Hi all. I've been reading into theosophy as of late and I came across the works of C.W. Leadbeater. Right now I'm on his book 'The Astral Plain, its scenery, inhabitants, and phenomena' and its a very provocative read so far. I just got done with this chapter describing the sorts of beings that dwell in the astral, and I thought I'd paste a description here in this thread. My reasoning for doing so is that these paragraphs accurately describe elves, fairies, jesters, gnomes, goblins, wraiths, and all sorts of entities we seem to encounter in hyperspace, and the descriptions of them and how they behave aligns very much with my own direct interactions with these creatures. So without further ado, I offer for the sake of discussion the following excerpt (I bolded the important parts in case anyone wanted to skim over it):



3. Nature-Spirits of all Kinds.

So many and so varied are the subdivisions of this class that to do them anything like justice one would need to devote a separate treatise to this subject alone. Some characteristics, however, they all have in common, and it will be sufficient here to try to give some idea of those. To begin with, we have to realize that we are here dealing with entities which differ radically from all that we have hitherto considered. Though we may rightly classify the elemental essence and the animal Kâmarûpa as non-human, the monadic essence which manifests itself through them will, nevertheless, in the fulness of time, evolve to the level of manifesting itself through some future humanity comparable to our own, and if we were able to look back through countless ages on our own evolution in previous manvantaras, we should find that that which is now ourselves has passed on its upward path through similar stages. That, however, is not the case with the vast kingdom of nature-spirits; they neither have been, nor ever will be, members of a humanity such as ours; their line of evolution is entirely different, and their[58] only connection with us consists in our temporary occupancy of the same planet. Of course since we are neighbours for the time being we owe neighbourly kindness to one another when we happen to meet, but our lines of development differ so widely that each can do but little for the other.


Many writers have included these spirits among the elementals, and indeed they are the elementals (or perhaps, to speak more accurately, the animals) of a higher evolution. Though much more highly developed than our elemental essence, they have yet certain characteristics in common with it; for example, they also are divided into seven great classes, inhabiting respectively the same seven states of matter already mentioned as permeated by the corresponding varieties of the essence. Thus, to take those which are most readily comprehensible to us, there are spirits of the earth, water, air, and fire (or ether)—definite intelligent astral entities residing and functioning in each of those media.


It may be asked how it is possible for any kind of creature to inhabit the solid substance of a rock, or of the crust of the earth. The answer is that since the nature-spirits are formed of astral matter, the substance of the rock is no hindrance to their motion or their vision, and furthermore physical matter in its solid state is their natural element—the only one to which they are accustomed and in which they feel at home. The same is of course true of those who live in water, air or ether.



In mediæval literature, these earth-spirits are often called gnomes, while the water-spirits are spoken of as ûndinés, the air-spirits as sylphs, and the ether-spirits as salamanders. In popular language they are known by many names—fairies, pixies, elves, brownies, peris, djinns, trolls, satyrs, fauns, kobolds, imps, goblins, good people, etc.—some of these titles being applied only to one variety,[59] and others indiscriminately to all. Their forms are many and various, but most frequently human in shape and somewhat diminutive in size. Like almost all inhabitants of the astral plane, they are able to assume any appearance at will, but they undoubtedly have definite forms of their own, or perhaps we should rather say favourite forms, which they wear when they have no special object in taking any other. Of course under ordinary conditions they are not visible to physical sight at all, but they have the power of making themselves so by materialization when they wish to be seen.


There are an immense number of subdivisions or races among them, and individuals of these subdivisions differ in intelligence and disposition precisely as human beings do. The great majority of them apparently prefer to avoid man altogether; his habits and emanations are distasteful to them, and the constant rush of astral currents set up by his restless, ill-regulated desires disturbs and annoys them. On the other hand instances are not wanting in which nature-spirits have as it were made friends with human beings and offered them such assistance as lay in their power, as in the well-known stories told of the Scotch brownies or of the fire-lighting fairies mentioned in spiritualistic literature.


This helpful attitude, however, is comparatively rare, and in most cases when they come in contact with man they either show indifference or dislike, or else take an impish delight in deceiving him and playing childish tricks upon him. Many a story illustrative of this curious characteristic may be found among the village gossip of the peasantry in almost any lonely mountainous district, and any one who has been in the habit of attending séances for physical phenomena will recollect instances of practical joking and silly though usually good-natured horseplay, which always indicate the presence of[60] some of the lower orders of the nature-spirits. They are greatly assisted in their tricks by the wonderful power which they possess of casting a glamour over those who yield themselves to their influence, so that such victims for the time see and hear only what these fairies impress upon them, exactly as the mesmerized subject sees, hears, feels and believes whatever the magnetizer wishes.



