The Astral World

In this classic, Volume II of the Occult Manuals, The Astral World, Its Scenes, Dwellers, and Phenomena, spiritual master, Swami Panchadasi, describes the astral plane, its scenes, dwellings and phenomena. 

The blog writer has summarised those salient points of Swami Panchadasi's description of the astral world. The reader is encouraged to read the full text of Swami Padchadasi's first-hand experience of the Astral here. 

The Seven Planes of Being 

There are Seven Planes of Being. The lowest of these planes is the Material Plane. 

The second is the Plane of Forces. 

The third is the Astral Plane. 

The fourth is the Mental Plane. 

Above these four planes are three higher planes. 

Each of the Seven Planes has seven sub-planes; each of these sub-planes has its own seven subdivisions, and so on, to the seventh degree of subdivision. 

Instead of the planes rising one above the other in the scale of the fineness of matter, they are graded according to their respective degrees of vibration of energy. In short, they are planes of vibrations of energy, and not planes of matter at all. Matter is simply the lowest degree of vibrations of energy, that is all. 

These planes do not lie one above the other in space. They have no spatial distinction or degree. They simply interpenetrate each other in the same point of space. 

A single point of space may have its manifestations of each and all of the seven planes of being. 

On the physical planes, we find many forms of vibratory manifestation occupying the same point of space at the same time. 

The Material Plane has, of course, its seven sub-planes, and likewise its seven-times-seven series of subdivisions, as have all the seven planes. 

Beyond this fourth sub-plane of matter covering, there lie three other, and still finer, sub-planes, of which science at present has no conception. 

Next higher on the scale of manifested being, we find what is known as the Plane of Forces. 

On the Plane of Forces, we find the seven sub-planes, and likewise the seven-times-seven subdivision. There are forces far below the scale of the ordinary forces of Nature known to man. And likewise, there are great series of Nature’s Finer Forces at the other end of the scale. Next above the scale of the Plane of Forces, we find the great Astral Plane. 

The astral regions occupy the same space as the material regions, neither interfering with the other. 

The phenomena of the Astral Plane are just as real—just as readily sensed—as are the phenomena of the material plane to those functioning upon it. 

Each of the physical senses of man has its astral counterpart, which functions on the astral plane just as the physical senses do upon the material plane. 

To vision astrally, the occultist has merely to shift his sensory mechanism. 

The second avenue of approach to the Astral Plane is that in which the individual leaves his physical body and actually travels on the Astral Plane in his astral body. The astral body is composed of an ethereal substance with a very high degree of vibration. It is not mere matter, and yet is not mere force—it is composed of astral substance, which resembles very fine matter, but which is far more tenuous than anything that is known as matter. Ordinarily, the astral body can be sensed only by the astral vision, but under certain other conditions, it takes on the semblance of a vapory form of matter and is perceptible to the ordinary physical senses as a ghost or apparition, even when the person is in physical life. 

The astral body is a counterpart of the physical body but survives the latter by a number of years. It is not immortal, however, and finally disintegrates and is resolved into its original elements just as is the physical body. 

The advanced occultist, in his astral body, can leave his physical body (which remains in a state of sleep or trance) and visit at will on the Astral Plane, even at points in space far removed from his physical body. 

He, however, is always connected with the physical body by a thin, cobweb-like, filament of ethereal substance, which extends or contracts as he travels away from, or toward, the sleeping physical body. If this filament is broken by an accident on the Astral Plane, his physical body dies and he is never able to return to it. 

Many persons can travel in the astral body, during ordinary sleep, but usually have no recollection of the same upon reawakening. 

The occultist, on the other hand, travels consciously, and with a purpose, and always is wide-awake on such journeys. He is as much at home on the Astral Plane as on the physical one. 

The Reality of The Astral 

The Astral is just as real, abiding and fixed as is the material world. 

Just as steam is actually as real as water, or even as ice, so is the Astral just as real as the world of the physical senses.  

If we could see our world of matter placed under a sufficiently strong magnifying glass, we should perceive it not as a great body of solid fixed matter, but rather as an aggregation of an infinite number of the tiniest particles themselves built into atoms; these built into molecules, and these built into solid masses. 

The space between the ions of the material atom is as comparatively great as the space between the planets of our solar system. And every ion, atom and molecule is in constant and intense motion.  

