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  Angelic Contacts

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    The above are a few of the many wonderful Illustrations by Ethylwynne Quail (R.A.), a gifted South African painter and sculptor, who illustrated Mr. Hodson’s book, The Kingdom of the Gods, T.P.H. Adyar (1952). Mr. Hodson would often watch an angel (deva) on station over a mountain top for up to three days before it would be painted from detailed sketches and descriptions given to Miss Quail. This is such a significant book that it is still in print today after many reprints, and it is highly recommended as a classic in its field.

    The word “deva” and “angel” are used to a certain extent interchangeably. “Deva” is a Sanskrit term and means a celestial, shining being, whilst “angel” which is in more common use, means a messenger, but does not cover the full range of activity of these beings who belong to a parallel evolution to humanity. There are traditionally seven orders of angels mentioned in The Bible, but in actual fact according to Mr. Hodson’s perception there are many more, being the creative and directive intelligence behind various universal qualities such as love, music, power etc. They have been described as “cosmic engineers”.

  Kundalinivisitation_image.jpgThe development of Mr. Hodson’s connection with the Angelic (Deva) Kingdom started as a boy, when he was temporarily ensouled by an angelic being during a waking vision. It turned out that this was a kundalini deva that he came to know again later in life, a deva of the awakening force in the universe known as the kundalini (the serpent power): 

“I was perhaps only five or six years old …. It seemed that from within the sun itself, a huge birdlike figure of fire, with a long tail shaped like that of a lyre bird, descended and entered my whole body through the crown of my head, almost setting up a blazing fire within me.” 

Light of the Sanctuary – The Occult Diary of Geoffrey Hodson p.1 

    Then later, many years later whilst resting in a meditative state on a hillside overlooking a beech forest at the village of Sheepscombe in Gloucestershire, England, his archangelic teacher, known as Bethelda appeared and communicated with him. This information generated several books, commencing with The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men, which have become landmarks in advice on how the devas are prepared to co-operate with us providing we play our part:

  Bethelda Visitation.jpg

“Jane (G.H.’s first wife) and I were lying on a hillside at the edge of what remained of the beech forest …. Quite suddenly, and entirely unsought, I had a tremendous expansion of consciousness. It seemed that the whole heavens opened and became filled with light, and I was caught up into a height which I had never hitherto attained. All was radiant with “the light that never was on sea or land”. Gradually, as I tried to adjust myself to this new experience in the higher consciousness (the Causal level, at least, I believe it to have been), I became aware of the presence of a great angelic Being from Whose consciousness to mine there began to flow a stream of ideas concerning the life, the forces, and the consciousness of the universe as these realities express themselves in both angels and human beings. So far as I was able to discern in the brilliant light, He was supernally beautiful – is supernally beautiful, I should say, for the link with Him has never been broken. (I use the masculine pronoun for convenience only.) He was majestic, godlike, impassive, and utterly impersonal. Eventually, He communicated to me that He might be known by the name of Bethelda. A Hebrew friend, an expert in the Kabbalah, later gave me the meaning of this name as “the Angel of the House of God”.

Light of the Sanctuary – The Occult Diary of Geoffrey Hodson p.16 

    This contact with the Archangel Bethelda subsequently culminated in Mr. Hodson being met in every country that he visited by members of the Angelic Hosts, who recognised him as an Ambassador between the Human and the Angelic (Devic) Kingdom - they would sometimes greet him as a "Kundalini brother" as they observed the same spiritual fire was developed in him as powered their own existence. They would offer their assistance whilst he was resident in that country and suggest other areas of devic activity for his investigation. In The Occult Diary he explained how Bethelda had brought about this privileged international contact by placing a seal within his aura which drew other members of the Angelic Hosts to him. On another occasion he stated how helpful certain orders of Healing Angels had been in his healing work, not only with sufferers who came to him, but also in renewing his own energies when they were flagging due to overwork.

