THE ASTRAL BODY
AND OTHER ASTRAL PHENOMENA
The Theosophical Publishing House, London, England; Wheaton,Ill, U.S.A.; Adyar,
Chennai, India
Published in 1927, reprinted in 1954 and 1965
Part 1 of 2
click on this line for Part 2 of 2
By the same Author in this series
The Etheric Double
The Mental Body
The Causal Body
The Solar System
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated with gratitude and appreciation to all those whose
painstaking labour
and researches have provided the materials out of which
it has been compiled
"To know man is to
know God.
To know God is to know man.
To study the universe is to learn both God
and man;
for the universe is the expression of the Divine Thought,
and the universe is mirrored in man.
Knowledge is necessary if the SELF would become free
and know Itself as Itself alone."
Annie Besant
CHAPTER | PAGE | |
Introduction | XIII | |
1 | General Description | 1 |
2 | Composition and Structure | 4 |
3 | Colours | 11 |
4 | Functions | 23 |
5 | Chakrams | 31 |
6 | Kundalini | 38 |
7 | Thought Forms | 43 |
8 | Physical Life | 64 |
9 | Sleep-Life | 82 |
10 | Dreams | 93 |
11 | Continuity of Consciousness | 104 |
12 | Death and the Desire-Elemental | 107 |
13 | After-Death Life : Principles | 112 |
14 | After-Death Life : Particulars | 120 |
15 | After-Death Life ; Special Cases | 138 |
16 | The Astral Plane | 146 |
17 | Miscellaneous Astral Phenomena | 157 |
18 | The Fourth Dimension | 163 |
19 | Astral Entities : Human | 168 |
20 | Astral Entities : Non-Human | 176 |
21 | Astral Entities : Artificial | 190 |
22 | Spiritualism | 194 |
23 | Astral Death | 206 |
24 | Re-Birth | 209 |
25 | The Mastery of Emotion | 215 |
26 | Development of Astral Powers | 224 |
27 | Clairvoyance in Space and Time | 234 |
28 | Invisible Helpers | 238 |
29 | Discipleship | 252 |
30 | Conclusion | 258 |
Index | 261 |
AUTHORS QUOTED
Ancient Wisdom | Besant, Annie | 1897 | A W |
Astral Plane | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1910 | A P |
Changing World | Besant, Annie | 1909 | C W |
Clairvoyance | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1908 | C |
Crowd in Peace and War | Conway, Sir Martin | 1915 | C P W |
Death and After | Besant, Annie | 1901 | D A |
Dreams | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1903 | D |
Hidden Side of Things -Vol.1 | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1913 | H S I |
Hidden Side of Things -Vol.2 | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1913 | H S II |
Inner Life -Vol. 1 | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1910 | I L 1 |
Inner Life -Vol. 2 | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1911 | I L 2 |
Introduction to Yoga | Besant, Annie | 1908 | I Y |
Invisible Helpers | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1911 | I H |
Karma | Besant, Annie | 1897 | K |
Key to Theosophy | Blavatsky, H.P. | 1893 | K T |
Law of Psychic Phenomena | Hudson, T.J. | 1905 | L P P |
Life after Death | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1912 | L A D |
London Lectures 1907 | Besant, Annie | 1907 | L L |
Man and His Bodies | Besant, Annie | 1900 | M B |
Man Visible and Invisible | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1902 | M V I |
Masters and the Path | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1925 | M P |
Monad | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1920 | M |
Occult Chemistry | Besant, A. & Leadbeater, C.W. | 1919 | O C |
Occult World | Sinnett, A.P. | 1906 | O W |
Other Side of Death | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1904 | O S D |
Reincarnation | Besant, Annie | 1898 | R |
Science of the Emotions | Bhagavan Das | 1900 | S E |
Secret Doctrine - Vol. 1 | Blavatsky, H.P. | 1905 | S D I |
Secret Doctrine - Vol. 2 | Blavatsky, H.P. | 1905 | S D II |
Secret Doctrine - Vol. 3 | Blavatsky, H.P. | 1897 | S D III |
Self and its Sheaths | Besant, Annie | 1903 | S S |
Seven Principles of Man | Besant, Annie | 1904 | S P |
Seven Rays | Wood, Ernest | 1925 | S R |
Some Glimpses of Occultism | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1909 | S G O |
Some Occult Experiences | Van Manen, J. | 1913 | S O E |
Study in Consciousness | Besant, Annie | 1904 | S C |
Textbook of Theosophy | Leadbeater, C.W. | 1914 | T B |
Theosophy and the New Psychology | Besant, Annie | 1909 | T N P |
Thought Forms | Besant, A. & Leadbeater, C.W. | 1905 | T F |
Thought Power: Its Control and Culture | Besant, Annie | 1903 | T P |
N.B. In a few cases, where the unsupported opinions of the compiler are given, they are indicated by letters | Powell, A.E. | A.E.P. | |
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
COMPOSITION
AND STRUCTURE
THE
purpose of this book is to present to the student of Theosophy a condensed synthesis
of the information at present available concerning the Astral Body of man, together
with a description and explanation of the astral world and its phenomena. The
book is thus a natural sequel of The Etheric Double and Allied Phenomena published
in 1925.
As in the case of The Etheric Double, the compiler
has consolidated the information obtained from a large number of books, a list
of which is given, arranging the material, which covers a vast field and is exceedingly
complex, as methodically as lay within his power. It is hoped that by this means
present and future students of the subject will be saved much labour and research,
being able not only to find the information they require presented in a comparatively
small compass, but also, with the help of the marginal references, to refer,
should they so desire, to the original sources of information.
In order that the book may fulfil its purpose by being kept within reasonable
dimensions, the general plan followed has been to expound the principles underlying
astral phenomena, omitting particular examples or instances. Lecturers and others
who wish specific illustrations of the principles enunciated, will find the marginal
references useful as a clue to the places where the examples they seek may be
found.
Again, so far as the complexities and ramifications of the subject permit, the
method has been to explain the form side first, before the life side:
i.e., to describe first the objective mechanism of phenomena, and then the activities
of consciousness which are expressed through that mechanism. The careful student,
bearing this in [Page xiv ] mind, will
thus recognise many passages, which at first glance might appear to be repetitive,
in which the same phenomenon is described first from the point of view of the
outer material form and then again later from the point of view of the spirit
or consciousness.
It is hoped that the present volume may be followed by similar ones dealing with
man's Mental and Causal bodies, thus completing the consolidation of all information
so far available regarding man's constitution up to the Causal or Higher Mental
level.
There is today a great deal of information on these and similar subjects, but
it is for the most part scattered over large numbers of books. In order, therefore,
to make the whole of it available for the student, whose time for intensive study
is limited, such books as the present is intended to be, are (in the writer's
opinion) urgently needed. " The proper study of mankind is man : " and
the subject is so vast, so absorbing, and so important that everything possible
should be done to make readily accessible to all who thirst for such knowledge
the whole of the information which has so far been accumulated.
Arthur E.Powell
CHAPTER
I
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
[Page 1] BEFORE
proceeding to a detailed study of the astral body, and of phenomena associated
with it, it may be useful to lay before the student a brief outline of the ground
it is proposed to cover, in order to give in proper perspective a view of the
whole subject and of the relative dependence of its several parts.
Briefly, the astral body of man is a vehicle, to clairvoyant sight not unlike
the physical body, surrounded by an aura of flashing colours, composed of matter
of an order of fineness higher than that of physical matter, in which feelings,
passions, desires and emotions are expressed and which acts as a bridge or medium
of transmission between the physical brain and the mind, the latter operating
in the still higher vehicle — the mind-body.
While every man possesses and uses an astral body, comparatively few are conscious
of its existence or can control and function in it in full consciousness. In
the case of large numbers of persons it is scarcely more than an inchoate mass
of astral matter, the movements and activities of which are little under the
control of the man himself—the Ego. With others, however, the astral body
is a well-developed and thoroughly organised vehicle, possessing a life of its
own and conferring on its owner many and useful powers.
During the sleep of the physical body, an undeveloped man leads a dreamy, vague
existence, in his relatively primitive astral body, remembering little or nothing [Page
2] of his sleep-life when he re-awakens in his physical body.
In the case of a developed man, however, the life in the astral body, whilst
the physical body is wrapped in slumber, is active, interesting and useful, and
the memory of it may, under certain conditions, be brought down into the physical
brain. The life of such a man ceases to be a series of days of consciousness
and nights of oblivion, becoming instead a continuous life of unbroken consciousness,
alternating between the physical and the astral planes or worlds.
One of the first things a man learns to do in his astral body is to travel in
it, it being possible for the astral body to move, with great rapidity, and to
great distances from the sleeping physical body. An understanding of this phenomenon
throws much light on a large number of so-called "occult " phenomena,
such as " apparitions " of many kinds, knowledge of places never visited
physically, etc.
The astral body being par excellence the vehicle of feelings and emotions,
an understanding of its composition and of the ways in which it operates is of
considerable value in understanding many aspects of man's psychology, both individual
and collective, and also provides a simple explanation of the mechanism of many
phenomena revealed by modern psycho-analysis.
A clear understanding of the structure and nature of the astral body, of its
possibilities and its limitations, is essential to a comprehension of the life
into which men pass after physical death. The many kinds of " heavens", " hells " and
purgatorial existences believed in by followers of innumerable religions, all
fall naturally into place and become intelligible as soon as we understand the
nature of the astral body and of the astral world.
A study of the astral body will be of assistance also in our understanding of
many of the phenomena of the séance room and of certain psychic or non-physical
methods of healing disease. Those who are interested [Page
3] in what is termed the fourth dimension will find also a confirmation
of many of the theories which have been formulated by means of geometry and mathematics,
in a study of astral world phenomena, as described by those who have observed
them.
A study of the astral body of man thus takes us far afield and expands enormously
a conception of life based solely on the physical world and the purely physical
senses. As we proceed, we shall see that the physical senses, invaluable as they
are, by no means represent the limit of what man's vehicles may teach him of
the worlds in which he lives. The awakening into functioning activity of astral
faculties reveals a new world within the old world and, when a man becomes able
to read aright its significance, he will obtain such an expanded view of his
own life, and all nature, as will reveal to him the almost limitless possibilities
latent in man. From this, sooner or later but inevitably, there will come the
impulse, and later the unshakable determination, to master these worlds, and
himself, to rise superior to his earthly destiny, and to become an intelligent
co-operator with what has been aptly termed the Supreme Will in Evolution.
We will now proceed to study, in detail, the astral body and many astral phenomena
[Page 4]
Astral matter, being much finer than physical matter, interpenetrates
it. Every physical atom, therefore, floats in a sea of astral matter, which surrounds
it and fills every interstice in physical matter. It is of course, well known
that even in the hardest substance no two atoms ever touch one another, the space
between two adjacent atoms being in fact enormously larger than the atoms themselves.
Orthodox physical science long ago has posited an ether which interpenetrates
all known substances, the densest solid as well as the most rarefied gas; and
just as this ether moves with perfect freedom between the particles of densest
matter, so does astral matter interpenetrate it in turn, and moves with perfect
freedom among its particles. Thus a being living in the astral world might be
occupying the same space as a being living in the physical world ; yet each would
be entirely unconscious of the other, and would in no way impede the free movement
of the other. The student should thoroughly familiarise himself with this fundamental
conception, [Page 5] as, without
grasping it clearly, it is not possible to understand large numbers of astral
phenomena.
The principle of interpenetration makes it clear that the different realms of
nature are not separated in space, but exist about us here and now, so that to
perceive and investigate them no movement in space is necessary, but only an
opening within ourselves of the senses by means of which they can be perceived.
The astral world, or plane, is thus a condition of nature, rather than a locality.
It must be noted that a physical atom cannot be directly broken up into astral
atoms. If the force which whirls the (approximately) fourteen thousand million " bubbles
in koilon " into an ultimate physical atom be pressed back by an effort
of will over the threshold of the astral plane, the atom disappears, releasing
the " bubbles." The same force, working then on a higher level, expresses
itself, not through one astral atom, but through a group of forty-nine such atoms.
A similar relationship, represented by the number 49, exists between the atoms
of any two other contiguous planes of nature: thus an astral atom contains 495 or
282,475,249 " bubbles," a mental atom, 494 bubbles,
and so on.
There is reason to believe that electrons are astral atoms. Physicists state
that a chemical atom of hydrogen contains probably from 700 to 1000 electrons.
Occult research asserts that a chemical atom of hydrogen contains 882 astral
atoms. This may be a coincidence, but that does not seem probable.
It should be noted that ultimate physical atoms c are of two kinds, male and
female : in the male, force pours in from the astral world, passes through the
atom and out into the physical world : in the female, force passes in from the
physical world, through the atom, and out into the astral world, thus vanishing
from the physical world.
Astral matter corresponds with curious accuracy to [Page
6] the physical matter which it interpenetrates, each variety
of physical matter attracting astral matter of corresponding density. Thus solid
physical matter is interpenetrated by what we call solid astral matter: liquid
physical by liquid astral, i.e., by matter of the sixth sub-plane : and similarly
with gaseous and the four grades of etheric matter, each of which is interpenetrated
by the corresponding grade of astral matter.
Precisely as it is necessary that
the physical body should contain within its constitution physical matter
in all its conditions,
solid, liquid, gaseous
and etheric, so it is indispensable that the astral body should contain
particles of all the seven astral sub-planes, though, of course, the proportions
may
vary greatly in different cases.
The astral body of man thus being composed of matter of all seven grades,
it is possible for him to experience all varieties of desire to the fullest
possible
extent, the highest as well as the lowest.
It is the peculiar type of response possessed by astral matter which enables
the astral matter to serve as the sheath in which the Self can gain experience
of sensation.
In addition to the ordinary matter of the astral plane, that which is
known as the Third Elemental Kingdom, or simply as the Elemental Essence
of the astral plane, also enters largely into the composition of man's
astral body, and forms
what is called the " Desire-Elemental," which we shall deal
with more fully in later chapters.
Astral elemental essence consists of matter of the six lower levels of
the astral plane, vivified by the Second Outpouring, from the Second Person
of
the Trinity. Astral matter of the highest or atomic level, similarly vivified,
is known as Monadic Essence.
In an undeveloped man, the astral body is a cloudy, loosely organised,
vaguely outlined mass of astral matter, with a great predominance of
substances from
the lower grades; it is gross, dark in colour, and dense — often
so dense that the outline of the physical [Page
7] body is almost
lost in it — and is thus fitted to respond to stimuli connected
with the passions and appetites. In size, it extends in all directions
about ten or
twelve inches
beyond the physical body.
In an average moral and intellectual man the astral body is considerably
larger, extending about 18 inches on each side of the body, its materials
are more
balanced and finer in quality, the presence of the rarer kinds giving a
certain luminous quality to the whole, and its outline is clear and definite.
In the case of a spiritually developed man the astral body is still larger
in size and is composed of the finest particles of each grade of astral
matter, the higher largely predominating.
There is so much to be said regarding the colours of astral bodies that
the subject is reserved for a separate chapter. Here, however, it may
be stated
that in undeveloped types the colours are coarse and muddy, gradually
becoming more and more luminous as the man develops emotionally, mentally
and spiritually. The very name " astral," inherited from mediaeval alchemists, signifies " starry," being
intended to allude to the luminous appearance of astral matter.
As already said, the astral body of a man not only permeates the physical
body, but also extends around it in every direction like a cloud.
That portion of the astral body which extends beyond the limits of the
physical body is usually termed the astral "aura."
Intense feeling means a large aura. It may here be mentioned that increased
size of the aura is a prerequisite for Initiation, and the " Qualifications" should
be visible in it. The aura naturally increases with each Initiation.
The aura of the Buddha is said to have been three miles in radius.
The matter of the physical body having a very strong attraction for the
matter of the astral body, it follows that by far the greater portion (about
99 per
cent.) of the astral particles are compressed within the periphery of the
physical body, only the remaining [Page
8] 1 per cent, filling the
rest of the ovoid and forming the aura.
The central portion of the astral body thus takes the exact form of the
physical body and is, in fact, very solid and definite, and quite clearly
distinguishable
from the surrounding aura. It is usually termed the astral counterpart of the physical body. The exact correspondence of the astral body with
the physical,
however, is merely a matter of external form, and does not at all involve
any similarity of function in the various organs, as we shall see more
fully in
the chapter on Chakrams.
Not only man's physical body, but everything physical, has its corresponding
order of astral matter in constant association with it, not to be separated
from it except by a very considerable exertion of occult force, and even
then only to be held apart from it as long as force is being definitely
exerted
to that end. In other words, every physical object has its astral counterpart.
But as the astral particles are constantly moving among one another as
easily as those of a physical liquid, there is no permanent association
between any
one physical particle and that amount of astral matter which happens
at any given moment to be acting as its counterpart.
Usually the astral portion of an object projects somewhat beyond the
physical part of it, so that metals, stones, etc., are seen surrounded
by an astral
aura.
If some part of a man's physical body be removed, e.g., by amputation,
the coherence of the living astral matter is stronger than its attraction
towards
the severed portion of the physical. Consequently the astral counterpart
of the limb will not be carried away with the severed physical limb.
Since the
astral matter has acquired the habit of keeping that particular form,
it will continue to retain the original shape, but will soon withdraw
within the
limits of the maimed form. The same phenomenon takes place in the case
of a tree from
which a branch has been severed. [Page
9]
In the case of an inanimate
body, however, such as a chair or a basin, there is not the same kind
of individual life to maintain cohesion. Consequently, when the physical
object
is broken
the astral counterpart would also be divided.
Quite apart from the seven grades of matter, arranged in order of fineness,
there is also a totally distinct classification of astral matter,
according to its type. In Theosophical literature the degree of fineness
is usually designated the horizontal division, and the type the vertical division.
The types, of
which there are seven, are as thoroughly intermingled as are the
constituents of the atmosphere, and in every astral body there is matter
of all seven types, the proportion between them showing the disposition of
the man, whether he
be devotional or philosophic, artistic or scientific, pragmatic or
mystic.
The whole of the astral portion of our earth and of the physical planets,
together with the purely astral planets of our System, make up collectively
the astral body of the Solar Logos, thus showing that the old pantheistic
conception was a true one.
Similarly each of the seven types of astral matter
is to some extent, regarded as a whole, a separate
vehicle, and may be thought of as also the astral body
of a subsidiary Deity or Minister, who is at the same
time an aspect of the Deity, a kind of ganglion or force-centre in
Him. Hence the slightest thought, movement or alteration of any kind
in the subsidiary Deity is instantly reflected in some way or other in all
the
matter
of the corresponding type. Such psychic changes occur periodically: perhaps
they correspond
to in-breathing and out-breathing, or to the beating of the heart
with us on the physical plane. It has been observed that the movements
of the physical planets furnish a clue to the operation of the influences
flowing from these changes: hence
the rationale
of astrological science. Hence, further, any such alteration must
to some extent affect each man, in proportion to the amount of that type
of matter which he [Page
10] possesses
in his astral body. Thus, one change would affect the emotions, or
the mind, or both, another might intensify nervous excitement and
irritability, and
so on. It is this proportion which determines in each man, animal,
plant
or mineral
certain fundamental characteristics which never change — sometimes
called his note, colour, or ray.
To pursue this interesting line of thought further would take us beyond
the scope of this book, so the student is referred to The Hidden
Side of Things,
Vol. I, pp. 43-58.
There are seven sub-types in each type, making forty-nine sub-types in
all.
The type or ray is permanent through the whole planetary scheme, so that
an elemental essence (see p. 6) of type A will in due course ensoul minerals,
plants and animals of type A, and from it will emerge also human beings
of
the same type.
The astral body slowly but constantly wears away, precisely as does the
physical, but, instead of the process of eating and digesting food, the
particles which
fall away are replaced by others from the surrounding atmosphere. Nevertheless,
the feeling of individuality is communicated to the new particles as
they enter, and also the elemental essence included with each man's astral
body
undoubtedly
feels itself a kind of entity, and acts accordingly for what if considers
its own interests.[Page
11]
CHAPTER
3 To clairvoyant sight one of the principal features of
an astral body consists of the colours which are constantly playing
through it, these colours corresponding to, and being the expression in astral
matter
of feelings, passions and emotions. THE functions of the astral body may be roughly
grouped under three headings: — The fourth principle, Kâma,
is the life manifesting in the astral body and conditioned by it: its characteristic
is the attribute of feeling, which in rudimentary form is sensation, and
in complex form emotion, with many grades in between these two. This is
sometimes summed up as desire, that which is attracted or repelled by objects,
according as they give pleasure or pain. So close is the association of
Manas and Kâma that the Hindus speak of man
having five sheaths, one of which is for all manifestations of working intellect
and desire. These five are: - In the division used by Manu,
the prânamayakosha and the annamayakosha
are classed together, and known as the Bhûtâtman or elemental
self, or body of action. The vignânamayakosha and the manomayakosha he terms the body of feeling,
giving it the name Jîva: he defines it as that body in which the Knower,
the Kshetragna, becomes sensible of pleasure and of pains. In their external relations, the
vignânamayakosha and the manomayakosha,
especially the manomayakosha, are related to the Deva world. The Devas are
said to have "entered into" man, the reference being to the presiding
deities of the elements (see page 188). Those presiding deities give rise
to sensations in man, changing the contacts from without into [Page
28] sensations,
or the recognition of the contacts, from within, this being essentially a
Deva action. Hence the link with all these lower Devas, which, when supreme
control has been obtained, makes man the master in every region of the Universe. [Page
30]
We
come now to consider the third function of the astral body — as an
independent vehicle of consciousness and action. The full treatment of this
portion of
our subject — the use, development, possibilities and limitations of
the astral body on its own plane — will be dealt with step by step
in most of the succeeding chapters. For the present it will suffice to
enumerate very
briefly the principal ways in which an astral body can be used as an independent
vehicle of consciousness. These are as follows : — CHAKRAMS THE word Chakram is Sanskrit, and means literally a wheel, or
revolving disc. It is used to denote what are often called Force-Centres in
man. There are such Chakrams in all man's vehicles, and they are points of
connection at which force flows from one vehicle to another. They are also
intimately associated with the powers or senses of the various vehicles. The particles of the astral body are constantly flowing and swirling about
like those of boiling water: consequently, there are no special particles
which remain continuously in any of the Chakrams. On the contrary, all the
particles of the astral body pass through each of the Chakrams. Each Chakram has the function of awakening a certain power of response in
the particles, which flow through it, one Chakram the power of sight, another
that of hearing, and so on. Consequently, any one astral sense is not, strictly speaking, localised
or confined to any particular part of the astral body. It is rather the whole
of the particles of the astral body which possess the power of response.
A man, therefore, who has developed astral sight uses any part of the matter
of his astral body in order to see, and so can see equally well objects in
front, behind, above, below, or to either side. Similarly with all the other
senses. In other words, the astral senses are equally active in all parts
of the body. It is not easy to describe the substitute for language by means of which
ideas are communicated astrally. Sound in the ordinary sense of the word
is not possible in the astral world - in fact it is not possible even in
the higher part of the physical world. It would also not be correct to say
that the language of the astral world is thought-transference: the most that
could be said is that it is the transference of thoughts formulated in a
particular way. In the mental world a though is
instantaneously transmitted to the mind of another without any form of
words : therefore in the mental world language does not in the least matter.
But astral communications lies, as it were, half-way between the thought-transference
of the mental world and the concrete speech of the physical, and it is
still necessary to [Page 35] to
formulate the thought in words. For this exchange it is therefore necessary
that the two parties should have a language in common. The astral and
etheric Chakrams are in very close correspondence; but between them,
and interpenetrating them in a manner which is not readily describable,
there is a sheath or web of closely woven texture, composed of a single
layer of physical atoms much compressed and permeated by a special
form of Prâna. The divine life
which normally descends from the astral body to the physical is so attuned
as to
pass through this shield with perfect ease, but it is an absolute barrier
to all the forces which cannot use the atomic matter of both planes.
The web is natural protection to prevent a premature opening up of communication
between the planes, a development which could lead to nothing but injury. It is this which
normally prevents clear recollection of the sleep-life, and which also causes
the momentary unconsciousness which always occurs at death. But for this
provision the ordinary man could at any moment be brought by any astral entity
under the influence of forces with which he could not possibly cope. He would
be liable to constant obsession by astral entities desirous of seizing his
vehicles. 1- A great shock of the astral body, e.g., a sudden fright, may
rend apart this delicate organism and, as it is commonly expressed, drive
the man mad. A tremendous outburst of anger may also produce the same effect, as may
any other very strong emotion of an evil character which produces a kind
of explosion in the astral body. 2- The use of alcohol or narcotic drugs, including tobacco. These substances
contain matter which on braking up volatilises, some of it passing from the
physical to the astral plane. Even tea and coffee contain this matter, but
only in infinitesimal quantities, so that only long-continued abuse of them
would produce the effect. [Page
36] This deterioration or destruction may take place in two ways, according
to the type of person concerned and to the proportion of the constituents
in his etheric and astral bodies. In one type of person the
rush of volatilising matter actually burns away the web, and therefore
leaves the door open to all sorts of irregular forces and evil influences.
