Elementary

Elementary is a term that seems to have been originated by Éliphas Lévi. Although some kabbalist works use this term to refer to the elementals, Theosophical Society founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky said that this is a mistake. Blavatsky generally used the term to describe disembodied, vicious men, who have parted with their divine spirits. At times, however, the term was used to designate the shells left behind after the soul moves on to devachan.

In connection to the origin of the word, Blavatsky quotes kabbalist Heinrich Khunrath explaining that elementaries are so termed, "because attracted by the earthly atmosphere, and are surrounded by the earth’s elements."

Soulless entities

Mme. Blavatsky defined elementaries as soulless entities before they are drawn to avichi for dissolution:

Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality; but at the present stage of learning it has been thought best to apply the term to the spooks or phantoms of disembodied persons, in general, to those whose temporary habitation is the Kâma Loka. Eliphas Lévi and some other Kabbalists make little distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature. Once divorced from their higher triads and their bodies, these souls remain in their Kâma-rupic envelopes, and are irresistibly drawn to the earth amid elements congenial to their gross natures. Their stay in the Kâma Loka varies as to its duration; but ends invariably in disintegration, dissolving like a column of mist, atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.

The elementaries of highly wicked people mentioned in the quote above can become dangerous tempter "demons." She wrote:

This class of spirits are called the "terrestrial" or "earthly elementary," in contradistinction to the other classes. . . . In the East they are known as the “Brothers of the Shadow.” Cunning, low, vindictive, and seeking to retaliate their sufferings upon humanity, they become, until final annihilation, vampires, ghouls, and prominent actors.

Shells

Blavatsky has also used this term in a more general sense, to designate the shells that disembodied people leave behind after they move to devachan:

Elementaries are not all bad, but, in a general sense, they are not good. They are shells, no doubt of that. Well, they have much automatic and seemingly intelligent action left if they are those of strongly material people who died attached to the things of life. If of people of an opposite character, they are not so strong.​

In the Mahatma letters, the term is used in this sense too:

Thenceforth it is a “death” struggle between the Upper and Lower dualities. If the upper wins, the sixth, having attracted itself the quintessence of Good from the fifth — its nobler affections, its saintly (though they be earthly) aspirations, and the most Spiritualised portions of its mind — follows its divine elder (the 7th) into the “Gestation” State; and the fifth and fourth remain in association as an empty shell — (the expression is quite correct) — to roam in the earth’s atmosphere, with half the personal memory gone, and the more brutal instinct fully alive for a certain period — an "Elementary" in short.​

People who died suddenly

Another class is constituted by some suicides and cases of sudden deaths. These people are regarded as "half-dead", because although they lost their physical bodies, their inner principles are not yet ready to start the post-mortem processes. If during this time their attention is drawn toward the physical plane, they may become earth-bound souls seeking for ways of communication with it through mediums. In the words of Mahatma KH:

The rule is, that a person who dies a natural death will remain from "a few hours to several short years" within the earth’s attraction, i.e., in the Kama-Loka. But exceptions are, in the case of suicides and those who die a violent death in general. Hence, one of such Egos, for instance, who was destined to live, say, 80 or 90 years, but who either killed himself or was killed by some accident, let us suppose at the age of 20 — would have to pass in the Kama Loka not "a few years," but in his case 60 or 70 years, as an Elementary, or rather an "earth-walker"; since he is not, unfortunately for him, even a "shell."

Elementaries vs elementals

Elementaries are different from elementals. H. P. Blavatsky wrote in a letter to the Editor of The Religio-Philosophical Journal:

I perceive that of late the ostracized subject of the Kabalistic "elementaries," is beginning to appear in the orthodox spiritual papers, pretty often. . . . Having never studied the Kabalist writers, it becomes evident to me that they confound the "elementaries"—disembodied, vicious, and earth-bound, yet human spirits, with the "elementals," or nature-spirits.​

In the letter, she explains that this confusion is due to the fact that elementaries have lost their spiritual nature, and in that sense they become similar to elementals, who have not yet developed an individual soul:

Though the elementaries have been at some time human spirits, they, having lost every connection with the purer immortal world, must be recognized by some special term which would draw a distinct line of demarcation between them and the true and genuine disembodied souls which have henceforth to remain immortal.

Elementaries and mediums

Blavatsky and her teachers frequently said that elementaries are generally the spirit-guides of mediums. For example, Mahatma KH wrote: "An 'Elementary' in short . . . is the 'angel guide' of the average medium." For this reason, the same Mahatma advised his correspondent, A. P. Sinnett, to avoid inviting mediums to his house:

Your house, good friend, has a colony of Elementaries quartering in it. . . . You should be more than ordinarily careful when you get back not to encourage sensitiveness in your household, not to admit more than can be helped the visits of known mediumistic sensitives. It would be well also to burn wood-fires in the rooms now and then, and carry about as fumigators open vessels (braziers?) with burning wood. You might also ask Damodar to send you some bundles of incense-sticks for you to use for this purpose. These are helps, but the best of all means to drive out unwelcome guests of this sort, is to live purely in deed and thought.

Additional resources

Articles

• Elementaries in Theosophy World
• Earthbound Entities in Theosophy World
• Elementaries by H. P. Blavatsky
• Elementals and Elementaries by W. Q. Judge/H. P. Blavatsky