Astra

“ She has, it is true, eyes of emerald, because she is a princess—as Astra has a star and you two pretty wings—but she has a human heart.”
“No, father, dear, she has a heart of stone.”
“But who says so, my child?”
“The nurse does, father, her own pages, the guards at the gates, and the wise men who come to Astra.”
The king was very sad. He and his daughter looked deep into each other’s eyes, and embraced each other, for the king was sad, on account of what he saw in the future, and Psyche was frightened: she always trembled when she thought of Emeralda. ”

“ Carson laughed bitterly and waved him to a chair, then went on talking.
“Precisely, Ben. The question is: How did this strange substance get into the tube of an Interplanetary rocket called the Astra? To answer that we checked on the ship. The Astra is one of the few ships which have ever gone beyond Ventura B!”
“I almost expected to hear that,” Sessions said.
“It adds up, all right, doesn’t it? A foreign substance, a foreign system. But this substance had been made into a plate. That means the work of intelligent beings.” ”

“ You are descended from the god Eros; we from his beloved Psyche. The history of the gods is to be read in the historical rolls of our kingdom. It would make my heart rejoice if you found a spouse in one of my princesses. But they are free in their choice, and you will have to win their love. Permit me, therefore, first of all to present to you my eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, Princess of the Jewel: Emeralda. . . .”
Emeralda rose, and bowed with a scornful sneer.
“And,” continued the monarch, “in the second place, to my wise Astra, Princess of the Star. ”

“ Most brilliant and most easily seen of all, perhaps, though belonging to a more refined order of matter — the astral — is that part of the aura which expresses by its vivid and everchanging flashes of colour the different desires which sweep across the man's mind from moment to moment. ”

“ The astral universe, made of various subtle vibrations of light and color, is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos. The entire physical creation hangs like a little solid basket under the huge luminous balloon of the astral sphere. ”

“ Though the kâmic aura from the brilliancy of its flashes of colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerve-ether and the etheric double are really of a much denser order of matter, being strictly speaking within the limits of the physical plane, though invisible to ordinary sight. It has been the custom in Theosophical literature to describe the Linga Sharîra as the astral counterpart of the human body, the word "astral" having been usually applied to everything beyond the cognition of our physical senses. ”

“ Every one after death has to pass through all the subdivisions of the astral plane on his way to the heaven¬world, though it must not be inferred that he will be conscious upon all of them. Precisely as it is necessary that the physical body should contain within its constitution physical matter in all its conditions, solid, liquid, gaseous, and etheric, so it is indispensable that the astral vehicle should contain particles belonging to all the corresponding subdivisions of astral matter, though the proportions may vary greatly in different cases. ”

“ For the seventh or lowest subdivision of the astral plane also, this physical world of ours may be said to be the background, though what is seen is only a distorted and partial view of it, since all that is light and good and beautiful seems invisible. It was thus described four thousand years ago in the Egyptian papyrus of the Scribe Ani: "What manner of place is this unto which I have come? It hath no water, it hath no air; it is deep, unfathomable; it is black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly about therein; in it a man may not live in quietness of heart." ”

“ We account for it mainly by two remarkable characteristics of the astral world — first, that many of its inhabitants have a marvellous power of changing their forms with protean rapidity, and also of casting practically unlimited glamour over those with whom they choose to sport; and secondly, that sight on that plane is a faculty different from and much more extended than physical vision. An object is seen, as it were, from all sides at once, the inside of a solid being as plainly open to the view as the outside ”

“ Another fact which we must not forget is that any intelligent inhabitant of the astral plane is not only able to perceive these etheric vibrations, but can also — if he has learnt how it is done — adapt them to his own ends, or himself set them in motion. ”

“ Although all classes of the essence have the power of reflecting astral images as described above, there are varieties which receive certain impressions much more readily than others — which have, as it were, favourite forms of their own into which upon disturbance they would naturally flow unless absolutely forced into some other, and such shapes tend to be a trifle less evanescent than usual. ”

“ It may perhaps help us if we remember that the astral world may be regarded as in many ways only an extension of the physical, and the idea that matter may assume the etheric state (in which, though intangible to us, it is yet purely physical) may serve to show us how the one melts into the other. ”

“ Where it is possible it no doubt saves trouble, for the higher usually includes the lower; but for most of us such progress by leaps and bounds has been forbidden by our own faults or follies in the past; all that we can hope for is to win our way slowly step by step, and since this astral plane lies next to our world of denser matter, it is generally in connection with it that our earliest super-physical experiences take place. ”

“ But a man who disintegrated a key for the purpose of removing it by astral currents from one place to another would be careful to hold the same elemental essence in exactly the same shape until the transfer was completed, and then when his will-force was removed it would act as a mould into which the solidifying particles would flow, or rather round which they would be re-aggregated. ”

“ It will by this time be obvious that though, as above stated, the ordinary objects of the physical world form the background to life on certain levels of the astral plane, yet so much more is seen of their real appearance and characteristics that the general effect differs widely from that with which we are familiar. ”

“ The opening of astral vision must be regarded then only as a stage in the development of something infinitely nobler — merely as a step, a very small step, on that great Upward Path which leads men to the sublime heights of Adeptship, and beyond even that through glorious vistas of wisdom and power such as our finite minds cannot now conceive. ”