Under a glass of sufficient power, there would seem to be nothing solid in the material world. If the magnifying glass were to be raised to an infinite power, even the ions would melt into seething nothingness and there would be nothing left but the ether, which has no weight and which is imperceptible to the senses even when aided by the strongest instruments of the laboratory.  

The solidity of things is merely relative and comparative.  

The vibration of substance on the Astral is higher than those of the material plane, but even the Astral vibrations are far slower than those of the next higher plane, and so on. 

To the traveller on the Astral the scenery, and everything connected with it, seems as solid as the most solid material does to the physical eye. It really is just as solid as is the astral body in which you visit it, for that matter. As for reality, the Astral is just as real as is the material, in every respect. 

The Forces of Nature are not perceptible to the physical eye, except as manifesting through matter—but they are very real. 

You cannot see electricity, but when you receive its shock, you realise its reality. You cannot see the force of gravity, but you become painfully aware of its reality when it drops an apple on your head or causes you to fall suddenly when you make a misstep on the curb of the street. 

If there really can be said to be any degrees in the reality between things, the balance is in favour of the finer forms of substance and forces, and against the less fine. They are all but the mechanism of consciousness, or awareness, each adapted to the peculiar requirements of its environment. 

The Astral has its scenery, geography, and things, just as has the material world. 

The law of constant change operates on the Astral just as on the material plane. There, things come and go, just as they do here on the material plane. 

The difference between the things of the two planes is simply like the difference between red and blue—simply a difference in the rate of vibration of substance. And this again is the cause of the difference between steel and hydrogen gas, between electricity and light, between magnetism and heat—simply a difference of vibrations of substance. 

Moreover, the Astral has its laws just as has the material world. These laws must be learned and observed, otherwise, the inhabitants of the Astral, as well as the visitor thereto, will reap the result which always comes from broken natural laws. 

Again, there exists what may be called geography. There are regions, points of space, places, kingdoms, countries, etc., on the Astral, just as on the material plane. Sometimes, these Astral regions have no connection with any on the material plane, while in other cases, they have a very direct connection with, and relation to, material places and their inhabitants. 

One may travel from one region of the Astral to another by simply an act of will, which raises the vibration of the astral body without it moving a point in space. Again, one may travel in space from one point to another on the Astral, in cases where these points have some relation to points on the material plane. 

As an instance of this latter form of travel, one may travel in the Astral from Berlin to Bombay, in but the twinkle of an eye, by merely wishing or willing to do so.  

Without leaving your seat, you may traverse all of these sub-planes, one after the other, witnessing their scenery and inhabitants, their phenomena and activity, and then return to the material plane—all in a moment of time, and without changing a single point in space. 

Or, if you prefer, you may travel to any of these sub-planes of the Astral, at your point of space, and then travel in space on the Astral to some other place on that sub-plane, and then have the choice of returning to either the same way by which you came, or else descending to the material plane and travelling on it, in your astral body, back to where your physical body is resting. 

In travelling on the Astral, one meets with many strange inhabitants of that wonderful realm of Nature—some pleasant and others unpleasant. Some of these inhabitants have passed on from the material plane, while others have never dwelt there, these latter forms being natives of the Astral and peculiar to itself. 

Passing the Border 

You find yourself outside of your physical form or body and clad in your astral form alone. As you glance at your body, you find that it appears no different from your ordinary one. Even your clothing is the same, to the most minute detail—this occurs through perfectly natural laws on the Astral plane. 

You realise, however, that you are indeed out of the physical body when you turn your head and perceive your own physical form, seemingly sunk in sleep in the armchair in which you seated yourself a few moments ago. 

Looking a little closer, you see that your astral form is connected with its physical counterpart by a tiny, thin, tenuous filament of ethereal substance, resembling a rope of shining spiderweb silk. This filament is capable of expansion and contraction and enables you to move about freely. 

You find yourself in a strange atmosphere, although you have not moved an inch in space. Behind you, so to speak, you perceive dimly the room in which you were just living, and ahead of you, so to speak, you perceive strange flashes and streaks of phosphorescent light of different hues and tints. 

These are the vibrations and waves of force, for you are now passing through the Plane of Forces. That vivid, bluish streak is the passage of some electric current. Back of you, you see the magnetic ore or lodestone paperweight, which always lies there. But now you see the peculiar phosphorescence around its poles, which is not visible on the material plane. 

You also notice a peculiar faint vibratory glow around every physical object—this is the force of atomic and molecular attraction, etc. 

Still fainter, you find a peculiar radiance permeating the entire atmosphere—this is the outward sign of the force of gravitation. 

Now, you feel your life force vibrating at a higher rate, and realise that the sense of weight seems to be dropping from you. You feel as light as a feather and as though you could move without an effort. You may begin to walk. You are still on earth and the floor of the room is still there under your feet. 

You walk through the wall of the room and out into the street. You step through the wall as if it were made of fog. You stop to consider that as you moved, the wall really passed through your thin substance, instead of the latter passing through the wall. 

You walk down the street. A man walks right through you! And he never even saw you! 

A dog sees you. And a horse vaguely feels your presence! You see how nervous it is.  

Animals possess very keen psychic senses, compared to those of the human person. 

You look closely at the persons passing by you. You notice that each one is surrounded by an egg-shaped aura extending on all sides of him to a distance of about two or three feet. You notice the kaleidoscopic play of blending colours in the aura, the difference in the shades and tints of these colours and also the predominance of special colours in each case! 

You notice the beautiful spiritual blue around a woman’s head! And see the ugly muddy red around the man passing her!  

You notice those great clouds of semi-luminous substance, which are slowly floating along—notice how the colours vary in them. 

Those are clouds of thought vibrations, representing the composite thought of a multitude of people. Also, you notice how each body of thought is drawing to itself little fragments of similar thought forms and energy. You see here the tendency of thought forces to attract others of their kind—how like the proverbial birds of a feather, they flock together—how thoughts come home, bringing their friends with them—how each man creates his own thought atmosphere. 

You notice that each shop you pass has its own peculiar thought atmosphere. You look into the houses on either side of the street and see that the same thing is true. The very street itself has its own atmosphere, created by the composite thought of those inhabiting and frequenting it. 

You look at the variety of forms and colouring of those thought forms flying through the atmosphere! Some are most beautiful, the majority quite neutral in tint, and occasionally a fierce, fiery one tearing its way along toward its mark. You observe those whirling and swirling tiny cyclonic thought-forms as they are thrown off from a business house. Across the street, you notice a great octopus monster of a thought-form with its great tentacles striving to wind around passing persons and drawing them into a flashy dance hall and dram-shop. A devilish monster that you would do well to destroy. 

You turn your concentrated thought upon it and will it out of existence. You watch it sicken and shrivel! But more of its kind will come forth from that place. 

Here, you will yourself up above the level of the housetops—you do it easily. However, if you were to lose confidence and grow afraid, you would tumble to the ground, bruising your astral body. 

From this height, you look down around you. 

You see a great multitude of tiny candlelike lights—each represents a human soul. 

Here or there you see a few much brighter lights; far apart you see some that shine like a brilliant electric spark—these last are the auric symbols of an advanced soul. 

Let your light so shine—! Behold the radiance emerging from that humble house of religious worship and contrast it with the unpleasant auric atmosphere of a magnificent church structure next door to it. 

Some Lower Sub-planes 

Now, you enter the vibrations of the lower sub-planes of the Astral. You nerve yourself to witness some unpleasant sights. You maintain a positive mental state and deny the power of the Astral inhabitants to harm you. A firm mental attitude and the assertion of your own immunity act as a barrier through which these influences cannot penetrate.

Your first impression is that the material world is still around you with all its scenes plainly visible. But, as you look, you find that there seems to be a peculiar veil between those scenes and the plane upon which you are temporarily dwelling. This veil, while at least semi-transparent, nevertheless, seems to have a peculiar appearance of resistant solidity and you find yourself instinctively realising that it would be a barrier to the passage of the astral entities back to the material plane. 

The lowest sub-plane of the Astral Plane, which the old occultists were wont to call the Astral cemetery, presents you with a ghastly sight and its atmosphere is most depressing. 

Gazing around you on all sides, you see what appear to be the disintegrating forms of human beings and even some animals. These forms seem to be floating in space. They seem real, and yet, in some way, not real. You realise that they are not physical bodies, but still, they bear too close a resemblance to physical corpses to be pleasant. 

