We have been talking about the etheric envelope and linking it to the activities that we experience in our physical bodies, especially our brains. We need to be clear that etheric faculties are extensions of the ordinary physical senses, enabling the possessor to appreciate “vibrations” linked to the etheric portion of the physical plane (49:2-4). Such impressions are received through the retina of the eye, affecting its etheric matter. In some abnormal cases, other parts of the etheric body may respond as readily as, or even more readily than, the eye. This would usually be due to the partial development of emotional clairvoyance, the sensitive areas of the etheric double nearly always corresponding to the emotional chakras. It needs to be stressed that etheric “sight” is purely a physical phenomenon and relies on a greater sensitivity of the organ of the eye. It is not clairvoyance as we usually think of it.
There are roughly, two main kinds of clairvoyance, the lower and the higher. The lower variety appears sporadically in the general population. It is more prevalent amongst monads who are at Stage 1 or the early part of Stage 2 in their development cycle. What occurs in these people is a sort of intense sensation vaguely belonging to the whole etheric body, rather than an exact and definite sense perception, communicated through a specialised organ. It is practically beyond the person’s control. Because the etheric envelope is in a very close relationship with the nervous system, any action on one of them reacts speedily on the other. In this type of lower clairvoyance, the corresponding nervous disturbance is almost entirely in the sympathetic nervous system. Think of this as a right-brain activity, linked more towards instinct.
For monads functioning at Stages 3 and 4 in their development cycle, the vague sensitivity usually disappears, as the mental faculties, focused in the left hemisphere of the brain, are developed. Later on, when the person becomes an aspirant and begins to walk the Path, they regain etheric clairvoyant power. This time, however, the faculty is precise, under the control of the will and exercised through a sense organ. Any nervous action activated is almost exclusively in the cerebrospinal system rather than in the sympathetic system.
The lower forms of psychism are most frequent in animals and young human monads. Unfocused and unregulated psychism is due to the lower functioning of the brain and the dominance of the sympathetic nervous system, the large nucleated ganglionic cells in this system containing a very large proportion of etheric matter and thus being easily affected by the coarser emotional vibrations.
Etheric vision may be temporarily stimulated, e.g., by a psychotic episode induced by drink and drugs, so that the sufferer may see etheric, as well as emotional creatures. Snake-like apparitions and other horrors seen in such cases are almost invariably degenerate nature spirits, which feast on alcoholic fumes exuding from the drunkard’s body. It should be remembered that the Etheric Double is peculiarly susceptible to the volatile constituents of alcohols. Clairvoyant faculty may also sometimes be exhibited under the influence of mesmerism. The most famous case of this was Edgar Casey. It is also affected by increased tension of the nerves, caused by excitement, hysteria, ill health, drugs, or certain ceremonial rites, which induce self-hypnotism. It is not, however, advisable to allow oneself to be thrown into mesmeric sleep in order to obtain clairvoyant experiences, because domination of the will by that of another person tends to make the will of the subject weaker and thus more liable to be acted upon by other actors, human or otherwise.
Occasionally a person, fortunate enough to have gained the friendship of etheric nature spirits, may be helped by these creatures to attain flashes of temporary clairvoyance, so that the person may see them. To cultivate such friendship, it must be remembered that these Nature Spirits are intensely shy and distrustful of humans. They object to the physical emanations of the average person, including meat, tobacco, and alcohol. They respond negatively to low selfish feelings, such as lust, anger, or depression. Strong, unselfish feelings of a lofty nature create the kind of atmosphere in which nature spirits delight to bathe. Whilst living in Papua New Guinea, I spoke to a local shaman who claimed to communicate with such entities. He seemed very coy, but when pressed, he admitted to ingesting some sort of hallucinogenic stimulant that facilitated this communication. Please don’t try this at home.
Almost all nature-spirits are fond of music and some are especially attracted by certain melodies. C.W. Leadbeater writes that he has seen shepherd boys in Sicily playing on their homemade Panpipe, with an appreciative audience of fairies frisking around them, of which they were probably blissfully unaware. Sometimes, however, peasants do see nature spirits, as the literature of many peoples affirms.
One method of developing etheric sight is by utilising the imagination. An endeavour is made to “imagine” what the inside of a physical object, such as a closed box, would be like, i.e., to “guess” with an effort of strained attention, trying to see that which by ordinary sight could not be seen. After many attempts, it is said that the “guessing” becomes more frequently correct than the theory of probability would demand and presently the person begins actually to see, via etheric sight that which at first they only imagined.
