Astral Body
Astral body (from Greek astron, "star," via medieval Latin corpus astrale) is, in Theosophical and related esoteric anatomies, the subtle vehicle of emotions, desires, and passions that surrounds and interpenetrates the physical body. It is one of several subtle bodies posited by esoteric tradition, sitting between the etheric body of life-force and the mental body of thought. During sleep, in deep meditation, or in the experience of "astral projection," the astral body is said to detach from the physical and travel in the astral plane.
Origin
The notion of a star-substance vehicle of the soul reaches back to Neoplatonism. Plotinus and Porphyry, writing in the third century CE, taught that the soul descending into incarnation acquired a luminous garment (ochema, "vehicle") composed of the substance of the stars, and that this vehicle persisted between lives. Medieval and Renaissance magic absorbed the concept: Paracelsus (1493 to 1541) distinguished the corpus elementare from the corpus siderum, the elemental body from the sidereal or star-body, the latter being the seat of imagination and dream. Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531) systematised the doctrine.
The modern technical use of the term derives from nineteenth-century Theosophy. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), used "astral body" in several overlapping senses, distinguishing it gradually from the etheric double. Charles Webster Leadbeater's The Astral Plane (1895) and Man Visible and Invisible (1902) established the classical Theosophical anatomy of seven subtle bodies with the astral as the second above the physical. Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy (founded 1912) retained the term but reorganised its meaning. The astral body entered popular spirituality through Sylvan Muldoon's and Robert Monroe's twentieth-century accounts of out-of-body experiences.
The seven-body anatomy
In the standard Theosophical scheme, you possess seven bodies of progressively subtler substance. The physical body is the dense vehicle of incarnate experience. The etheric body, immediately above it, is the vehicle of life-force, identical to prana in Indian thought. The astral body, the subject of this entry, is the vehicle of emotion, desire, and the lower imagination. The mental body, above the astral, is the vehicle of concrete thought. Above this come three higher bodies: the causal or higher mental, the buddhic, and the atmic, corresponding to insight, love, and pure spiritual will respectively. The system is hierarchical: each higher body is more refined and more universal than the one below.
The astral body is described as ovoid in shape, surrounding the physical at a distance of several centimetres to a metre, and consisting of a substance that responds instantly to emotional states. Clairvoyants have long described its appearance: a luminous egg-shaped cloud penetrated by the colours and patterns of momentary feeling. Strong emotions produce strong colours; spiritual development produces increasing clarity and harmony of pattern. The astral body is the vehicle in which dreams occur and through which the dead pass after the death of the physical, undergoing a process of purification (kamaloka) before the consciousness withdraws to higher levels.
In practice
The astral body becomes a practical concept when you begin to attend to its territory: the emotions and the dream life. Keep a dream journal. Note recurring emotional patterns and their physical correlates. Practices that strengthen and clarify the astral body include emotional regulation, ethical living, study of psychology and the symbolic imagination, and contemplative work that addresses feeling. The Theosophical and Anthroposophical traditions teach specific exercises for purifying the astral body, including review of the day in reverse before sleep (a practice taught by Steiner) and conscious examination of emotional reactions.
Astral projection, the deliberate exit of the astral body from the physical, is a more advanced and controversial practice. Robert Monroe's books (Journeys Out of the Body, 1971) and the work of Stephen LaBerge on lucid dreaming have made the territory accessible to a wide audience. Approach with caution: spontaneous out-of-body experiences are reported by a significant minority of healthy people, but deliberate cultivation can destabilise. Pair this study with etheric body, aura, and meditation. The tarot Moon card depicts the astral landscape in its proper ambiguity.
Symbolic depth
The astral body is the bridge between the physical and the mental, between matter and spirit, between sensation and thought. Its element is water, its quality is reflective, and its symbol is the moon. In every spiritual tradition, the emotional life is recognised as both the source of suffering (when reactive and unrefined) and the source of compassion, devotion, and love (when purified and directed). The work on the astral body is thus the heart of practical mysticism: it is here that the raw stuff of passion is transmuted into the gold of mature feeling, in a process that medieval alchemists described in their own technical vocabulary as the work on the white.
In tarot, the astral plane is the territory of the Moon (XVIII), with its dreamscape of pool, dogs, and crayfish emerging from the unconscious. The Star (XVII) shows the astral after its purification, the maiden pouring waters of grace from twin vessels. The Cups suit corresponds throughout to astral substance. In astrology, the Moon, Neptune, and Venus govern astral phenomena. In Kabbalah, the astral corresponds to Yetzirah, the world of formation, the third of the four kabbalistic worlds. Continue with etheric body, aura, and the full glossary.
Also known as
- emotional body
- desire body
- kama rupa
- sidereal body
- subtle body