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Theetheric plane (see alsoetheric body) is a term introduced intoTheosophy byCharles Webster Leadbeater andAnnie Besant to represent the subtle part of the lowerplane of existence. It represents the fourth [higher] subplane of thephysical plane (ahyperplane), the lower three being the states ofsolid,liquid, andgaseous matter. The idea was later used by authors such asAlice Bailey,Rudolf Steiner,Walter John Kilner and others.
The termaether (also written as "ether") was adopted from ancientGreek philosophy and science into Victorian physics (seeLuminiferous aether) and utilised byMadame Blavatsky to correspond toakasha, the fifth element (quintessence) ofHindu metaphysics.
The Greek wordaither derives from an Indo-Europeanrootaith- ("burn, shine"). Blavatsky also related the idea to the HinduPrana principle,[1] thevital, life-sustaining force of living beings, present in all natural processes of the universe. Prana was first expounded in theUpanishads, where it is part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mind. Blavatsky also tended to use the word "astral" indiscriminately for these supposed subtle physical phenomena. The esoteric concepts of Adi, theBuddhic plane, thecausal plane, and themonadic plane are also related to that of the etheric plane.[2]
Leadbeater and Besant[3] (both belonging to theAdyar School of Theosophy) conceived that the etheric plane constituted four higher subplanes of thephysical 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 subatomic physics.[4]
Similarly, according to theRosicrucian writings of American occultist and mysticMax Heindel[5] there is – in addition to the solids, liquids, and gases which compose theChemical Region of the Physical World – a finer grade ofmatter called ether that permeates theatomic structure of the earth and itsatmosphere. It is disposed in four grades ofdensity and is considered to be a kind of physical matter (the blue haze seen in mountain canyons is said to be in fact ether of the kind known to occult investigators aschemical ether). Associated there is also a type ofspiritual sight, that man will eventually develop, calledetheric vision.[6] Ether is reported to be of four kinds, or grades of density in our planetEarth; their names (from the lowest or most dense to the highest or most subtle one) and their relation to the human being, from the point of view of theseEsoteric Christian teachings, is as following:[7]