CONTENTS. Scenery. The Seven Subdivisions-Degrees of Materiality Double-Power of Magnifying Minute Objects-The "Summer- land"--Records of the Astral Light Inhabitants.-I. Human. (1) Living:-The Adept or his Pupil-The Psychically Developed Person-The Ordinary (2) Dead:-The Nirmânakâya-The Pupil awaiting Rein- carnation-The Ordinary Person after Death--The Shade- The Shell-The Vitalized Shell-The Suicide-The Victim of Sudden Death-The Vampire-The Werewolf-The Black II. Non-human:- The Elemental Essence - The Astral III. Artificial:—Elementals formed Unconsciously---Guar- dian Angels-Elementals formed Consciously-Human Arti- ficials The True Origin of Spiritualism Phenomena. Churchyard Ghosts-Apparitions of the Dying - Haunted Localities-Family Ghosts-- Bell-ringing, Stonethrowing, etc. - Fairies - Communicating Entities Astral Resources - Clairvoyance - Prevision-Second-Sight- Astral Forces-Etheric Currents-Etheric Pressure-Latent Energy-Sympathetic Vibration-Mantras–Disintegration- Materialization-Why Darkness is required at a Séance- Spirit Photographs-Reduplication-Precipitation of Letters PAGE. 2 THE ASTRAL PLANE. INTRODUCTION. THOUGH for the most part entirely unconscious of it, man passes the whole of his life in the midst of a vast and populous unseen world. During sleep or in trance, when the insistent physical senses are for the time in abeyance, this other world is to some extent open to him, and he will sometimes bring back from those conditions more or less vague memories of what he has seen and heard there. When, at the change which men call death, he lays aside his physical body altogether, it is into this unseen world. that he passes, and in it he lives through the long centuries that intervene between his incarnations into this existence that we know. By far the greater part of these long periods is spent in the heaven-world, to which the sixth of these manuals is devoted; but what we have now to consider is the lower part of this unseen world, the state into which man enters immediately after death-the Hades or underworld of the Greeks, the purgatory or intermediate state of Christianity, which was called by medieval alchemists the astral plane. The object of this manual is to collect and arrange the information with regard to this interesting region which is scattered through Theosophical literature, and also to supplement it slightly in cases where new facts have come to our knowledge. It must be understood that any such additions are only the result of the investigations of a few explorers, and must not, therefore, be taken as in any way authoritative, but are given simply for what they are worth. On the other hand every precaution in our power has been taken to ensure accuracy, no fact, old or new, being admitted to this manual unless it has been confirmed by the testimony of at least two independent trained investigators among ourselves, and has also been passed as correct by older students whose knowledge on these points is necessarily much greater than ours. It is hoped, therefore, that this account of the astral plane, though it cannot be considered as quite complete, may yet be found reliable as far as it goes. The first point which it is necessary to make clear in describing this astral plane is its absolute reality. Of course in using that word I am not speaking from that metaphysical standpoint from which all but the One Unmanifested is unreal because impermanent; I am using the word in its plain, every-day sense, and I mean by it that the objects and inhabitants of the astral plane are real in exactly the same way as our own bodies, our furniture, our houses or monuments are real—as real as Charing Cross, to quote an expressive remark from one of the earliest Theosophical works. They will no more endure for ever than will objects on the physical plane, but they are nevertheless realities from our point of view while they last-realities which we cannot afford to ignore merely because the majority of mankind is as yet unconscious, or but vaguely conscious, of their existence. |
