Astral body

Where this refers to a supposed movement around the real world, as in Muldoon and Carrington's book The Projection of the Astral Body, it conforms to Madame Blavatsky's usage of the term.

Elsewhere, this latter is termed "etheric", while "astral" denotes an experience of dream-symbols, archetypes, memories, spiritual beings and visionary landscapes.

[7] Such ideas greatly influenced medieval religious thought and are visible in the Renaissance medicine of Paracelsus and Servetus.

In the mid-nineteenth century the French occultist Eliphas Levi wrote much of "the astral light", a factor he considered of key importance to magic, alongside the power of will and the doctrine of correspondences.

[8] Levi's idea of the astral was to have much influence in the English-speaking world through the teachings of The Golden Dawn, but it was also taken up by Helena Blavatsky and discussed in the key work of Theosophy, The Secret Doctrine.

Blavatsky frequently used the term "astral body" in connection with the Indian linga sharira which is one of the seven principles of human life.

Leadbeater and Annie Besant (Theosophical Society Adyar), equated it with Blavatsky's Kama (desire) principle and called it the Emotional body.

It has a number of whirling vortices (chakras) and from the main vortex, in the region of the liver, there is a constant flow which radiates and returns.

According to Heindel, the term "astral body" was employed by the mediaeval Alchemists because of the ability it conferred to traverse the "starry" regions.

[citation needed] The "Astral body" is regarded as the "Philosopher's Stone" or "Living Stone" of the alchemist, the "Wedding Garment" of the Gospel of Matthew[14] and the "Soul body" that Paul mentions in the First Epistle to the Corinthians[15][non-primary source needed] Many other popular accounts of post-Theosophical ideas appeared in the late 20th century.

[citation needed] According to Samael Aun Weor, who popularised Theosophical thought in Latin America, the astral body is the part of human soul related to emotions, represented by the sephirah Hod in the kabbalistic Tree of Life.