Those affected in this way fall into delirium tremens, obsession of
insanity. In the other type of person, the volatile constituents, in flowing through,
somehow harden the atom so that its pulsation is to a large extent checked
and crippled, and it is no longer capable of being vitalised by the particular
type of Prâna which welds it into a web. This results in a kind of
ossification of the web, so that instead of too much coming through from
one plane to another, we have very little of any kind coming through. Such
subjects tend to a general deadening down of their qualities, resulting in
gross materialism, brutality and animalism, in the loss of all finer feelings
and of the power to control themselves. This type is said to be very common
amongst slaves of the tobacco habit. All impressions which pass from one plane to the other are intended to come
only through the atomic sub-planes, but when the deadening process takes
place it infects not only other atomic matter, but even matter of the second
and third sub-planes, so that the only communication between the astral and
the etheric is from the lower sub-planes, upon which only unpleasant and
evil influences are to be found. The consciousness of the ordinary man cannot yet use pure atomic matter,
either of the physical or astral and therefore there is normally for him
no possibility of conscious communication at will between the two planes.
The proper way to obtain it is to purify the vehicles [Page
37] until the atomic matter in both is fully vivified, so
that all communications between the two may pass by that road. In that case
the web retains to the fullest degree its position and activity, and yet
is no longer a barrier to the perfect communication, while it still continues
to prevent close contact with the lower and undesirable sub-planes. 3 - The third way in which the web may be injured is that known in spiritualistic
parlance as "sitting for development". It is quite possible, in fact very common, for a man to have his astral
Chakras well developed, so that he is able to function freely on the astral
plane, and yet he may recollect nothing of his astral plane when he returns
to waking consciousness. With this phenomenon and its explanation we shall
deal more appropriately in the Chapter on Dreams. [Page
38] KUNDALINI The student is referred to The Etheric Double for a description
of Kundalini with special reference to the etheric body and its Chakras.
Here we are concerned with it in connection with the astral body. The three known forces which emanate from the Logos are: - 1. Fohat : which shows itself as electricity, heat, light motion, etc. 3. Kundalini : also known as the Serpent Fire. Each of these three forces exists on all planes of which we know anything.
So far as is known, no one of the three is convertible into any of the others:
they each remain separate and distinct. Kundalini is called in The Voice of the Silence "the
Fiery Power", and "the World's Mother". The first, because
it appears like liquid fire as it rushes through the body; and the course
it should follow is a spiral one, like the coils of a serpent. It is called
the World's Mother because through it our various vehicles may be vivified,
so that the higher worlds may open before us in succession. Its home in man's body is the Chakram at the base of the spine, and for
the ordinary man it lies there unawakened and unsuspected during the whole
of his life. It is far better for it to remain dormant until the man has
made definite moral development, until his will is strong enough to control
it and his thoughts pure enough to enable him to face its awakening without
injury. No one should experiment with it without definite instruction from
a teacher who thoroughly understands the subject, for the dangers [Page
39] connected with it are very real and terribly serious.
Some of them are purely physical. Its uncontrolled movement often produces
intense physical pain, and it may readily tear tissues, and even destroy
physical life. It may also do permanent injury to vehicles higher than the
physical. One very common effect of rousing it prematurely is that it rushes downwards
in the body instead of upwards, and thus excites the most undersirable passions
- excites them and intensifies their effects to such a degree that it becomes
quite impossible for the man to resist them, because a force has been brought
into play in whose presence he is quite helpless. Such men becomes satyrs,
monsters of depravity, the force being beyond the normal human power of resistance.
They may probably gain certain supernormal powers, but these will be such
as will bring them into touch with a lower order of evolution, with which
humanity is intended to hold no commerce, and to escape from its thralldom
may take more than one incarnation. There is a school of black magic which purposely uses this power in this
way, in order that through it may be vivified those lower Chakrams which
are never used by followers of the Good Law. The premature unfoldment of Kundalini has other unpleasant possibilities.
It intensifies everything in the man's nature, and it reaches the lower and
evil qualities more readily than the good. In the mental body, ambition is
very readily aroused, and soon swells to an incredibly inordinate degree.
It would probably bring with it a great intensification of intellect, accompagnied
by abnormal and satanic pride, such as is quite inconceivable to the ordinary
men. An uninstructed man who finds that Kundalini has been aroused by accident
should at once consult some one who fully understands these matters. The arousing of Kundalini - the method of doing which is not publicly known
- and the attempt to pass it through the Chakrams - the order of which is [Page
40] also deliberately concealed from the public - should
never be attempted except at the express suggestion of a Master, who will
watch over His pupil during the various stages of the experiment. The most solemn warnings are given by experienced occultists against in
any way attempting to arouse Kundalini, except under qualified tuition, because
of the real and great dangers involved. As is said in the Hathayogapradipika ; "It
gives liberation to Yogis and bondage to fools". (III, 107). In some cases
Kundalini wakes spontaneously, so that a dull glow is felt: it may even
begin to move of itself, though this rare. In this latter case it would
be likely to cause great pain, as, since the passages are not prepared
for it, it would have to clear its way by actually burning up a great deal
of etheric dross, which is necessarily a painful process. When it thus
awakes of itself or is accidentally aroused, it usually tries to rush up
the interior of the spine, instead of following the spiral course into
which the occultist is trained to guide it. If it be possible, the will
should be set in motion to arrest its onward rush, but if that proves to
be impossible, as is most likely, no alarm need be felt. It will probably
rush out through the head and escape into the surrounding atmosphere, and
it is likely that no harm will result beyond a slight weakening. Nothing
worse than a temporary loss of consciousness need be apprehended. The worst
dangers are connected, not with its upward rush, but with its turning downwards
and inwards. Its principal
function in connection with occult development is that by being sent through
the Chakrams in the etheric body, it vivifies these Chakras between the
physical and astral bodies. It is said in The
Voice of the Silence that when Kundalini
reaches the centre between the eyebrows and fully vivifies it, it confers
the power of hearing the voice of the Master - which means, in this case,
the voice of the ego or higher self. The reason is that when [Page
41] the pituitary
body is brought into working order it forms a perfect link with the astral
vehicle, so that through it all communications from within can be received. In addition, all
the higher Chakrams have to be awakened, in due course, and each must
be made responsive to all kinds of astral influences from the various
astral sub-planes. Most people cannot gain this during the present incarnation,
if it is the first in which they have begun to take these matters seriously
in hand. Some Indians might succeed in doing so, as their bodies are
by heredity more adaptable than most others : but it is for the majority
of men the work of a later Round altogether. The conquest of
Kundalini has to be repeated in each incarnation, since the vehicles
are new each time, but after it has been once achieved these repetitions
will be an easy matter. Its action will vary with different types of people.
Some would see the higher self rather than hear its voice. Also this connection
with the higher has many stages; for the personality it means the influence
of the ego : but for the ego himself it means the power of the monad
: and for the monad in turn it means to become a conscious expression of
the Logos. There does not appear
to be any age limit with regard to the arousing of Kundalini: but physical
health is a necessity owing to the strain involved. An ancient symbol
was the thyrsus - that is, a staff with a pie-cone on its top. In India
the same symbol is found, but instead of the staff, a stick of bamboo with
seven knots is used. In some modifications of the mysteries a hollow iron
rod, said to contain fire, was used instead of the hyrsus. The staff, or
stick, with seven knots represents the spinal cord, with its seven Chakrams.
The hidden fire is, of course, Kundalini. The thyrsus was not only a symbol,
but also an object of practical use. It was a very strong magnetic instrument,
used by initiates to free the astral body from the physical when they
passed in [Page 42] full consciousness
to this higher life. The priest who had magnetised it laid it against the
spinal cord of the candidate and gave him in that way some of his own magnetism,
to help him in that difficult life and in the efforts which lay before
him. [Page 43] THOUGHT-FORMS The
mental and astral bodies are those chiefly concerned with the production
of what are called thought-forms. The term thought-form is not wholly accurate,
because the forms produced may be composed of mental matter, or, in the vast
majority of cases, of both astral and mental matter. Although
in this book we are dealing primarily with the astral, and not with the mental
body, yet thought-forms, as just said, are, in a vast majority of cases,
both astral and mental. In order, therefore, to make the subject intelligible,
it is necessary to deal very largely with the mental as well as with the
astral aspect of the subject. A purely
intellectual and impersonal thought - such as one concerned with algebra
or geometry - would be confined to mental matter. It on the other hand the
thought has in it something of selfish or personal desire,it will draw round
itself astral matter in addition to the mental. If, furthermore,the thought
be of a spiritual nature,if it be tinged with love and aspiration or deep
and unselfish feeling, then there may also enter in some of the splendour
and glory of the buddhic plane. Every
definite thought produces two effects: first, a radiating vibration:
second, a floating form. The
vibration set up in and radiating from the mental body is accompanied with
a play of colour which has been described as like that in the spray of a
waterfall as the sunlight strikes it, raised to the nth degree
of colour and vivid delicacy. This
radiating vibration tends to reproduce its own rate of motion in any
mental body on which it may [Page 44] impinge: I.e., to
produce thoughts of the same type as those from which the vibration originated.
It should be noted that the radiating vibration carries, not the subject
of the thought, but its character. Thus, the waves of thought-emotion
radiating from a Hindu sitting rapt in devotion to Shri Krishna would tend
to stimulate devotional feeling in any who came under its influence, not
necessarily towards Sri Krishna, but, in the case of a Christian, to the
Christ, in the case of a Buddhist, to the Lord Buddha: and so on. The
power of the vibration to produce such effects depends principally upon the
clearness and definiteness of the thought-emotion, as well, of course, as
upon the amount of force put into it. These
radiating vibrations become less effective in proportion to the distance
from their source, though it is probable that the variation is proportional
to the
cube of the distance instead of (as with gravitation and other physical
forces) to the square, because of the additional (fourth) dimension involved. The
distance to which a thought-wave can radiate effectively also depends
upon the opposition with which it meets. Waves in the lower types of astral
matter are usually soon deflected or overwhelmed by a multitude of other
vibrations at the same level, just as a soft sound is drowned in the roar
of a city. The
second effect, that of a floating form, is caused by the mental body throwing
off a vibrating portion of itself shaped by the nature of the thought, which
gathers round itself matter of the corresponding order of fineness from the
surrounding elemental essence (see page 6) of the mental plane, This is a
thought-form pure and simple, being composed of mental matter only. If
made of the finer kinds of matter, it will be of great power and energy,
and may be used as a most potent agent when directed by a strong and
steady will. When
the man directs his energy towards external objects of desire, or is occupied
with passional or [Page 45] emotional activities,
a similar process takes place in his astral body : a portion of it is
thrown off and gathers round
itself elemental essence of the astral plane. Such thought-desire forms
are caused by Kâma-Manas, the mind under the dominion of the animal nature, Manas
dominated by Kâma Such
a thought-desire form has for its body the elemental essence, and for
its animating soul, as it were, the desire or passion which threw it forth.
Both these thought-desire forms, and also purely mental thought-forms,
are called artificial
elementals. The vast majority of ordinary thought-forms are of the
former type, as few thoughts of ordinary men and women are untinged with
desire, passion or emotion. Both
mental and astral elemental essence, which possess a half-intelligence
life of their own, respond very readily to the influence of human thought
and desire: consequently every impulse sent out, either from a man's mental
body or from his astral body, is immediately clothed in a temporary vehicle
of elemental essence. These artificial elementals thus become for the
time a kind of living creature, entities of intense activity animated by
the one idea that generated them. They are, in fact,often mistaken by untrained
psychics or clairvoyants for real living entities. Thus,
when a man thinks of a concrete object - a book,house, landscape, etc. -
he builds a tiny image of the object in the matter of his mental body. This
image floats in the upper part of that body, usually in front of the face
of the man, and at about the level of the eyes. It remains there as long
as the man is contemplating the object, and usually for a little time afterwards,
the length of life depending upon the intensity and the clearness of the
thought. The form is quite objective and can be seen by another person possessed
of
mental sight. If a man thinks of another person he creates a tiny portrait
in just the same way. Thought-forms
have been usefully compared to a Leyden jar (a vessel charged with static
electricity), [Page 46] the jar
itself corresponding to the elemental essence and the electric charge
to the thought-emotion. And just as a Leyden jar when
it touches another object discharges its stored electricity into that
object, so does an artificial elemental, when it strikes a mental or
astral body, discharge its stored mental and emotional energy into that
body. The
principles which underlie the production of all thought-emotion forms are
: - 1. Colour is
determined by the quality of the thought or emotion. 2. Form is
determined by the nature of the thought or emotion. 3. Clearness
of Outline is determined by the definiteness of the thought
or emotion. The
life-period of a thought-form depends upon [1] its initial intensity; [2]
the nutriment afterwards supplied to it by a repetition of the thought, either
by the generator or by others. Its life may be continually reinforced by
this repetition, a thought which is brooded over acquiring great stability
of form. So again thought-forms of similar character are attracted to and
mutually strengthen each other, making a form of great energy and intensity. Furthermore,
such a thought-form appears to possess instinctive desire to prolong its
life,and will react on its creator, tending to evoke from him renewal of
the feeling
which created it. It will react in a similar, though not so perfect, manner
on any others with whom it may come into contact. The
colours in which thought-forms express themselves are identical with the
colours found in the aura, vide page 11-12. The
brilliance and dept of the colours are usually a measure of the strength
and the activity of the feeling. For
our present purpose we may classify thought-forms into three kinds : (1)
those connected solely with their originator : (2) those connected with another
person : (3) those not definitely personal [Page 47] If
a man's thought is about himself, or based on a personal feeling, as
the vast majority of thoughts are, the form will hover in the immediate
neighbourhood of its generator. Any time, then, when he is in a passive
condition, his thoughts and feelings not being specifically occupied, his
own thought-form will return to him and discharge itself upon him. In addition,
each man also serves as a magnet to draw towards himself the thought-forms
of others similar to his own, thus attracting towards himself reinforcements
of energy from outside. People who are becoming sensitive have sometimes
imagined, in such cases, that they have been tempted by the "devil",
whereas it is their own thoughts-desire forms which are the cause of
the "temptation". Long brooding
over the same subject may create a thought-form of tremendous power.
Such a form may last
for many years and have for a time all the appearance and powers of real
living entity. Most men move through life enclosed literally within a
cage of their own building, surrounded by masses of forms created by
their habitual thoughts. One important effect of this is that each man
looks out upon the world through his own thought-forms, and
thus sees everything tinged by them. Thus
a man's own thought-forms re-act upon him, tending to reproduce themselves
and thus setting up definite habits of thought and feeling, which may be
helpful if of a lofty character, but are often cramping and a hindrance to
growth,obscuring
the mental vision and facilitating the formation of prejudice and fixed moods
or attitudes which may develop into definite vices. As
a Master has written: "Man is continually peopling his current in
space with a world of his own, crowed with the offspring of his fancies,
desires, impulses
and passions. "These thought-forms remain in his aura, increasing in
number and intensity, until certain kinds of them so dominate his mental
and emotional life that the man rather answers to their [Page
48] impulse than decides
anew: thus are habits, the outer expression of his stored-up force, created,
and thus is character built. Moreover,
as each man leaves behind him a trail of thought-forms, it follows that as
we go along a street we are walking amidst a sea of other men's thoughts.
If a man leaves his mind blank for a time, these thoughts of others drift
through it : if one happens to attract his attention, his mind seizes upon
it, makes it its own, strengthening it by the addition of its force, and
then casts it out again to affect somebody else. A man, therefore, is not
responsible for a thought which floats into his mind, but he is responsible
if he takes it up, dwells upon it, and then sends it out again strengthened. An
example of thought-forms is that of the shapeless clouds of heavy blue which
may often be seen rolling along like wreaths of dense smoke over the heads
of the congregation of a church. In churches when the level of spirituality
is a low one, the minds of the men may create rows of figures, representing
their calculations of business deals or speculations, while the minds of
the women may create pictures of millinery, jewellery, etc.. Hypnotism
provides another example of thought-forms. The operator may make a thought-form
and project it on to blank paper,where it may become visible to his hypnotised
subject: or he may make the form so objective that the subject will see
and feel it as thought it were an actual physical object. The literature
of hypnotism
is full of such examples. If
the thought-form is directed towards another person, it will go to that
person. Either of two effects may then result. (1) If in the aura of the
person concerned there is material capable of responding sympathetically
to the vibration of the thought-form, then the thought-form will remain
near the person, or even in his aura, and, as opportunity serves, automatically
discharge itself, thus tending to strengthen in the person that particular
rate of vibration. If the person [Page 49] at
whom a thought form is aimed happens to be busy, or already engaged in
some definite train of thought, the
thought form, being unable to discharge itself into the man's mental
body, which is already vibrating at a certain determinate rate, hangs in
the vicinity until the man's mental body is sufficiently at rest to permit
its entrance, when it immediate discharges itself. In
doing this it will display what appears like a very considerable amount
of intelligence and adaptability, though really it is a force acting a
long the line of least resistance - pressing steadily in one direction
all the time, and taking advantage of any channel that it can find. Such
elementals can, of course, be strengthened and their life-period extended
by repetition of the same thought. (2)
If, on the other hand, there is in the person's aura no matter capable
of response, then the thought-form cannot affect it at all. It will therefore
rebound from it, with a force proportional to the energy with which
impinged upon it, and return to and strike its creator. Thus,
for example,the thought of the desire for drink could not enter the body
of a purely temperate man. It would strike upon his astral body, but
it could not penetrate and it would then return to the sender. The
old saying that "Curses (to which might be added blessings) come home to
roost" conveys this truth and explains cases where, as many have
known, evil thoughts directed to a good and highly advanced man affect
such a man not
at all, but re-act, sometimes with terrible and devastating effect, on
their creator. Hence also the obvious corollary that a pure heart and
mind are the best protection against inimical assaults of feeling and
thought. On
the other hand, a thought-form of love and of desire to protect, strongly
directed to some beloved objects, acts as a shielding and protecting agent
: it will seek all opportunities to serve and defend, will [Page
50] strengthen
friendly forces and weaken unfriendly ones, that impinge on the aura. It
may protect its objects from impurity, irritability, fear, etc. Friendly
thoughts and earnest good wishes thus create and maintain what is practically
a "guardian angel" always at the side of the person thought
of, no matter where he may be. Many a mother's thoughts and prayers,
for example, have
given assistance and protection to her child. They may often be seen
by clairvoyants, and in rare cases they may even materialise and become
physically visible. It
is thus apparent that a thought of love sent from one person to another involves
the actual transference of a certain amount both of force and of matter from
the sender to the recipient. If
the thought is sufficiently strong, distance makes absolutely no difference
to it: but a weak and diffused thought is not effective outside a limited
area. A
variant of our first group consists of those cases where a man thinks strongly
of himself in a distant place. The form thus created contains a large proportion
of mental matter, takes the image of the thinker, and is at first small
and compressed. It draws around itself a considerable amount of astral
matter and usually expands to life size before it appears at its destination.
Such forms are often seen by clairvoyants, and not infrequently are mistaken
for the man's astral body or even for the man himself. When
this takes place, the thought or desire must be sufficiently strong to
do one of three things: (1) To call up by mesmeric influence the image of
the thinker in the mind of the person to whom he wishes to appear: (2) by
the same power to stimulate for the moment that person's psychic faculties
so that he is able to see the astral visitor; (3) to produce a temporary
materialisation which will be physically visible. Apparitions
at the time of death, which are by no means uncommon, are very often
really the astral form of the dying man: but they may also be thought-forms
called into being by his earnest wish to see some friend [Page
51] before he passes
on. In some instances the visitor is perceived just after the moment
of death, instead of just before : but for various reasons this form
of apparition is far less frequent than the other. A family
ghost may be (1) a thought-form, (2) an unusually vivid impression in the
astral light, or (3) a genuine earth-bound ancestor still haunting some particular
place. In
this connection, it may be added that wherever any intense passion has
been felt, such as terror, pain, sorrow, hatred, etc., so powerful an impression
is made on the astral light that persons with but a faint glimmer of
psychic faculty may be impressed by it. A slight temporary increase of
sensibility would enable a man to visualise the entire scene: hence many
stories of haunted places, and of the unpleasant influences of such spots
as Tyburn Tree, the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's, etc.. Apparitions
at the spot where a crime was committed are usually thought-forms projected
by the criminal who, whether living or dead, but most especially when
dead, is perpetually thinking over again and again the circumstances of
his actions. Since these thoughts are naturally specially vivid in his
mind on the anniversary of his crime, it may happen that the thought-form
is strong enough to materialise itself so as to be visible to physical
sight, thus accounting for many cases where the manifestation is periodical. Similarly,
a jewel, which has been the cause of many crimes, may retain the impressions
of the passions prompting the crimes, with unimpaired clearness, for many
thousands of years, and continue to radiate them. A thought
of phenomenal energy and concentration, whether it be a blessing or a curse,
calls into being an elemental which is practically a living storage-battery
with a kind of clockwork attachment. It can be arranged to discharge itself
regularly at a certain our daily, or upon a certain anniversary, or its discharge
maybe contingent upon certain occurrences. Many instances of this class of
elemental are on record, [Page 52] particularly
in the Highlands of Scotland, where physical warnings occur before the death
of a member of the family. In these cases it is usually the powerful thought-form
of an ancestor which gives the warning, according to the intention with which
it was charged. A sufficiently
strong wish - a concentrated effort of intense love or envenomed hate - would
create such an entity once for all, an entity which would then be quite disconnected
from its creator, and would carry on its appointed work entirely irrespective
of later intentions and desire on his part. Mere repentance could not recall
it or prevent its action any more than repentance could stop a bullet once
discharged. Its power could be to a considerable extent neutralised only
by sending after it thoughts of a contrary tendency. Occasionally
an elemental of this class, being unable to expend its force either upon
its object or its creator, may become a kind of wandering demon, and be attracted
by any person who harbours similar feelings. If sufficiently powerful, it
may even size upon and inhabit a passing shell (see page 171), in which it
is able to husband its resources more carefully. In this form it may manifest
through a medium, and, by masquerading as a well-known friend, may obtain
influence over people upon whom it would otherwise have little hold. Such
elementals, whether formed consciously or unconsciously, which have become
wandering demons, invariably seek to prolong their life, either by feeding
like vampires upon the vitality of human beings, or by influencing them
to make offerings to them. Among simple half-savage tribes they have frequently
succeeded in getting themselves recognised as village or family gods.
The less objectionable types may be content with offerings of rice and
cooked foods : the lowest and most loathsome class demand blood-sacrifices.
Both varieties exist today in India, and in greater numbers in Africa. By
drawing mainly upon the vitality of their [Page 53] devotees,
and also upon the nourishment they can obtain from the offerings, they
may prolong their existence for years, or even centuries. They may even
perform occasional phenomena of a mild type in order to stimulate the faith
and zeal of their followers, and they invariably make themselves unpleasant
in some way or other if the sacrifices are neglected. The
black magicians of Atlantis - the "lords of the dark face" -
seems to have specialised in this type of artificial elementals, some
of which, it is hinted, may have kept themselves in existence even to
this day. The terrible Indian goddess, Kâli, may well be a relic
of this type. The
vast majority of thought-forms are simply copies or images of people or other
material objects. They are formed first within the mental body and then pass
outwards and remain suspended before the man. This applies to anything about
which one may be thinking : persons, houses, landscapes, or anything else. A
painter, for example, builds out of the matter of his mental body a
conception of his future picture, projects it into space in front of him,
keeps it before his "mind's eye",
and copies it. This thought and emotion-form persists and may be regarded
as the unseen counterpart of the picture, radiating out its own
vibrations and affecting all who come within its influence. Similarly
a novelist builds in mental matter images of his characters, and then, by
his will, moves these puppets from one position or grouping to another, so
that the plot of the story is literally acted out before him. A
curious effect arises in such a case. A playful nature-spirit (See Chapter
20) may ensoul the images and cause them to do things other than those
which the author intended them do to. More frequently a dead writer may
perceive the images and, being still interested in the craft of writing,
may mould the characters and influence their actions according to his [Page
54] own
ideas. The actual writer thus often finds his plots working themselves
out according to a
plan quite different from his original conception. In
reading a book, it is possible for a genuine student, with attention fully
concentrated, to get into touch with the original thought-form which represents
the author's conception as he wrote. Through the thought-form the author
himself may even be reached, and additional information thus obtained, or
light gained on difficult points. There
are in the mental and astral worlds many renderings of well-known stories,
each nation usually having its special presentation, with the characters
dressed in its own particular national garb. There thus exist excellent and
life-like thought-forms of people like Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kettle, Robinson
Crusoe, Shakespeare's characters, etc.. In
fact, there are on the astral plane vast numbers of thought-forms of a comparatively
permanent character, often the result of the cumulative work of generations
of people. Many of these refer to alleged religious history, and the sight
of them by sensitive people is responsible for many quite genuine accounts
given by untrained seers and seeresses. Any great historical event, having
been constantly thought of, and vividly imaged by large numbers of people,
exists as a definite thought-form on the mental plane, and wherever there
is any strong emotion connected with it, it is materialised also in astral
matter and consequently can be seen by a clairvoyant. The
above applies equally, of course, to scenes and situations in fiction, drama,
etc.. Considered
in the mass, it is easy to realise the tremendous effect that these thought-forms
or artificial elementals have in producing national and race-feelings, and
thus in biasing and prejudicing the mind : for thought-forms of a similar
kind have a tendency to aggregate together and form a kind of collective
entity. We see everything through this atmosphere, every thought is more
or less refracted by it, and our own [Page 55] astral bodies are vibrating
in accord with it. As most people are receptive rather than initiative in
their nature, they act almost as automatic reproducers of the thoughts which
reach them, and thus the national atmosphere is continually intensified.