The nature-spirits, however, have not the mesmerizer's power of dominating the human will, except in the case of quite unusually weak-minded people, or of those who allow themselves to fall into such a condition of helpless terror that their will is temporarily in abeyance; they cannot go beyond deception of the senses, but of that art they are undoubted masters, and cases are not wanting in which they have cast their glamour over a considerable number of people at once. It is by invoking their aid in the exercise of this peculiar power that some of the most wonderful feats of the Indian jugglers are performed—the entire audience being in fact hallucinated and made to imagine that they see and hear a whole series of events which have not really taken place at all.


We might almost look upon the nature-spirits as a kind of astral humanity, but for the fact that none of them—not even the highest possess a permanent reincarnating individuality. Apparently therefore one point in which their line of evolution differs from ours is that a much greater proportion of intelligence is developed before permanent individualization takes place; but of the stages through which they have passed, and those through which they have yet to pass, we can know little. The life-periods of the different subdivisions vary greatly, some being quite short, others much longer than our human lifetime. We stand so entirely outside such a life as theirs that it is impossible for us to understand much about its conditions; but it appears on[61] the whole to be a simple, joyous, irresponsible kind of existence, much such as a party of happy children might lead among exceptionally favourable physical surroundings. Though tricky and mischievous, they are rarely malicious unless provoked by some unwarrantable intrusion or annoyance; but as a body they also partake to some extent of the universal feeling of distrust for man, and they generally seem inclined to resent somewhat the first appearance of a neophyte on the astral plane, so that he usually makes their acquaintance under some unpleasant or terrifying form. If, however, he declines to be frightened by any of their freaks, they soon accept him as a necessary evil and take no further notice of him, while some among them may even after a time become friendly and manifest pleasure on meeting him.

Leadbeater, C. W. (Charles Webster) (2009-10-04). The Astral Plane Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena (pp. 60-61). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Have you seen any of these in normal reality? My wife and I are 100% convinced they exist, and she has never used any kind of drug, is a conservative christian etc. For almost a year we had a kobold in our house that would play tricks on us. I don't tell hardly anybody about it because no one would believe this. The only people I've told are ones who first tell me their stories of having similar tricks played on them.

Once I wanted a particular drill bit I had just used and had taken out. I knew was on this small table among a bunch of loose screws. I looked on the table for a couple minutes and couldn't find it.

At this point I was used to having things hidden and had looked up what might be the cause of it. This kind of thing had been going on for months and I didn't want to have an easy excuse to brush off what was going on and so I pulled everything that was on the table into a pile right in front of me. Then methodically I picked up each screw individually, looked at it turning each piece over in my hand, and placed it at the back of the table. I did this until the front of the table was empty and I'd placed each piece into a small pile at the back of the table.

Since I didn't find what I'd been looking for, I tried to get something else put together to substitute for the bit that I needed. I never left that room and no one else was in there with me (that I could see anyway). After getting my substitute put together I went back to the table and looked down at it.

Where I had first pulled everything to the front of the table, sitting alone, was the bit I had been looking for. All the screws I'd gone through were sitting in a pile at the back where I'd placed them.

I know for a fact I didn't over look it. The whole reason I'd been so thorough about looking for it was because I had been tricked several times in the previous months and wanted to make sure I couldn't brush it off this time.

I realize it's hard to believe, and if it didn't happen to you you can't KNOW that I looked hard enough or that I'm not just some weirdo. I'm not interested in trying to convince people they exist who don't want to believe it, but since you seem like you do believe in them I thought I'd share.

We both ended up seeing him in weirdly real, wakeful type dreams. I didn't tell her what I'd seen before she had her dream too and when we compared what we saw it was obvious we saw the same little guy.

Very interesting Applebaum, thanks for sharing.

I've had a similar experience of being tricked in real life. As the above excerpt stated, these beings seem to have an ability to materialize into our reality when it suits them but having a general disliking of humanity they probably don't do this often. I'll tell you what happened to me.

I have an overhead clock hanging on the entryway into my kitchen, its been there for ages and stopped working awhile ago so we never even took it down to replace the batteries. Well, one day out of flippin nowhere as I'm walking into my kitchen the clock suddenly falls directly on top of my head, shattering glass all over my scalp and clothes.

I'm literally stunned, and after half a second fear began racing through my veins with thoughts of having to get glass shards surgically removed and all that jazz. My girlfriend looked at my head and freaked out, saying there was blood and she wanted to call someone. Before I had her do that, I went into the bathroom and rinsed out my hair. Suprisingly, there was no blood at all and I didn't even have a bump, and this is an abnormally heavy clock falling a distance of about two feet on my unprotected head. You'd assume I'd have some type of injury, but I was completely fine.

