Etheric Plane

The etheric plane (see also Etheric body) is a term introduced into Theosophy by Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant to represent one of the planes of existence in neo-Theosophical and Rosicrucian cosmology. It represents the fourth subplane of the physical plane (a hyperplane), the lower three being the states of solid, liquid, and gaseous matter. The idea was popularised in books by Alice Bailey, Rudolf Steiner, Walter John Kilner and others. The term aether (also written as "ether") was adopted from ancient Greek philosophy and science into Victorian physics (see Luminiferous aether) and utilised by Madame Blavatsky to correspond to akasha, the fifth element (quintessence) of Hindu metaphysics.

The Greek word aither derives from an Indo-European root aith- ("burn, shine"). Blavatsky also related the idea to the Hindu Prana principle, the vital, life-sustaining force of living beings, present in all natural processes of the universe. Prana was first expounded in the Upanishads, where it is part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mind. Blavatsky also tended to use the word "astral" indiscrimininately for these supposed subtle physical phenomena.

Leadbeater and Besant (Adyar School of Theosophy), and later Alice Bailey, though, in formalising Theosophical cosmology around 1913, conceived that the etheric plane constituted four higher subplanes of the physical plane. According to the Theosophist Geoffrey A. Farthing, Leadbeater used the term, because of its resonance in the physical sciences, to describe his clairvoyant investigations of sub-atomic physics.

The majority of modern physicists, in spite of acknowledging the phenomena known as vacuum energy and the existence of other unsolved problems in physics that are unexplained by current standard theories, continue to maintain that there is no need to imagine that a medium for propagation of electromagnetic waves exists (see also aether theories). However, there have been a number of physicists in western countries whose research, currently considered fringe and controversial among the mainstream scientific community, shows evidence of the existence of the dynamic aether possessing a fluid crystal-like structure and permeating all space, in an apparent accordance with recent experiments and as formerly outlined by Theosophical and Rosicrucian esoteric schools; also their work attempts to provide solutions to tap this energy source which regulates quantum activity for the generation of pollution-free power and other technological applications.