Great numbers of people, if they will take the trouble to look, under suitable conditions of light, can see the mesmeric fluid, i.e., the nerve-ether, as it streams from the hands of the mesmerist. Baron Reichenbach, in the middle of the nineteenth century, records that he found over sixty people able to see these emanations and some could see also a somewhat similar emanation proceeding from physical magnets, from crystals and from a copper wire, one end of which was exposed to sunlight. The observers were usually shut up in a dark room for several hours to make the retina more sensitive. That is probably not a very practical precursor to etheric sight. Wait till you take the (i3), it becomes a lot easier!
Researchers in the late 19th and early 20th Century described the etheric energy emanating from animals, flowers and metals, as N-rays. These rays could be seen affecting the surrounding etheric environment. You may recollect that under the influence of chloroform, etheric matter is driven from the physical body of people. In the case of plants and animals, they cease to emit N-rays altogether. I am sure I would be altogether dead if you dipped me in chloroform.
A full and controlled possession of etheric sight enables a person to see through physical matter. A brick wall, for example, seems to have the consistency of a light mist. The contents of a closed box could be accurately described and a sealed letter read. With a little practice, it is also possible to find a passage in a closed book. When the faculty is proficiently developed, it is completely under control and may be used or not used at will. It is said to be as easy to change from ordinary to etheric vision, as it is to alter the focus of the eyes – the change being in reality a focusing of consciousness; no magic mushrooms are needed.
The earth is transparent to etheric vision to a certain extent so that a person can see to a considerable depth, like looking into clear water. A creature burrowing underground could thus be seen, or a vein of coal or metal could also be seen, if not too far below the surface. The medium through which we are looking is thus not perfectly transparent. Bodies of people and animals are, in the main, transparent, so that the action of the internal organs can be seen and to some extent, disease may be diagnosed in this manner. Etheric sight makes visible many entities, such as the lower orders of nature spirits, which have etheric bodies. In this class are nearly all the fairies, gnomes and brownies, of which many stories are told in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland and other countries.
There is a class of beautiful fairies with etheric bodies who live upon the surface of the earth and who have come up the ladder of evolution through grasses and cereals, ants and bees and less evolved tiny nature spirits. After their time as etheric fairies, they become salamanders or fire spirits, then sylphs or air spirits, and later still, they pass into the kingdom of the higher devas, often called angels. The forms of fairies are many and varied, but most frequently human in shape and somewhat diminutive in size, usually with a grotesque exaggeration of some particular feature or limb. Etheric matter being plastic and readily moulded by the power of thought, they can assume almost any appearance at will, but they have definite forms of their own, which they wear when they have no special reason for taking any other. To take a form other than their own, a fairy must conceive it clearly and keep their mind fixed upon it. As soon as their thought wanders they will at once resume their natural appearance.
Etheric matter does not obey the power of thought as instantaneously as does emotional matter. We might say that mental matter affects emotional matter so quickly that the ordinary observer can scarcely note any difference, but with etheric matter, one’s vision can follow the growth or diminution of a nature spirit without difficulty. An emotional sylph flashes from one shape to another; an etheric fairy swells or decreases quickly, but not instantaneously. There are also limits, though wide ones, within which a fairy can alter their size. Thus a fairy naturally 12 inches high might expand themselves to 6 feet in height, but only with considerable effort, which they could not maintain for more than a few minutes.
One of the streams of evolving life, after leaving the mineral kingdom, instead of passing into the vegetable kingdom, assumes etheric vehicles, which inhabit the interior of the earth, living actually within solid rock, which offer no impediment to their motion or their vision. At a later stage, though still inhabiting the solid rock, they live close to the surface of the earth and the more developed of them can occasionally detach themselves from it for a short time. These gnomes, which have sometimes been seen and perhaps more frequently heard, in caves or mines, become visible either by materialising themselves, by drawing around them a veil of physical matter, or, of course by the spectator becoming temporarily etherically clairvoyant. I suspect that gnomes are one of the other life streams on the planet. They must have their own hierarchy. They would be seen more frequently than they are, were it not for the the fact that they are allergic to us humans, something they share with all but the lowest types of nature spirits.
On that disappointing thought, let us leave it there for today and finish off our look at etheric sight in the next presentation.