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Nature Spirits
of the fire

Fire spirits are the most volatile, unpredictable, and unsociable to humans and yet are the most exciting of the nature spirits. They are fierce, elusive, and untameable, shimmering in the blazing heat of the noonday sun, flickering in flames, flaring sparklike from bonfires or generating their own fire like the dragon. A fire spirit will absorb the power of any fire it encounters and grow temporarily larger, more dynamic, and more potent. But because they are made of balls of energy or light, fire spirits tend to be far shorter-lived than other elemental nature forms. The smaller, less-structured ones literally burn themselves out.

Fire spirits are of immense magical value as light bringers. They will give you the sudden courage or confidence to take the lead, believe in yourself and your own worth, demand what is reasonable, overcome injustice, speak your mind, and even clear away what you no longer need. Above all they inspire us to reach out to fulfil major dreams and ambitions.

Fire beings vary in size and intensity from mighty dragons to tiny but powerful, often unnamed fire faeries. Fire faeries live mainly outdoors and draw close to any bonfire, but they might also be seen indoors in the hearth fire or wood-burning stove when winter in the northern climes is at its deepest. Though they may cause a sudden rush of flame or sparks, they will not stay long. They may also manifest as fireflies and glow worms in caves. Fire spirits, commonly called earth lights, dance over sacred sites, areas of volcanic activity, or where there are subterranean earth movements. Even the fey forms of fire spirits are not pretty dancing faeries, but dynamos that will light up your world and ignite your inner fire.

Working Safely with Fire Spirits

Fire-Spirit Magical Associations

Archetypal elemental spirit: salamander

Fire-spirits ruler: Djinn, a being made of pure fire, a glorious flame-like creature with flashing ruby eyes who is never still and rules all fire spirits

Favourite time of day: noon

Favourite season: summer

Energy: active and projective

Fire-spirit characteristic: creator and action

Elemental tool: wand

Fire-spirit ritual substance: candle

Favourite colours: red, gold, or orange

Psychic gifts they offer: clairvoyance and connecting with spirits and ghosts

Polarity: God

Fire-spirit energy-raiser: dance, ritual fires

Deities: fire gods and goddesses, deities of passion and seduction, blacksmith and metal deities, and deities of the sun

Archangel: Michael, Archangel of the Sun, leader of all the great warrior angels. The traditional dragon slayer with golden wings, red-and-gold armour, and the scales of justice.

Fire-spirit crystals: amber, bloodstone, Boji stones, carnelian, dragon’s eggs, garnet, lava, iron pyrites, hematite, obsidian, ruby, and topaz

Fire-spirit animals and birds: cat, lion, cougar, stag, dragons, fireflies, dragonflies, and the legendary golden phoenix. The phoenix, which burns itself on a funeral pyre every five hundred years only to rise again golden from the ashes, is a symbol of transformation and rebirth.

Fire-spirit fragrances: allspice, angelica, basil, bay, carnation, cedarwood, chamomile, cinnamon, cloves, copal, dragon’s blood, frankincense, heliotrope, juniper, lime, marigold, nutmeg, orange, rosemary, and tangerine

Ailments and body parts especially healed by fire spirits:
heart, liver, spleen, and stomach ailments

Sense: vision, survival

Positive qualities/strengths offered by fire spirits: courage, inspiration, idealism, altruism, fidelity, perfectionism, defense of the weak, intuition, imagination, creativity, leadership, good health, transformation, fertility in all aspects of life (also earth and water spirits), mysticism, clairvoyance, prophecy, determination to overcome obstacles, energy, living spirit, and abundance

Less-desirable qualities: addiction (also earth spirits), anger, aggressiveness, cruelty, domination, hatred, jealousy, rebellion, being led by passion, flirtatious, unfaithful, and violence

Fire-spirit places: family hearth, deserts, shimmering sand, hilltop beacons, red rock formations, altars with candles, ritual and hearth fires, stars (sometimes also associated with air), bonfires, comets, rainbows, meteors, lightning torches (wood was believed to contain fire that could be released by friction), volcanoes, forest fires, and solar eclipses

Materials for attracting fire spirits: candles, beeswax, flames, ash, fibre-optic lamps, lightning, faery lights, flashlight beams swirled around in the darkness, jack o’ lanterns, clear crystal spheres, gold, mirrors, oranges, suncatchers, sunflowers and all golden flowers

Astrological signs: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius

Planets: the sun and Mars

Empowerment to call the power of the fire spirits:
“ May I flame and flare and rise high to fulfill my dreams.”