This fact obviously explains many of the phenomena of crowd-consciousness
(See Chapter 25) The
influence of these aggregated thought-forms extends still further. Thought-forms
of a destructive type act as a disruptive agent and often precipitate
havoc on the physical plane, causing "accidents", natural convulsions,
storms, earthquakes,floods, or crime, disease, social upheavals and wars. It
is possible also for dead people and other non-human entities, such as
mischievous nature-spirits, (see page 181) for example, to enter and vivify
these thought-images. The trained seer has to learn to distinguish the
thought-form, even when vivified, from the living being, and prominent
facts of the astral world from the temporary moulds into which they are
cast. Our
third class of thought-emotion forms consists of those which are not
directly connected with any natural objects, and which therefore express
themselves in forms entirely their own, displaying their inherent qualities
in the matter which they draw around themselves. In this group, therefore,
we have a glimpse of the forms natural to the astral and mental planes.
Thought-forms of this class almost invariably manifest themselves on the
astral plane, as the vast majority of them are expressions of feeling as
well as of thought. Such
a form simply floats detached in the atmosphere, all the times radiating
vibrations similar to those originally sent forth by its creator. If
it does not come
into contact with any other mental body, the radiation gradually exhausts
its store of energy and the form then falls to pieces; but if it succeeds
in awakening sympathetic vibrations in any mental body near at hand,
an attraction is set up, and the thought-form is usually absorbed by that
mental body. [Page
56] From
the above we see that the influence of a thought-form is less far-reaching
than that of a thought-vibration, but it acts with much greater precision.
A thought-vibration reproduces thoughts of an order similar to that
which gave it birth. A thought-form reproduces the same thought. The
radiations may affect thousands and stir in them thoughts of the same level as
the original, though none of them may be identical with it. The thought-form
can affect only very few, but in those few cases it will reproduce exactly the
initiatory idea. For
pictorial, coloured illustrations of many kinds of thought and emotion
forms, the student is referred to the classic work on the subject: Thought-Forms, by
Annie Besant and C.W.Leadbeater This whole chapter, indeed, is largely
a condensed summary of the principles enunciated in that work. Vague
thoughts or feelings show themselves as vague clouds. Definite thought
or feelings create clearly defined forms. Thus a form of definite affection
directed to a a particular individual shapes itself not unlike a projectile:
a thought of protective affection becomes somewhat like a bird, with a
central portion of yellow and two wing-shaped projections of rose-pink:
a thought of universal love becomes a rose-pink sun with rays in every
direction. Thoughts
in which selfishness or greed are prominent usually take a hooked form, the
hooks in some case actually clawing round the object desired. As
a general principle, the energy of a selfish thought moves in a closed
curve, and thus inevitably returns and expends itself upon its own level.
An absolutely unselfish thought or feeling, however, rushes forth in an
open curve, and thus does not return, in the ordinary sense, but
pierces through into the plane above, because only in that higher condition,
with its additional dimension,can it find room for its expansion. But,
in thus breaking through, such a thought or feeling opens a door, as we
might say symbolically, of dimension equivalent to its diameter, and thus
provides a [Page
57] channel through which the higher planes can pour
themselves into the lower - often with wonderful results, as in the case
of prayer, both for the thinker and for others. Herein
lies the highest and best part of the belief in answers to prayer. On
the higher planes there is an infinite flood of force always ready and
waiting to be poured through when a channel is offered. A thought of perfectly
unselfish devotion provides such a channel, the grandest and noblest
part of such a thought ascending to the Logos Himself. The response
from Him is a descent of the divine life, resulting in a great strengthening
and uplifting of the maker of the channel, and the spreading all about
him of a powerful and beneficent influence, which flows through the
reservoir that exists on the higher planes for the helping of mankind.
It is this adding to the reservoir of spiritual force which is the truth
in the catholic idea of works of supererogation. The Nirmânakâyas
are especially associated with this great reservoir of force. Meditation
upon a Master makes a link with Him, which shows itself to clairvoyant vision
as a kind of line of light. The Master always subconsciously feels the impinging
of such a line, and sends out along it in response a steady stream of magnetism
which continues to play long after the meditation is over. Regularity in
such meditation is a very important factor. A
thought of definite, well-sustained devotion may assume a form closely
resembling a flower, whilst devotional aspiration will create a blue cone,
the apex pointing upwards. Such
thought-forms of devotion are often exceedingly beautiful, varying much
in outline, but characterised by curved upward-pointing petals like azure
flames. It is possible that the flower-like characteristic of devotion
forms may have led to the custom of offering flowers in religious worship,
the flowers suggesting the forms visible to astral sight. [Page
58] Intense
curiosity, or desire to know, takes the form of a yellow snake: explosive
anger or irritation, of a splash of red and orange: sustained anger,
of a sharp, red stiletto: spiteful jealousy shows itself as a brownish
snake. Forms
produced by people who have mind and emotion well under control and definitely
trained in meditation, are clear, symmetrical objects of great beauty, often
taking well-known geometrical forms, such as triangles, two triangles interlaced,
five-pointed stars, hexagons, crosses, and so on, these indicating thoughts
concerned with cosmic order, or metaphysical concepts. The
power of the united thought of a number of people is always far more than
the sum of their separate thoughts: it would be more nearly represented
by their product. Music
also produces forms which are perhaps not technically thought-forms - unless
we take them, as we them, as we well may, as the result of the thought
of the composer, expressed by the skill of the musician through his instrument. These
music forms will vary according to the type of music, the kind of instrument
which plays it, and the skill and merits of the performer. The same piece
of music will, if accurately played, always build the same form, but
that form will, when played on a church organ or by an orchestra, be enormously
larger than, as well as of different texture from that produced when
played upon a piano. There will also be a difference in texture between
the result of a piece of music played upon a violin and the same piece
executed upon a flute. There is also a wide difference between the radiant
beauty of the form produced by a true artist, perfect expression and execution,
and the relatively dull effect produced by a wooden and mechanical player. Music
forms may remain as coherent erections for a considerable time - an hour
or two at least - and during all that time they are radiating their characteristics [Page
59] vibrations in every direction, just
as thought-forms do. In Thought-Forms three
coloured examples are given, of music forms build by music of Mendelssohn,
of Gounod, and of Wagner respectively. The
forms which are built vary much with different composers. An overture by
Wagner makes a magnificent whole, as though he built with mountains of flame
for stones. One of Bach's fugues builds up an ordered form, bold yet precise,
rugged but symmetrical, with parallel rivulets of silver and gold or ruby
running through it, marking the successive appearances of the motif. One
of Mendelssohn's Lieber ohne Worte makes an airy erection, like a castle
of filigree work in frosted silver. These
forms, created by the performers of the music, are quite distinct from the
thought-forms made by the composer himself, which often persist for many
years, even for centuries, if he is so far understood and appreciated that
his original conception is strengthened by the thoughts of his admirers.
Similar edifices are constructed by a poet's idea of his epic, or a writer's
conception
of his subject. Sometimes crowds of nature-spirits (see page 181) may be
seen admiring the music -forms and bathing in the waves of influence which
they send forth. In
studying pictorial representations of thought-forms it is important to bear
in mind that thought-forms are four-dimensional objects. It is therefore
a practical impossibility to describe them adequately in words which pertain
to our ordinary three-dimensional experiences, still less to portray them
in two-dimensional pictures on paper. Students of the fourth dimension will
realise that the most that can be done is to represent a section of the four-dimensional
forms. It
is remarkable, and possibly deeply significant fact,that many of the higher
types of thought-forms assume shapes closely resembling vegetable and animal
forms. We thus have at least a presumption that the forces of nature work
along lines somewhat similar [Page 60] to those
along which thought and emotion work. Since the whole universe is a mighty
thought-form called into existence by
the Logos, it may well be that tiny parts of it also result from the thought-forms
of minor entities engaged in the same creative work. This conception naturally
recalls the Hindu belief that there are 330,000,000 Devas. It
is also worthy of notice that, whilst some of the thought-forms are so complicated
and so exquisitely fashioned as to be beyond the power of the human hand
to reproduce, yet they may be very closely approximated by mechanical means.
The instrument, known as a Harmonograph, consists of a fine point guided
in its path by several pendulums, each of which has its own independent swing,
all of these being welded into one composite movement, which is communicated
to the pointer, and which the pointer registers on a suitable surface. Other,
though simpler forms, resemble the sand figures produced by the well-known
Chladni's sound plate or by the Eidophone [vide Eidophone Voice Figures, by
Margaret Watts Hughes). Scales
and arpeggios thrown out lasso-like loops and curves: a song with a chorus
produces a number of beads strung on a silver thread of melody : in a
glee or part-song intertwining threads of different colours and textures
are produced. A processional hymn builds a series of precise rectangular
forms, like the links of a chain or the carriages of a railway train. An
Anglican chant makes glittering fragments, quite different from the glowing
uniformity of the Gregorian tone, which is not unlike the effect of Sanskrit
verses chanted by an Indian pandit. Military
music produces a long stream of rhythmically vibrating forms, the regular
beat of these undulations tending to strengthen those of the astral bodies
of the soldiers, the impact of a succession of steady and powerful oscillations
supplying for the time the place of the will-force which, through fatigue,
may have been slackened. [Page 61] A thunderstorm
creates a flaming band of colour, a crash making a form suggestive of an
exploding bomb, or an irregular sphere with spikes projecting from it. Sea-waves
breaking on the shore create wavy, parallel lines of changing colour, becoming
mountain ranges in a storm. Wind in the leaves of forest covers it with iridescent
network, rising and falling with gentle wave-like movement. The
song of birds shows as curving lines and loops of light, from the golden
globes of the campanero to the amorphous and coarsely-coloured mass of
the scream of a parrot or macaw. The roar of a lion is also visible in higher
matter and it is possible that some wild creatures are able to see it clairvoyantly,
thus adding to their terror. A purring cat surrounds itself with concentric
rosy cloud-films: a barking dog shoots forth well-defined sharp-pointed
projectiles not unlike a rifle bullet, which pierce the astral bodies of
people and seriously disturb them. The bay of a bloodhound throws off beads
like footballs, slower in motion and less liable to injure. The colour
of these projectiles is usually red or brown, varying with the emotion of
the animal and the key of his voice. The
lowing of a cow produces blunt-ended clumsy shapes like logs of wood. A flock
of sheep makes a many-pointed yet amorphous cloud not unlike a dust-cloud.
The cooing of a pair of doves makes graceful curved forms like the letter
S reversed. Turning
to human sounds, an angry ejaculation throws itself forth like a scarlet
spear: a stream of silly chatter produces an intricate network of hard brown-grey
metallic lines, forming an almost perfect barrier against any higher or more
beautiful thoughts and feelings. The astral body of a garrulous person is
a striking object-lesson on the folly of unnecessary, useless and unpleasant
speech. A
child's laughter bubbles forth in rosy curves: the guffaw of an empty-minded
person causes an explosive effect in an irregular mass, usually brown or
dirty green. A sneer throws out a shapeless projectile [Page
62] of dull red, usually flecked
with brownish-green and bristling with sharp points. The
cachinations of the self-conscious produce the appearance and colour of a
pool of boiling mud. Nervous giggles creates a sea-weed like tangle of brown
and dull yellow lines, and have a very bad effect upon the astral body. A
jolly, kindly laugh billows out in rounded forms of gold and green. A soft
and musical whistle produces an effect not unlike that of a small flute,
but sharper and more metallic. Tuneless whistling sends out small piercing
projectiles
of dirty brown. Fidgetiness
or fussiness produces in the aura tremulous vibrations, so that no thought
or feeling can pass in or out without distortion, even good through that
is being sent out taking with it a shiver that practically neutralises it.
Accuracy in thought is essential, but it should be attained not by hurry
or fuss but by perfect calmness. The
strident screech of a railway engine makes a far more penetrating and powerful
projectile than even the bark of a dog, producing upon the astral body an
effect comparable to that of a sword thrust upon the physical body. An astral
wound heals in a few minutes, but the shock to the astral organism disappears
by no means so readily. The
firing of a gun produces a serious effect upon astral currents and astral
bodies. Rifle or pistol fire throws out a stream of small needles. Repeated
noises affect the mental and astral bodies precisely as blows affect
the physical body. In the physical body the result would be pain: in the
astral body it means irritability: in the mental body a feeling of fatigue
and inability to think clearly. It
is abundantly clear that all loud, sharp or sudden sounds should, as
far as possible, be avoided by any one who wishes to keep his astral and
mental vehicles in good order. Especially disastrous is the effect, e.g., of
the ceaseless noise and roar of a city upon the plastic astral and mental
bodies of children. [Page 63] All
the sounds of nature blend themselves into one tone, called by the Chinese
the "Great Tone", or KUNG. This also has
its form, a synthesis of all forms, vast and changeful as the sea, representing
the note of our earth in the music of the spheres. This is said by some writers
to be the note F of our scale. It
is, of course, possible to destroy a thought-form, and this is sometimes
done, for example, where a person after death is pursued by a malignant thought-form,
created probably by the hate of those whom the person had injured whilst
in the physical world. Although such a thought-form may appear almost as
a living creature - an instance is given where it resembled a huge distorted
gorilla - it is simply a temporary creation of evil passion and in no sense
an evolving entity, so that to dissipate it is simply like destroying a Leyden
jar, and it is not in any sense a criminal action. Most
men recognise that acts which injure others are definitely and obviously
wrong, but few recognise that it is also wrong to feel jealousy, hatred,
ambition, etc., even though such feelings are not expressed in speech or
deed. An examination of the conditions of life after death (Chapters 13
to 15) reveals that such feelings injure the man who harbours them,
and cause him acute suffering after death. A study
of thought-forms thus brings home to the earnest student the tremendous possibilities
of such creations, and the responsibility attaching to a right use of them.
Thoughts are not only things, but exceedingly puissant things. Every
one is generating them unceasingly night and day. Often it is not possible
to render physical aid to those in need, but there is no case in which help
may not be given by thought, or in which it can fail to produce a definite
result. No one need hesitate to use this power to the full: provided always
that it be employed for unselfish purposes, and for furthering the divine
scheme of evolution. [Page 64] PHYSICAL
LIFE In
Chapter 2 we considered, in general outline, the composition and structure
of the astral body. We shall now proceed to study it, in greater detail,
as it exists and is used during the ordinary waking consciousness
of the physical body. The
factors which determine the nature and quality of the astral body during
physical life may be roughly grouped as follows: - 1- The
Physical Life. - We have already seen
(page 8) that every particle of the physical
body has its corresponding astral "counterpart". Consequently,
as the solids, liquids, gases and ethers of which the physical is composed
may be coarse or refined, gross or delicate, so will be the nature of
the corresponding astral envelopes. A physical body nourished on impure
food will produce a corresponding impure astral body, whilst a physical
body fed on clean food and drink will help to purify the astral vehicle. The astral body
being the vehicle of emotion, passion and sensation, it follows that an astral
body of the grosser type will be chiefly amenable to the grosser varieties
of passion and emotion: whereas a finer astral body will more readily vibrate
to more refined emotions and aspirations. It is impossible
to make the physical body coarse and at the same time to organise the astral
and mental bodies for finer purposes: neither is it possible to have a pure
physical body with impure mental and astral bodies. All three bodies are
thus interdependent. [Page 65] In the ancient
Mysteries were men of the utmost purity and they were invariably
vegetarian. The Râja
Yogi takes especial pains to purify the physical body by an elaborate
system of food, drink, sleep, etc., and insists on foods which are sâtvic, or "rhythmic".
A whole system relating to foodstuffs is built up to help in the preparation
of the body for use by the higher consciousness.
Flesh foods
are rajâsic, i.e., they come under the quality of
activity, being stimulants, and built up to express animal desires and activities.
They are utterly unsuited to the finer type of nervous organisation. The
yogi therefore cannot afford to use these for the higher processes of thought. Foods on the way
to decay, such as game, venison, etc., as well as alcohol, are tamâsic, or
heavy, and also to be avoided. Foods which tend
to growth, such as grain and fruits, are sâtvic, or rhythmic,
being the most highly vitalised and suitable for building up a body sensitive
and at the same time strong. Certain other
substances also affect the physical and astral bodies detrimentally.
Thus tobacco permeates the physical body with impure particles, causing
emanations so material that they are frequently perceptible to the
sense of smell, Astrally, tobacco not only introduces impurity, but
tends also to deaden the sensibility of the body: "soothing
the nerves", as it is called. While this may,
in conditions of modern life, be sometimes less harmful than leaving
the nerves "unsoothed",
it is certain undesirable for an occultist, who needs the capacity of
answering instantly to all possible vibrations, combined, of course,
with perfect control. [Page 66] Similarly, there
is no doubt whatever that from the point of view of both astral and mental
bodies the use of alcohol is always an evil. Bodies fed on flesh
and alcohol are liable to be thrown out of health by opening up of the higher
consciousness: and nervous diseases are partly due to the fact that the human
consciousness is trying to express itself through bodies clogged with flesh
products and poisoned with alcohol. In particular, the pituitary body is
very readily poisoned by even a very small amount of alcohol, and its highest
evolution is thereby checked. It is the poisoning of the pituitary body with
alcohol that leads to the abnormal and irrational vision associated with
delirium tremens. In addition to
the direct coarsening of the physical and astral bodies, meat, tobacco
and alcohol are open also to the serious objection that they tend to attract
undesirable astral entities which take pleasure in the scent of blood and
spirits: they surge around the person, impressing their thoughts upon
him, forcing their impressions on his astral body, so that the person may
have a kind of shell of objectionable entities hanging on to his aura.
Principally for this reason, in the Yoga of the Right Hand Path meat and
wine are absolutely forbidden. These entities consist
of artificial elementals, given birth to by the thoughts and desires of men,
and also of depraved men imprisoned in their astral bodies, known as elementaries
(see page 145). The elementals are attracted towards people whose astral
bodies contain matter congenial to their nature, while the elementaries naturally
seek to indulge in vices such as they themselves encouraged while in physical
bodies. An astral clairvoyant can see hordes of loathsome elementals crowding
round butchers' shops, whilst in beer-houses and gin-palaces elementaries
specially gather, feasting on the emanation of the liquors,and thrusting
themselves sometimes into the very bodies of the drinkers. Nearly all drugs
- such as opium, cocaine, [Page 67] theine in
tea, caffeine in coffee, etc. - produce a deleterious effect upon the higher
vehicles. Occasionally they
are, of course, almost a necessity, in certain diseases: but an occultist
should use them as sparingly as possible. One who knows how
to do it can remove the evil effect of opium (which may have been used to
relieve great pain) from the astral and mental bodies after it has done its
work on the physical. Dirt of all kinds
is also more objectionable in the higher worlds even than in the physical
and attracts a low class of nature-spirits (see page 181). The occultist
therefore needs to be stringent in all matters of cleanliness. Especial attention
should be paid to the hands and feet, because through these extremities emanations
flow out so readily. Physical noises,
such as prevail in cities, jar the nerves and thus cause irritations and
fatigue: the effect is accentuated by the pressure of so many astral bodies
vibrating at different rates, and all excited and disturbed by trifles. Although
such irritation is superficial, and may pass out of the mind in ten minutes,
yet an effect may be produced in the astral body lasting for forty-eight
hours. Hence it is difficult, whilst living in modern cities, to avoid irritability,
especially for one whose bodies are more highly strung and sensitive than
those of the ordinary man. In general, it may
be said that everything which promotes the health of the physical body also
reacts favourably upon the higher vehicles. Travel is another
of the many factors which affect the astral body, by bringing to bear on
the traveller a change of etheric and astral influences connected with each
place or district. Ocean, mountain, forest, waterfall, each has its own special
type of life, astral and etheric as well as visible, and therefore its own
set of influences. Many of these unseen entities are pouring out vitality,
and in any case their effect on etheric, astral and mental bodies is likely
to be healthy and desirable in the long run, though a change may be somewhat
tiring at the time. Hence an occasional [Page 68] change from town to country
is beneficial on the ground of emotional as well as physical health. The astral body
may also be affected by such objects as talismans. The methods of making
them have already been described in The
Etheric Double, pages 113
to 119. We shall here deal only with their general effects. When an object is
strongly charged with magnetism for a particular purpose by a competent person,
it becomes a talisman, and when properly made continues to radiate this magnetism
with unimpaired strength for many years. It may be used for
many purposes. Thus, for example, a talisman may be charged with thoughts
of purity, which will express themselves as definite rates of vibration in
astral and mental matter. These vibratory rates, being directly contrary
to thoughts of impurity, will tend to neutralise or overpower any impure
thought which may arise. In many cases the impure thought is a casual one
that has been picked up and is not therefore a thing of great power in itself.
The talisman, on the other hand, has been intentionally and strongly charged,
so that when the two streams of thought meet, there is not the slightest
doubt that the thoughts connected with the talisman will vanquish the others. In addition, the
initial conflict between the opposing sets of thoughts will attract the man's
attention, and thus give him time to recollect himself, so that he will not
be taken off this guard, as so frequently happens. Another example
would be that of a talisman charged with faith and courage. This would operate
in two ways. First, the vibrations radiating from the talisman would oppose
feelings of fear as soon as they arose, and thus prevent them from accumulating
and strengthening one another, as they often do, until they become irresistible.
The effect has been compared to that of a gyroscope which, once set in motion
in one direction, strongly resists being turned into another direction. Secondly, the
talisman works indirectly upon the [Page 69] mind
of the wearer: as soon as he feels the beginnings of fear, he will probably
recollect the talisman, and call up the reserve strength of his own will
to resists the undesirable feeling. A third possibility
of a talisman is that of its being linked with the person who made it. In
the event of the wearer being in desperate circumstances, he may call upon
the maker and evoke a response from him. The maker may or may not be physically
conscious of the appeal, but in any case his ego will be conscious and will
respond by reinforcing the vibrations of the talisman. Certain articles
are to a large extent natural amulets or talismans. All precious stones are
such, each having a distinct influence which can be utilised in two ways:
(1) the influence attracts to it elemental essence of a certain kind, and
thoughts and desires which naturally express themselves through that essence;
(2) these natural peculiarities make it a fit vehicle for magnetism which
is intended to work along the same line as those thoughts and emotions. Thus,
for example, for an amulet of purity, a stone should be chosen whose natural
undulations are inharmonious to the key in which impure thoughts express
themselves. Although the particles
of the stone are physical, yet, being in a key identical at this level with
the key of purity on higher levels, they will, even without the stone being
magnetised, check impure thought or feeling by virtue of the overtones. Furthermore,
the stone can readily be charged at astral and mental levels with the undulations
of pure thought and feeling which are set in the same key. Other examples are
(1) the rudraksha berry, frequently used for necklaces in India, which is
especially suitable for magnetisation where sustained holy thought or meditation
is required, and where all disturbing influences are to be kept away; (2)
the beads of the tulsi plant, whose influence is somewhat different. Objects which produce
strong scents are natural talismans. Thus the gums chosen for incense give [Page 70] out radiations favourable to spiritual
and devotional thought, and do not harmonise with any form of disturbance
or worry. Mediaeval witches
sometimes combined the ingredients of incense so as to produce the opposite
effect, and it is also done today in Luciferian ceremonies. It is generally
desirable to avoid coarse and heavy scents, such as that of musk or of
satchet powder, as many of them are akin to sensual feelings. An object not intentionally
charged may sometimes have the force of a talisman: e.g., a present
from a friend, worn on the person, such as a ring or chain, or even a letter. An object, such
as a watch, habitually carried in the pocket, becomes charged with magnetism
and is able, if given away, to produce decided effects on the recipient.
Coins and money notes are usually charged with mixed magnetism, feeling and
thought, and may, therefore, radiate a disturbing and irritating effect. A man's thoughts
and feelings thus affect not only himself and other people, but also impregnate
the inanimate objects round him, even walls and furniture. He thus unconsciously
magnetises these physical objects, so that they have the power of suggesting
similar thoughts and feelings to other people within range of their influence. (2) The Emotional
Life. - It is scarcely necessary to insist that the quality of the
astral body is largely determined by the kind of feelings and emotions
which constantly play through it. A man is using his
astral body, whether he be conscious of the fact or not, whenever he expresses
an emotion, just as he is using his mental body whenever he thinks, or his
physical body whenever he performs physical work. This, of course, is quite
a different thing from utilising his astral body as an independent vehicle
through which his consciousness can be fully expressed, a matter which we
shall have to consider later, in due course. The astral body,
as we have seen, is the field of manifestation of desire, the mirror in which
every feeling [Page 71] is instantly reflected,
in which even every thought which has in it anything that touches the
personal self must express itself.
From the material of the astral body bodily form is given to the dark "elementals" (se
page 45), which men create and set in motion by evil wishes and malicious
feelings: from it also are bodied forth the beneficent elementals called
into life by good wishes, gratitude and love. The astral body
grows by use, just as every other body does, and it also has its own habits,
built up and fixed by constant repetition of similar acts. The astral body
during physical life being the recipient of and respondent to stimuli both
from the physical body and from the lower mental, it tends to repeat automatically
vibrations to which it is accustomed; just as the hand may repeat a familiar
gesture, so may the astral body repeat a familiar feeling or thought. All the activities
that we call evil, whether selfish thoughts (mental) or selfish emotions
(astral), invariably show themselves as vibrations of the coarser matter
of those planes, whist good and unselfish thought or emotion sets in vibrations
the higher types of matter. As finer matter is more easily moved than coarse,
it follows that a given amount of force spent in good thought or feeling
produces perhaps a hundred times as much result as the same amount of force
sent out into coarser matter. If this were not so, it is obvious that the
ordinary man could never make any progress at all. The effect of 10%
of force directed to good ends enormously outweighs that of 90% devoted to
selfish purposes, and so on the whole such a man makes an appreciable advance
from life to life. A man who has even 1% of good makes a slight advance.
