|
|
The Astral Body
The Spiritual Bookstore Online World Religion Library
The "Astral Body"
The "Astral Body" (to give it the popular occult term) is a sort of
psychic or spirit body, which is the body one exists in during the "Out
of Body Experience" (OBE) or "Astral travelling". This body can thus
separate from the lower bodies and journey to other worlds and realms,
taking the consciousness with it. After death and separation from the
physical body, the personality continues to exist for a period of time
in the astral body.
The astral body can attain to the more material heavens (corresponding
to the world of Asiyah according to Hayyim Vital, and the Ishraki
Barzakh or "Interworld"), but the higher spiritual realms are beyond its
reach. It corresponds to the Egyptian Ba, which is the principle able to
leave the body and the tomb and also return to it at will, and the
Tibetan Bardo body.
I would point out though that in using terms like "astral body", I have
endeavoured to retain the already established occult jargon, even when
such terms are not etymologically appropriate. The word "astral", as in
"astral plane" and "astral body", is actually misleadingly, because
there is nothing particularily "starry" ("Astral") about the subtle body
or the occult plane of this name. The term itself came about due to
Theosophical use of Renaissance and other old occult and esoteric
material, the cosmology of which identifies astrological influences with
the psychic worlds. Contemporary Theosophical and popular esotericism
lacks this astrological cosmology, but justifies the term "astral (star)
body" on the very dubious claim that this subtle body appears to
clairvoyant vision to be scintillating and full of sparks. From there
the word unfortunately entered the English language with this meaning
(hence "astral travelling", etc).
Alternative terms have been used, such as "desire body" (from
Blavatsky's Sanskrit neologism kama-rupa ("desire form"), which is quite
valid, as occultly speaking one could say that this body is made up of
that psychic stratum which we experience subjectively as physical and
emotional desires and selfish needs. But it would be perhaps best to
stick with the established word, no matter how inappropiate it may be,
rather than create more confusion in this already very confusing subject
by introducing more jargon than is absolutely necessary. So for the
present, the popular term "astral" will be retained.
If we look at the Psychic being, but stepped up one level of
transcendence beyond the Subtle Physical, just as the Subtle Physical is
one level of transcendence beyond the Material-Physical. This takes us
to the pure psychic plane, the "astral plane" of occultism, and the
astral or spirit-double that pertains to this plane.
The doctrine of a spirit-form that is a sort of double of the physical
body, and may survive the death of the latter, is an extremely
widespread one. In addition to the idea of the shadow or spirit-double
in many so-called primitive peoples, there is the Egyptian Ba, the Greek
eidolon, the Theosophical kama-rupa ("desire-form"), and the "astral
body" of popular occultism.
During life, this principle represents an over-riding but spiritually
inferior psychic faculty: the Irrational Soul of Neoplatonism, the p'o
soul of Chinese psychology, the nafs ammara or the soul "which commands
evil, the passionate, sensual lower ego" of Sufism, the nefesh behemis
or "animal soul" of Kabbalah, the id of Freud, the "Undersoul" of Ann
Ree Colton, the "Vital" of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's teachings, and
the Subconscious or Unconscious of popular psychology (or to be more
precise, the Middle Unconscious.
from: http://www.kheper.net/topics/subtlebody/astral_body.htm
**
**
The Spiritual Bookstore Online World Religion Library
*
*