Nature Spirits Said To Inhabit Earth’s Astral Plane & Interior: The Gnomes

The possibility of multiple universes and multiple dimensions is not the stuff of science fiction. These discussions have been had throughout history. Does life dwell in these realms?

Nature Spirits and Elementals: Esoteric Classics (Louise Off)

Plato once wrote:

“And upon the Earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others (elementals) dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them what the air is to us.”

Plato, Phaedo

Many ancient cultures have stories and texts which refer to ‘magical’ and ‘mythical’ lands that co-exist alongside our reality. Whether these places are actual physical places, or places that reside in ‘another dimension,’ for lack of a better term, has been the subject of great discussion within various material throughout the ages. These stories can be found in ancient Buddhism (like the legend of Shambhala) and Vedic philosophy, along with oral stories passed down from Native cultures throughout the world. Regardless of what tradition the stories come from, however, it’s clear these weren’t just fables, but in fact, a part of reality that many experienced and witnessed.

Philostratus, who was called “the Athenian,” was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. In his works, “The Life of Apollonius,” he explains,

“And they allowed Apollonius to ask questions; and he asked them of what they thought the cosmos was composed; but they replied; “Of elements.” “Are there then four?” he asked. “Not four,” said Larchas, “but five.” “And how can there be a fifth,” said Apollonius, “alongside of water and air and earth and fire?” “There is the ether,” replied the other, “which we must regard as the stuff of which gods are made; for just as all mortal creatures inhale the wire, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether.” “Am I,” said Apollonius, “to regard the universe as a living creature?” “Yes,” said the other.”

– The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus, 220AD

The idea of gnomes or dwarfs dwelling alongside human beings might seem ridiculous to many readers, but this doesn’t change the fact that some of the world’s most brilliant scholars have critically examined the lore and evidence.

They are one of multiple “elementals.”

So, who are the gnomes? Perhaps one of the best places to seek the answer to this question is through the writings of Manly P. Hall, whose work, according to Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, “is a classic in the world’s literature” that “will guide histories, philosophers and lay seekers of esoteric wisdom for centuries.” In his book The Secret Teachings of All Ages, An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy, 1928, Hall describes the Gnomes as such:

“The elementals who dwell in that attenuated body of the earth which is called the ether are grouped together under the general heading of gnomes. (The name is probably derived from the Greek genomus, meaning earth dweller.)

Just as there are many types of human beings evolving through the objective physical elements of Nature, so there are many types of gnomes evolving through the subjective ethereal body of Nature. These earth spirits work so close in vibratory rate to the material earth that they have immense power over its rocks and flora, and also over the human and animal kingdoms.”

I’ve personally spent some time living amongst Native North Americans, and during this period I heard multiple stories of small “people in the rocks,” who were seen by many within the community, and most often by children. They possessed magical abilities, like the ability to walk through giant rocks, for example.

“There is abundant evidence of the fact that small children often see the gnomes, insomuch as their contact with the material side of Nature is not yet complete, and they still function more or less consciously in the invisible worlds.”

- Hall

According to Hall, the gnomes have families, governments, and communities, just like we do. They wear clothing, and are very fond of food.

According to Paracelsus, a German-Swiss physician and alchemist (like Issac Newton) who established the role of chemistry in medicine, in his Philosophia Occulta, translated by Franz Hartmann:

“Man lives in the exterior elements and the Elementals live in the interior elements. The latter have dwellings and clothing, manners and customs, languages and governments of their own, in the same sense as the bees have their queens and herds of animals their leaders.”

Gnomes are nature spirits (elements), and many scholars agree that, when it comes to their rare interaction with man, they are faithful and true, and also very trustworthy. However, one must not betray their trust, because they could cause much sorrow and destruction in retaliation. As long as man was in service to others, the gnomes would work with them and protect them, but “if he sought to use their aid selfishly to gain temporal power they would turn upon him with unrelenting fury. The same was true if he sought to deceive them.”

On the other hand, some have described them as difficult to manage, malicious, tricky, and treacherous. Perhaps if they were to describe human beings, the same descriptions would fit, as not all of us share the same traits.

Hall also points to the fact that the elementals, one group being the gnomes, were also touched upon in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where earth spirits meet at certain times of the year in great conclave. Where “the elementals all gather to rejoice in the beauty and harmony of Nature and the prospects of an excellent harvest.”

Entities Existing Within the Non-Material World

As mentioned in the article linked above regarding Shambhala, many of these lands exist in a world that’s separate from our own. Paracelsus believed, as did many others, that the gnomes are only visible at certain times and only to those “en rapport with their ethereal vibrations.” That being said, many also believed that these Nature Spirits also had a physical/material composition which allowed them to function in both the material and non-material worlds.

In all facets of life, including science, we continue to rely on the measurements of the material world, searching for the God particle and more, despite the fact that groundbreaking science has shown that at the quantum level, a majority of what we call the physical material world isn’t really physical at all — that most of our reality is made up of that which we cannot perceive with our senses. Human beings do not even see all levels of the light spectrum, so who knows what we could be missing?

If science is confirming this ‘invisible’ world, who is to say that there are not lifeforms that dwell within these worlds are are also invisible to us at times? Again, lifeforms existing within these places have been the subject of lore for thousands of years, so should we really just brush all of this information off as ‘mythical?’ Our ancients continue to be proven correct in various fields, like health and quantum physics, for example. Heck, René Descartes, a 17th-century philosopher, proposed a mechanistic view of the universe where space was filled with a subtle, invisible substance called "ether" (or aether), which he believed was responsible for transmitting forces and shaping matter through vortices. This a popular view today from various quantum physicists.

Democritus, a pre-socratic philosopher, surmised that different kinds of matter consist of different types or arrangements of atoms!

I’ll leave you with this quote from Abbe de Villars, an author and French clergyman born in 1635:

“The earth is filled well nigh to its center with Gnomes, people of slight stature, who are the guardians of treasures, minerals and precious stones. They are ingenious, friends of man, and easy to govern.”