Use fire-spirit magick for: fulfilling ambitions, prosperity, justice, career advancement, wisdom in power and leadership, all creative and artistic ventures, fame, religion and spirituality, success in sports and competitive games, courage, to increase psychic powers (especially higher ones such as channelling pleasure, passion, and the consummation of love), for sacred sex, the removal of what is no longer needed, binding and banishing, protection against a vicious attack or threats, against drought and pollution, and with candle magick.

Discovering Spirits of the Flames

Salamanders

Salamanders are the legendary spirit fire lizards originally described as being from the Middle East, recorded most frequently in desert places. The larger the source of fire, the greater their size and power, though generally they are about a foot in length.1

Salamanders appear often as elongated wandlike faery beings in the shape of flames. Though salamanders live in volcanoes or lakes of fire, you can see them in large wood-burning bonfires. Like their earthly cousins, the chameleon, salamanders are constantly changing colour and perpetually moving like flame itself within fire, especially tall conflagrations such as festival fires.

Salamanders can also manifest on sand shimmering in sunlight along the shore of an inland lake or the sea, resembling large, golden, upright lizards that come in and out of vision like a mirage. They can also be found in sandy inland places in bright sunlight where ordinary lizards sleep or dart around in shimmering heat. In a forest fire, they may burn black near the base of the fire.

I first saw spirit salamanders on the sandy shore at a huge French lake called La Sidillaille in central France. The sun was illuminating the sand crystals and creating mist mirages. On the sand were dozens of actual small lizards, darting and disappearing under rocks only to reappear. The spirit-fire salamanders resembled larger, darting, rainbow-flickering, flamelike creatures and would dematerialise if stared at. Because I had a huge personal transformation to make when I returned to England, it seemed especially apt I should have seen them as I sat wrestling with my decision.

Occasionally, salamanders become beautiful dancing females with lizardlike eyes and flaming hair. In an Australian aboriginal myth, the salamanders, or “sleepy lizard women,” made their camp on what became Uluru, previously known as Ayers Rock, the sacred red hill that rose from the ashes after the camp of the sleepy lizard women was burned.

In the Middle East, it is believed that djinns, or fire genies, also take the form of lizards and may ask for the help of mortals in this form. If help is granted, the humans are richly rewarded.

Working with Salamander Power

There are two ways you can work with salamander power wherever you live.

Summer/Hot-Place Energies

Sites include sandy lake sides or islands; rocky places on a sunny day; year-round hot locations like the Mediterranean lands, the Middle East, Indonesia, or India. Alternatively, work when sunbeams are bouncing off a large expanse of water. Find a place where there are real lizards, or use the sun shining to create a haze to allow your mind and your eyes to create tall, beautiful, golden, dancing lizard women.

Winter/Cooler-Place Energies

Because fey energies exist on the etheric or spirit plane, you can work with any spirit forms in any location. You just need stronger visualisation. Because salamanders are fire creatures, any fire source will evoke their presence.

Safely Closing Any Salamander Contact

Salamanders will only work with you for a very short time and will remain in a fire no longer than the fire lasts.

Jinn/Djinn

Jinn are called “the wish granters.” Nevertheless, they are the tricksters of the universe and need to be handled with respect and caution.2 According to myth, jinn are formed from smokeless fire and were created thousands of years before Adam and ruled by kings, the last of whom, Jân ibn Jân, was credited with building the pyramids. However, because they would not obey divine law (due to their wild and unpredictable nature as fire spirits), they were driven into exile by the angels and lost their immortality and their benign nature to humanity. The angels cast shooting stars at them from the heavens and their nature also causes fights among them that can result in their destruction.

Good jinn are beautiful while evil jinn are huge, ugly, and can cause sandstorms. Jinn are natural magicians and shape-shifters who travel with the speed of light. Their natural home is in the Emerald Mountains of Kâf; however, they appear almost anywhere, especially in bottles or lamps as genies as I describe later.

It was once believed by mediaeval magicians that with the use of talismans or magic, jinn could be forced to obey and give knowledge of the future, which they learned from eavesdropping on the angels in the lower heavens. In the Middle East, the jinn are linked in modern times with the desert campfires of the Bedouin tribes and are invisible, except to children and wise men and women.