Fairies_image.jpg    His investigation of the junior members of the devic kingdom, the nature spirits, was initially instigated by the excited behaviour of his fox terrier, Peter (The Occult Diary pp. 11-12). This started a project by Mr. Hodson which explained the appearance and function of nature spirits resulting in some significant early books, Fairies at Work and at Play T.P.H. 1925 and The Kingdom of Faerie T.P.H. 1927. Of course it is understood that many people regard such a topic as mere fantasy, but its prevalence in the folklore of every country of the world and the number of people down the centuries who claim sightings of these beings, should be sufficient to suspect that there really is a factual basis to fairy lore. That at any rate was an opinion entertained by the famous psychologist C.G. Jung who answered a question along those lines in the affirmative, during his Tavistock Lectures to a group of English medical doctors in 1935. In another sense once a person understands that there are subtle etheric energies which are utilized in the growth of plants and animals, then it does not seem at all surprising that there should be intelligences PrincessTePuea_image.jpgwhich exist to direct and optimize these, which is essentially the function of the nature-spirits.

    Mr. Hodson, being recognized as a seer and prophet by many influential people who were important in their own culture, meant that sometimes they would open up and tell him about their own inner traditions. Such, for example happened at a privileged meeting with the Maori Princess Te Puea, described by some as the greatest Maori woman of her generation, who apparently herself possessed certain mystical capacities.  She told him about the race of fairies known to the Maori as the Patupaiarehe. I see that an interesting and even remarkable acknowledgement of Maori fairy lore along these lines has been made by New Zealand Post, which in 2000 put out an illustration of one of these mountain fairies on a postal stamp:

Patupaaiarehe_image.jpgThere is also some useful explanation of the Patupaiarehe at the source site of this illustration:

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/patupaiarehe/1 

 

     In the area of fairy lore as in other areas Mr. Hodson simply documented his matter of fact investigations and through his books popularized the subject in a way that it had never really been done before in that sort of detail, although of course other people of other  times such as Paracelsus (16th Century) had made contributions and modern post-Blavatsky theosophists such as C.W. Leadbeater and Dr. Rudolf Steiner (later to become an Anthroposophist) had given some data  from their own researches. Mr. Hodson, however, was the global authority, of his time on the subject of practical  Angelology. His illustrated books on the subject The Kingdom of The Gods, T.P.H. (1952) and Clairvoyant Investigations, Quest Books, (1984) contain expert, informative and detailed data about the appearance and functions of this parallel evolution and can usefully be read by all students who are interested in the subject matter. His other Angel books (see Booklist) contain further fascinating descriptions of the Angels and their work and function. His contribution in this area is also an important piece of demystification, so badly needed today as a corrective in our materialistic society, when even some religious authorities have relegated the Angelic Hosts to a purely symbolic significance. Mr. Hodson clearly portrays the Angelic (Devic) Kingdom as a very real, but parallel Kingdom to our own, whose work brings about the evolution of both consciousness and form on earth and throughout the universe. Although the devas often help and co-operate with humanity in various ways, it is a characteristic piece of human self-centredness to think that they exist soley for that purpose. They actually exist to serve God in his universe along their own line of evolution and consequently function in many different areas (communication with humanity being but one). When individual humans co-operate with the Divine Plan they are helped by the devas, when they work against it, the devas become the impartial mechanism whereby negative karma is reaped through the so called demonic aspect or what in the Jewish Kabbalah is referred to as The Inverse Sephiroth. 

