Some such condition is perhaps described in the story of Balaam the soothsayer, in that incident when 'the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha', and possibly also in the mysterious 'sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees' which David heard; but no doubt in these cases it was angels and not elementals.
"The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries"
W. Y. Evans Wentz
The word Vates, till the Augustan age, meant not a poet but a soothsayer.
"The Roman Poets of the Republic"
W. Y. Sellar
He was a soothsayer, a prophet, a magician.
"The Literature of Ecstasy"
Albert Mordell