“ Like almost all inhabitants of the astral plane, they are able to assume any appearance at will, but they undoubtedly have definite forms of their own, or perhaps we should rather say favourite forms, which they wear when they have no special object in taking any other. ”

“ People find their own level on the astral plane, much in the same way as objects floating in the ocean do. This does not mean that they cannot rise and fall at will, but that if no special effort is made they come to their level and remain there. Astral matter gravitates towards the centre of the earth just as physical matter does; both obey the same general laws. We may take it that the sixth sub-plane of the astral is partially coincident with the surface of the earth, while the lowest, or seventh, penetrates some distance into the interior. ”

“ This is absolutely the mere astral corpse in process of disintegration, every particle of the lower Manas having left it. It is entirely without any kind of consciousness or intelligence, and is drifted passively about upon the astral currents just as a cloud might be swept in any direction by a passing breeze; but even yet it may be galvanized for a few moments into a ghastly burlesque of life if it happens to come within reach of a medium's aura. ”

“ If, however, an astral entity constantly works through a medium, these finer astral senses may gradually be so coarsened as to become insensible to the higher grades of matter on their own plane, and to include in their purview the physical world as we see it instead; but only the trained visitor from this life, who is fully conscious on both planes, can depend upon seeing both clearly and simultaneously. Be it understood, then, that the complexity exists, and that only when it is fully perceived and scientifically unravelled is there perfect security against deception or mistake. ”

“ But it is well understood among them that any interference in human affairs at the present stage is likely to do far more harm than good. Above the Arupadevas there are four other great divisions, and again, above and beyond the angelic kingdom altogether, stand the great hosts of the Planetary Spirits, but the consideration of such glorified beings would be out of place in an essay on the astral plane. ”

“ The earth-liberated astral being meets a multitude of relatives, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, and friends, acquired during different incarnations on earth, {FN43-5} as they appear from time to time in various parts of the astral realms. He is therefore at a loss to understand whom to love especially ”

“ Such a vehicle, though an exact reproduction of the man in appearance, contains none of the matter of his own astral body, but corresponds to it in the same way as a materialization corresponds to a physical body.
At an earlier stage of his development the pupil may be found functioning in the astral body like any one else; but whichever vehicle he is employing, the man who is introduced to the astral plane under the guidance of a competent teacher has always the fullest possible consciousness there, and is able to function perfectly easily upon all its subdivisions. ”

“ SPIRIT LIGHTS With the knowledge of the forces of Nature which the resources of the astral plane place at the command of its inhabitants, the production of what are called "spirit lights" is an easy matter, whether they be of the mildly phosphorescent or the dazzling electrical variety, or those curious dancing globules of light into which a certain class of fire elementals so readily transform themselves. Since all light consists of vibrations of the ether, it is obvious that any one who knows how to set up these vibrations can readily produce any kind of light that he wishes. ”

“ They realize, in fact, that they are in touch with the Astral plane, the region lying next to our world of dense matter, and often some Astral entity on the lowest levels of that plane is continuously striving to work through their mediumship. The world is very far from realizing this danger. ”

“ In the case of a thoroughly spiritually-minded person this condition has been attained with reference to all the subdivisions of astral matter, and the result is a practically instantaneous passage through that plane, so that he recovers consciousness for the first time in the heaven-world. As was explained before, we never think of the sub-planes as being divided from one another in space, but rather as interpenetrating one another ”

“ In trying to answer that question we must endeavour to realize that, to the clairvoyant eye, the physical body of man appears surrounded by what we call the aura – a luminous coloured mist, roughly ovoid in shape, and extending to a distance of some eighteen inches from the body in all directions. All students are aware that this aura is exceedingly complex, and contains matter of all the different planes on which man is at present provided with vehicles; but for the moment let us think of it as it would appear to one who possessed no higher power of vision than the astral. ”

“ The dimensions of our astral world are considerable, and we are able to determine them with some approach to accuracy from the fact that our astral world touches that of the moon at perigee, but does not reach it at apogee ”

“ Now it will readily be seen that if all, or even some only, of these intermediates, with all the complications producible by differences of wave-length, are perceptible on the astral plane, our comprehension of nature might be very greatly increased on that level, and we might be able to acquire much information which is now hidden from us. ”

“ If we examine with psychic faculty the body of a newly-born child, we shall find it permeated not only by astral matter of every degree of density, but also by the several grades of etheric matter. If we take the trouble to trace these inner bodies backwards to their origin, we find that it is of the latter that the etheric double — the mould upon which the physical body is built up — is formed by the agents of the Lords of Karma; while the astral matter has been gathered together by the descending ego, not consciously, but automatically, as he passes through the astral plane. ”

“ Though only the roughest sketch has been given of a great subject, enough has perhaps been said to show the extreme importance of astral perception in the study of biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, and history, and the great impulse which might be given to all these sciences by its development. ”

“ No, this spiritualized envelope is not what some of Earth's people term the astral sphere, but it is a constituent of the first or so-called astral sphere, within whose limits abide spirits not sufficiently evolved to gravitate to a higher plane of being. ”