Infinitely more attractive to Hodson were spirits of the water,
known as undines or nymphs, invariably naked and female, with deli-
cately molded bodies.
In the ocean shallows he found sea nymphs more keenly alive than
spirits of the land, in shape just like a human female of radiant beauty,
but not winged like land fairies.These he found living in colonies both
under the sea and on the surface, riding the waves and sometimes sink-
ing into the depths with cries ofjoy. He could hear them call to one
another in loud voices, "crying in exaltation as the life forces of which
they are composed arouse in them an almost unimagined joy."
Constantly changing into brilliant and relatively formless flashes of
light, then back again to human form, these sea nymphs, says Hodson,
had no permanent etheric body but were able to assume a temporary
one for contact with the physical plane.Their center of consciousness
appeared to be a brightly burning flame in the head as they joyfully
bathed in the powerful magnetism of the sea, absorbing some of the
magnetic force and, after a moment's assimilation, discharging it.Their
existence appeared to Hodson to be vivid in the extreme, far beyond
anything possible to anyone living in a dense physical form as they
continued to absorb and discharge force, their astral body swelling to
twice its normal size, enormously quickened by the experience.
Hodson caught one sea fairy momentarily motionless, eyes blazing,
arms outstretched in a shimmering aureole ofwhite light, fully charged
with force that radiated six feet in every direction, rejoicing in the
sensation of vitality. The force, when discharged, carried with it for
Hodson the impressed vibration of the sea spirit. As the sensation
waned, the process was repeated.
Other fairy forms, in human shape, were described as scurrying
over the surface of the water, among them small sea fairies, riding the
waves, rejoicing in the electric vitality borne in with the incoming
tide. More active and "virile" than land fairies, they "manifested a qual-
ity of fierceness in their exhalation and joy, as if taking on the power of
the sea."
Larger varieties, much farther out from land, appeared as green
etheric monsters, fishlike, yet unlike any fish known to Hodson, with
joyce
(Joyce)
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