A man whose account balances exactly, so that he neither advances nor retrogresses,
must live a distinctly evil life: whilst in order to go downwards in evil
a person must be an unusually consistent villain. Thus even people
who are doing nothing consciously towards their evolution, and who let everything
go as [Page 72] it will, are nevertheless gradually
evolving, because of the irresistible force of the Logos which is steadily
pressing them onwards. But they are moving so slowly that it will take them
millions of years of incarnation and trouble and uselessness to gain even
a step. The method by which
progress is made certain is simple and ingenious. As we have seen, evil qualities
are vibrations of the coarser matter of the respective planes, while good
qualities are expressed through the higher grades of matter. From this follow
two remarkable results. It must be born
in mind that each sub-plane of the astral body has a special relationship
to the corresponding sub-plane of the mental body; thus the four lower
astral sub-planes correspond
to the four kinds of matter in the mental body, while the three higher
astral sub-planes correspond to the three kinds of matter in the causal
body. Hence the lower
astral vibrations can find no matter in the causal body capable of responding
to them, and so the higher qualities alone can be built into the causal body.
Thence it emerges that any good which a man develops in himself is permanently
recorded by a change in his causal body, while the evil which he does, feels,
or thinks cannot possibly touch the real ego, but can cause disturbance
and trouble only to the mental body, which is renewed for each fresh incarnation.
The result of evil is stored in the astral and mental permanent atoms: the
man, therefore, has still to face it all over and over again, until he has
vanquished it, and finally rooted from his vehicles all tendency to respond
to it. That is evidently a very different matter from taking it into the
ego and making it really a part of himself. Astral matter responds
more rapidly that physical to every impulse form the world of mind, and consequently
the astral body of a man, being made of astral matter, shares this readiness
to respond to the impact of thought, and thrills in answer to every thought [Page
73] that strikes it, whether the thoughts come from without, i.e., from
the minds of other men, or from within, from the mind of its owner. An astral body,
therefore, which is made by its owner to respond habitually to evil thoughts
acts as a magnet to similar thought - and emotion-forms in its vicinity,
whereas a pure astral body acts on such thoughts with repulsive energy,
and attracts to itself thought - and emotion-forms of matter and vibrations
congruous with its own. For it must be borne
in mind that the astral world is full of thoughts and emotions of other men,
and that these exert a ceaseless pressure, constantly bombarding every astral
body and setting up in it vibrations similar to their own. In addition, there
are nature-spirits (see page 181) of a low order, which enjoy the coarse
vibrations of anger and hatred, and throw themselves into any current of
such nature, thus intensifying the undulations and adding fresh life to them.
People yielding themselves to coarse feelings can depend on being constantly
surrounded by such carrion-crows of the astral world who jostle one another
in eager anticipation of an outburst of passion. Many of the moods
to which most people are subject, in greater or lesser degree, are due to
outside astral influences. Whilst depression, for example, may be due to
a purely physical cause, such as indigestion, a chill, fatigue, etc., even
more frequently it is caused by the presence of an astral entity who is himself
depressed and is hovering around either in search of sympathy or in the hope
of drawing from the subject the vitality which he lacks. Furthermore, a man
who, for example, is beside himself with rage, temporarily loses hold of
his astral body, the desire-elemental (see page 6) becoming supreme. Under
such circumstances the man may be seized upon and obsessed either by a dead
man of similar nature or by some evil artificial elemental. [Page 74] The student should
sternly and especially disregard depression, which is a great barrier to
progress, and at least should endeavour to let no one else know that he is
oppressed by it. It indicates that he is thinking more of himself than of
the Master, and it makes it more difficult for the Master's influence to
act upon him. Depression causes much suffering to sensitive people, and is
responsible for much of the terror of children at night. The inner life of
an aspirant ought not to be one of continual emotional oscillation. Above all things,
the aspirant should learn not to worry. Contentment is not incompatible with
aspiration. Optimism is justified by the certainty of the ultimate triumph
of good, though it is true that if we take into account only the physical
plane it is not easy to maintain that position. Under the stress
of very powerful emotions, if a man lets himself go too far, he may die,
become insane, or be obsessed. Such obsession need not necessarily be what
we call evil, though the truth is that all obsession is injurious. An illustration
of this phenomenon may be taken from "conversion" at a religious
revival. On such occasions some men get worked up into a condition of
such tremendous
emotional excitement that they swing beyond the degree of safety: they
may then be obsessed by a departed preacher of the same religious persuasion,
and thus two souls may be temporarily work through one body. The tremendous
energy of these hysterical excesses is contagious and may spread rapidly
through a crowd. An astral disturbance
is set up of the nature of a gigantic whirlpool. Towards this pour astral
entities whose one desire is for sensation: these are all kinds of nature-spirits
(see page 181) who delight in and bathe in the vibrations of wild excitement,
of whatever character, be it religious or sexual, just as children pay in
the surf. They supply and reinforce the energy so recklessly expended. The
dominant idea being usually the selfish one of saving one's own soul, [Page
75] the astral matter is of a coarse kind, and the nature-spirits are also
of a primitive type. The emotional
effect of a religious revival is thus very powerful. In some cases
a man may be genuinely and permanently benefited by his "conversion", but the
serious student of occultism should avoid such excesses of emotional excitement,
which for
many people are apt to be dangerous. "Excitement is alien to the spiritual
life". There are, of course,
many causes of insanity: it may be due to defects in one or more of the vehicles
- physical, etheric,astral, mental. In one variety it is caused by a want
of accurate adjustment between the astral particles and the particles of
either the etheric or the mental body. Such a case would not recover sanity
until he reached the heaven-world, i.e., until he had left his astral
body and passed into his mental body. This type of insanity is rare. The effect on the
astral body caused by astral vibrations of another astral body has long been
recognised in the East, and is one of the reasons why it is such an immense
advantage to a pupil to live in close proximity to one more highly evolved
than himself. An Indian teacher not only may prescribe for his pupil special
kinds of exercises or study, in order to purify, strengthen and develop the
astral body, but also by keeping the pupil in his neighbourhood physically
seeks by this close association to harmonise and attune the pupil's vehicles
to his own. Such a teacher has already calmed his own vehicles and accustomed
them to vibrate at a few carefully selected rates instead of in a hundred
promiscuous frenzies. These few rates of vibration are very strong and steady,
and each day and night, whether he is sleeping or waking, they play unceasingly
upon the vehicles of the pupil, and gradually raise him to his teacher's
key. For similar reasons,
an Indian, who wishes to live the higher life, retires to the jungle, as
a man of other races withdraws from the world and lives as a hermit. He thus
has at least breathing space, and rest from [Page 76] from
the endless conflict
caused by the perpetual battering on his vehicles of other people's feelings
and thoughts, and can find time to think coherently. The calm influences
of Nature are also to a certain extent helpful. Somewhat analogous
are the effects produced on animals which are closely associated with human
beings. The devotion of an animal for the master whom he loves, and his mental
efforts to understand his master's wishes and to please him, enormously develop
the animal's intellect and his power of devotion and affection. But in addition
to this, the constant play of the man's vehicles on those of the animal greatly
assist the process, and thus prepare the way for the animal to individualise
and become a human entity. It is possible,
by an effort of will, to make a shell of astral matter on the periphery
of the astral aura. This may be done for three purposes: (1) to keep out
emotional vibrations, such as anger, envy or hatred, intentionally directed
at one by another; (2) to keep out casual vibrations of low type which
may be floating in the astral world and impinge upon one's aura; (3) to
protect the astral body during meditation. Such shells do not usually last
for long, but need to
be frequently renewed if required for any length of time. Such a shell would,
of course,keep vibrations in as well as out. The student
should therefore make the shell only of the coarsest astral matter, as he
will not wish to keep away, or to prevent from passing outwards, vibrations
in the higher types of astral matter. As a general principle,
it may be said that to use a shell for oneself is to some extent a confession
of weakness, as if one is all one should be, no artificial protection of
this kind would be needed. On the other hand, shells may often be used with
advantage to help other people who need protection. It will be recollected
(see page 6) that a man's astral body consists not only of ordinary astral
matter, but also of a quantity of elemental essence. During the [Page
77] man's life this elemental essence is segregated from the ocean of similar
matter around, and practically becomes for that time what may be described
as a kind of artificial elemental (see page 450 i.e., a kind
of semi-intelligent separate entity known as the Desire-Elemental. The
Desire-Elemental follows the course of its own evolution downwards into
matter without any reference to (or, indeed, any knowledge of) the convenience
or intention of the Ego to whom it happens to be attached. Its interests
are thus diametrically opposed to those of the man, as it is seeking
ever stronger and coarser vibrations. Hence the perpetual struggle described
by St.Paul as "the law in the members
warring against the law of the mind". Furthermore, finding that
association with the mental matter of the man's mind-body brings to it
more vivid vibrations, it endeavours to stir up the mental matter into
sympathy with it, and to induce the man to believe that he desires the sensations which it
desires. Consequently,
it becomes a sort of tempter. Nevertheless the desire-elemental is not
an evil entity: in fact it is not an evolving entity at all, having no
power of reincarnation: it is only the essence of which it is composed
which is evolving.Nor has this shadowy being any evil designs upon the
man, for it knows nothing whatever of the man of whom, for the time, it
forms a part. It is thus in no way a fiend to the regarded with horror,
but is as much a part of the divine life as the man himself, though at
a different stage of its unfoldment. It is a mistake
to imagine that by refusing to gratify the desire-elemental with coarse vibrations,
a man is thereby checking its evolution: for this is not the case. By controlling
the passions and developing the higher qualities, a man drops the lower
and helps to evolve the higher types of essence: the lower kinds of vibrations
can be supplied by an animal, at some later time, even better than by a man,
whereas no one but a man can evolve the higher type of essence. All through life
a man should definitely fight against [Page 78] the
desire-elemental and its tendency to seek for the lower, coarser physical
vibrations, recognising quite
clearly that its consciousness, its like and dislikes, are not his own. He
has himself created it and should not become a slave to it, but learn to
control it and realise himself as apart from it. This matter will
be further considered in Chapter 12. 3) The Mental
Life. - Our third and last factor which affects the astral body during
ordinary waking consciousness is the mental life. The mental activities
have the most far-reaching effects on the astral body for two reasons:
- (1) Because
lower mental matter, Manas, is so inextricably linked with astral matter,
Kâma,
that it is almost impossible for most people to utilise one without the
other: i.e., few
people can think without at the same time feeling, or feel without at the
same time, to some extent, thinking. (2) Because the
organisation and control of the astral body rest with the mind. This is an
example of the general principle that each body is built up by consciousness
working in the plane next above it. Without the creative power of thought
the astral body cannot be organised. Every impulse
sent by the mind to the physical body has to pass through the astral body,
and produces an effect on it also. Further, as astral matter is far more
responsive to thought-vibrations than is physical, the effect of mental
vibrations on it is proportionately greater than on the physical body.
Consequently a controlled, trained and developed mind tends also to bring
the astral body under control and to develop it. When, however, the mind
is not actively controlling the astral body, the latter, being peculiarly
susceptible to the influence of passing thought-currents, is perpetually
receiving these stimuli from without, and eagerly responding to them. So far, we have
dealt with the general effects produced on the astral body, during ordinary
life, by the nature of the physical, emotional and mental life. [Page
79] We have now to deal, but in general outline only, with the
use of the special faculties of the astral body itself, during the waking
consciousness. The nature of these
faculties, and their connection with the various Chakrams in the astral body,
we have already described in Chapter 5. By means of the powers of astral
matter itself, developed through the agency of the Chakrams, a man is enabled
not only to receive vibrations from etheric matter, transmitted through the
astral body to his mind, but also to receive impressions direct from the
surrounding matter of the astral world, these, of course, being also similarly
transmitted
through the mental body to the real man within. But in order to
receive impressions in this manner direct from the astral world, the
man must learn to focus his consciousness in his astral body, instead of,
as is usually
the case, in his physical brain. In the lower
types of men, Kâma, or desire, is still emphatically the most
prominent feature, though the mental development has also proceeded
to some extent. The consciousness of such men is centred in the lower
part of the astral body, their life being governed by sensations connected
with the physical plane. That is the reason why the astral body forms
the most prominent part of the aura in the undeveloped man. An ordinary man
of our own race is also still living almost entirely in his sensations, although
the higher astral is coming into play: but still, for him, the prominent
question which guides his conduct is not what is right or reasonable to do,
but simply what he himself desires to do. The more cultured and developed
are beginning to govern desire by reason: that is to say, the centre of consciousness
is gradually transferring itself from the higher astral to the lower mental.
Slowly as the man progresses it moves up further still, and the man begins
to be dominated by principle rather than be interest and desire. The student will
recollect that humanity is still [Page 80] in
the Fourth Round, which should naturally be devoted to the development
of desire and emotion; yet we are engaged in the unfolding of intellect,
which is to be the special characteristic of the Fifth Round. That this
is so is due to the immense stimulus given to our evolution by the descent
of the Lords of the Flame from Venus, and by the work of the Adepts,
who have preserved for us that influence and steadily sacrificed themselves
in order that we might make the better progress. It should also be
recollected that, in the smaller cycle of races,the Fifth Root Race is working
at the mind-body, whereas the Fourth Root Race is more especially concerned
with the astral body. In spite of the
fact that, in the vast majority of cases the centre of consciousness is located
in the astral body, most men are quite unaware of the fact, knowing nothing
at all about the astral body or its uses. They have behind them the traditions
and customs of a long series of lives in which the astral faculties have
not been used; yet all the time those faculties have been gradually and slowly
growing inside a shell, somewhat as a chick grows inside the egg. Hence a
very large number of people have astral faculties, of which they are entirely
unconscious, in reality very near the surface, so to speak, and its probable
that in the near future, as these matters become more widely known and understood,
in great numbers of cases these latent faculties will break through, and
astral powers will then become far more common than they are today. The shell spoken
of above is composed of a great mass of self-centred thought in which the
ordinary man is almost hopelessly entombed. This applies also, perhaps with
even greater force, to the sleep life,with which we shall deal in the next
chapter. We spoke above
of focusing the consciousness in the astral body. The consciousness of
man can be focused in only one vehicle at a time, though he may be simultaneously
conscious through the others in a vague way. [Page
81] a simple analogy may
be taken from ordinary physical sight. If the finger be held up before
the face, the eyes can be so focussed as to see the finger perfectly:
at the same time the distant background can also be seen, though imperfectly,
because it is out of focus. In a moment the focus can be changed so that
the background is seen perfectly, but the finger, now out of focus,
only dimly and vaguely. Precisely in the
same way, if a man who has developed astral and mental consciousness
focuses himself in the physical brain, as in ordinary life, he will see perfectly
the physical bodies of people, and at the same time he will see their
astral and mental bodies, but only somewhat dimly.In far less than a moment
he can change the focus of his consciousness so that he sees the astral fully
and perfectly: but in that case he will see the mental and physical bodies
also, but not in full detail. The same thing is true of the mental sight
and of the sight of higher planes. Thus in the
case of a highly developed man, whose consciousness has already developed
even beyond the causal (higher mental) body, so that he is able to
function freely on the buddhic plane, and has also a measure of consciousness
upon the âtmic
plane, the centre of consciousness lies between the higher mental and the
buddhic plane. The higher mental and the higher astral are in him much more
developed than their lower parts, and though he still retains his physical
body, he holds it merely for the convenience of working in it, and not in
any way because his thoughts and desires are fixed there. Such a man has
transcended all Kâma which could bind him to incarnation, and his
physical body is therefore retained in order that it may serve as an
instrument for the forces of the higher planes to reach down even to
the physical plane.[Page
82] The real cause of
sleep would appear to be that the bodies grow tired of one another. In the
case of the physical body, not only every muscular exertion, but also every
feeling and thought, produce certain slight chemical changes. A healthy body
is always trying to counteract these changes, but it never quite succeeds
whilst the body is awake. Consequently with every thought, feeling or action
there is a slight, almost imperceptible loss, the cumulative effect of which
eventually leaves the physical body too exhausted to be capable of further
thought or work. In some cases even a few moments of sleep will be sufficient
for recuperation, this being effected by the physical elemental. In the case of the
astral body, it very soon becomes tired of the heavy labour of moving the
particles of the physical brain, and needs a considerable period of separation
from it to enable it to gather strength to resume the irksome task. On its own plane,
however, the astral body is practically incapable of fatigue, since it has
been known to work incessantly for twenty-five years without showing signs
of exhaustion. Although excessive
and long-continued emotion tires a man very quickly in ordinary life, it
is not the astral body which becomes fatigued, but the physical organism
though
which the emotion is expressed or experienced. Similarly with the
mental body. When we speak of mental fatigue, it is in reality a misnomer,
for it is the brain, not the mind, that is tired. There is no such thing
as fatigue of the mind. [Page 83] When a mean leaves
his body in sleep (or in death), the pressure of the surrounding astral
matter - which really means the force of gravity on the astral plane - immediately
forces other astral matter into the astrally empty space. Such a temporary
astral counterpart is an exact copy, so far as arrangement is concerned,
of the physical body, but nevertheless it has no real connection with
it, and could never be used as a vehicle. It is merely a fortuitous concurrence
of particles, drawn from any astral matter of a suitable kind that happens
to be at hand. When the true astral body returns, it pushes out this
other astral matter without the slightest opposition. This is clearly
one reason why extreme care should be exercised as to the surroundings in
which a man sleeps: for, if those surrounding are evil, astral matter of
an objectionable type may fill the physical body while the man's astral body
is absent, leaving behind influences which cannot but react unpleasantly
upon the real man when he returns. When
a man "goes
to sleep", his higher principles in their astral vehicle withdraw
from the physical body, the dense body and the etheric body remaining
by themselves on the bed, the astral body floating in the air above them.
In sleep, then, a man is simply using his astral body instead of his
physical: it is only the physical body that is asleep, not necessarily
the man himself. Usually the astral
body, thus withdrawn from the physical, will retain the form of the physical
body, so that the person is readily recognisable to any one who knows
him physically. This is due to the fact that the attraction between the astral
and the physical particles, continued all through physical life, sets
up a habit or momentum in the astral matter, which continues even while it
is temporarily withdrawn from the sleeping physical body. For this reason,
the astral body of a man who is asleep will consist of a central portion
corresponding [Page 84] to the physical body, relatively very dense, and
a surrounding aura, relatively much rarer. In the case of a
very undeveloped man, such as a savage, he may be nearly as much asleep
as his physical body, because he is capable of very little definite consciousness
in his astral body. He is also unable to move away from the immediate
neighbourhood of the sleeping physical body, and if an attempt were made
to draw him away in his astral body, he would probably awake in his physical
body in terror. His astral body
is a somewhat shapeless mass, a floating wreath of mist, roughly ovoid in
shape, but very irregular and indefinite in outline: the features and shape
of the inner form (the dense astral counterpart of the physical body) are
also vague, blurred and indistinct, but always recognisable. A man of this primitive
type has been using his astral body, during waking consciousness, sending
mind currents through the astral to the physical brain. But when, during
sleep, the physical brain is inactive, the astral body, being undeveloped,
is incapable of receiving impressions on its own account, and so the
man is practically unconscious, being unable to express himself clearly through
the poorly organised astral body. The centres of sensation in it may
be affected by passing thought-forms, and he may answer in it to stimuli
that rouse the lower nature. But the whole effect given to the observer is
one of sleepiness and vagueness, the astral body lacking all definite activity
and floating idly, inchoate, above the sleeping physical form. In a quite unevolved
person, therefore, the higher principles, i.e., the man himself,
are almost as much asleep as the physical body. In some cases the
astral body is less lethargic, and floats dreamily about on the various
astral currents, occasionally recognising other people in a similar condition,
and meeting with experiences of all sorts, pleasant and unpleasant, the memory
of which, hopelessly confused and often travestied into a grotesque [Page
85] caricature of what really happened (See Chapter 10
on Dreams)
will cause the man to think next morning what a remarkable dream he has had. In the case of a
more evolved man, there is a very great difference. The inner form is much
more distinct and definite - a closer reproduction of the man's physical
appearance. Instead of the surrounding mist-wreath, there is a sharply defined
ovoid
form preserving its shape unaffected amidst all the varied currents which
are always swirling around it on the astral plane. A man of this type
is by no means unconscious in his astral body, but is quite actively thinking.
Nevertheless, he may be taking very little more notice of his surroundings
than the savage. Not because he is incapable of seeing, but because he
is so wrapped up in his own thought that he does not see, though he could
do so if he chose. Whatever may have been the thoughts engaging his mind
during the past day, he usually continues them when he falls asleep, and
he is thus surrounded by so dense a wall of his own making that he observes
practically nothing of what is going on outside. Occasionally a violent impact
from without, or even some strong desire of his own from within, may tear
aside this curtain of mist and permit him to receive some definite impression.
But even then the fog would close in again almost immediately, and he would
dream on un-observantly as before. In the case of a
still more developed man, when the physical body goes to sleep, the astral
body slips out of it, and the man is then in full consciousness. The astral
body is clearly outlined and definitely organised, bearing the likeness of
the man, and the man is able to use it as a vehicle, a vehicle far more convenient
than the physical body. The receptivity
of the astral body has increased, until it is instantly responsive to all
the vibrations of its plane, the fine as well as the coarser: but in the
astral body of a very highly developed person [Page 86] there
would, of course, be practically no matter left capable of responding to
coarse vibrations. Such a man is wide
awake, is working far more actively, more accurately, and with greater
power of comprehension, than when he was confined in the denser physical
vehicle. In addition, he can move about freely and with immense rapidity
to any distance, without causing the least disturbance to the sleeping physical
body. He may meet and
exchange ideas with friends,either incarnate or discarnate, who happen to
be equally awake on the astral plane, He may meet people more evolved than
himself, and receive from them warning or instruction: or he may be able
to confer benefits on those who know less than himself. He may come into
contact
with non-human entities of various kinds (see Chapters 20 and 21 on Astral
Entities): he will be subject to all kinds of astral influences, good
or evil, strengthening or terrifying. He may form friendships
with people from to their parts of the world: he may give or listen to lectures:
if he is a student, he may meet other students and, with the additional faculties
which the astral world gives, he may be able to solve problems which presented
difficulties in the physical world. A physician, for
example, during the sleep of the body, may visit cases in which he is especially
interested. He may thus acquire new information, which may come through as
a kind of intuition to his waking consciousness. In a highly evolved
man, the astral body, being thoroughly organised and vitalised, becomes as
much the vehicle of consciousness on the astral plane as the physical body
is on the physical plane. The astral world
being the very home of passion and emotion, those who yield themselves
to an emotion can experience it with a vigour and a keenness mercifully unknown
on earth. Whilst in the physical body most of the efficiency of an emotion
is exhausted in transmission to the physical plane, but in the astral [Page
87] world the whole of the force is available in its
own world. Hence it is possible in the astral world to feel far more
intense affection or devotion than
is possible in the physical world: similarly an intensity of suffering
is possible in the astral world which is unimaginable in ordinary physical
life. An advantage of
this state of affairs is that in the astral world all pain and suffering
are voluntary and absolutely under control, hence life there is much
easier, for the man who understands. To control physical pain by the mind
is possible, but exceedingly difficult: but in the astral world anyone can
in a moment drive away the suffering caused by a strong emotion. The man
has only to exert his will, when the passion straightway disappears. This
assertion sounds startling: but it is nevertheless true, such being the power
of will and mind over matter. To have attained
full consciousness in the astral body is to have already made a considerable
amount of progress: when a man has also bridged over the chasm between astral
and physical consciousness, day and night no longer exist for him, since
he leads a life unbroken in its continuity. For such a man, even death, as
ordinarily
conceived, has ceased to exist, since he carries that unbroken consciousness
not only through night and day, but also through the portals of death itself,
and up to the end of his life upon the astral plane, as we shall see later
when we come to deal with the after-death life. Travelling in the
astral body is not instantaneous: but it is so swift that space and time
may be said to be practically conquered: for although a man is passing through
space, it is passed through so rapidly that its power to divide is nearly
non-existent. In two or three minutes a man might move round the world. Any fairly advanced
and cultured man among the higher races of mankind has already consciousness
fully developed in the astral body, and is perfectly capable of employing
it as a vehicle, though in many [Page 88] case he does not do so, because
he has not made the definite effort which is at first necessary, until the
habit becomes established. The
difficulty with the ordinary person is not that the astral body cannot
act, but that for thousands of years that body has been accustomed
to being set in motion only by impressions received through the physical
vehicle, so that men do not realise that the astral body can work
on its own plane and on its own account, and that the will can act upon
it directly. People remain "unawake" astrally
because they get into the habit of waiting for the familiar physical
vibrations to call out their astral activity. Hence they may be said
to be awake on the astral plane, but not in the
least to the plane, and consequently
they are conscious of their surroundings only very vaguely, if at all. When a man becomes
a pupil of one of the Masters, he is usually at once shaken out of his
somnolent condition on the astral plane, fully awakened to the realities
around him on that plane, and set to learn from them and to work among them,
so that his hours of sleep are no longer a blank, but are filled with active
and useful occupation, without in the least interfering with the healthy
repose of the tired physical body. In Chapter 28 on Invisible
Helpers we shall deal more fully with carefully planned and
organised work in the astral body: here it may be stated that even
before that stage is reached, a great deal of useful work may be and
is constantly being done. A man who falls asleep with the definite
intention in his mind of doing a certain piece of work will assuredly
go and attempt to carry out his intention as soon as he is freed from
his physical body in sleep. But, when the work is completed, it is
likely that the fog of his own self-centred thoughts will close round
him once more, unless he has accustomed himself to initiate fresh lines
of action when functioning apart from the physical brain. In some cases,
of course, the work [Page 89] chosen
is such as to occupy the whole of the time spent in sleep, so that
such a man would be exerting himself to the fullest extent possible,
so far as his astral development permits. Every one should
determine each night to do something useful on the astral plane: to comfort
some one in trouble: to use the will to pour strength into a friend who is
weak or ill: to calm some one who is excited or hysterical: or to perform
some similar service. Some measure of
success is absolutely certain, and if the helper observes closely, he will
often receive indications in the physical world of definite results achieved. There
are four ways in which a man may be "awakened" to self-conscious
activity in his astral body. (1) By the ordinary
course of evolution, which though slow, is sure. (2) By the man himself,
having learnt the facts of the case, making the requisite steady and
persistent effort to clear away the mist from within and gradually overcome
the inertia to which he is accustomed. In order to do this the man should
resolve before going to sleep to try when he leaves the body to awaken himself
and see something or do some useful work. This, of course, is merely hastening
the natural process of evolution. It is desirable that the man should first
have developed common sense and moral qualities: this for two reasons: first,
lest he may misuse such powers as he may acquire; second, lest he be overwhelmed
by fear in the presence of forces which can neither understand nor control. (3) By some accident,
or by unlawful use of magical ceremonies, he may so rend the veil that it
can never wholly be closed again. Instances of this are to be found in A
Bewitched life by H.P.Blavatsky, and in Zanoni by Lord Bulwer
Lytton (4) A friend may
act from without upon the closed shell surrounding the man and gradually
arouse the [Page 90] man to higher possibilities.
