Astral body: Encyclopedia II - Astral body - Later interpretations

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)

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