Astral body: Encyclopedia - Astral body

Astral body

Subtle bodies

Causal plane: Causal body
Mental plane: Mental body
Astral plane: body, projection
Etheric plane: Etheric body
Physical plane: Physical body

The 7 Worlds & the 7 Cosmic Planes
The Seven-fold constitution of Man
The Ten-fold constitution of Man

Cosmology

Sufi cosmology
Tanazzulut

Ray of Creation
The Laws
Three Centres
Five Centres

Plane (Dungeons & Dragons)
  Inner Plane
  Prime Material Plane
  Outer Plane

The astral body, also known as desire body or emotional body, in occultism and New Age thought, refers to a subtle body which exists alongside the physical body, as a vehicle of the soul or consciousness.

Astral body - The astral body in Neoplatonism

While Neoplatonists agreed as to the immortality of the soul, they disagreed as to whether the "irrational soul" was immortal and celestial ("starry", hence astral), or dissolved after death. Proclus combined both ideas by positing two subtle bodies or "vehicles" (okhema) intermediate between the Soul and the physical body. These were the spiritual (pneuma) vehicle which he considered mortal, and the astral vehicle which was the immortal vehicle of the Soul.

Astral body - The astral body in Theosophy

Blavatsky used the term "astral" to refer to the double (linga sharira) which was the lowest but one of the seven principles (immediately above the physical).

Later however, C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant (Adyar School of Theosophy), and following them, Alice Bailey, equated the astral with Blavatsky's Kama (desire) principle (the fourth of the seven principles of man, and called it the Emotional body (a concept not found in earlier Theosophy).

In this way, astral body, desire body, and emotional body became synonmous, and this identification is found in much of New Age and theosophically-inspired thought since.

The astral or emotional body here is understood as a sort of psychic body or aura that is made up of emotions, just as the physical body consists of matter. In occult thought, emotions are not just subjective qualia, but have an existence apart from the individual consciousness, and exist on a cosmic plane of existence, in this case, the astral plane.

Astral body - The desire body in Rosicrucianism

According to Max Heindel writings, the Desire body, also called Astral body by other esoteric schools and in new age adherents, is made of desire stuff from which human beings form feelings and emotions and also it impels to seek sense gratification. But while it is referred that the Dense (physical) body and the Vital (Etheric) body are well organized, the desire body is said to appear to spiritual sight as an ovoid cloud extending from sixteen to twenty inches beyond the physical body; it is seen above the head and below the feet so that the dense (physical) body sits in the center of this egg-shaped cloud as the yolk is in the center of an egg. This desire body has a number of whirling vortices - since a characteristic of desire-stuff is to be in constant motion - and from the main vortex in the region of the liver, there is a constant outwelling flow which radiates toward the periphery of this egg-shaped body and returns to the center through a number of other vortices. It is said the desire body also exhibits all the colors and shades, which we know and a vast number of others unknown to physical sight, and those colors vary in every person according to his or her characteristics and temperament, and they also vary from moment to moment as passing moods, fancies, or emotions are experienced by the person.

Astral body - Later interpretations

Rudolph Steiner at first followed Theosophical jargon like astral and Devachan, but after he broke away from the Theosophical society to form his own movement, Anthroposophy, he also adopted a distinct terminology, replacing astral plane with "soul" and devachen with "spirit", and substituting the seven-fold model of man with a fourfold one (physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego). However his description of the "soul world" remained very similar to Leadbeater's description of the astral plane, and his definition of the astral body remained basically similar as well. Unlike Leadbetaer however he placed little emphasis on the astral or soul level, being more interested in the evolution of the ego (the immortal spirit principle, not the psychological ego) and the spiritual hierrachies (see e.g. his Occult Science - An Outline).

Mirra Alfassa / The Mother sometimes refers to the astral body and experiences on the astral plane (see her Collected Works and The Agenda). In this context she also incorporates a lot of ideas from Max Theon. She uses the term "vital" rather than astral, and refers to exteriorisation, whereby one can move out from the physical into the vital ("astral"), and from there to successively higher bodies, twelve in all.

In contrast to theosophical and anthroposophical position, Barbara Brennan in her book Hands of Light distinguishes between the Emotional body and the Astral body. She sees these as two distinct layers in the seven-layered "Human Energy Field" or Aura. The Emotional body pertains to the physical universe, the astral body to the astral world. However the descriptions of both are similar, in that both consist of swirls of colour (see links for illustration and more description)

Astral body - The astral body in generic New Age thought

New Age thought incorporates many theosophical ideas, including the concept of subtle bodies and planes of existence. While there is no consensus position, the general idea is that the Astral body corresponds to the astral plane which is sometimes also (ref?) called the 5th dimension.

The astral body is also widely understood here as the subtle body in which astral projection occurs (see Astral projection). This is one of several types of out of body experiences, or OBEs. The term "light body" is sometimes used in this context.

Astral body - Artistic depictions

The emotional and/or astral body is usually drawn in terms of an aura or consisting of swirling colours. See illustrations in Man, Visible and Invisible and Hands of Light for examples of this.

See also

• Esoteric cosmology

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Astral body", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki