Astral Plane

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934) was an English clergyman who became known as a theosophical writer, largely for the visions he claimed to see through clairvoyance. He came from a churchly family: his uncle, William Wolfe Capes, was a well-known Anglican clergyman who helped secure Leadbeater's ordination as an Anglican priest in 1879, at Farnham, under the Bishop of Winchester. Reading A.P. Sinnett's The Occult World drew Leadbeater toward the occult, and in 1883 he joined the Theosophical Society. A year later, in London, he met Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Letters from the Mahatmas, which reached him around then, encouraged him to travel to India, and he arrived at Adyar in 1884. That move began a long career within the Society.

His best-known writings include The Astral Plane (1895), a study of the non-physical realm that theosophists call the astral plane, along with Reincarnation (1898) and A Textbook of Theosophy (1912). From 1895 he enjoyed a close friendship with Annie Besant (1847-1933). It is said that Besant let her own psychic gifts fade over time, while his grew stronger. The two collaborated on Thought Forms (1901) and Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements (1919).