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and may sometimes wonder whence comes to him the power for achievement that seems—and truly seems—to be so much beyond his own. Similarly a man of foul and base thoughts attracts to himself hosts of maleficent entities, and by this added energy for evil commits crimes that astonish him in the retrospect. “Some devil must have tempted me,” he will cry; and truly these demoniac forces, called to him by his own evil, add strength to it from without. The elementals ensouling thought-forms, whether these be good or bad, link themselves to the elementals in the man's desire body and to those ensouling his own thought form, and thus work in him, though coming from without. But for this they must find entities of their own kind with which to link themselves, else can they exercise no power. And further, elementals in an opposite kind of thought-form will repel them, and the good man will drive back hy his very atmosphere, his aura, all that is foul and cruel. It surrounds him as a protective wall and keeps evil away from him.
There is another form of elemental activity, that brings about widespread results, and cannot therefore be excluded from this preliminary survey of the forces that go to make up karma. Like those just dealt with,
