“But we are spirits of another sort.” – Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The modern fascination with “noble spirits” willing to ally with humans in our quest for self-awareness seems to owe a good deal to Shakespeare’s fanciful treatment of the subject, disregarding the uncharitable attitude often attributed to “faery-folk” who have no pressing reason to cooperate with us. (The Irish always had a good handle on that sort of thing.)

There is much of note in the cosmology of the Middle Ages as explained by C.S. Lewis in The Discarded Image that can set us straight on the subject of spirits, specifically those that are envisioned as helpful “guides” by seekers who are camped at the fashionably misty fringe of current metaphysical thought, indulging in what some dismiss as “woo-woo” fantasizing. While the Medieval approach was grounded more in religious conjecture than in obviously limited secular observation, I’ve found interesting parallels between it and the rationale of the late-19th-Century British “Occult Revival,” both magical and theosophical.

Lewis describes post-Roman scholars as having adapted a theory borrowed from the Greeks that there is a sublunar “aerial” (or air-filled) region of space between the Earth and the Moon that is populated by lesser angels and daemons (the former – according to Christian theologians – having “fallen” into exile from the exalted “aetheric” heights beyond the Moon, and the latter soon to be demoted from their Hellenistic status as Divine agents to become evil “demons” in the Church’s crusade to root out paganism).

Those angelic miscreants who were guilty of contemplating unholy sedition but did not actively participate in it are slated for readmission to the godhead on Judgment Day; these penitents reside in the “higher and calmer level of air” (a kind of “gentleman’s limbo”). The more nefarious types destined to wind up in Hell at the same time occupy the “lower and more turbulent” half of the zone. The second group is potentially there to accost us when we attempt to penetrate the Veil that lies between the mundane world and the spiritual dimension. (Full Disclosure: I’m not espousing the validity of either premise, I’m just reporting with a bit of commentary. At least it makes for a nice allegory with nothing to substantiate it beyond pious conviction.)

These distinctions have similarities to the “Upper and Lower Astral” realm of the Theosophists and neo-Rosicrucians that was assumed to “be crossed by the soul in its astral body (both) after death and on the way to being born, and is generally believed to be populated by (various) immaterial beings.” (Wikipedia, with my parenthetical clarifications.) It is also the numinous destination of the mystics, psychics and ceremonial magicians who seek clandestine knowledge and who upon entry are met with the rigors and “glamours” posed by the often-capricious denizens of the Lower Astral; it is no place for the naive or the unwary who comprise much of the ethereal “meet-and-greet” demographic of modern divination.

The author goes into exhaustive detail about the “Longaevi” (or longlivers) who vastly outpace humankind in their lifespan, whether immortal or merely slow to age. These are typically the creatures of allegory and fable (fairies, elves, gnomes, nymphs, sylphs, satyrs, etc), but the observations of Christopher Marlowe in Doctor Faustus regarding “the spirits of every element, the Tetrarchs of Fire, Air, Flood and on the Earth” have a bearing on this essay in that they were thought to inhabit a middle region between Man and Angel that sounds like the Astral Plane to me.

In the past I’ve expounded on the uncertain amiability of the beings we may encounter during our psychic forays into the realm of Spirit. This conclusion was based on the somewhat romantic vision of the lower astral landscape embraced by the Victorian occultists, later posited more psychologically by Edwin Steinbrecher in Inner Guide Meditation. It was also the alluring region explored by practitioners of Ouija board fortune-telling, sometimes to the detriment of their mental health.

Chief among the less sympathetic residents of this substrate are the elementals: Salamanders (Fire); Nymphs or Undines (Water); Sylphs (Air) and Gnomes (Earth), whose friendliness while we are among them is not guaranteed since they don’t recognize human values or morals. “Indifferent toward us” would be putting the best possible face on it, but “perverse” is more likely.

Second are the disembodied shades of the departed who have been stymied in “passing over” and haven’t quite made it to out the back door; they might be expected to exhibit some displeasure over the intrusion of “astral tourists” while in the throes of trying to escape their plight. (Ideally, our more well-adjusted ancestors would not have hung out there for very long, so contacting them would be a matter of luring them back.)

A third would be impartial sprites with no particular affiliation or agenda who are just wandering through, and these are the ones who might enlist in our cause or who will at least agree to communicate with us as long as they are free at the moment. The notion that spiritual entities are waiting patiently with loving intent to engage us and assist in our enlightenment is dubious, if not downright implausible. I suspect even our revered forebears will have abandoned the entrance and might resent being summoned back.

Since I first discovered this phenomenon several years ago (although I had been exposed to the Inner Guide Meditation long before) I’ve taken on the task of trying to educate those who will listen about the inadvisability of latching onto any random presence and naming it our trusty “spirit guide” while demanding no proof of pedigree or honorable purpose beyond the promised fulfillment of our hopeful expectations.

The least dangerous scenario would be that we’re only talking to ourselves, and acting on any self-generated delusions is not likely to be too harmful; but there is a chance we’ve connected with something more potent that owes us nothing and perhaps accords us no affection, so accepting any advice channeled from that source is sure to be risky. Yet I see it every day in online conversations: “My guides told me this” and “my guides told me that,” under the optimistic assumption that the contacted entity is shooting straight. I don’t know about you, but I’m highly suspicious of “Greeks bearing gifts,” and even more so if they have “no fixed address.”