While I was researching a book on ancient Egyptian magick in Cairo, I got to know a man who made perfumes whose family was originally nomadic Bedouin. He had witnessed both jinns and magical salamanders as a child, and his grandmother, the tribal wise woman, saw them as well.

In the Old Testament, King Solomon had a magick ring with which he summoned jinns to help his armies win battles. Solomon was a master magician whose wisdom came from the secret book of the angel Raziel.

Genies

“Genie” is the Westernised term for the jinn whose tradition has come from the stories of the Arabian knights and Aladdin and his wonderful lamp whose indwelling genie granted wishes.3 This story reflected a common folk belief that centred especially on the old-fashioned, saucerlike oil lamps. The user of such a magick lamp had to be very careful what was requested, as the genie would take the wish literally. Also, the number of wishes was limited, after which the genie was free. Then he could turn against the owner of the lamp if the owner had been unwise with his or her wishes or unkind to the genie.

There is another related tradition more prevalent in the Westernised world of the spirit being contained in a sealed bottle.

How to Cast Genie Bottle Spells
Without Being Overwhelmed or Deluded

Genie Wishes

I am certainly not recommending you try summoning and controlling jinns, as it might be psychologically unsettling. However you can safely and positively use the symbolism of the genie in the bottle to concentrate your own wish power.

What you are bottling is not a spirit, rather your own powerful inner abilities to make your own wishes come true. You can strengthen that inner fire by using an external fire source, in this case either a red candle or a small oil lamp.

The Power of the Dragons

Dragons are another archetypal fire spirit. Oriental dragons are associated mainly with the air and water. They rise in the spring and fight or mate, creating welcome rain. It is believed that as they do so they scatter fireballs and pearls of healing onto the earth and that these fireballs causes growth of magical healing herbs in the places they land.

The Scandinavian and Germanic/European dragons are, in contrast, the true fire-breathing dragons. They guard treasure, as chronicled in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem “Beowulf” thought to be written sometime between the eighth and eleventh century CE in England.4 In almost every dragon story, the dragon guards gold within a deep cave. This is highly symbolic. In various magical traditions, gold was considered the most precious gift of the earth and was associated with the earth mother’s life blood. As humans mined gold and other precious minerals more and more, they were depleting the goodness of the earth faster than it could be replaced, a process that takes millions of years. The dragons were trying to stop this. The dragon slayers were of course benefiting from the dragon gold hoards—and rarely gave it to the poor.

Magically, too, the treasure of the fire dragons represents creativity and spiritual wisdom and can be easily accessed with respect, although dragons can be invoked to attract resources for a particular worthwhile, practical, or monetary purpose, whether to travel or to launch a business or creative venture.

Dragons also symbolise the ability to overcome huge obstacles or odds through their stored fire power that was released in the dragon’s breath. In the dragon-slaying legends, this power was absorbed into the hero who thereafter became an even mightier warrior.

Traditionally, dragons can be contacted and celebrated in various calls of the dragon, one of which is described below, to fill us with noble dragon strength and to access the stored knowledge within the collective wisdom of humankind, so we can generate our own treasures in life.

Dragon Lore

Fafnir is the archetypal ruler of all earth and fire dragons in the eastern and western European traditions as well as in Scandinavia. However, the history of Fafnir is a strange one and the actual Fafnir was slain.

Norse myth records that the dwarf Regin persuaded his godson Sigurd (called Sigfried in Germany) to seek and kill Fafnir the dragon who had a fabulous hoard of treasure. However, Sigurd did not know that Fafnir was in fact the brother of Regin. In one version of the myth, Fafnir had been rewarded with a hoard of gold and gems by the gods. He was so afraid of losing it that he hid in a cave with it and over the years turned into dragon form because of his obsessive love for the gold.

Of course the whole dragon-slaying idea was actually a plot by Regin to seize the hoard for himself. Sigurd rode with Regin to find the dragon. At Regin’s suggestion, they hid in a deep ditch and when Fafnir came to drink at a nearby pool, Sigurd stabbed his soft underbelly with his magical sword.

Regin cut out the heart of his brother and roasted it, but some of the hot fat dripped on Sigurd’s finger. He licked the burn and immediately understood the language of the birds that told him Regin intended to kill him. Therefore Sigurd beheaded the dwarf and claimed the treasure and the wisdom of the birds.

