48 @ The Secret Lfe feNturephysical plane," according to Hodson, but which appeared to produce
for them a highly pleasurable astral sensation.
Hodson could see that it had the effect of disturbing and exciting
their astral body-a cloud of unorganized matter roughly twice the
size of the physical. Radiations from the center of this astral body (ap-
proximately at the solar plexus) swept through their whole astral body
in waves and ripples, causing its colors to become more intense, allow-
ing the gnome to enjoy to the fullness the effects produced.
With yet another type of earth spirit, the elf, Hodson says his expe-
rience was limited; elves did not seem to be common in his area.The
ones he had encountered racing about the ground under the old
beeches in the woods at Cottingley in August of 1921 had been only a
few inches high, hands and feet out of all proportion to their bodies,
legs thin, ears large and pointed, differing from other nature spirits
chiefly in that they did not appear to be clothed in any reproduction
of human attire.To Hodson their bodily constitution consisted of one
solid mass of gelatinous substance, entirely without interior organiza-
tion, surrounded by a small green aura. Small oval wings of a glistening
semitransparent substance, not used for flight, nevertheless trembled
and quivered at every movement.
In a glade a few miles from Preston Hodson did find such elflike
creatures, diminutive, only an inch or so high. Very numerous, they
made a curious chattering sound as they moved through the grass
wholly absorbed in exploring the fairy pathways in what to them was
a jungle. Their auras caused the etheric double of the grass to vibrate
more quickly as they passed. As Hodson watched these grass elfin fly
short distances in a clumsy way, with feet pointed down and forward,
more like a swing than a flight, a succession of tiny globules of light
steadily issued from their heads, which Hodson perceived as thought-
forms, all exactly the same, connected by a thread of light, as if the elves
were talking to themselves.
Mannikin is the name given by Hodson to all the fairy people he
encountered of male appearance whom he could not classify as either
gnome, brownie, or elf but who exhibited some of the characteristics
of each, together with certain specific features of their own. He found
mannikins in connection with trees, hedges, bracken, grass, heather,