Mental body: Encyclopedia - Mental body

Mental 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 mental body (the mind) is one of the Subtle Bodies in Theosophy and New Age thought. It is understood as a sort of psychic body or aura that is made up of thoughts, just as the Emotional body consists of emotions and the Physical body is made up of matter. In occult understanding, thoughts are not just subjective qualia, but have an existence apart from the individual consciousness.

According to C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant (Adyar School of Theosophy), and Alice Bailey, the mental body is equivalent to the "Lower Manas" of Blavatsky's original seven principles of man. But Barbara Brennan describes the Mental body as intermediate between the Emotional and the Astral body in terms of the layers in the "Human Energy Field" or Aura.

The mental body is usually considered in terms of an aura that includes thoughtforms. In Theosophical and Alice Bailey's teachings, it corresponds to the Mental plane.

According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings, the mind is the latest acquisition of the human spirit. It is not yet an organized body and in most people it is still a mere inchoate cloud disposed particularly in the region of the head. It works as the link or focus between the threefold Spirit and the threefold body [1], in a reversed reflexion manner [2]. He states that to the trained clairvoyant there appears to be an empty space in the center of the forehead just above and between the eyebrows and it looks like the blue part of a gas flame, but not even the most gifted seer can penetrate that veil, also known as "THE VEIL OF ISIS".

See also

• Esoteric cosmology
• Consciousness
• Epigenesis
• Mind
• Mind-body problem
• Philosophy of mind
• Theory of mind

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