The Astral Plane
The astral plane is the working ground of the magician
in that tenuous and dreamlike world he can find the truth
about things past and to come. He can also find the gods
and demons, gnomes, fairies and salamanders, the archangels,
angels, and elemental forces of nature. The astral plane holds
both the secret of power and the key to the creation of miraculous
effects on the physical plane.
The astral plane has often been defined as teh realm of visual
imagination. Before we take an astral voyage we should first
try to understand what mystics and magicians mean when they
speak of such things as planes, astral, ethereal, auras, and
the bodies of man.
Most people think of themselves as a mind within a body.
The concepts of soul and spirit make the average person uncomfortable,
mostly because he does not know how to deal with them. They
are ideologies beyound the familiar world of the senses.
As such they are not easy to grasp or understand. It is
more convenient to ignore their existence and concentrate
instead on solid realities of the material body.
Oriental mystics have a practical way of showing their students
that their own bodies are not their real selves. Zen Buddhists
in Japan and Sufis in the Middle East pay more attention to
the Higher Self than to the material personality. A Sufi Adept,
for example, trying to impress on a disciple the existence of a
deeper spiritual nature, may hold a lighted candle under
the student's hand and then ask him to describe the experience
he has just undergone. When the student complains that he
has been burned by the candle flame the Adept patiently explains
that only the flesh was singed, no the real self of the
disciple. This concept sees the body as a form of shell that
we carry around with us to serve us in the material world
and act as the vessel for experience. It is not our real self,
as a smiple experiment will show. The body is made real to
us because of the five senses. We can feel things with the
body because of the fine nerve endings that make us susceptible
to the tacile experiences. Likewise, we can see, smell, hear,
taste, so we fall into the delusion of thinking that the body
is "us". But if we lay a hand or an arm on a table that extremity
will not move until we will it to do so. In the same way our
feet, heads, or torsos will remain static until we give them
a mental command to perform a given action. We, or rather
our bodies, will not talk, eat, move, or be still unless we
tell them to do these things. The moment we realize this
peculiarity of the human body we become uncomfortably aware of
the fact that we are living inside an activate robot that we
dominate through remote control. This controlling influence
is exerted on the body through the brain cells. The brain,
then, is the master of the body: it smoothly regulates
unconscious bodily actions like breathing, blood circulation,
heart pumping, healing of wounds, digestion, and so on. It
also controls conscious reactions like speech, memory, affections,
decisions, and awareness. Can we then say that the brain is "us"?
Not really. The brain is the seat of the conscious personality,
but also of the unconscious one. If we were the brain, we
would know all the intricacies of its mechanisms. We would know how
we make the heart beat and the cells regenerate, why we feel pain and hunger;
but the truth is that we do not. We do not know anything about the workings
of our body or brain--we know only what science tells us after hundreds of
years of tireless and often frustrating studies. But we ourselves do not
know how or why our bodies or brains work, just as we do not know exactly
what we are.
When we reach this point in our self-awareness we feel suddenly very
lonely and helpless. We get the feeling that we do not belong, that we are
trapped somehow in a restraining shell of matter that is inhibiting our
freedom and keeping us grounded on earth. This is the first step in spiritual
awareness. We suddenly realize that we are something else that is quite outside
the physical body. What we are and where we come from are the subjects of
metaphysics and the primordial concern of religion, mysticism, and magic.
Yoga teaches that man has a "third eye" that is the seat of human consciousness
and the point of contact between mind and spirit. The third eye has been equated
by many occult authorities with the pineal gland found at the base of the brain.
Modern science has conducted many interesting experiments with this tiny gland, all
of which indicate that there is a relationship between it and the human consciouness.
The gland produces two hormones, serotonin and melatonin. These hormones regulate
rational thought and sexual development in man. If the hormonal action of
melatonin is interfered with, as happens when there is a brain tumor near the base
of the spine, the sexual characteristics of the affected person will increase
the normal flow of serotonin into the bloodstream, bringing about altered states
of consciousness. It has also been discovered that people in trancelike states,
such as the ecstasy of the mystic, show very low levels of serotonin in the blood.
This tends to support the assertion of Yoga that the pineal gland or third eye
is the seat of consciousness in man the link with higher levels of awareness.
All the schools of occultism tell us that man has many "bodies," which function
on different planes; yet man is only one. This seemingly paradoxical statement is
explained with the concept of the soul, which is sevenfold in nature. Here are
its different levels of awareness:
1. Elemental. A very subtle form of substance that lies beyond
the electrons, ions, or corpuscles of which matter is formed. It is the pattern
upon which the physical body is built and is known by many names, such as the
ethereal body, doppelganger, double, and so on. The elemental part of the soul
survives the death of the body for some time and sometimes becones visible as the
ghost of the deceased person. It has no consciousness and disintegrates speedily
after death.
2. Mineral. The mineral and chemical substances of which the
body is made. Its functions is to control the orginc matter of the body and
ascertain that the chemical processes are working properly. These processes
are not merely mechanical; they are the product of intelligence and purpose
and are impossible without the presence and control of the mineral soul.
Like the elemental aspect of the soul, the mineral disintegrates after the death
of the body.
3. Vegetable. The celluar substance that permits the growth
of bodily tissue and parts and organs and makes possible the grafting and transplating
of physical parts of the body.
4. Animal. This is the seat of purely animal desires. Its
intelligence and consciousness are concerned only with the physical well-being of
the body. The chief desires of the animal aspect of the soul are concerned with
nutrition and reproduction. They manifest respectively as self-proservation
and sexual impulses, as well as love of offspring. The animal soul can be
easily equated with the instincts in man.
5. Human. Here we find intellectual reasoning and voluntary
choice and action, as well as self-awareness. We can equate this state with mind.
6. Demigod. The elements of humanity, kindness, justics,
sympathy, nobility, and human brotherhood. The higher aspects of human love,
reflected in the capacity for self-sacrifice, are a part of the demigod in man.
In this level of consciousness man feels sympathy for others because of his dawning
sense of unity with the All.
7. God. At this level the soul becomes one with the Creative
Force of the universe and ceases to care about the material world, except to
help others achieve their own state of blissfulness.
The first four aspects of the soul in man are joined to form two bodies, the
ethereal and the physical. These are in turn divided into seven planes, as follows:
1. Atomic
2. Subatomic
3. Superretheric
4. Etheric
5. Gaseous
6. Liquid
7. Solid
These are not to be confused with the seven levels mentioned before, which are
to be seen as aspects of the soul.
The first four planes are ascribed to the ethereal body; the last three
are typical of the physical body. The ethereal has been described by
occultists as man's inner body. Although it is of an extremely tenuous nature,
the ethereal is in many ways the true physical body. It controls the intake
and egress of physical material from the body and draws vital energy-prana--
from the sun through several centers located along the spine. These centers, called
chakras by the Yogis, are also seen as spheres from the Tree of Life by
Kabbalists. Kabbalists and Yogis both use a system of breathing exercises that
helps to vitalize these centers.
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