That night when I went to bed I had a vision as I was nodding off. Keep in mind I don't dream often so this was peculiar in and of itself. In my mind's eye, I saw an entity without real form (he had a form but there isn't any way for me to describe it). This entity was holding a sign in the form of an arrow, and on this sign was a picture of my dad's business. I had been dealing with a job opportunity my dad had offered me and had my trepidations about it for reasons I won't go into, but it was pretty obvious what the universe was trying to push me towards now that I look back on it. In the entity's other hand, it had levitating there a cartoon version of the clock that fell on me. The entity was in intense laughter, and letters were floating about its head that said, in an almost party-like font "You got clocked!"

It is hilarious now that I look back on it because I was so anxious about making that big life decision that something had to get my attention. I had the very clear insight that to 'be clocked' meant I was stuck in my thought process and needed something to get me back on track. The joke was on me, and I definately see it as some type of hyperdimensional joke.


Stepping away from that story, what's ironic to me is that it really wasn't all that long ago that Ireland was haunted by these little guys, its where we get a large portion of our fairy tales from. The people who would encounter these beings always had the same sort of story; they would be doing a normal task of some sort, usually towards evening, and one of these creatures would show up and start a dialogue. There was always a manner of trickery in every interaction they would have with humans. A story I read recently said that one night a drunken irishman was walking home and when he looked down he saw a leprachaun had joined him in his walk. The leprachaun pulled out a flask of alcohol and began to drink from it, and it caused the drunk to ask for a drink. The being gladly offered the flask, and after the irishman had finished his drink, the leprachaun demanded payment. When the man couldn't pay, the being tricked him into being his slave for 7 years and no one ever saw him again.

Did he get sucked into the astral? Who knows. I find these sorts of stories fascinating because until Christianity went hell bent on converting the pagan irish, this was a normal part of their society. Everybody believed in the reality of the 'good people'. In fact, the concept of purgatory was orginally invented by St. Patrick as a means to convert the irish since they so greatly believed in the notion of 'fairyland' which we can assume is the astral world where they originate from.


Do yourself a favor and youtube 'Real life gnome sightings'. While video is often times unreliable and hoaxes abound, some of the videos you will encounter have a real difficult time being explained by just editing software.

In Kabalistic literature, there are detailed classifications for the spirit world. Generally it is divided into upper and lower or what is more specifically referred to as the higher and lower crowns...

The higher crown consists of Angels, Archangels and other highly evolved inorganic life. whereas the lower crown consists of elemental beings and Demons..

According to the Kabalistic interpretations of the Hebrew bible it is not only forbidden to form alliances with the elemental spirits it is also considered extremely unwise to do and was something that was practiced by dark magicians and sorcerers of ancient times..


From my experience Salvia tends to connect me exclusively to the spirits of the lower crown, the tricksters, the faeries, the malevolent human hating beings..

DMT on the other hand tends to connect me with the higher crowns....and I have noticed that after I had made contact with angelic beings on DMT that the Salvia beings seemed to dislike me even more, like they could smell the higher crowns on me.

That's just my view on it..

That's very interesting Eliyahu, I'm not very well schooled in kabalist philosophy to be honest.

Would you say then, in your opinion, that Salvia is your plant ally? Do you know what I mean by that? I had posted about it in another thread but what I mean is you can see from my signature that I have a pretty powerful connection with the spirit of the mushroom. Would you say you've made a particularly fond relationship with Salvia over other hallucinogens? Is she your favorite?

She doesn't like me from what I can tell.

I think my Kobold might have tried to kill my salvia plant. I had been gone on vacation a few days and when I came back my salvia pot was thrown over and all the dirt dumped out. The root was torn up and the plant that had been about 3 1/2 feet tall with lots of branches was torn up into 3-4 inch pieces.

Most of the plant had already dried up but I found a couple pieces that had been torn up but had gotten buried in the potting soil and so had just wilted and not completely dried out. I was able to get those to root so I didn't lose my only plant.

I had read you could appease that kind of thing by leaving food out for it so that's what I started doing and that would keep things from getting hidden. If I would forget for a while the tricks would start up again. It did kind of remind me of the food offerings people used to leave to their gods. I wonder if that's how a lot of religions got their start.

So Eliyahu, Does the Kabalistic stuff specifically talk about the fairy/elf/brownie type creature? I would think that would be more of a European type thing. I had thought that having one would be kind of nice since in all the stories if you're nice to it it'll give you gifts or do chores for you. That wasn't really my experience though. The best I could hope for was to not get tricks played on me.