In another interpretation, the dwarf Fafnir was guarding secret spiritual gold or wisdom, which he inherited from his father. This was the wisdom of the birds and the key to understanding their language. Understanding the language of the birds was a very secret and mystical art in the ancient world, for it was said that the birds could tell you all you needed to know about anything and even predict the future because they could listen to the words of the deities. It is said that Fafnir took on dragon form to keep the secret safe. It’s hard to untangle the myth from the bias of the tellers.

Norse and European myths describe dragons in great detail as possessing all or some of the following: eagle’s feet, batlike wings, the front legs of a lion, a reptile/dinosaur’s head with a huge mouth and teeth from which smoke and fire pours, huge scales, the horns of an antelope, a soft underbelly, and a lizardlike tail that may begin close to the head.

Smaller fire drakes found in the myths of France and Germany do not have wings but are red with fiery breath. They are said to also be cave dwellers, where they live with their great hoards of the earth’s riches.

According to Bulgarian dragon lore, the male dragon is the fire dragon and is a benign protector of humans and the crops in contrast to his watery, less well-disposed sister. Traditionally, Bulgarian dragons have three heads and wings. Dragon females are fiercely maternal, for it takes a thousand years for a dragon’s egg to hatch and a further three thousand years for the young dragon to reach full maturity. Scandinavian and European eggs hatch sooner.

Dragon Magick

Let’s work with the most positive aspects of fire dragons. Working with fire dragons can transform our lives and bring a new, more securely based abundant world and creative life stage into being. Naturally, gold is the suggested tribute for attracting power, healing, and wealth in using dragon energies. However you can also use the crystal known as dragon’s eggs, and if you work regularly with dragons it is well worth obtaining one of these from an online crystals store.5 These are usually clear quartz, amethyst, or rose quartz in a pebble and are characterized by a polished glasslike window revealing the crystalline interior. These fabulous little treasures were once believed to be the eggs of dragons after the baby dragon had hatched.

Finding Your Dragon-Magick Place

Now you are ready for a dragon ritual either in your dragon place or your outdoor fey area.

A Dragon Spell for Gold

What “gold” do you need? Do you need health, a spurt of energy to see a task through, some money for your child’s school trip, or perhaps the courage to take up the career you really want? Or do you need gold for a loved one who is struggling, healing for your sick pet, or to aid people in a war-torn area of the world? Do you want your book published or to win a talent contest?

You will need:

Timing:

Tuesday is a good dragon day; the day should be as bright as possible.

The spell

Fire Spirits in the Wild,
Will o’ the Wisps, and Earth-Light Spirits

Nowhere is there more mystery or controversy than the manifestation of fire spirits as seemingly inexplicable lights in the sky that have been reported, for hundreds of years, in the same place. These are often called “earth lights,” but in fact have far more in common with fire spirits and are close cousins of the mythical will o’ the wisps.

In the Hessdalan Valley, about seventy miles southeast of Trondheim in Norway, white and yellow lights in the shapes of spheres, bullets, and inverted fir trees were first seen in 1981. These phenomena continued and in the summer of 1983; after hundreds of reports of earth lights from locals, Norwegian and Swedish UFO groups instigated Project Hessdalan. The area was continuously monitored for just over a month beginning on January 21, 1984. What is fascinating about this research is that the lights actually read the thoughts of the investigators and responded to them, suggesting the lights possess some form of objective consciousness.

Defining the Phenomena

Lights often occur in areas of geological faults, earthquake zones, or ancient volcanic activity. It may be that just as earth spirits are energised by ley lines fire spirits are made visible by subterranean fire activity. Even more fascinating are the cases of well-researched Australian lights and American “northern lights” phenomena, there has often been an indigenous human tragedy or massacre in the area.

Australian Lights/Fire Spirits

These lights in the sky are accepted as quite normal by indigenous people, such as aboriginal peoples of Kimberley in western Australia where there has been frequent activity over the years. They interpret the lights as manifestations of djang or supernatural energies.

Paul Devereux extensively researched the Kimberley lights in late 1995 with Erling Strand, a Norwegian researcher who was instrumental in the ground-breaking Norwegian Hessdalan project into light phenomena, and collected remarkably consistent accounts from members of the community.6

The most remarkable fire-spirit/earth light is the famous Min Min Lights, about sixty miles east of Boulia in southwest Queensland in Australia, once a thriving shearing centre. Bushmen first reported the lights as occurring around 1881 as a strange glow that grew to the size of a small watermelon and pursued them.7

Older aboriginals in the area consider that the Min Min Lights emanated from an old aboriginal burial ground and say they began after the destruction of the indigenous people was instigated.

Though it is just theory right now, and of course a number of lights do not neatly fit, the idea that fire spirits are being energised by underground fire sources in areas where tragedies may have occurred is a worthy line of study. In exploring this, we may better be able to understand these lights.

The Brown Mountain Lights

Further support for our angry energised fire spirits comes from Jason Boone, an American psychic researcher. He told me about the lights of Brown Mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Parkway just outside Morganton, North Carolina. According to official information, the lights are visible between sunset and sunrise, especially between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 am and are most prevalent in September and October. Jason explained:

The lights have been seen since way back during the days of the Native Americans, first spoken of around 1200 [CE] when a battle was fought near the mountain between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians. The Cherokees tell that the lights are the Indian women still searching for their lost husbands and lovers.

Scientists have stated that the cause could be sulphurous or other swamp gases that ignite once they reach the earth’s surface. This isn’t so because none of the gases are found in this area and there are no swamps in the region of Brown Mountain.

Some people believe that the mountains are haunted by ghosts, faeries, and will o’ the wisps. A few locals insist that the lights are linked with the sightings of what is known as “the woolly booger,” a headless bear that has been sighted on the mountain on occasions.

The lights vary in intensity and appearance from glowing balls of fire, skyrockets and whirling pinwheels of light.

The Will o’ the Wisps

In northern-European folklore, the well-documented floating fire spirits are called the “will o’ the wisps” or “friar’s lanthorn” (a flamelike phosphorescence).They were popularly regarded as a malevolent fire faeries who guard lost treasures. Will o’ the wisps are said to elude all who attempt to follow them and lure many lost travelers to their end on marshes and bogs.

In Sweden, they are known as lyktgubbe, which means “the old man with the lamp.” These flickering lights are usually seen in groups and float just above the ground. Others however say the luminous creatures actually help lost travelers. For this reason they are in some regions called “Jack o’ Lanterns,” giving their name to the Halloween turnip (now most commonly pumpkins) in the shape of a face that is placed in windows at Halloween to protect the household from harm. Yet other folklorists identify the lights as faery revels.

According to scientists from Isaac Newton onwards, the flamelike phosphorescence floating over marshy ground is due to the spontaneous combustion of decaying vegetable matter in the marsh. But research in 1980 by Dr. Alan Mills of England’s Leicester University’s Department of Geology was unable under laboratory conditions to reproduce a flame akin to will o’ the wisps by the spontaneous combustion of methane, phosphene, or other hypothesised marshland gases. The researcher also could not discover any natural source of ignition. Moreover, these lights are frequently reported over mountain tops and on moorlands as well as over marshes.8

For example, in the Peak District in Derbyshire, a hilly area in central England, on a hill called Lantern Pike, is the home of an old mythical faery hag, Peggy-a-Lantern, who according to local folklore swings her lamp on the hilltop causing a phenomena that has also been witnessed by residents of the area for hundreds of years.

What is more, will o’ the wisps have been known to respond to travelers, beckoning or calling them. It is the interaction between fire spirits, earth lights, and people that makes them especially remarkable.

A Fire Spirit Ritual to Get Noticed Positively
and for Fame and Fortune

You will need:

An indoor or outdoor area lit by faery lights, the kind where the colours constantly change (string a set of outdoor faery lights on a tree using the outdoor socket normally used for lawn mowers). Alternatively, use two flashlights, one for each hand and a tube of gold glitter.

Timing

Any Thursday (the day of power), Wednesday (the day of the performing arts), any night before career opportunity, or Tuesday for a huge leap forward. This should always take place after dark so that your light source is the only one (if necessary, draw curtains indoors).

The spell

In the next chapter, we will explore the nature spirits of the waters.

Chapter 7 Sources

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_(legendary_creature)
  2. http://www.islamcan.com/jinn-stories.shtml
  3. Burton, Richard, trans. The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights. New York: Modern Library Classics, 2004.
  4. Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Norton, 2001.
  5. www.charliesrockshop.com (shipped internationally from the UK a particularly high-quality and trustworthy supplier).
  6. Devereux, Paul. Earth Lights Revelation, UFOs, and Mystery Lightform Phenomena: The Earth’s Secret Energy Force. New York: Sterling Publishing, 1990.
  7. http://www.castleofspirits.com/minmins.html
  8. Will o’ the wisp, http://www.devilspenny.com/2010/08/the -will-o%E2%80%99-the-wisp-more-than-just-swamp-gas/

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