 

     Landscape_mahadeva.jpgMr. Hodson found his adopted home of New Zealand a particularly rich source of research for angelic activity. In 1979 he was drawn to investigate the devic life of Tongariro National Park in the North Island of New Zealand. A strange confluence of opportunities occurs here. On the one hand it is very isolated natural region and on the other hand it receives a great number of domestic and international visitors for its world-famous walk called The Tongariro Crossing - a seven hour journey through fascinating volcanic landscape which winds between the mountains of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. Other visitors flood into the area for the ski fields on the adjoining mountain of Ruapehu and there are lots of interesting smaller walks such as the Silica Rapids and the Taranaki Falls which are places of scenic beauty. The volcanic activity and the subterranean fires in the mountains are also intimately connected with kundalini activity - the primal power - which at the right time can hasten spiritual awakening in human beings. In fact, from my own visit to the area I formed the opinion that the area is a vast initiation chamber where very strange awakening experiences may be undergone under the direction of the great kundalini archangels who preside over those mountains. According to Chateau_image.jpgMr. Hodson in his book Clairvoyant Investigations (1984) some of those archangelic beings even have a consciousness embracing global activity. An appreciation of this may be glimpsed from one of the illustrations of the archangelic kundalini deva that was painted to Mr. Hodson's description and which presides over the area. I have also supplied a photograph taken of Mr. Hodson when he surveyed the area in 1979 - this was taken at The Tongariro Chateau where he and Mrs. Hodson stayed and shows Mt. Ngauruhoe in the background. Mt. Tongariro is a smaller volcano which adjoins it, but is out of view in this picture.

 

     An important feature of Mr. Hodson’s mission was to mediate to humanity the fact that the devas/angels are already active in unseen ways in our lives, but they are prepared to play an even greater part if we are able to open ourselves to them. The following selections that Mr. Hodson himself made from his book, The Brotherhood of Angels and of Men (1927), explains the angel perspective as communicated to him by the Archangel Bethelda:

Bethelda_image.jpg  “The first essential on your side is a belief in our existence.”

  “In your scientific studies, as they take you deeper into the super-physical realms, be ever observant of our place in the manipulation and adjustment of Nature’s forces. Behind every phenomenon you will find a member of our race.”

  “So long as the presence of our invisible hosts is ignored by science there will be gaps in their knowledge, gaps which can only be filled by a comprehension of our place in the scheme of things.”

  "Those who would find us must learn to contact Nature far more intimately than is at present possible to the average man. In addition to a deeper appreciation of the beauty of Nature there must be that reverence for all her forms and moods, for all her manifold expression, which springs from a recognition of the presence of the Divine of which these forms, moods, and beauties are but the outward expression.”

  “Members of the angel hosts are hovering over the heads of all congregations, standing beside every priest; yet how often do they find themselves shut out by barriers upraised by human minds! Let priest and congregation alike throw open their minds to a recognition of our presence in their midst; soon, very soon, some will begin to hear the beating of our wings, to feel an added power in their work, and, later, an increasing happiness in their lives.”

  “Our sphere of usefulness to God will be enlarged by sharing yours; your lives will be enriched, your world made glad by the inauguration of the Brotherhood of Angels and of Men.”

  “Discord and ugliness must vanish from the world; to remove it is our task and yours – but yours first.”

  “To every man and woman in every walk of life in the lower worlds, the angels come. Bearing their perfume, the aroma of eternal ecstasy, they would waken in the hearts of every man a craving for that everlasting bliss; would give to men the knowledge that they have a heavenly home, would show them in the mirror of the mind the reflection of their heavenly self – the vision of their own immortality.”

Finally, the concluding quotation summing up the essence of Mr. Hodson’s remarkable illustrated book The Kingdom of the Gods (1952), said to be received from a mountain god:

  “The Gods await the conscious re-union of the mind of man with the Universal Mind. Humanity awakens slowly. Matter-blinded through centuries, few men as yet perceive the mind within the substance, the life within the form.

  "In search of power and wealth, men have traversed the whole earth, have penetrated the wilds, scaled the peaks and conquered the polar wastes. Let them now seek within the form, scale the heights of their own consciousness, penetrate its depth, in search of that inner Power and Life by which alone they may become strong in will and spiritually enriched.

  “He who thus throws open his life and mind to the Universal Life and Mind indwelling in all things will enter into union therewith and to him the Gods will appear.”

 

         Bill Keidan

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