upon the person towards whom it is
directed unless he has himself some tendency which it can foster--some
fulcrum for its lever, as it were; from the aura of a man of pure
thought and good life all such influences at once rebound, finding
nothing upon which they can fasten, and in that case, by a very
curious law, they react in all their force upon their original
creator. In him by the hypothesis they find a very congenial sphere of
action, and thus the Karma of his evil wish works itself out at once
by means of the very entity which he himself has called into
existence. It occasionally happens, however, that an artificial
elemental o