This, however,would never be done unless the friend were quite sure that
the man to be awakened possessed
the courage, devotion, and other qualifications necessary for useful work. But the need of
helpers on the astral plane is so great that every aspirant may be certain
that there will not be a day's delay in arousing him as soon as he is seen
to be ready. It may be added
that when even a child has been awakened on the astral plane, the development
of the astral body would proceed so rapidly that he would very soon be in
a position upon that plane but little inferior to that of the awakened adult,
and would, of course, be much in advance, so far as usefulness is concerned,
of the wisest man who was as yet unawakened. But unless the go
expressing himself through the child-body possessed the necessary qualification
of a determined yet loving disposition, and had clearly manifested it in
his previous lives, no occultist would take the very serious responsibility
of awakening him on the astral plane. When it is possible to arouse children
in this way, they often prove most efficient works on the astral plane, and
throw themselves into this work with a whole-souled devotion which is beautiful
to see. Also, while it is
comparatively easy to waken a man on the astral plane, it is practically
impossible, except by a most undesirable use of mesmeric influence, to put
him to sleep again. Sleeping and waking
life are thus seen to be in reality but one: during sleep we are aware of
that fact, and have the continuous memory of both, i.e., astral memory
includes the physical, though, of course, the physical memory by no means
always includes the memory of the astral experiences. The phenomenon of
sleep-walking (somnambulism) may apparently be produced in several distinct
ways. (1) The ego may
be able to act more directly upon [Page 91] the physical body during the
absence of the mental and astral vehicles: in cases of this nature a man
might be able, for example, to write poetry, paint pictures, etc., which
would be far beyond his ordinary powers when awake. (2) The physical
body may be working automatically, and by force of habit, uncontrolled by
the man himself. Instances of this occur where servants rise in the middle
of the night and light a fire or attend to other household duties to which
they are accustomed: or where the sleeping physical body carries out to some
extent the idea dominant in the mind before falling to sleep. (3) An outside entity,
incarnate or discarnate, may seize the body of a sleeping man and use it
for his own ends. This would be most likely to happen with a person who was
mediumnistic, i.e., whose bodies are more loosely joined together
than usual and therefore more readily separable. With normal people,
however, the fact that the astral body leaves the physical body during sleep
does not open the way to obsession, because the ego always maintains
a close connection with his body and he would quickly be recalled to it by
any attempt that might be made upon it. (4) A directly opposite
condition may also produce a similar result. When the principles or bodies
fit more tightly than usual, the man, instead of visiting a distant place
in his astral body only, would take his physical body along as well, because
he is not wholly dissociated from it. (5) Somnambulism
is probably also connected with the complex problem of the various layers
of consciousness in man, which under normal circumstances are unable to manifest
themselves. Closely akin to
sleep-life is the condition of trance, which but the sleep state, artificially
or abnormally induced. Mediums and sensitives readily pass out of the
physical body into the astral body, usually unconsciously. The astral body
can then exercise its functions, [Page 92] such
as that of travelling to a distant place, gathering impressions there from
surrounding objects and bringing
them back to the physical body. In the case of a medium the astral body
can describe these impressions by means of the entranced physical body: but,
as a rule, when the medium comes out of the trance,the brain does not
retain the impressions thus made on it, no trace being left in the physical
memory of the experiences acquired. Occasionally, but rarely, the astral
body is able to make a lasting impression on the brain, so that the medium
is able to recollect the knowledge acquired during trance. [Page
93] DREAMS Consciousness
and activity in the astral body are one thing: the memory in the brain
of that astral consciousness and activity are a totally different matter.
The existence or the absence of physical memory in no way affects the consciousness
on the astral plane, nor the ability to function in the astral plane
with perfect ease and freedom. It is, in fact,not only possible, but also
by no means uncommon, for a man to function freely and usefully in his astral
body during the sleep of the physical body, and yet to return to the physical
body without the slightest memory of the astral work upon which he has
been engaged. The
break in consciousness between the astral and the physical life is due either
to un-development of the astral body, or to the want of an adequate etheric
bridge between the astral and the dense physical matter of the bodies. This
bridge consists of the closely-woven web of atomic matter, through which
the vibrations have to pass, and which causes a moment of unconsciousness,
like a veil, between sleeping and waking. The
only way in which memory of the astral life can be brought through into
the physical brain is by sufficient development of the astral body and by
an awakening of the etheric Chakrams, one function of which is to bring forces
from the
astral to the etheric. In addition, there must be active functioning
of the pituitary body, which focuses the astral vibrations. Sometimes,
on awakening, there is a feeling that something has been experienced
of which no memory remains. The feeling indicates that there has been [Page
94] astral consciousness, though the brain is insufficiently
receptive to receive the record. At other times the man in his astral
body may succeed in making a momentary impression on the etheric double
and the dense body, resulting in a vivid memory of the astral life. This
is sometimes done deliberately when something occurs which the man feels
that he ought to remember on the physical plane. Such a memory usually
vanishes quickly and cannot be recovered: efforts to recover the memory,
by setting up strong vibrations in the physical brain, still further
overpower the more delicate astral vibrations, and consequently render
success even more impossible. There
are some events, too, which make such a vivid impression upon the astral
body that they become impressed upon the physical brain by a kind of repercussion
(see page 242). In
other cases, a man may succeed in impressing new knowledge on the physical
brain, without being able to convey also the memory of where or how that
knowledge was gained. Instances of this, common to most people, occur where
solutions of problems, previously insoluble, suddenly arise in the consciousness,
or where light is suddenly thrown on to questions previously obscure. Such
cases may be taken to indicate that progress is being made with the organisation
and functioning of the astral body, although the physical body is still only
partially receptive. In
cases where the physical brain does respond, there are vivid, reasonable
and coherent dreams, such as occur to many people from time to time. Few
people, when in the astral body, care whether the physical brain remembers
or not, and nine out of ten much dislike returning to the body. In coming
back to the physical body from the astral world there is a feeling of
great constraint, as though one were being enveloped in a thick, heavy cloak.
The joy of life on the astral plane is so great that physical life in comparison
with it seems no life at all. Many regard the daily return to the physical
body as men [Page 95] often do
their daily journey to the office. They do not positively dislike it,
but they would not do it unless they were compelled. Eventually,
in the case of highly developed and advanced persons, the etheric bridge
between the astral and the physical worlds is constructed, and then there
is perfect
continuity of consciousness between the astral and the physical lives. For
such people life ceases to be composed of days of remembrance and nights
of oblivion, and becomes instead, a continuous whole, year after year, of
unbroken consciousness. Occasionally,
a man who has normally no memory of his astral life, may unintentionally,
through an accident, or illness, or intentionally by certain definite practices,
bridge over the gap between astral and physical consciousness, so that from
that time onwards his astral consciousness will be continuous, and his memory
of his sleep life therefore be perfect. But, of course, before this could
take place, he must already have developed full consciousness in the astral
body. It is merely the rending of the veil between the astral and physical
that is sudden, not the development of the astral body. The
dream life may be considerably modified as a direct result of mental
growth. Every impulse sent by the mind to the physical brain has to pass
through the astral body, and, as astral matter is far more responsive to
thought-vibrations than is physical matter, it follows that the effects produced
on the astral body are correspondingly greater. Thus, when a man has acquired
mental control, i.e., has
learned to dominate the brain, to concentrate, and to think as and when
he likes, a corresponding change will take place in his astral life; and,
if he brings the memory of that life through into the physical brain, his
dreams will become vivid, well-sustained, rational, even instructive. In
general, the more the physical brain is trained to answer to the vibrations
of the mental body, the more is the bridging of the gulf between waking
and sleeping [Page 96] consciousness
facilitated. The brain should become more and more the obedient instrument
of the man, acting under impulses from his
will. The
dreaming of ordinary events does not interfere with astral work, because
the dreaming takes place in the physical brain, while the real man is away
attending to other matters. It does not really matter what the physical brain
does, so long as it keeps itself free from undesirable thoughts. Once
a dream is started, its course cannot usually be changed: but the dream-life
can be controlled indirectly to a considerable extent. It is especially important
that the last thought on sinking to sleep should be a noble and elevating
one, as this strikes the keynote which largely determines the nature of the
dreams which follow. An evil or impure thought attracts evil and impure influences
and creatures, which react on the mind and astral body and tend to awaken
low and earthly desires. On
the other hand, if a man falls asleep with his thoughts fixed on high and
holy things, he will automatically draw round him elementals created by similar
efforts of others, and consequently his dreams will be lofty and pure. As
we are dealing in this book mainly with the astral body, and phenomena closely
associated with it, it is not necessary to attempt to deal exhaustively with
the somewhat large subject of dream consciousness. Nevertheless, in order
to show the proper setting of the part which the astral body plays in the
dream life, it will be useful to give a very brief outline of the main factors
operative in producing dreams.For a detailed study of the whole matter the
student is referred to that excellent textbook, Dreams by
C.W.Leadbeater , from which the following facts are extracted. The
factors concerned in the production of dreams are: - 1-
The lower physical brain, with its infantile semi-consciousness,
and its habit of expressing every stimulus in pictorial form. [Page
97] 2- The etheric part of the brain, through which sweeps
a ceaseless procession of disconnected pictures. 3- The astral body, palpitating with the wild surgings
of desire and emotion. 4- The ego (in the causal body) who may be in any state
of consciousness, from almost complete insensibility to perfect command of
his faculties. When a man goes to sleep, his ego withdraws further within himself,
and leaves his various bodies more free than usual to go their own way. These
separate bodies: (1) are much more susceptible of impressions from without
than at other times; and (2) have a very rudimentary consciousness of their
own. Consequently there is ample reason for the production of dreams, as well
as for confused recollections in the physical brain of the experiences of the
other bodies during sleep. Such confused dreams may thus be due to: (1) a series of disconnected
pictures and impossible transformations produced by the senseless automatic
action of the lower physical brain; (2) a stream of casual
thought which has been pouring through the etheric part of the brain; (3) the
ever-restless tide of earthly desire, playing through the astral body and probably
stimulated by astral influences; (4) an imperfect attempt at dramatisation
by an undeveloped ego; (5) a mingling of several or all of these influences. We
will briefly describe the principal elements in each of these kinds of dreams. 1- Physical
Brain Dreams. - When in sleep the ego, for the time, resigns control
of the brain, the physical body still has a certain dim consciousness
of its own: and in addition there is also the aggregate consciousness
of the individual cells of the physical body. The grasp of the physical
consciousness over the brain is far feebler than that of the ego over
the brain, and consequently purely physical charges are capable of
affecting the brain to a very much
greater extent. Examples of such physical changes are: irregularity
in the circulation of the blood, indigestion, heat and cold, etc..[Page
98] The
dim physical consciousness possesses certain peculiarities: (1) it is to
a great extent automatic; (2) it seems unable to grasp an idea except in
the form in which it is itself an actor: consequently all stimuli, whether
from within
or from without, are immediately translated into perceptual images; (3) it
is incapable of grasping abstract ideas or memories, as such, but at once
transforms them into imaginary percepts: (4) every local direction of thought
becomes for it an actual spatial transportation, i.e., a passing
thought of China would transport the consciousness instantly in imagination
to China;
(5) it has no power of judging the sequence, value or objective truth of
the pictures that appear before it; it takes them all just as it seems them,
and never feels surprised at anything which may happen, however incongruous
or absurd; (6) it is subject to the principle of association of ideas, and
consequently images, unconnected except by the fact that they represent events
which happened near to one another in time, are apt to be thrown together
in inextricable confusion; (7) it is singularly sensitive to the slightest
external influences, such as sounds or touches, and (8) it magnifies and
distorts them to an almost incredible degree. The
physical brain thus is capable of creating sufficient confusion and exaggeration
to account for many, but by no means all, dream phenomena. 2. Etheric
Brain Dreams. - The etheric brain is even more sensitive during
the sleep of the body than it is during ordinary waking consciousness
to influences from outside. Whilst the mind is actively engaged, the
brain thereby being fully employed, it is practically impervious to
the continual impingement of thought from without. But the moment the
brain is left idle, the stream of inconsequent chaos begins to
pour through it. In the vast majority of people, the thoughts which
flow through their brains are in reality not their own thoughts at
all, but fragments cast off by other people. Consequently, in sleep
life especially, any passing thought which finds something [Page
99] congruous to itself in the brain of a sleeper,
is seized upon by that brain and appropriated, thus starting a whole
train of ideas: eventually these fade away and the disconnected, purposeless
stream begins flowing through the brain again. A point
to notice is that, since in the present state of the world's evolution there
are likely to be more evil thoughts than good ones floating around, a man
with an uncontrolled brain is open to all sorts of temptation which mind
and brain control might have spared him. Even
when these thought-currents are shut out, by the deliberate effort of
another person, from the etheric brain of a sleeper, that brain does not
remain completely passive, but begins slowly and dreamily to evolve pictures
for itself from its store of past memories. 3. Astral
Dreams -These are simply recollection in the physical brain of
the life and activities of the astral body during the sleep of the
physical body, to which reference has already been made in the preceding
pages. In the case of a fairly well-developed person, the astral body
can travel without discomfort to considerable distances from its physical
body: can bring
more or less definite impressions of places which it may have visited,
or of people whom it may have met. In every case the astral body, as
already said, is ever intensely impressionable by any thought or suggestion
involving desire or emotion, though the nature of the desires which
most readily awaken a response in it will, of course, depend on the
development of the person and the purity or otherwise of his astral
body. The
astral body is at all times susceptible to the influences of passing thought-currents,
and, when the mind is not actively controlling it, it is perpetually receiving
these stimuli from without, and eagerly responding to them. During sleep
it is even more readily influenced. Consequently, a man who has, for example,
entirely destroyed a physical desire, which he may previously have possessed
for alcohol, so that in [Page 100] waking
life he may feel even a definite repulsion for it, may yet frequently dream
that he is drinking, and in that
dream experience the pleasure of its influence. During the day, the desire
of the astral body would be under the control of the will, but when the
astral body was liberated in sleep, it escaped to some extent from the
domination of the ego, and, responding probably to outside astral influence,
its old habit reasserted itself. This class of dream is probably common
to many who are making definite attempts to bring their desire-nature under
the control of the will. It
may also happen that a man may have been a drunkard in a past life and
still possesses in his astral body some matter drawn thereinto by the vibrations
caused in the permanent atom by the drunkenness. Although this matter
is not vivified in this life, yet in dreams, the control of the ego being
weak, the matter may respond to drink-vibrations from without and the man
dreams that he drinks. Such dreams, once understood, need not cause distress:
nevertheless they should be regarded as a warning that there is still present
the possibility of the drink-craving being re-awakened. Ego Dreams - Much
as the nature of the astral body changes as it develops, still greater is
the change of the ego, or real man, that inhabits it. Where the astral body
is nothing but a floating wreath of mist, the ego is also almost as much
asleep as his physical body, being blind to the influences of his own higher
plane: and even if some idea belonging to it should manage to reach him,
since he has little or no control over his lower bodies, he will be unable
to impress the experience on the physical brain. Sleepers
may be at any stage from that of complete oblivion up to that of full
astral consciousness. And it must be recollected, as already said, that even
though there may be many important experiences on the higher planes, the
ego may nevertheless be unable to impress them upon the brain, so that there
is either no physical memory at all, or only a most confused memory. [Page
101] The
principal characteristics of the consciousness and experiences of the ego,
whether or not they be remembered in the brain, are as follows: - (1)
The ego's measure of time and space are so entirely different from that
which he uses in waking life that it is almost as though neither time nor
space existed for him. Many instances are known where in a few moments of
time, as we measure it, the ego may have experiences which appear to last
for many years, event after event happening in full and circumstantial detail. (2)
The ego possesses the faculty, or the habit, of instantaneous dramatisation.
Thus a physical sound or a touch may reach the ego, not through the usual
nerve mechanism, but directly, a fraction of a second before even it
reaches the physical brain. That fraction of a second is sufficient for the
ego to construct a kind of drama or series of scenes leading up to and culminating
in the event which awakens the physical body. The brain confuses the
subjective dream and the objective event, and therefore imagines itself to
have actually lived through the events of the dream. This
habit, however, seems to be peculiar to the ego which, so far as spirituality
is concerned, is still comparatively undeveloped. As the ego develops spiritually,
he rises beyond these graceful sports of his childhood. The man who has attained
continuous consciousness is so fully occupied with higher plane work that
he devotes no energy to this dramatisation, and consequently this class of
dream ceases for him. (3)
The ego possesses also to some extent the faculty of prevision, being
sometimes able to see in advance events which are going to happen, or rather
which may happen unless steps are taken to prevent them, and to impress the
same on the physical brain. Many instances are recorded of such prophetic
or warning dreams. In some cases the warning may be heeded, the necessary
steps taken, and the foreseen result either modified or entirely avoided. [Page
102] (4)
The ego, when out of the body during sleep, appears to think in symbols:
an idea, which down here would require many words to be expressed, is perfectly
conveyed to him by a single symbolical image. If such a symbolic thought
is impressed upon the brain, and remembered in waking consciousness,
the mind may itself translate it into words: on the other hand it may come
through merely as a symbol, un-translated, and so may cause confusion.
In dreams of this nature, it seems that each person usually has a system
of symbology of his own: thus water may signify approaching trouble: pearls
may be a sing of tears: and so forth. If
a man wishes to have useful dreams, i.e., to be able to reap in
his waking consciousness the benefit of what his ego may learn during sleep,
there are certain steps he should take to bring about this result. First,
it is essential that he should form the habit of sustained and concentrated
thought during ordinary waking life. A man who has absolute control of
his thoughts will always know exactly what he is thinking about, and why;
he will also find that the brain, thus trained to listen to the promptings
of the ego, will remain quiescent when not in use, and will decline to receive
or respond to casual currents from the surrounding ocean of thought. The
man will thus be more likely to receive influences from the higher planes,
where insight is keener and judgment truer than they can ever be on the physical
plane. It
should scarcely be necessary to add that the man should also be complete
master of at least his lower passions. By
a very elementary act of magic, a man may shut out from his etheric brain
the rush of thoughts which impinge upon it from without. To this end, he
should, when lying down to sleep, picture his aura, and will strongly that
its outer surface shall become a shell to protect him from outside influences.
The auric matter will obey his thought, and form the shell. This step is
of appreciable value towards the desired end. [Page 103] The
great importance of fixing the last thought, before falling to sleep, on
high and noble things, has already been mentioned; it should be practised
regularly by those who wish to bring their dreams under control. It
may be useful here to add the Hindu terms for the four states of consciousness: Jâgrat is
the ordinary waking consciousness. Sushupti is
the consciousness working in the mental body, and not able to impress its
experiences on the brain. Turiya is
a state of trance, the consciousness working in the buddhic vehicle, being
so far separated from the brain that it cannot readily be recalled by outer
means. These
terms, however, are used relatively, and vary according to the context. Thus,
in one interpretation of jâgrat, the physical and astral
planes are combined, the seven sub-divisions corresponding to the four conditions
of physical matter, and the three broad divisions of astral matter mentioned
on page 148. For
further elucidation the student is referred to An introduction to Yoga, by
Annie Besant, page 16, et seq., and also to A Study in Consciousness,
were waking consciousness is defined as that part of the total consciousness
which is working through the outermost vehicle. [Page 104] CONTINUITY
OF CONSCIOUSNESS As
we have seen, for a man to pass in unbroken consciousness from one vehicle
to another, e.g., from
the physical to the astral, or vice
versa, it is a requisite that the links between the bodies should
be developed. Most men are not conscious of these links, and the links
are not actively vivified, being in a condition similar to that of rudimentary
organs in the physical body. They have to be developed by use, and are
made to function by the man fixing his attention upon them and using
his will. The will sets free and guides kundalini, but unless the preliminary
purification of the vehicles is first thoroughly accomplished, kundalini
is a destructive instead of a vivifying energy. Hence the insistence,
by all occult teachers, on the necessity of purification before true
yoga is practised. When
a man has rendered himself fit to be helped in vivifying the links, such
assistance will inevitably come to him as a matter of course, from those
who are ever seeking opportunities to aid the earnest and unselfish aspirant.
Then, one day, the man will find himself slipping out of the physical body
while he is wide awake, and without any break in consciousness he discovers
himself to be free. With practice the passage from vehicle to vehicle becomes
familiar and easy. The development of the links bridges the gulf between
physical and astral consciousness, so that there is perfect continuity of
consciousness. The
student thus has not only to learn to see correctly on the astral plane,
but also to translate accurately the memory of what he has seen from
the astral to the physical brain: and to assist him in this he is trained
to carry his consciousness without break from the [Page
105] physical
plane to the astral and mental and back again, for until that can be
done there
is always a possibility that his recollections may be partially lost
or distorted during the blank intervals which separate his periods of consciousness
on the various planes. When the power of bringing over the consciousness
is perfectly acquired, the pupil will have the advantage of the use of all
the astral faculties, not only while out of the body during sleep or trance,
but also while fully awake in ordinary physical life. In
order that the physical waking consciousness should include astral consciousness
it is necessary that the pituitary body should be further evolved, and that
the fourth spirillae in the atoms should be perfected. In
addition to the method of moving the consciousness from one sub-plane to
another, of the same plane, from, e.g., the astral atomic
to the lowest sub-plane of the mental, there is also another line
of
connection which may be called the atomic short-cut. If
we picture the atomic sub-planes of astral, mental, etc., as lying side
by side along a rod, the other sub-planes may be pictured as hanging from
the rod in loops, as though a piece of string were wound loosely round
the rod. Obviously, then, to pass from one atomic sub-plane to another
one could move by a short cut along the rod, or down and up again through
the hanging loops which symbolise the lower sub-planes. The
normal processes of our thinking come steadily down through the sub-planes:
but flashes of genius, illuminative ideas, come through the atomic sub-planes
only. There
is also a third possibility connected with the relation of our planes with
the cosmic planes, but this is too abstruse to be dealt with in a work which
purports to deal only with the astral plane and its phenomena. Merely
to obtain continuity of consciousness between the physical and the astral
planes is, of course, quite [Page 106] insufficient in itself to restore
memory of past lives. For this a much higher development is required, into
the nature of which it is not necessary to enter enter. A man
who has thus acquired complete mastery over the astral body may, of course,
leave the physical body, not only during sleep, but at any time he chooses,
and go to a distant place, etc.. Mediums
and sensitives project their astral bodies unconsciously, when they
go into trance: but usually on coming out of trance there is no brain-memory
of the experiences acquired. Trained students are able to project the astral
body consciously and to travel to great distances from the physical body,
bringing back with them full and detailed memory of all the impressions they
have gained. An
astral body thus projected may be seen by persons who are sensitive or who
may chance to be temporarily in an abnormal nervous condition. There are
on record many cases of such astral visitations by a dying person near the
time of death, the approach of dissolution having loosened the principles
so as to make the phenomenon possible for people who were unable at any other
time to perform the feat. (See also page 50 for a similar phenomenon produced
by a thought-form). The astral body is also set free in many cases
of disease. Inactivity of the physical body is a condition of such astral
journeys. A
man may, if he knows how to set about it, slightly densify his
astral body by drawing into it, from the surrounding atmosphere, particles
of physical matter, and thus "materialise" sufficiently to become physically visible.