These disintegrating astral forms are astral shells.  

The astral shell is really an astral corpse, just as the physical body in the grave is the material corpse. For, the disembodied soul eventually leaves the Astral and moves on to the mental or spiritual planes of being, which are symbolised by the race conception of the heavens, which all religions teach.

When the soul so passes on, it leaves behind it the astral body it has inhabited while on the Astral. This astral body, or form, then begins to disintegrate and, in time, disappears altogether, being resolved to its original elements. 

During this process, it dwells on this particular division of one of the lower subdivisions of the lowest Astral sub-plane. This particular division has no other purpose and is separate and apart from the other subdivisions. 

There is a great difference between the astral shells of different individuals, so far as is concerned the duration of the shells in this particular place of disintegration. For instance, the astral of a person of high spirituality and ideals will disintegrate very rapidly, as its atoms have little or no cohesive attraction once it is discarded. But, on the other hand, the astral shell of a person of earthly ideals and material tendencies will hold together for a comparatively long time, so strong is the attractive force generated while the shell is occupied by its owner. 

Those astral bodies are dead and have no consciousness or intelligence and, as a rule, cannot even be galvanised into appearing a life, as can the class of astral forms known as the spectres or shades, which belong to a slightly different category.  

You notice that instead of floating about in astral space, these spectres act like shadowy human beings in a dazed or dreamlike condition. You see them walking dreamily about, without a set object or purpose—a weird, unpleasant sight. 

These spectres are really astral shells from which the souls have departed, but which have left in them sufficient power, arising from the former thought and will vibrations of their owners, to give them a temporary semblance of life and action. This power gradually wears away and the shell then sinks to the subdivision below it. In the meantime, it dwells on this particular sub-division. 

In the case of the soul with high ideals and spiritual aspirations, there are practically no material thought vibrations remaining to galvanise the astral body after the soul has withdrawn itself. Its higher nature has neutralised these lower, but strong, vibrations. But in the case of the soul retaining strong material thoughts and desires, the power is much stronger. In the latter class, even after the higher nature of the soul has drawn it upward, above the Astral, these lower mental vibrations may persist in the deserted astral form and thus give to the latter a semblance of life and activity which, though a counterfeit, may manifest considerable power for a time. 

The counterfeit power of these spectral forms steadily decreases, but, in some cases, it persists for a comparatively long time. As a rule, the power disappears in the way stated, but in certain other cases, it is used up, as a spark is rendered bright by blowing upon it, by means of a psychic stimulus from persons living on the material plane. The psychic power so generated, coupled with the strong mental attraction set up between persons in earth life and the spectral form, may cause the latter to manifest itself to the former, either by more or less complete materialisation or by partial manifestation through the physical organism of the medium, or mediums, present. 

In such a case, the spectre, reanimated and galvanised into seeming life by means of the psychic power of the medium, or those composing the psychic circle, will strive to manifest itself by speech, automatic writing, raps, or otherwise. But, at the best, its efforts will be feeble and faulty, and the persons witnessing the phenomena will always remember the same with the dim idea that there was something wrong about it—something was found to be lacking. In some cases, the vibration of old memories will survive in the spectral form, which will enable it to answer questions fairly well and allude to past experiences. But even then, there will be a shadow of unreality, which will impress the careful observer. 

Remember, there are many other forms of spirit return, partial or complete, but much that passes for the real phenomena is really but a manifestation of the presence of these spectral forms. Moreover, these entities borrow ideas and impressions from the minds of the mediums or persons in the circle, in addition to their own shadowy memories, and thus doubly become reflections or counterfeits. 

These spectres have really no soul. The soul, which formerly occupied the form has departed to a higher plane and is in ignorance of the performance of its discarded shell.  

These spectres are no more departed souls or spirits than a galvanised physical corpse is the individual which once inhabited it, though the current may cause it to move its muscles and go through the motions of life. It remains a corpse and discarded shell—and that is just what the spectral form is, plus the remaining vibratory echoes of its old mental life. 

End of Part 1   

Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean | Gustave Doré (1832–1883)

Swami Panchadasi, Volume II of the Occult Manuals, The Astral World, Its Scenes, Dwellers and Phenomena, 1915, Advanced Thought Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois