Sometimes the individual afflicted by the elemental is affected in a negative manner--that is to say, he is immune to the effect of fire or heat or has the power of inducing enormous draughts and air disturbances in confined space without knowing why. These cases are difficult, and though a “fireproof” medium who can carry live coals in his hand may claim it to be due to the effect of a fire-elemental control, it must be remembered that in many cases autosuggestion will induce an extension of the protective ecto- or psychoplasm which is equally effective.[39] The South Sea and Indian fanatics who walk across red-hot stones indubitably possess this self-contained power. I have only a second-hand instance of a pure heat elemental to relate. This was communicated to me by a very well-known mountain painter whom we will call Calvin Muir. He had been down in the Welsh Marches where the low foothills of the mountains just change into stretches of rocky moors above the low-lying wooded valleys. Muir was by habit and training a keen observer. He was also a Frater of the Rosicrucian Society and had a wide general knowledge of many strange aspects of occultism. “I was staying down at Pwhyll-gor, a little hill village with a few cottages and two inns of small attractiveness,” said he. “I had been there some six weeks or so, sketching and wandering and doing a little trout fishing when the mood took me. One evening I found the taproom learnedly discussing the blight that was affecting an orchard in a nearby farm. “According to them, half the affected trees appeared burnt or seared and there was great discussion whether lightning could strike without a concurrent storm or thunderclap. “Others held that it was probably a mischievous trick by small boys, but one old man declared it had happened before in the same district in his father’s time and that it was due to ‘owl blasting.’ “This, it seemed, was a form of witchcraft or magic, but more closely related to the malevolent forces of nature than to mortal ill will. He was not communicative, but disclosed enough to make me determine to visit the farm next day. “I found it up on the hillside in a little natural valley or gap where a few fertile acres had been reclaimed. It was a poor enough small homestead, bleak and barren, and the wretched little orchard was poor enough in all conscience without suffering supernatural violences. “The farmer’s wife received me and made no secret of her troubles. Together we went out to view the damage, and I found two cider-apple trees whose foliage and fruit had been literally burnt in an area as large as a good-sized cart wheel. “That was the queer thing about it, the close circular or rather spherical limits of the damage. It was just as if a red-hot round bite had been taken out of the thick of the tree, and left the neighbour twigs and leaves unsinged--unseared.