This is the explanation of many cases of "apparitions", where
a person, physically absent, has been seen by friends with their ordinary
physical sight. [Page 107] DEATH
AND THE DESIRE-ELEMENTAL At
death, the consciousness withdraws from the dense physical body into the
etheric double for a short time, usually a few hours, and then passes into
the astral body. Death
thus consists of a process of unrobing or unsheathing. The ego, the immortal
part of man, shakes off from itself, one after the other, its outer casings,
first the dense physical: then the etheric double: then even the astral body,
as we shall see later. In
almost every case the actual passing-away appears to be perfectly painless,
even after a long illness involving terrible suffering. The peaceful look
on the face of the dead is strong evidence in favour of this statement, and
it is also borne out by the direct testimony of most of those who have been
questioned on the point immediately after death. At
the actual moment of death, even when death is sudden, a man sees the whole
of his past life marshaled before him, in its minutest detail. In a moment
he sees the whole chain of causes which been at work during his life; he
sees and now understands himself as he really is, unadorned by flattery or
self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a spectator, looking down
upon the arena he is quitting. The
condition of consciousness immediately after the moment of death
is usually a dreamy and peaceful one. There will also be a certain period
of unconsciousness, which may last only for a moment, though often it is
a few minutes, or several hours, and sometimes even days or weeks. The
natural attraction between the astral counterpart and the physical body is
such that, after death, [Page 108] the astral
counterpart, from force of habit, retains its accustomed form: consequently
a man's physical appearance
will still be preserved after death almost unchanged. Almost - because in
view of the fact that astral matter is very readily moulded by thought, a
man who habitually thinks of himself after death as younger than he actually
was at the time of death will probably assume a somewhat younger appearance. Very
soon after death, in most cases, an important change takes place in the structure
of the astral body, owing to the action of the desire elemental. Much
of the matter of the astral body is composed of elemental essence (see
page 6): this essence is living, though not intelligent: and for the time
it is cut off from the general mass of astral essence. Blindly, instinctively,
and without reason it seeks its own ends and shows great ingenuity
in obtaining its desires and in furthering its evolution. Evolution
for it is a descent into matter, its aim being to become a mineral monad.
Its object in life, therefore, is to get as near to the physical as it can,
and to experience as many of the coarser vibrations as possible. It neither
does or could know anything of the man in whose astral body it is for the
time living. It
desires to preserve its separate life, and feels that it can do so only by
means of its connection with the man: it is conscious of the man's lower
mind, and realises that the more mental matter it can entangle with itself
the longer will be its astral life. On
the death of the physical body, knowing that the term of its separated life
is limited, and that the man's astral death will more or less quickly follow,in
order to make the man's astral body last as long as possible, it rearranges
its
matter in concentric rings or shells, the coarsest outside. From the point
of view of the desire elemental this is good policy, because the coarsest
matter can hold together longest and best stand friction. The
re-arranged astral body is called the Yâtanâ , or suffering
body: in the case of a very evil man in [Page 109] whose astral body there
is a preponderance of the coarsest matter, it is called the Dhruvam or
strong body. The
re-arrangement of the astral body takes place over the surface of the counterpart
of the physical body, not over the surface of the ovoid which surrounds it. The
effect is to prevent the free and full circulation of astral matter which
usually takes place in the astral body. In addition, the man is able to respond
only to those vibrations which are received by the outermost layer of his
astral body. The man is thus shut up, as it were, in a box of astral matter,
being able to see and hear things of the lowest and coarsest plane only. Although
living in the midst of high influences and beautiful thought-forms, he would
be almost entirely unconscious of their existence, because the particles
of his astral body which could respond to those vibrations ar shut in where
they cannot be reached. Consequently,
also, being able to sense only the coarsest matter in the astral bodies of
other people, and being entirely unconscious of his limitations, he would
assume that the person he was looking at possessed only the unsatisfactory
characteristics which he would be able to perceive. Since
he can see and feel only what is lowest and coarsest, the men around him
appear to be monsters of vice. Under these circumstances it is little wonder
that he considers the astral world a hell. The
re-arrangement of the astral body by the desire elemental does not in
any way affect the recognisability of the form within the ovoid, though the
natural changes which take place tend on the whole to make the form grow
somewhat fainter and more spiritual in appearance as time passes on - for
reasons which will presently be made clear. In
course of time, the outermost shell or ring disintegrates: the man then
becomes able to respond to the vibrations of the next higher level
of the astral plane, and thus "rises to the next sub-plane":
and so [Page
110] on from
one sub-plane to another. His stay on each sub-plane will, of course, correspond
to the amount and activity of the matter in his astral body belonging to
that sub-plane. When
we speak of a man "rising" from one sub-plane to another, he
need not necessarily move in space at all: he rather transfers his consciousness
from one level
to another. In the case of a man with a rearranged astral body, the focus
of his consciousness shifts from the outer shell to the one next within
it. The man thus gradually becomes unresponsive to the vibrations of
one order of matter and answers instead to those of a higher order. Thus
one world with its scenery and its inhabitants would seem to fade slowly
away from his view, while another world would dawn upon him. As
the shell usually disintegrates gradually, the man thus finds the counterparts
of physical objects growing dimmer and dimmer, while thought-forms become
more and more vivid to him. If during this process he meets another man at
intervals, he will imagine that that man's character is steadily improving,
merely because he is himself become able to appreciate the higher vibrations
of that character. The re-arrangement of the astral body, in fact, constantly
interferes with a man's true and full vision of his friends at all stages
of their astral life. This
process of re-arrangement of the astral body, which takes place with most
people, can be prevented by the man setting his will to oppose it: in fact,
anyone who understands the conditions of the astral plane should altogether
decline to permit the re-arrangement of the astral body by the desire-elemental.
The particles of the astral body will then be kept intermingled, as in life,
and in consequence, instead of being confined to one astral sub-plane at
a time, the man will be free of all the sub-planes, according to the constitution
of his astral body. The
elemental, being afraid in its curious semi-conscious way, will endeavour
to transfer its fear to the [Page 111] man
who is jolting him out of the re-arrangement, in order to deter him from
doing so. Hence one reason why
it is so useful to have knowledge of these matters before death. If
the re-arrangement, or shelling, has already occurred, it is still possible
for the condition to be broken up by someone who wishes to help the man,
and for the man to be thus set free to work on the whole astral plane, instead
of being confined to one level. [Page 112] AFTER-DEATH
LIFE: PRINCIPLES It
cannot be too strongly insisted that it is not found that any sudden change
takes place in man at death: on the contrary, he remains after death exactly
what he was before, except that he no longer has a physical body. He has
the same intellect, the same disposition, the same virtues and vices; the
loss of the physical body no more makes him a different man than would the
removal of an overcoat. Moreover,the conditions in which he finds himself
are those which his own thoughts and desires have already created for him.
There is no reward or punishment from outside, but only the actual result
of what he has himself done, and said, and thought, while living in the physical
world. As
we proceed with our description of the astral life after death, it will be
recognised that the true facts correspond with considerable accuracy with
the Catholic conception of purgatory, and the Hades or underworld of the
Greeks. The
poetic idea of death as a universal leveller is a mere absurdity born of
ignorance, for, as a matter of fact, in the vast majority of cases, the loss
of the physical body makes no difference whatever in the character or intellect
of the person, and there are therefore as many different varieties of intelligence
among the so-called dead as among the living. This
is the first and the most prominent fact to appreciate: that after death
there is no strange new life, but a continuation, under certain changed
conditions, of the present physical plane life. So
much is this the case that when a man first arrives on the astral plane after
physical death he by no means always knows that he is dead: and even when
[Page 113] he does realise what has happened to him he does not always at
first understand how the astral world differs from the physical. In
some cases people consider the very fact that they are still conscious,
an absolute proof that they have not died: and this in spite of the much-vaunted
belief in the immortality of the soul. If
a man has never heard of astral plane life before, he is likely to be more
or less disturbed by the totally unexpected conditions in which he finds
himself. Finally, he accepts these conditions, which he does not understand,
thinking them necessary and inevitable. Looking
out upon the new worlds, at the first glance he would probably see very
little difference, and he would suppose himself to be looking upon the same
world as before. As we have seen, each degree of astral matter is attracted
by the corresponding degree of physical matter. If, therefore, we imagined
the physical world to be struck out of existence, without any other change
being made, we should still have a perfect replicate of it in astral matter.
Consequently a man on the astral plane would still see the walls, furniture,
people, etc., to which he was accustomed, outlined as clearly as ever by
the densest type of astral matter. If, however, he examined such objects
closely he would perceive that all the particles were visibly in rapid motion,
instead of only invisibly as on the physical plane. But, as few men observe
closely, a man
who dies often does not know at first that any change has come over him.
Thus many, especially in Western countries, find it difficult to believe
that they are dead, simply because they still see, hear, feel and think.
Realisation of what has happened will probably dawn gradually, as the
man discovers that though he can see his friends he cannot always communicate
with them. Sometimes he speaks to them, and they do not seem to hear:
he tries to touch them, and finds that he can make no impression upon them.
Even then, for some time he may persuade himself that he is dreaming,
for at other times, when his friends are [Page 114] asleep,
they are perfectly conscious of him and talk with him as of old. By
degrees the man begins to realise the differences between his present
life and that which he lived in the physical world. For example, he soon
finds that for him all pain and fatigue have passed away. He also finds that
in the astral world desires and thoughts express themselves in visible forms,
though these are composed mostly of the finer matter of the plane. As
his life proceeds, these become m ore and more prominent. Moreover,
though a man on the astral plane cannot usually see the physical bodies of
his friends, yet he can and does see the physical bodies of his friends,
and consequently knows their feelings and emotions. He will not necessarily
be able to follow in detail the events of their physical life: but he would
at once be aware of such feelings as love or hate, jealousy or envy, as these
would be expressed through the astral bodies of his friends. Thus,
although the living often suppose themselves to have "lost" the
dead, the dead are never for a moment under the impression that they
have lost the
living. A man,
in fact, living in his astral body after death is more readily and deeply
influenced by the feelings of his friends in the physical world than when
he was on earth, because he has no physical body to deaden his perceptions. A man
on the astral plane does not usually see the whole astral counterpart of
an object, but the portion of it which belongs to the particular sub-plane
upon which he is at the time. Moreover,
a man by no means always recognises with any certainty the astral counterpart
of a physical body even when he sees it. He usually requires considerable
experience before he can clearly identify objects, and any attempt that he
makes to deal with them is liable to be vague and uncertain. Examples of
this are often seen in haunted houses, where [Page 115] stone-throwing,
or
vague, clumsy movements of physical matter take place. Frequently,
not realising that he is free from the necessity to work for a living, to
eat, sleep, etc., a man after death may continue to prepare and consume meals,
created entirely by his imagination, or even to build for himself a house
in which to live. A case is recorded of a man who built for himself a house,
stone by stone, each stone being separately created by his own thought. He
might, of course, with the same amount of effort have created the whole house
at once. He was eventually led to see, that as the stones had no weight,
the conditions were different from those obtaining in physical life, and
so
he was induced to investigate further. Similarly,
a man new to the conditions of astral life may continue to enter and depart
from a room by a door or window, not realising that he can pass through the
wall just as easily. For the same reason he may walk upon the earth when
he
might just as well float through the air. A man
who has already during earth life acquainted himself, by reading or otherwise,with
the general conditions of astral life, naturally finds himself after death
on ground more or less familiar, and consequently he should not be at a loss
to know what to do with himself. Even
an intelligent appreciation of occult teaching on this subject, as experience
has shown, is of enormous advantage to a man after death, while it is
a considerable advantage for a man merely to have heard of the conditions
of astral life, even though he may have regarded such teachings as one of
many hypotheses, and may not have followed them up further. In the case of
others, not so fortunately situated as to their knowledge of the astral world,
their best plan is to take stock of their position, endeavour to see the
nature of the life before them, and how they can make the best use of it.
In addition, they would do well to consult some experienced friend. [Page
116] The
condition of life referred to above constitute Kâmaloka, literally
the place or world of Kâma or desire: the Limbus of scholastic
theology. In general terms Kâmaloka is a region peopled by intelligent
and semi-intelligent entities. It is crowd ed with many types and forms
of living things, as diverse from
each other as a blade of grass is different from a tiger, a tiger is
different from a man, there being of course, many other entities living
there besides deceased human beings (See Chapters 19 to 21). It interpenetrates
the physical world, and is interpenetrated by it, but, as the states
of matter in the two worlds differ, they co-exist without the entities
of either world being conscious of those of the other. Only under abnormal
circumstances can consciousness of each other's presence arise among
the inhabitants of the two worlds. Kâmaloka
is thus not divided off as a distinct locality, but is separated off
from the rest of the astral plane by the conditions of consciousness of the
entities who belong to it, these entities being human beings, who have
shaken off the dense and etheric bodies, but who have not yet disentangled
themselves from Kâma, i.e., the passional and emotional nature.
This state is also called Pretaloka, a preta being a human being who has
lost his physical body, but is still encumbered with the vesture of his animal
nature. The
Kâmalokic condition is found on each sub-division of the astral plane. Many
who die are at first in a condition of considerable uneasiness, and others
of positive terror. When they encounter the thought-forms which they and
their kind have for centuries been making - thoughts of a personal devil,
an angry
and cruel deity, and eternal punishment - they are often reduced to a pitiable
state of fear, and may spend long periods of acute mental suffering before
they can free themselves from the fatal influence of such foolish and utterly
false conceptions. It
ought, however, in fairness to be mentioned that [Page
117] it is only among
what are called Protestant communities that this terrible evil assumes
its most aggravated form. The great Roman Catholic Church, with its
doctrine of purgatory, approaches much more nearly to a true conception
of the astral plane, and its devout members, at any rate, realise that
the state in which they find themselves shortly after death is merely
a temporary one, and it is their business to endeavour to raise themselves
out of it as soon as may be by intense spiritual aspiration, while they
accept any suffering which may come to them as necessary for the wearing
away of the imperfections in their character, before they can pass to
higher and brighter spheres. Thus
we see that although men should have been taught by their religion what
to expect, and how to live on the astral plane, in most cases this has
not been done. Consequently a good deal of explanation is needed regarding
the new world in which they find themselves. But, after death, exactly
as before it, there are few who attain to an intelligent appreciation
of the fact of evolution and who, by understanding something of their position,
know how to make the best of it. Today, large numbers of people, both "living" and
"dead", are engaged in looking after and helping those who have
died in ignorance of the real nature of the after-death life (vide Chapter 28 on
Invisible Helpers). Unfortunately, however,
on the astral plane, as on the physical, the ignorant are rarely ready to
profit by the advice or example of the wise. To
a man who has, before he dies physically, already acquainted himself with
the real conditions of life on the astral plane, one of the most pleasant
characteristics of that life is its restfulness and complete freedom from
those imperious necessities, such as eating and drinking, which burden physical
life. On the astral plane a man is really free, free to do whatever he likes,
and to spend his time as he chooses. As
already indicated, a man who has died physically, is steadily withdrawing
into himself. The whole cycle [Page 118] of life and death may be likened
to an ellipse, of which only the lowest portion passes into the physical
world. During the first portion of the cycle, the ego is putting himself
forth into matter: the central point of the curve should be a middle point
in physical life,when the force of the ego has expended its outward rush
and turns to begin the long process of withdrawal. Thus
each physical incarnation may be regarded as a putting of the ego, whose
habitat is the higher part of the mental plane, outwards into the lower
planes. The ego puts the soul out, as though it were an investment, and
expects his investment to draw back added experience, which will have developed
new qualities within him. The
portion of the life after death spent on the astral plane is therefore
definitely in the period of withdrawal back towards the ego. During the latter
part of the physical life the man's thoughts and interests should be less
and less
directed towards merely physical matters: similarly, during the astral
life, he should pay less and less attention to the lower astral matter, out
of which counterparts of physical objects are composed, and occupy himself
with the higher matter, out of which desire - and thought-forms are made.
It is not so much that he has changed his location in space (though this
is partially true, See Chapter 14), as that he has moved the centre of his
interest. Hence the counterpart of the physical world which he has left gradually
fades from his view, and his life becomes more and more a life in the world
of thought. His desires and emotions still persist, and consequently, owing
to the readiness with which astral matter obeys his desires and thoughts,
the forms surrounding him will be very largely the expression of his own
feelings, the nature of which mainly determines whether his life is one of
happiness or of discomfort. Although
we are not in this book dealing with that portion of the life after death
which is spent in the "heaven-world", i.e., on the mental
plane, nevertheless, in order to understand fully what is happening to the
[Page 119] astral body on the astral plane, it is desirable to bear in mind
that the astral life is largely an intermediate stage in the whole cycle
of life and death, a preparation for the life on the mental plane. As
we have seen, soon after physical death, the astral body is set free:
expressed from the point of view consciousness, Kâma-Manas is set free. From
this, that portion of lower-manas, which is not inextricably entangled with
Kâma, gradually
frees itself, taking with it such of its experience as fit for assimilation
by the higher mental body. Meanwhile,
that portion of the lower manas which still remains entangled with Kâma,
gives to the astral body a somewhat confused consciousness, a broken
memory of the events of the life just closed. If the emotions and passions
were strong, and the mental element weak, then the astral body will be
strongly energised, and will persist for a considerable time on the astral
plane, It will also show a considerable amount of consciousness, due
to the mental matter entangled with it. If, on the other hand, the earth
life just closed was characterised by mentality and purity rather than
by passion, the astral body will be poorly poorly energised, will be
but a pale simulacrum of the man, and will disintegrate and perish comparatively
rapidly. [Page 120] THE
AFTER-DEATH LIFE: PARTICULARS In
considering the conditions of a man's astral life, there are two prominent
factors to be taken into account: (1) The length of time which he
spends on any particular sub-plane: (2) The amount of his consciousness upon
it. The
length of time depends upon the amount of matter belonging to that
sub-plane which he has built into his astral body during physical life. He
will necessarily remain upon that sub-plane until the matter corresponding
to it has dropped out of his astral body. During
physical life, as we have already seen, the quality of the astral body
which he builds for himself is directly determined by his passions, desires
and emotions, and indirectly by his thoughts, as well as by his physical
habits - food, drink, cleanliness, continence, etc.. A coarse and gross astral
body, resulting from a coarse and gross life, will cause the man to be responsive
only to lower astral vibrations, so that after death he will find himself
bound to the astral plane during the long and slow process of the disintegration
of the astral body. On
the other hand, a refined astral body, created by a pure and refined life,
will make the man unresponsive to the low and coarse vibrations of the astral
world, and responsive only to its higher influences: consequently he will
experience much less trouble in his post-mortem life, and his evolution will
proceed rapidly and easily. The
amount of consciousness depends upon the degree to which he has
vivified and used the matter of the particular sub-plane in his physical
life. [Page
121]
If
during earth-life the animal nature was indulged and allowed to run riot,
if the intellectual and spiritual parts were neglected or stifled, then the
astral or desire body will persist for a long time after physical death. If,
on the other hand, desire has been conquered and bridled during earth life,
if it has been purified and trained into subservience to the higher nature,
then there will be little to energise the astral body, and will quickly disintegrate
and dissolve away. The
average man, however, has by no means freed himself from all lower desires
before death, and consequently it takes a long period of more or less fully
conscious life on the various sub-planes of the astral plane to allow the
forces which he has generated to work themselves out, and thus release the
higher
ego. The
general principle is that when the astral body has exhausted its attractions
to one level, the greater part of its grosser particles fall away, and
it finds itself in affinity with a somewhat higher state of existence. Its
specific gravity, as it were, is constantly decreasing, and so it steadily
rises from the dense to the lighter strata, pausing only when it is exactly
balanced for
a time. To
be upon any given sub-plane in the astral world is to have developed sensitiveness
of those particles in the astral body which belong to that sub-plane. To
have perfect vision on the astral plane means to have developed sensitiveness
in all particles of the astral body, so that all the sub-planes are simultaneously
visible. A man
who has led a good and pure life, whose strongest feelings and aspirations
have been unselfish and spiritual, will have no attractions to the astral
plane, and will, if entirely left alone, find little to keep him upon it,
or to awaken him into activity even during the comparatively short period
of his stay. His earthly passions have been subdued during physical life,
and the force of his will having been directed into higher channels, there
is but little energy [Page 122] of lower desire to be worked out on the astral
plane. Consequently his stay there will be very short, and most probably
he will have little more than a dreamy half-consciousness, until he sinks
into the sleep during which his higher principles finally free themselves
from the astral body, and enter upon the blissful life of the heaven-world. Expressed
more technically, during physical life Manas has purified Kâma with which
it was inter-woven, so that after death all that is left of Kâma
is a mere residuum, easily shaken off by the withdrawing ego. Such a
man therefore would have little consciousness on the astral plane. It
is quite possible that a man might, as a result of is previous incarnations,
possess a good deal of coarse astral matter in his astral body. Even if he
has been so brought up, and has so conducted his life, that he has not vivified
that coarse matter, and although much of it may have dropped out and been
replaced by finer materials, yet there may be quite a good deal left. Consequently
the man would have to remain on a low level of the astral plane for some
time, until in fact the coarse matter had all dropped out. But, as the coarse
matter would not be vivified, he would have little consciousness and would
practically sleep through the period of his sojourn there. There
is a point known as the critical point between every pair of sub-states of
matter: ice may be raised to a point at which the least increment of heat
will change it into liquid: water may be raised to a point at which the least
increment of heat will change it into vapour. And so each sub-state of astral
matter may be carried to a point of fineness at which any additional refinement
would transform it into the next higher sub-state. If a man has done this
for every sub-state of matter in his astral body, so it is purified to the
last possible degree of delicacy, then the first touch of disintegrating
force shatters its cohesion and resolves it into its original condition,
leaving him free at once to pass on to the next [Page 123] sub-plane.
His passage through the astral plane will thus be of inconceivable rapidity,
and he will flash through the plane practically instantaneously to the
higher state of the heaven-world. Every
person after death has to pass through all the sub-planes of the astral plane,
on his way to the heaven-world. But whether or not he is conscious on any
or all of them, and to what extent, will depend upon the factors enumerated. For
these reasons, it is clear that the amount of consciousness a man may possess
on the astral plane, and the time he may spend there in his passage to the
heaven-world, may vary within very wide limits. There are some who pass only
a few hours or days on the astral plane: others remain there for many years,
or even centuries. For
an ordinary person 20 or 30 years on the astral plane after death is a fair
average. An exceptional case is that of Queen Elizabeth, who had so intense
a love for her country that she has only quite recently passed into the heaven-world,having
spent the time since her death in endeavouring, until recently almost without
success, to impress upon her successors her ideas of what ought to be done
for England. Another
notable example was that of Queen Victoria,who passed very rapidly through
the astral plane and into the heaven-world, her swift passage being undoubtedly
due to the millions of loving and grateful thought-forms which were sent
to her, as well as to her inherent goodness. The
general question of the interval between earth-lives is complicated.
It is possible here to touch briefly only on the astral portion of those
intervals. For further details the student is referred to The Inner Life, Volume
2, pages 458-474. Three
principal factors have to be taken into account:- (1)
The class of ego A certain
difference is produced by the mode of individualisation , but this difference
is much less in proportion in the lower classes. Those individualised through
intellect tend to take an interval between lives rather longer than that
taken by those
who individualised in other ways. [Page 125] Generally
speaking, a man who dies young will have a shorter interval than one who
dies in old age, but is likely to have a proportionately longer astral life,
because
most of the strong emotions which work themselves out in astral life are
generated in the earlier part of the physical life. It
must be recollected that in the astral world or ordinary methods of time-measurement
scarcely apply: even in physical life anxiety or pain will stretch a few
hours almost indefinitely, and on the astral plane this characteristic
is exaggerated
a hundred-fold. A man
on the astral plane can measure time only by his sensations. For a distortion
of this fact has come the false idea of eternal damnation. We
have thus seen that both (1) the time spent, and (2) the amount of consciousness
experienced, on each level of the astral plane depend very largely upon the
kind of life the man has led in the physical world. Another factor of great
importance is the man's attitude of mind after physical death. The
astral life may be directed by the will, just as the physical life may
be. A man with little will-power or initiative is, in the astral as in the
physical world, very much the creature of the surroundings which he has made
for himself. A determined man, on the other hand, can always make the best
of his conditions and live his own life in spite of them. A man,
therefore, does not rid himself of evil tendencies in the astral world,
unless he definitely works to that end. Unless he makes definite efforts,
he will necessarily suffer from his inability to satisfy such cravings as
can be gratified only by means of a physical body. In process of time the
desires will wear
themselves out and die down simply because of the impossibility of their
fulfilment. The
process, however, may be greatly expedited as soon as the man realises
the necessity of ridding himself of the evil desires which detain him, and
makes the requisite effort. A man who is ignorant of the true state of affairs
usually broods over his desires, thus [Page 126] lengthening
their life,and clings desperately to the gross particles of astral matter
as long as he can, because
the sensations connected with them seem nearest to the physical life
for which he still craves. The proper procedure for him, of course, is
to kill out earthly
desires and to withdraw into himself as quickly as possible. Even
a merely intellectual knowledge of the conditions of astral life, and, in
fact, of Theosophical truths in general, is of inestimable value to a man
in the
after-death life. It
is of the utmost importance that after physical death a man should recognise
quite clearly that he is withdrawing steadily towards the ego, and that
consequently he should disengage his thoughts as far as may be from things
physical and fix his attention upon spiritual matters which will occupy him
when, in due time he passes from the astral plane into the mental or
heaven-world. By
adopting this attitude he will greatly facilitate the natural disintegration
of the astral body instead of unnecessarily and uselessly delaying himself
upon
the lower levels of the astral plane. Many
people, unfortunately, refuse to turn their thoughts upwards, but cling to
earthly matters with desperate tenacity. As time passes on, they gradually,
in the normal course of evolution, lose touch with the lower worlds: but
by fighting every step of the way they cause themselves much unnecessary
suffering and seriously delay their upward progress. In
this
ignorant opposition to the natural course of things the possession of
a physical corpse is of assistance to a man, the corpse serving as a kind
of fulcrum on the physical plane. The best remedy for this tendency is cremation,
which destroys the link with the physical plane. A few
typical examples of astral after-death life will best illustrate the nature
and rational of that life. An
ordinary colourless man, neither specially good nor specially bad, is of
course in no way changed by [Page 127] death,
but remains colourless. Consequently, he will have no special suffering and
no special joy: in fact,he may find
life somewhat dull, because, having cultivated no particular interests during
his physical life, he has none in his astral life. If
during his physical life he had no ideas beyond gossip, sport, business
or dress, he will naturally, when these are no longer possible, be likely
to find time hang heavily on his hands. A
man, however, who has had strong desires of a low type, who has been,
for example, a drunkard or a sensualist, will be in far worse case.
