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tual beings from the cosmos. They are trying to gain a foothold in
earthly existence-which they can only do if human beings fill them-
selves with thoughts about the spiritual beings in the cosmos."
Seers, adds Hodson, both ancient and modern, have all along said
that we possess within ourselves all the instruments of research we can
ever need.Theosophy affirms-on the basis of actual experiencethat
there are inactive senses in every human being, which, when stimulated
to activity, make possible the investigation of a normally unseen world
of nonphysical matter all around us. This sixth sense, now latent, wdl
one day be used as a natural means of cognition and investigation. It is
this sense, says Leadbeater, developed by means of expanding con-
sciousness through meditation and sensitizing the vehicles of conscious-
ness,"which wlll open up to the observer the living denizens of the vast
hosts of astral beings, protean forms of the ceaseless tide of elemental
essence."
In his major works Steiner lists the systematic exercises and train-
ing that may be undertaken by anyone with assured results if faith-
fully followed. According to Steiner, the body used at the first stage of
clairvoyance is the astral body: "As clairvoyant consciousness lights up
within us we get a living view of the beings of theThird Hierarchy and
of their offspring the nature spirits." For the second stage, the etheric
body is used; "and if one learns to use one's etheric body as an instru-
ment of clairvoyance one can gradually perceive everything in the spir-
itual world belonging to beings of the Second Hierarchy."
These worlds all around us are described as freely interpenetrating,
not as distinct and unconnected substance, but rather as melting one
into the other. It is not, says Hodson, some new and strange hnd of
matter, but ordinary physical matter subdivided more finely and vi-
brating more rapidly on the etheric, astral, and mental planes. But only
for those developed individuals who can extend their own etheric
body as tentacles is it possible, according to Steiner, to know the beings
of the Second Hierarchy and also the group souls (or devas) that con-
trol the various kingdoms of nature. On attaining this second stage of
clairvoyance, Steiner describes a very definite experience: "One seems
to go out of oneself, no longer feeling enclosed within one's skin. And