Full name: The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena

Author: C. W. Leadbeater Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Purchase/reserch links: ManyBooks Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9781438262345 1438262345

A refreshingly candid taxonomy of astral phenomena! Right away CW makes clear the vastness of his subject and the thinness of his outlines, but there's still such a rich variety of observation in this little book.Leadbeater is obviously an extremely gifted clairvoyant, and extremely progressive and non judgmental by early 1900s standards, but occasionally his analysis comes as a little morally dogmatic or literal. It doesn't help that his dry scientific tone seems like it was wrapped around his subject in order to make it credible. Credible to whom? 100 years later it's hard to imagine the mindset of the readers he was anticipating. I was also put off by the dedication of an entire chapter to discussing the mechanics of astral phenomena as manifest in the physical world. It is mostly him listing, one by one, stuff that happens at séances and how each is produced. But again, this was probably captivating information at the time it was written, when spiritualist séances were more common, and people were chomping at the bit for materialist explanations.Anyway, this book is chockfull of practical psychic information. There is much here that will provide context for people at any degree of astral awareness. It was easy for me to trust most of his insights, and feel the click of confirmation from an inner intuition. To the point, this book offers an affirmation of life from an arcane arena that is rarely so deeply studied.