Not only will his cravings and desires remain with him (it will be recollected
that the centres of sensation
are situated, not in the physical body, but in Kâma, see page 24),
but they will be stronger than ever, because their full force is expressed
in astral
matter, none of it being absorbed in setting in motion the heavy physical
particles. Being
in the lowest and most depraved condition of astral life, such a man
seems often to be still sufficiently near to the physical to be sensitive
to certain
odours, though the titillation produced is only sufficient still further
to excite his mad
desires and tantilise him to the verge of frenzy. But,
as he no longer possesses a physical body, through which alone his cravings
can be allayed, he has no possibility of gratifying his terrible thirst.
Hence the innumerable traditions of the fires of purgatory, found in
nearly every religion, which are no inapt symbols for the torturing conditions
described. Such a condition may last for quite a long time, since it passes
away only by gradually wearing itself out. The
rationale and automatic justice of the whole process is clear: the man
has created his conditions himself, by his own actions, and determined the
exact degree of their power and duration. Furthermore, it is the only way
in which he can get rid of his vices. For, if he were to be reincarnated
immediately, he would start his next life precisely as he finished the [Page
128] preceding
one: i.e., a slave to his passions and appetites: and the possibility
of his ever becoming master of himself would be immeasurably reduced.
But, as things are, his cravings having worn themselves out, he will
be able to commence his next incarnation without the burden of them:
and his ego, having had so severe a lesson, is likely to make every possible
effort to restrain its lower vehicles from again making a similar mistake. A confirmed
drunkard will sometimes be able to draw round himself a veil of etheric matter,
and thus partially materialise himself. He can then draw in the odour of
the alcohol, but he does not smell it in the same sense as we do. Hence he
is anxious to force others into the condition of drunkenness, so that
he may be able partially to enter their physical bodies and obsess them,
through
their bodies being once more able to experience directly the tastes and other
sensations for which he craves. Obsession
may be permanent or temporary. As just mentioned, a dead sensualist may seize
upon any vehicle he can steal in order to gratify his coarse desires. At
other times a man may obsess someone as a calculated act of revenge: a case
is recorded where a man obsessed the daughter of his enemy. Obsession
can be best prevented or resisted by an exercise of will-power. When
it occurs it is almost always because the victim has in the first place voluntarily
yielded himself to the invading influence, and his first step therefore
is to reverse the act of submission. The mind should be set steadily against
the obsession in determined resistance, realising strongly that the human
will is stronger than any evil influence. Such
obsession is of course utterly unnatural and in the highest degree harmful
to both parties. The
effect of excessive tobacco-smoking on the astral body after death is remarkable.
The poison so fills the astral body that it stiffens under its influences
and is unable to work properly or to move freely. For the time, the man is
as though paralysed - [Page 129] able to speak,
yet debarred from movement, and almost entirely cut off from higher influences.
When the poisoned part
of his astral body wears away, he emerges from this unpleasant predicament. The
astral body changes its particles, just as does the physical body, but there
is nothing to correspond to eating and digesting food. The astral particles
which fall away are replaced by others from the surrounding atmosphere. The purely
physical cravings of hunger and thirst no longer exist there: but the desire of
the glutton to gratify the sensation of taste, and the desire of
the drunkard for the feelings which follow the absorption of alcohol, being
both astral, still persist: and, as already stated, they may cause great
suffering owing to the absence of the physical body through which alone they
could be satisfied. Many
myths and traditions exist, exemplifying the conditions described. One
of them is that of Tantalus, who suffered from raging thirst, yet was doomed
to see the water recede just as it was about to touch his lips. Another,
typifying ambition, is that of Sisyphus, condemned to roll a heavy rock
up a mountain,
only see it roll down again. The rock represents ambitious plans which
such a man continues to form, only to realise that he has no physical body
with which to carry them out. Eventually he wears out his selfish ambition,
realises that he need not roll his rock, and lets it rest in peace at the
bottom of the hill. Another
story was that of Tityus, a man who was tied to a rock, his liver being gnawed
by vultures, and growing against as fast as it was eaten. This symbolised
a man tortured by the gnawings of remorse for sins committed on earth. The
worse that the ordinary man of the world usually provides for himself after
death is a useless and unutterably wearisome existence, void of all rational
interests - the natural sequel of a life wasted in self-indulgence, triviality
and gossip here on earth. The
only things for which he craves are no longer possible to him, for in the
astral world there is no [Page 130] business
to be done, and, thought he may have as much companionship as he wishes,
society is now for him a very different
matter, because all the pretensions upon which it is usually based in this
world are no longer possible. Man
thus makes for himself both his own purgatory and his own heaven, and these
are not places but states of consciousness. Hell does not exist: it is only
a figment of the theological imagination .Neither purgatory nor heaven can
ever be eternal, for a finite cause cannot produce an infinite result. Nevertheless,
the conditions of the worst type of man after death are perhaps best
described by the word "hell", though they are not everlasting.
Thus, for example, it sometimes happens that a murdered is followed about
by his victim, never being able to escape from his haunting presence. The
victim (unless himself of a very base type) is wrapped in unconsciousness,
and this very unconsciousness seems to add a new horror to the mechanical
pursuit. The
vivisectors also has his "hell", where he lives amid the crowding
forms of his mutilated victims - moaning, quivering, howling. These are
vivified, not
by the animal souls, but by elemental life pulsing with hatred to the
tormentor, rehearsing his worst experiments with automatic regularity,
conscious of all their horror, and yet impelled to the self-torture by
the habits set up during earth-life. Such
conditions are not produced arbitrarily, but are the inevitable results of
causes set in operation by each person. Nature's lessons are sharp, but in
the long run they are merciful, for they lead to the evolution of the soul,
being
strictly corrective and salutary. For
most people the state after death is much happier than life upon earth. The
first feeling of which the dead man is usually conscious is one of the most
wonderful and delightful freedom; he has nothing to worry about, and no duties
rest upon him, except those which he chooses to impose upon himself. Regarded
from this point of view, it is clear that [Page
131] there
is ample justification for the assertion that people physically"alive", buried
and cramped as they are in physical bodies, are in the true sense far
less "alive" than
those usually termed dead. The so-called dead are much more free and,
being less
hampered by material condition as, ar able work far more effectively
and to cover a wider field of activity. A
man who, not having permitted the re-arrangement of his astral body, is free
of the entire astral world, does not find it inconveniently crowded,
because the astral world is much larger than the surface of the physical
earth, while its population is somewhat smaller, the average life of humanity
in the astral world (see page 124) being shorter than the average in the
physical. In
addition to the dead, there are also, of course, on the astral plane about
one-third of the living, who have temporarily left the physical body during
sleep. Although
the whole astral plane is open to any of its inhabitants who have not permitted
the re-arrangement of their astral bodies, yet the great majority remain
near the surface of the earth. Passing
to a higher type of man, we may consider one who has some interests of
a rational nature, e.g., music, literature, science, etc. The
need to spend a large proportion of each day in "earning a living" no
longer existing, the man is free to do precisely what he likes, so long
as it capable of realisation
without physical matter. In the astral life it is possible not only to
listen to the grandest music but to hear far more of it than before,
because there are in the astral world other and fuller harmonies than
the relatively dull physical ears can hear. For the artist, all the loveliness
of the higher astral world is open for his enjoyment. A man can readily
and rapidly move from place to place and see the wonders of Nature, obviously
far more easily than he could ever do on the physical plane. If he is
a historian or a scientist, the libraries and the laboratories of the
world are at his disposal: his comprehension of natural processes will [Page
132] be far
fuller than ever before, because he can now see the inner as well as
the outer workings, and many of the causes
where previously he saw only the effects. In all these cases his delight
is greatly enhanced, because no fatigue is possible (see page 82). A philanthropist
can pursue his beneficent work more vigorously than ever before and under
better conditions than in the physical world. There are thousands whom he
can help, and with greater certainty of conferring real benefit. It
is quite possible for any person upon the astral plane after death to
set himself to study, and to acquire entirely new ideas. Thus, people may
learn of Theosophy for the first time in the astral world. A case is on record
even of a person learning music there, though this is unusual. In
general, life on the astral plane is more active than on the physical
plane, astral matter being more highly vitalised than physical matter, and
form being more plastic. The possibilities on the astral plane, both of enjoyment
and of progress, are in every way much greater than those on the physical
plane. But the possibilities are of a higher class, and it needs a certain
amount of intelligence to take advantage of them. A man who has whilst
on earth devoted the whole of his thought and energy solely to material things,
is
little likely to be able to adapt himself to more advanced conditions,
as his semi-atrophied mind will not be strong enough to grasp the wider possibilities
of the grander life. A man
whose life and interests are of a higher type may be able to do more good
in a few years of astral existence than ever he could have done in the longest
physical life. Astral
pleasures being so much greater than those of the physical world, there is
danger of people being turned aside by them from the path of progress. But
even the delights of the astral life do not present a serious danger to those
who have realised a little of something higher. After death a man should
try to [Page 133] pass through the astral
levels as speedily as possible, consistently with usefulness, and not yield
to their refined pleasures any more than to those of the physical. Any
developed man is in every way quite as active during astral life after death
as during his physical life: he can unquestionably help or hinder his own
progress and that of others quite as much after death as before, and consequently
he is all the time generating karma of the greatest importance. In
fact, the consciousness of a man living entirely in the astral world is usually
much more definite than it has been during his sleep astral life, and he
is correspondingly better able to think and act with determination, so that
his opportunities of making good or bad karma are the greater. It
may be said in general that man can make karma wherever his consciousness
is developed, or wherever he can act or choose. Thus actions done on the
astral plane may bear karmic fruit in the next earth life. On
the lowest astral sub-plane a man, having other things to occupy his
attention, concerns himself little with what takes place in the physical
world, except when he haunts vile resorts. On
the next sub-plane, the sixth, are found men who, whilst alive, centred their
desires and thoughts chiefly in mere worldly affairs. Consequently, they
still hover about the persons and places with which they were most closely
associated while on earth, and may be conscious of many things in connection
with these. They never, however, see physical matter itself, but always the
astral
counterpart of it. Thus,
for example, a theatre full of people has its astral counterpart, which is
visible to astral entities. They would not, however, be able to see, as we
see them, either the costumes or the expressions of the actors, and the emotions
of the players, being not real but simulated, would make no impression on
the astral plane. [Page 134] Those
on the sixth sub-plane, which is on the surface of the earth, find themselves
surrounded by the astral counterparts of physically existing mountains, trees,
lakes, etc.. On
the next two sub-planes, the fifth and fourth, this consciousness of physical
affairs is also possible, though in rapidly diminishing degree. On
the next two sub-planes, the third and second, contact with the physical
plane could be obtained only by a special effort to communicate through a
medium. From
the highest, the first sub-plane, even communication through a medium would
be very difficult. Those
loving on the higher sub-planes usually provide themselves with whatever
scenes they desire. Thus in one portion of the astral world men surround
themselves with landscapes of their own creation: others accept ready-made
the landscapes which have already been constructed by others. (A description
of the various levels or sub-planes will be given in Chapter 16). In
some cases men construct for themselves the weird scenes described in their
various religious scriptures, manufacturing clumsy attempts at jewels growing
on trees, seas of glass mingled with fire, creatures full of eyes within,
and deities with a hundred heads and arms. In
what the Spiritualists call the Summerland, people of the same race and the
same religion tend to keep together after death just as they do during life,
so that there is a kind of network of summerlands over the countries to which
belong the persons who have created them, communities being formed, differing
as widely from each other as do similar communities on earth. This is due
not only to natural affinity but also to the fact that barriers of language
still exist on the astral plane. This
principle applies, in fact, to the astral plane in general. Thus at spiritualist séances in
Ceylon,it was found that the communicating entities were Buddhists, and that
beyond the grave they had found their religious preconceptions confirmed,
exactly as had [Page 135] the members of various Christian sects in Europe.
Men find on the astral plane not only their own thought-forms, but those
made by others - these, in some cases, being the product of generations of
thought from thousands of people, all following along the same lines. It
is not uncommon for parents to endeavour to impress their wishes on their
children, e.g., with regard to some particular alliance on which
their heart is set. Such an influence is insidious, an ordinary man being
likely to take the steady pressure for his own sub-conscious desire. In
many cases the dead have constituted themselves guardian angels to the living,
mothers often protecting their sons, husbands their widows, and so on, for
many years. In
others cases a dead writer or musical composer may impress his ideas upon
a writer of composer in the physical world, so that many books credited to
the living are really the work of the dead. The person who actually executes
the writing may be conscious of the influence, or may be entirely unconscious
of it. One
leading novelist has stated that his stories come to him he knows not whence
- that they are in reality written not by him, but through him. He recognises
the state of affairs: there are probably many others in the same case who
are quite unconscious of it. A doctor
who dies often continues after death to take an interest in his patients,
endeavouring to cure them from the other side, or to suggest to his successor
methods of treatment which, with his newly-acquired astral faculties, he
sees would be useful. Whilst
most ordinary "good" people, who die natural deaths, are unlikely
to be conscious of anything physical at all, as they sweep through all
the lower stages before
awakening to astral consciousness, yet some, even of these, may be drawn
back into touch with the physical world by great anxiety about someone
left behind. The
grief of relatives and friends may also attract the attention of one who
has passed to the astral plane [Page 136] and
tend to draw him down into touch with earth life again. This downward tendency
grows with use and the
man is likely to exert his will to keep in touch with the physical world.
For a time his power of seeing earthly things will increase; but presently
it will diminish, and then he will probably suffer mentally as he feels his
power slipping from him. In
many cases people not only cause themselves an immense amount of wholly unnecessary
pain, but often also do serious injury to those for whom they mourn with
intense and uncontrolled grief. During
the whole period of the astral plane life, whether it be long or short, the
man is within the reach of earth influences. In the cases just mentioned
the passionate sorrow and desires of friends on earth would set up vibrations
in the astral body of the man who had died, and so reach and rouse his mind
or lower manas. Thus aroused from his dreamy state to vivid remembrance of
earth life, he may endeavour to communicate with his earth friends, possibly
through a medium. Such an awakening is often accompanied by acute suffering,
and in any even the natural process of the ego's withdrawal is delayed. Occult
teaching does not for a moment counsel forgetfulness of the dead: but
it does suggest that affectionate remembrance of the dead is a force which,
if properly directed towards helping his progress towards the heaven-world,
and his passage through the intermediate state, might be of real value
to him, whereas mourning is not only useless but harmful. It is with
a true instinct that the Hindu religion prescribes its Shrâddha
ceremonies and the Catholic Church its prayers for the dead. Prayers,
with their accompanying ceremonies, create elementals which strike against
the Kâmalokic entity's astral body, and hasten its disfiguration,
thus speeding him on towards the heaven-world. When,
for example, a Mass is offered with a definite intention of helping a dead
person, that person will undoubtedly benefit by the downpouring of force:
[Page 137] the strong thought about him inevitably attracts his attention,
and when he is drawn to the church he takes part in the ceremony and enjoys
a large share in its results. Even if he be still unconscious, the priest's
will and prayer directs the stream of force towards the person concerned. Even
the earnest general prayer or wish for the good of the dead as a whole,
though likely to be vague and therefore less efficient than a more definite
thought, has yet in the aggregate produced an effect whose importance it
would be difficult to exaggerate. Europe little knows how much it owes to
those great religious orders who devote themselves night and day to ceaseless
prayer for the faithful departed. [Page 138]
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COLOURS
All known colours, and many which are at present
unknown to us, exist upon each of the higher planes
of nature, but as we rise from one stage to another they become more delicate
and more luminous, so that they may be described as higher octaves of colour. As it is not possible to portray these octaves physically on paper,
the above facts should be borne in mind when considering the coloured illustrations
of the astral body which are referred to below.
The following is a list of the principal colours and the emotions of which
they are an expression:—
Black: in thick clouds: hatred and malice.
Red: deep red flashes, usually on a black ground: anger.
A scarlet cloud : irritability.
Brilliant scarlet: on the ordinary background of the aura: " noble
indignation".
Lurid and sanguinary red: unmistakable, though not easy to describe:
sensuality.
Brown-grey : dull, hard brown-grey: selfishness:
one of the commonest colours in the astral body.
Brown-red: dull, almost rust-colour: avarice, usually arranged in
parallel bars across the astral body.
Greenish-brown: lit up by deep red or scarlet flashes : jealousy.
In the case of an ordinary man there is usually much of this colour present
when he is "in
love". [Page 12]
Grey: heavy, leaden : depression. Like the brown-red of avarice,
arranged in parallel lines, conveying the impression of a cage.
Grey, livid: a hideous and frightful hue: fear.
Crimson: dull and heavy: selfish love.
Rose-colour: unselfish love. When exceptionally brilliant, tinged
with lilac : spiritual love for humanity.
Orange: pride or ambition. Often found with irritability.
Yellow: intellect: varies from a deep and dull tint, through brilliant
gold, to clear and luminous lemon or primrose yellow. Dull yellow ochre implies
the direction of faculty to selfish purposes: clear gamboge indicates
a distinctly higher type; primrose yellow denotes intellect devoted
to spiritual ends; gold indicates pure intellect applied to philosophy or
mathematics.
Green: in general, varies greatly in its significance, and
needs study to be interpreted correctly: mostly it indicates adaptability.
Grey-green, slimy
in appearance: deceit and cunning. Emerald green: versatility, ingenuity
and resourcefulness, applied unselfishly. Pale, luminous blue-green:
deep sympathy and compassion, with the power of perfect adaptability which
only they can
give. Bright apple-green seems always to accompany strong vitality.
Blue: dark and clear: religious feeling. It is liable to be tinted
by many other qualities, thus becoming any shade from indigo or a rich deep
violet to muddy grey-blue. Light-blue, such as ultramarine or cobalt:
devotion to a noble spiritual ideal. A tint of violet indicates a mixture
of affection and devotion. Luminous lilac-blue, usually accompanied
by sparkling golden stars: the higher spirituality, with lofty spiritual
aspirations.
Ultra-violet: higher and purer developments of psychic faculties.
Ultra-red: lower psychic faculties of one who dabbles in evil and
selfish forms of magic.
Joy shows itself in a general brightening and radiancy [Page
13] of
both mental and astral bodies, and in a peculiar rippling of the surface
of the body. Cheerfulness shows itself in a modified bubbling form of this,
and also in a steady serenity.
Surprise is shown by a sharp constriction of the mental body, usually communicated
to both the astral and physical bodies, accompanied by an increased glow
of the band of affection if the surprise is a pleasant one, and by an increase
of brown and grey if the surprise is an unpleasant one. The constriction
often causes unpleasant feelings, affecting sometimes the solar plexus, resulting
in sinking and sickness, and sometimes the heart centre, causing palpitation
and even death.
It will be understood that, as human emotions are hardly ever unmixed,
so these colours are seldom perfectly pure, but more usually mixtures. Thus
the purity of many colours is dimmed by the hard brown-grey of selfishness,
or tinged with the deep orange of pride.
In reading the full meaning of colours, other points have also to be taken
into consideration: viz., the general brilliance of the astral body: the
comparative definiteness or indefiniteness of its outline: the relative brightness
of the different centres of force (see Chapter 5).
The yellow of intellect, the rose of affection, and the
blue of devotion are always found in the upper part of the astral body:
the colours of selfishness, avarice, deceit and hatred are in the lower part:
the mass of sensual feeling floats usually between the two.
From this it follows that in the undeveloped man the lower portion of the
ovoid tends to be larger than the upper, so that the astral body has the
appearance of an egg with the small end uppermost. In the more developed
man the reverse is the case, the small end of the egg pointing downwards.
The tendency always is for the symmetry of the ovoid to re-assert itself
by degrees, so that such appearances are only temporary.
Each quality, expressed as a colour, has its own
special type of astral matter, and the average position [Page 14] of
these colours depends upon the specific gravity of the respective grades
of matter. The general principle is that evil or selfish qualities express
themselves in the comparatively slow vibrations of coarser matter, while
good and unselfish qualities play through finer matter.
This being so, fortunately for us, good emotions persist even longer than
evil ones, the effect of a feeling of strong love or devotion remaining in
the astral body long after the occasion that caused it has been forgotten.
It is possible, though unusual, to have two rates of vibrations going on
strongly in the astral body at the same time, e.g., love and anger. The after-results
will go on side by side, but one at a very much higher level than the other
and therefore persisting longer.
High unselfish affection and devotion belong to the highest (atomic) astral
sub-plane, and these reflect themselves in the corresponding matter of the
mental plane. They thus touch the causal (higher mental) body, not the lower
mental. This is an important point of which the student should take especial
note. The Ego, who resides on the higher mental plane, is thus affected only
by unselfish thoughts. Lower thoughts affect, not the Ego, but the permanent
atoms (see p. 207).
Consequently, in the causal body there would be gaps, not bad colours, corresponding
to the lower feelings and thoughts. Selfishness, for example, would show
itself as the absence of affection or sympathy: as soon as selfishness is
replaced by its opposite, the gap in the causal body would be filled up.
An intensification of the coarse colours of the astral body, representing
base emotions, whilst finding no direct expression in the causal body, nevertheless
tends somewhat to dim the luminosity of the colours representing the opposite
virtues in the causal body.
In order to realise the appearance of the astral body, it must be borne in
mind that the particles of which [Page
15] it
is composed are always in rapid motion: in the vast majority of cases the
clouds of colour melt into one another and are all the while rolling over
one another, appearing and disappearing as they roll, the surface of the
luminous mist resembling somewhat the surface of violently boiling water.
The various colours, therefore, by no means retain the same positions, though
there is a normal position towards which they tend to return.
The student is referred to the book, Man Visible and Invisible,
by C. W. Leadbeater, for illustrations of the actual appearance of astral
bodies : —
Plate VII., p 88, Astral body of savage.
Plate X., p. 94, Astral body of average man.
Plate XXIII., p. 123, Astral body of developed man. (Edition 1902.)
The main characteristics of the three types illustrated — the savage,
the average man and the developed man — may be briefly summarised as
follows :—
Savage Type. — A very large proportion of sensuality,
deceit, selfishness and greed are conspicuous: fierce anger is implied by
smears and blots of
dull scarlet: very little affection appears, and such intellect and religious
feeling as exist are of the lowest possible kind. The outline is irregular
and the colours blurred, thick and heavy. The whole body is evidently ill-regulated,
confused and uncontrolled.
Average Man.—Sensuality is much less though still
prominent: selfishness is also prominent and there is some capability of
deceit for personal ends,
though the green is beginning to divide into two distinct qualities, showing
that cunning is gradually becoming adaptability. Anger is still marked:
affection, intellect and devotion are more prominent and of a higher quality.
The colours as a whole are more clearly defined and distinctly brighter,
though none of them are perfectly clear. The outline of the body is more
defined and regular.
Developed Man.— Undesirable qualities have almost
entirely disappeared: across the top of the body there [Page
16] is
a strip of lilac, indicating spiritual aspiration: above and enveloping
the head there is a cloud of the brilliant yellow of intellect: below that
there is a broad belt of the blue of devotion: then across the trunk there
is a still wider belt of the rose of affection, and in the lower part of
the body a large amount of the green of adaptability and sympathy finds its
place. The colours are bright, luminous, in clearly marked bands, the outline
is well defined, and the whole astral body conveys the impression of being
orderly and under perfect control.
Although we are not in this book dealing with the mental body, yet it should
be mentioned that as a man develops, his astral body more and more resembles
his mental body, until it becomes little more than a reflection of it in
the grosser matter of the astral plane. This, of course, indicates that the
man has his desires thoroughly under the control of the mind and is no longer
apt to be swept away by surges of emotion. Such a man will no doubt be subject
to occasional irritability, and to undesirable cravings of various sorts,
but he knows enough now to repress these lower manifestations and not to
yield to them.
At a still later stage the mental body itself becomes a reflection of the
causal body, since the man now learns to follow solely the promptings of
the higher self, and to guide his reason exclusively by them.
Thus the mind body and the astral body of an Arhat would have very little
characteristic colour of their own, but would be reproductions of the causal
body in so far as their lower octaves could express it. They have a lovely
iridescence, a sort of opalescent, mother-of-pearl effect, which is far beyond
either description or representation.
A developed man has five rates of vibration in his astral body : an ordinary
man shows at least nine rates, with a mixture of various shades in addition.
Many people have 50 or 100 rates, the whole surface being broken up into
a multiplicity of little whirlpools and cross-currents, all battling one
against another [Page 17] in
mad confusion. This is the result of unnecessary emotion and worries, the
ordinary person of the West being a mass of these, through which much of
his strength is frittered away.
An astral body which vibrates fifty ways at once is not only ugly but also
a serious annoyance. It may be compared to a physical body suffering from
an aggravated form of palsy, with all its muscles jerking simultaneously
in different directions. Such astral effects are contagious and affect all
sensitive persons who approach, communicating a painful sense of unrest and
worry. It is just because millions of people are thus unnecessarily agitated
by all sorts of foolish desires and feelings that it is so difficult for
a sensitive person to live in a great city or move amongst crowds. The perpetual
astral disturbances may even react through the etheric double and set up
nervous diseases.
The centres of inflammation in the astral body are
to it what boils are to the physical body — not only
acutely uncomfortable, but also weak spots through which vitality leaks
away. They also offer practically no resistance to evil influences, and prevent
good influences from being of profit. This condition is painfully common:
the remedy is to eliminate worry, fear and annoyance. The student of occultism
must not have personal feelings that can be affected under any circumstances
whatever.
Only a young child has a white or comparatively
colourless aura, the colours beginning to show only
as the qualities develop. The astral body of a child is often a most beautiful
object — pure and bright in its colours, free from the stains of sensuality,
avarice, ill-will and selfishness. In it may also be seen lying latent
the germs and tendencies brought over from his last life (see p. 211), some
of them evil, some good, and thus the possibilities of the child's future
life may be seen.
The yellow of intellect, found always near the head,
is the origin of the idea of the nimbus or glory round [Page 18] the
head of a saint, since this yellow is much the most conspicuous of the colours
of the astral body, and the one most easily perceived by a person on the
verge of clairvoyance. Sometimes, owing to the unusual activity of the intellect,
the yellow may become visible even in physical matter, so as to be perceptible
to ordinary physical sight.
We have already seen that the astral body has a certain normal arrangement,
into which its various portions tend to group themselves. A sudden rush of
passion or feeling, however, may temporarily force the whole, or almost the
whole, of the matter in an astral body to vibrate at a certain rate, thus
producing quite striking results. All the matter of the astral body is swept
about as if by a violent hurricane, so that for the time being the colours
become very much mixed. Coloured examples of this phenomenon are given in Man Visible
and Invisible :—
Plate XI., p. 96, Sudden rush of Affection.
Plate XII., p. 98, Sudden rush of Devotion.
Plate XIII., p. 100, Intense Anger.
Plate XIV., p. 103, Shock of Fear.
In the case of a sudden wave of pure affection, when, for example, a mother
snatches up her baby and covers it with kisses, the whole astral body in
a moment is thrown into a violent agitation, and the original colours are
for the time almost obscured.
Analysis discovers four separate effects: —
(1) Certain coils or vortices of vivid colour are to be seen, well-defined
and solid-looking, and glowing with an intense light from within. Each of
these is in reality a thought-form of intense affection, generated within
the astral body, and about to be poured forth from it towards the object
of the feeling. The whirling clouds of living light are indescribably lovely,
though difficult to depict.
(2) The whole astral body is crossed by horizontal pulsating lines of crimson
light, even more difficult to represent, by reason of the exceeding rapidity
of their motion. [Page 19]
(3) A kind of film of rose-colour covers the surface of the whole astral
body, so that all within is seen through it, as through tinted glass.
(4) A sort of crimson flush fills the entire astral body, tinging to some
extent the other hues, and here and there condensing itself into irregular
floating wisps, like half-formed clouds.
This display would probably last only a few seconds, and then the body would
rapidly resume its normal condition, the various grades of matter sorting
themselves again into their usual zones by their specific gravities. Yet
every such rush of feeling adds a little to the crimson in the higher part
of the oval and makes it a little easier for the astral body to respond to
the next wave of affection which may come.
Similarly, a man who frequently feels high devotion soon comes to
have a large area of blue in his astral body. The effects of such impulses
are thus cumulative: and in addition the radiation of vivid vibrations of love
and joy produce good influences on others.
With the substitution of blue for crimson, a sudden
access of devotion, surging over a nun engaged in contemplation, produces
an almost identical effect.
In the case of intense anger, the ordinary background of the astral body
is obscured by coils or vortices of
heavy, thunderous masses of sooty blackness, lit up from within by the lurid
glare of active hatred. Wisps of the same dark cloud are to be seen defiling
the whole astral body, while the fiery arrows of uncontrolled anger shoot
among them like flashes of lightning. These terrible flashes are capable
of penetrating other astral bodies like swords and thus inflicting injury
upon other people.
In this instance, as in the others, each outburst of rage would predispose
the matter of the entire astral body to respond somewhat more readily than
before to these very undesirable vibrations.
A sudden shock of terror will in an instant suffuse
the whole body with a curious livid grey mist, while horizontal lines of
the same hue appear, but vibrating [Page 20] with
such violence as to be hardly recognisable as separate lines. The result
is indescribably ghastly: all light fades out for the time from the body
and the whole grey mass quivers helplessly like a jelly.
A flood of emotion does not greatly affect the mental body, though for a
time it may render it almost impossible for any activity from the mental
body to come through into the physical brain, because the astral body, which
acts as a bridge between the mental body and the brain, is vibrating so entirely
at one rate as to be incapable of conveying any undulation which is not in
harmony with it.
The above are examples of the effects of sudden and temporary outbursts of
feeling. There are other somewhat similar effects of a more permanent character
produced by certain dispositions or types of character.
Thus, when an ordinary man falls in love, the astral body is so completely
transformed as to make it scarcely recognisable as belonging to the same
person. Selfishness, deceit and avarice vanish, and the lowest part of the
oval is filled with a large development of animal passions. The green of
adaptability has been replaced by the peculiar brownish-green of jealousy,
and the extreme activity of this feeling is shown by bright scarlet flashes
of anger which permeate it. But the undesirable changes are more than counterbalanced
by the splendid band of crimson which fills so large a part of the oval.
This is, for the time, a dominant characteristic, and the whole astral body
glows with its light. Under its influence the general muddiness of the ordinary
astral body has disappeared, and the hues are all brilliant and clearly marked,
good and bad alike. It is an intensification of the life in various directions.
The blue of devotion is also distinctly improved, and even a touch of pale
violet appears at the summit of the ovoid, indicating a capacity of response
to a really high and unselfish ideal. The yellow of intellect, however, has
entirely vanished for the time — a fact which the cynical might consider
as characteristic of the condition ! [Page
21]
The astral body of an irritable man usually shows a
broad band of scarlet as a prominent feature, and, in addition, the whole
astral body is covered with little floating flecks of scarlet, somewhat
like notes of interrogation.
In the case of a miser, avarice, selfishness, deceit and adaptability
are naturally intensified, but sensuality is diminished. The most remarkable
change, however, is the curious series of parallel horizontal lines across
the oval, giving the impression of a cage. The bars are a deep brown in colour,
almost burnt sienna.
The vice of avarice seems to have the effect of completely arresting development
for the time, and it is very difficult to shake off when once it has gained
a firm hold.
Deep depression produces an effect in grey, instead
of brown, very similar to that of the miser. The result is indescribably
gloomy and depressing to the observer. No emotional condition is more infectious
than the feeling of depression.
In the case of a non-intellectual man who is definitely religious, the
astral body assumes a characteristic appearance. A touch of
violet suggests the possibility of response to a high ideal. The blue of
devotion is unusually well developed, but the yellow of intellect is scanty.
There is a fair proportion of affection and adaptability, but more than the
average of sensuality, and deceit and selfishness are also prominent. The
colours are irregularly distributed, melting into one another, and the outline
is vague, indicating the vagueness of the devotional man's conceptions.
Extreme sensuality and the devotional temperament are frequently seen in
association: perhaps because these types of men live chiefly in their feelings,
being governed by them instead of trying to control them by reason.
A great contrast is shown by a man of a scientific type. Devotion is entirely
absent, sensuality is much below the average, but the intellect is
developed to [Page 22] an abnormal
degree. Affection and adaptability are small in quantity and poor in quality.
A good deal of selfishness and avarice is present and also some jealousy.
A huge cone of bright orange in the midst of the golden yellow of intellect
indicates pride and ambition in connection with the knowledge that has been
acquired. The scientific and orderly habit of mind causes the arrangement
of the colours to fall into regular bands, the lines of demarcation being
quite definite and clearly marked.
The student is urged to study for himself the admirable book from
which the above information is taken, this being one of the most valuable
of the many works produced by that great and gifted writer — C. W.
Leadbeater.
As we have been dealing here with colours in the astral body, it may be mentioned
that the means of communication with the elementals, which are associated
so closely with man's astral body, is by sounds and colours. Students may
recollect obscure allusions now and again to a language of colours, and the
fact that in ancient Egypt sacred manuscripts were written in colours, mistakes
in copying being punished with death. To elementals, colours are as intelligible
as words are to men. [Page 23]
1. To make sensation possible.
2. To serve as a bridge between mind and physical matter.
3. To act as an independent vehicle of consciousness and action.
We will deal with these three functions in sequence.
When man is analysed into " principles," i.e., into
modes of manifesting life, the four lower principles,
sometimes termed the "Lower Quaternary", are :—
Physical Body.
Etheric Body
Prâna, or Vitality.
Kâma, or Desire.
Kâma thus includes feelings of every kind, and might be described
as the passional and emotional nature. It comprises all animal appetites,
such as hunger, thirst, sexual desire: all passions, such as the lower
forms of love, hatred, envy, jealousy; it is the desire for sentient
existence, for experience of material joys — "the lust of
the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life".
Kâma is the brute in us, the "ape and tiger" of
Tennyson, the force which most avails to keep us [Page
24] bound to earth and to stifle in us all higher longings
by the illusions of sense. It is the most material in man's nature, and
is the one that binds him fast to earthly life. " It is not molecularly
constituted matter, least of all the human body, Sthûla Sharira,
that is the grossest of all our ' principles', but verily the middle principle,
the real animal centre; whereas our body is but its shell, the irresponsible
factor and medium through which the beast in us acts all its life" (Secret
Doctrine,Volume I, pages 280 and 281.
Kâma or Desire is also described as a reflection or
lower aspect of Atma or Will, the distinction being that Will is Self-determined,
whereas Desire is moved to activity by attractions to or repulsions from
surrounding objects. Desire is thus Will discrowned, the captive, the slave
of matter.
Another way of regarding Kâma has been well expressed by Mr. Ernest Wood
in his illuminating book The Seven Rays: Kâma " means
all desire. And desire is the outward-turned aspect of love, the love of the
things of the three worlds; while love proper is love of life and love of the
divine, and belongs to the higher or inward-turned self."
For our purposes in this book desire and emotion are frequently used
as practically synonymous: strictly, however, emotion is the product of
desire and intellect.
The astral body is often known as the Kâma Rûpa: and sometimes, in
the older nomenclature, as the Animal Soul.
Impacts from without, striking on the physical body, are conveyed
as vibrations by the agency of Prâna or Vitality, but they would remain
as vibrations only, merely motion on the physical plane, did not Kâma,
the principle of sensation, translate the vibration into feeling. Thus pleasure
and pain do not arise until the astral centre is reached. Hence Kâma
joined to Prâna is spoken of as the "breath of life", the
vital sentient principle spread over every particle of the body. [Page
25]
It appears that certain organs of the physical body are specifically
associated with the workings of Kâma: among these are the liver and
the spleen.
It may be noted here that Kâma, or desire, is just beginning to be active
in the mineral kingdom, where it expresses itself as chemical affinity.
In the vegetable kingdom it is, of course, much more developed, indicating a
far greater capacity of utilising lower astral matter. Students of botany are
aware that likes and dislikes, i.e., desire, are much more prominent
in the vegetable world than in the mineral, and that many plants exhibit a great
deal of ingenuity and sagacity in attaining their ends.
Plants are quick to respond to loving care and are distinctly affected
by man's feelings towards them. They delight in and respond to admiration:
they are also capable of individual attachments, as well as of anger and dislike.
Animals are capable to the fullest possible extent of experiencing the lower
desires, though the capacity for the higher desires is more limited. Nevertheless
it exists, and in exceptional cases an animal is capable of manifesting an exceedingly
high quality of affection or devotion.
Passing now to the second function of the astral body — to act as
a bridge between mind and physical matter — we note that an impact on
the physical senses is transmitted inwards by Prâna, becomes a sensation by
the action of the sense-centres, which are situated in Kâma, and is perceived by
Manas, or Mind. Thus, without the general action through the astral body there
would be no connection between the external world and the mind of man, no connection
between physical impacts and the perception of them by the mind.
Conversely, whenever we think, we set in motion the mental matter within us;
the vibrations thus generated are transferred to the matter of our astral body,
the astral matter affects the etheric matter, this, in turn, acting on the dense
physical matter, the grey matter of the brain. [Page
26]
The astral body is thus veritably a bridge between our physical and our
mental life, serving as a transmitter of vibrations both from physical to
mental and from mental to physical, and is, in fact, principally developed
by this constant passage of vibrations to and fro.
In the course of the evolution of man's astral body, there are two distinct stages:
the astral body has first to be developed to a fairly high point as a transmitting
vehicle: then it has to be developed as an independent body, in which the
man can function on the astral plane.
In man, the normal brain-intelligence is produced by the union of Kâma
with Manas, or Mind, this union being often spoken of as Kâma-Manas. Kâma-Manas
is described by H. P. Blavatsky as " the rational, but earthly or physical
intellect of man, encased in, and bound by matter, and therefore subject to the
influence of the latter"; this is the "lower self" which, acting
on this plane of illusion, imagines itself to be the real Self or Ego, and thus
falls into what Buddhist philosophy terms the " heresy of separateness".
Kâma-Manas, that is Manas with desire, has also been picturesquely described
as Manas taking an interest in external things.
It may, in passing, be noted that a clear understanding of the fact that Kâma-Manas
belongs to the human personality, and that it functions in and through the physical
brain, is essential to a just grasp of the process of reincarnation, and is sufficient
of itself to show how there can be no memory of previous lives so long as the
consciousness cannot rise beyond the brain-mechanism, this mechanism, together
with that of Kâma, being made afresh each life, and therefore having no
direct touch with previous lives.
Manas, of itself, could not affect the molecules of the physical brain
cells: but, when united to Kâma, it is able to set the physical molecules
in motion, and thus produce " brain-consciousness", including the
brain memory and all the functions of the human [Page
27] mind, as we ordinarily know it.
It is, of course, not the Higher Manas, but the Lower Manas, (i.e., matter
of the four lower levels of the mental plane), which is associated with Kâma.
In Western psychology, this Kâma-Manas becomes a part of what in that
system is termed Mind. Kâma-Manas, forming the link between the higher
and lower nature in man, is the battleground during life, and also, as we shall
see later, plays an important part in post-mortem existence.
1
Anandamayakosha
the Bliss sheath
Buddhi
2
Vignânamayakosha
the Discriminating sheath
Higher Manas and Kâma
3
Manomayakosha
the sheath of Intellect and Desire
Lower Manas and Kâma
4
Prânamayakosha
the Vitality sheath
Prâna
5
Annamayakosha
the Food sheath
Dense physical body
Manas, or mind, being unable, as said above, to affect the gross particles
of the brain, projects a part of itself, i.e., lower Manas, which
clothes itself with astral matter, and then with the help of etheric matter
permeates the whole nervous system of the child before birth. The projection
from Manas is often spoken of as its reflection, its shadow, its ray, and
is known also by other allegorical names. H. P. Blavatsky writes (Key
to Theosophy, p.
184) : " Once
imprisoned, or incarnate, their (the Manas) essence becomes dual; that is to
say, the rays of the eternal divine Mind, considered as individual entities,
assume a two-fold attribute, which is (a) their essential, inherent, characteristic,
heaven-aspiring mind (higher Manas), and (b) the human quality of thinking, of
animal cogitation, rationalised owing to the superiority of the human brain,
the Kâma-tending or lower Manas".
Lower Manas is thus engulfed in the quaternary, and may be regarded as clasping
Kâma with one hand, whilst with the other it retains its hold on its father,
the higher Manas. Whether it will be dragged down by Kâma altogether and be torn
away from the triad (atmâ-buddhi-manas) to which, by its nature it belongs,
or whether it will triumphantly carry back to its source the purified experiences
of its earth life — that is the life-problem set and solved in each successive
incarnation. This point will be considered further in the chapters on After-Death
Life.
Kama thus supplies the animal and passional elements; lower Manas rationalises
these and adds the intellectual faculties. In man these two principles are interwoven
during life and rarely act separately.
Manas may be regarded as the flame, Kâma and the physical brain as the
wick and fuel which feed the flame. The egos of all men, developed or undeveloped, [Page
29] are of the same essence and substance: that which makes
of one a great man, and of another a vulgar, silly person, is the quality and
make-up of the physical body, and the ability of the brain and body to transmit
and express the light of the real inner man.
In brief, Kâma-Manas is the personal self of man: Lower Manas gives the
individualising touch that makes the personality recognise itself as "I", Lower
Manas is a ray from the immortal Thinker, illuminating a personality. It is
Lower Manas which yields the last touch of delight to the senses and to the
animal nature, by conferring the power of anticipation, memory and imagination.
Whilst it would be out of place in this book to encroach too far
into the domain of Manas and the mental body, yet it may help the student at
this stage to add that freewill resides in Manas, Manas being the representative
of Mahat, the Universal Mind. In physical man, the Lower Manas is the agent of
freewill. From Manas comes the feeling of liberty, the knowledge that we can
rule ourselves, that the higher nature can master the lower. To identify the
consciousness with the Manas, instead of with Kâma, is thus an important
step on the road to self-mastery.
The very struggle of Manas to assert itself is the best testimony that it is
by nature free. It is the presence and power of the ego which enables a man to
choose between desires and to overcome them. As the lower Manas rules Kâma,
the lower quaternary takes its rightful position of subservience to the higher
triad — atmâ-buddhi-manas.
We may classify the principles of man in the following manner:—
-1-
Âtma
Immortal
Buddhi
Higher Manas
-2-
Kâma-Manas
Conditionally Immortal
-3-
Prâna
Mortal
Etheric Double
Dense Body
1. During ordinary waking consciousness, i.e., while the physical brain and
senses are wide-awake, the powers of the astral senses may be brought into
action. Some of these powers correspond to the senses and powers of action
possessed by the physical body. They will be dealt with in the next chapter,
on Chakrams.
2. During sleep or trance it is possible for the astral body to separate
itself from the physical body and to move about and function freely on its
own plane. This will be dealt with in the chapter on Sleep-Life.
3. It is possible so to develop the powers of the astral body that a man
may consciously and deliberately, at any time that he chooses, leave the
physical body and pass with unbroken consciousness into the astral body.
This will be
dealt with in the
chapter on Continuity of Consciousness.
4. After physical death the consciousness withdraws itself into the astral
body, and a life, varying greatly in intensity and duration, dependent upon
a number of factors, may be led on the astral plane. This will be dealt
with in the chapters on After-Death
Life.
These divisions of our subject, with numerous ramifications, will constitute
the major portion of the remainder of this treatise. [Page 31]
The Chakrams of the etheric body are fully described in The
Etheric Double,
and the student is referred to that work, as a study of the etheric Chakrams
will materially assist him to understand the astral Chakrams.
The etheric Chakrams are situated in the surface
of the etheric double and are usually denoted by the
name of the physical organ to which they correspond.
They are: —
1. Base of Spine Chakram.
2. Navel Chakram.
3. Spleen Chakram.
4. Heart Chakram.
5. Throat Chakram.
6. Between the Eyebrows Chakram.
7. Top of the Head Chakram.
There are also three lower Chakrams, but as these are used only in certain
schools of " black magic," we are not concerned with them here.
The astral Chakrams, which are frequently in the interior of the etheric
double, are vortices in four dimensions (see Chapter 18), thus having
an extension in a direction quite different from the etheric: consequently,
though they correspond to the etheric Chakrams, they are by no means always
coterminous with them, though some part is always coincident. [Page
32]
The astral Chakrams are given the same names as those in the etheric
double, and their functions are as follows:—
1. Base of Spine Chakram.—This is the seat of the Serpent
Fire, Kundalini, a force which exists on all planes and by means of which
the rest of the Chakrams are aroused.
Originally, the astral body was an almost inert mass, possessing but the
vaguest consciousness, with no definite power of doing anything, and with
no clear knowledge of the world surrounding it. The first thing that happened
was the awakening of Kundalini at the astral level.
2. Navel Chakram.— Kundalini having been awakened in the first Chakram,
it moved to the navel Chakram, which it vivified, thus awakening in the astral
body the power of feeling — a sensitiveness to all sorts of influences,
though without as yet anything like the definite comprehension that conies
from seeing and hearing.
3. Spleen Chakram.—Kundalini then moved to the spleen Chakram,
and through it vitalised the whole astral body, this Chakram having as one
of its functions the absorption of Prâna, the Vitality Force, which
also exists on all planes. The vivification of the spleen Chakram enables
the man
to travel in his astral body consciously, though with only a vague conception
as yet of what he encounters on his journeys.
4. Heart Chakram.—This Chakram enables the man to comprehend
and sympathise with the vibrations of other astral entities, so that he
can instinctively understand their feelings.
5. Throat Chakram.—This Chakram confers the power in the
astral world which corresponds to hearing in the physical world.
6. Between the Eyebrows Chakram.—This Chakram confers the
power to perceive definitely the shape and nature of astral objects, instead
of merely vaguely sensing their presence.
Associated with this Chakram appears also the power [Page 33] of
magnifying at will the minutest physical or astral particle to any desired
size, as though by a microscope. This power enables an occult investigator
to perceive and study molecules, atoms, etc. The full control of this faculty,
however, belongs rather to the causal body.
The power of magnification is one of the siddhis described in Oriental
books as "the power of making oneself large or small at will." The
description is apposite, because the method employed is that of using a
temporary visual mechanism of inconceivable minuteness. Conversely, minification
of vision may be obtained by the construction of a temporary and enormously
larger visual mechanism.
The power of magnification is quite distinct from
the faculty of functioning on a higher plane, just as the power of an astronomer
to observe planets and stars is quite a different thing from the ability
to move or function amongst them.
In the Hindu sutras it is stated that meditation in
a certain part of the tongue will confer astral sight. The statement is
a " blind," the
reference being to the pituitary body, situated just over this part of
the tongue.
7. Top of the Head Chakram.—This Chakram rounds off and completes
the astral life, endowing the man with the perfection of his faculties.
There appear to be two methods in which this
Chakram works.
In one type of man, the sixth and seventh Chakrams both converge upon the
pituitary body, this body being for this type practically the only direct
link between the physical and the higher planes.
In another type of man, however, while the sixth Chakram is still attached
to the pituitary body, the seventh Chakram is bent or slanted until its vortex
coincides with the pineal gland. In people of this type the pineal gland
is thus vivified and made into a line of communication directly with the
lower mental, without apparently passing through the intermediate astral
plane in the ordinary way. [Page 34]
In the physical body, as we know, there are specialised organs for each sense,
the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing, and so on. In the astral body, however,
this is not the case.
The web may be injured in several ways : -
These constituents rush through the Chakras in the opposite
direction to that for which they are intended, and in doing this repeatedly
they seriously injure and finally destroy the delicate web.CHAPTER
6
2. Prâna ; which shows itself as vitality. CHAPTER
7
1- The
physical life.
2- The emotional life.
3- The mental life
Not only the physical body, but also the higher bodies also, are affected
by the food which is eaten. Carnivorous diet is fatal to anything like real
occult development and those who adopt it are throwing serious and unnecessary
difficulties in their own way, for flesh food intensifies all the undesirable
elements and passions of the lower planes.CHAPTER 9
SLEEP-LIFECHAPTER
10
Svapna is the dream consciousness, working in the astral body,
and able to impress its experiences upon the brain.CHAPTER
9
CHAPTER
12
CHAPTER
13
CHAPTER
14
(2) The mode of individualisation.
(3) The length and nature of the last earth-life. [Page
124]
The following table gives a general average of the length of the astral life,
as determined by the class of ego.
Individualised
in Moon-Chain
Round No. Present
type
Average length
of Astral life.
5
Advanced
egos (many) of these are taking continuous incarnations so that for
them the question of intervals between lives does not arise)
5
years: an ego may even pass through rapidly and unconsciously
Men
distinguished in art, science or religion
General
tendency is towards a longer astral life, especially in the case of
artists and religious men.
6
Country
gentlemen and professional men
20-
25 years
7
Upper
middle class
25
years
Class
of Ego
Moon-Men:
Second Order
Bourgeoisie
40
years
Moon-Animal-Men
Skilled
workers
40,
on middle level
Moon-Animal,
First Class
Unskilled
labourers
40-50,
on lower levels
Moon-Animals,
Second Class
Drunkards
and unemployables
40-50,
usually on 6th level
Moon-Animals,
Third Class
Lowest
of humanity
5,
on 7th level.
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