Devas 125When one of what Leadbeater calls "these great ones" has a new
idea connected with the plants or flowers under its charge it will, he
says, create a thought-form for the special purpose of carrying out that
idea: this usually manifests as an etheric model of the flower itself or as
a little creature that hangs around the plant or flower all through the
time that the buds are forming, gradually building them into the shape
and color of which the deva gave thought. "But as soon as the plant is
blly grown or the flower has bloomed, the thought-up creature's work
is over and its power exhausted." It simply dissolves, because, says
Leadbeater, the will to do that piece of work was the only soul it had.
To see devas, says Leadbeater, all that is required is a little clair-
voyance at the right moment.And when they see a human being, says
Hodson, especially one who can see them and even understand them
and converse with them, they almost all show a great surprise and de-
1ight.According to the prolific writer on theosophy, A.E. Powell, devas
are often near at hand and willing to expound and exempli@ subjects
along their own line to any human being sufficiently developed to ap-
preciate them.
The more evolved devas who have reached the level of self-
consciousness are said to become guardians of special groups of hu-
mans or even of nations; they are attached to work of importance in
the scheme of evolution, either on the physical or other planes, acting
as messengers who carry out the will of higher angelic beings.
As beings at a higher stage of development than humans, devas are
able to work on higher levels of existence. To advanced clairvoyants
they appear on the three different and subtler planes to which the
Hindus have given the names Kama, Rupa, and Arupa. Kamadevas
have as their lowest body the astral. Rupadevas operate on the lower
mental plane.Arupadevas exist in bodies of the higher mental or causal
matter. But for Rupadevas and Arupadevas to manifest on the astral
plane, says Powell, is at least as rare as for an astral entity to materialize
on the physical plane.
Hodson describes encounters with a variety of devas, not only tree and
plant devas, but mountain devas, landscape devas, and higher-ranking
devas in charge of humans and their habitations. In the west of England,