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Devas
To the Eastern mind the word deva conjures up a host of "shining
ones," astral creatures of almost infinite variety and function, creative
powers all around the world.To theosophist and anthroposophist, devas
represent a lower order of angels, responsible for handling the realm of
elemental nature spirits.
Along with the devas that take care of fruit, vegetables, and flow-
ers-as described by such sensitives as Findhorn's Dorothy McLean
and Perelandra's Machaelle Small Wright-Hodson and Leadbeater
describe others that oversee copse, wood, mountain, and valley. Some
deal in very broad outlines, vast landscapes, huge elemental forces.
Earth devas are described as attending leys beneath the ground, along
the plate lines and other features of the earth's crust; they have been in-
terpreted in folklore as dragons and great worms.
The higher devas, says Hodson, know the p1an:"The will of the cre-
ator finds expression in them, and they are its agents and channels in
manifested Nature." The plan is then disseminated by a kind of mental
osmosis to all the ranks below them, each lower group having its leader,
responsible to the group above.
Though astral by nature, says Hodson, devas can assume etheric
bodies and usually appear to humans in human form, though often of
gigantic size, differing in appearance according to the order to which
they belong, the functions they perform, and the level of evolution at-
tained.
Gardner describes deva consciousness as being much freer than
human consciousness, but he says their mentality and sense of respon-
sibility vary according to their development. They are credited with