Astral Plane
About This Book
Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934), English clergyman and theosophical author, contributed to world thought mostly through his work as an alleged clairvoyant. His uncle, was the prominent Anglican clergyman, William Wolfe Capes. By his uncle's influence, Leadbeater was ordained an Anglican priest in 1879 at Farnham, by the Bishop of Winchester. His interest in occultism was stimulated by A.P. Sinnett's Occult World, and he joined the Theosophical Society in 1883. The next year he met Helena Petrovna Blavatsky when she came to London. At this time he was the recipient of a few Mahatma letters which influenced him to go to India, where he arrived at Adyar in 1884. This was the start of a long career in the Theosophical Society. Among Leadbeater's famous works are: The Astral Plane (1895), Reincarnation (1898), and A Textbook of Theosophy (1912). He had a close friendship with Annie Besant (1847-1933), starting in 1895. Annie later is said to have allowed her occult powers to diminish, while Leadbeater's grew stronger. Together they wrote: Thought Forms (1901) and Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements (1919).
What You'll Learn
• Understand the structure of the astral plane as Leadbeater describes it: the seven sub-planes from the grossest material level nearest the physical through the increasingly refined levels associated with higher emotional and mental qualities
• Grasp the experience of the recently dead as Leadbeater observed it: how the newly deceased typically spend a period in the astral dimension corresponding to their earthly consciousness before moving to higher planes, and what determines the quality and duration of this period
• Recognise the various categories of astral inhabitants: human beings in astral sleep or out-of-body states, deceased individuals in the between-lives period, nature spirits and elementals, artificial elementals created by intense human emotion, and the shells of departed personalities
• Learn the laws governing astral matter: its responsiveness to thought, the way intense emotion creates semi-permanent structures in it, and how the quality of one's consciousness determines what one encounters in the astral dimension
• Appreciate the relationship between astral experience and ordinary dream life: how the symbolism and apparent irrationality of dreams reflects the literal appearance of conditions in the astral dimension, where thoughts take immediate visible form
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