ASTRAL PLANE by-C H Leadbeater.pdf

THEOSOPHICAL MANUALS NO, 5

THE ASTRAL PLANE

ITS SCENERY, INHABITANTS, AND

PHENOMENA

C[harles]. W[ebster]. LEADBEATER

[1847-1934]

THIRD EDITION

(REVISED)

London:

1900

PREFACE.

Few words are needed in sending this little book out into

the world. It is the fifth of a series of Manuals designed to

meet the public demand for a simple exposition of

Theosophical teachings. Some have complained that our

literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, and too

expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope that the

present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real

want. Theosophy is not only for the learned; it is for all.

Perhaps among those who in these little books catch their

first glimpse of its teachings, there may be a few who will be

led by them to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy, its

science, and its religion, facing its abstruser problems with

the student's zeal and the neophyte's ardour. But these

Manuals are not written only for the eager student, whom

no initial difficulties can daunt; they are written for the busy

men and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make

plain some of the great truths that render life easier to bear

and death easier to face. Written by servants of the Masters

who are the Elder Brothers of our race, they can have no

other object than to serve our fellow-men.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction.

Scenery. —The Seven Subdivisions—Degrees of Materiality—

Characteristics of Astral Vision—The Aura—The Etheric

Double—Power of Magnifying Minute Objects—The

"Summerland"—Records of the Astral Light

Inhabitants. —I. Human. (1) Living:—The Adept or his

Pupil—The Psychically Developed Person—The Ordinary

Person—The Black Magician

(2) Dead:—The Nirmanakaya—The Pupil awaiting

Reincarnation—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 Magician after Death

II. Non-human:—The Elemental Essence—The Astral Bodies

of Animals—Various Classes of Nature-Spirits, commonly

called Fairies—Kamadevas—Rupadevas—Arupadevas—The

Devarajas

III. Artificial:—Elementals formed Unconsciously—Guardian

Angels—Elementals formed Consciously—Human

Artificials—The True Origin of Spiritualism

Phenomena.— Churchyard Ghosts—Apparitions of the

Dying—Haunted Localities—Family Ghosts—Bell-ringing,

Stone-throwing, etc.—Fairies—Communicating Entities—

Astral Resources—Clairvoyance—Prevision—Second-Sight—

Astral Force—Etheric Currents—Etheric Pressure—Latent

Energy—Sympathetic Vibration—Mantras—Disintegration—

Materialization—Why Darkness is Required at a Seance —

Spirit Photographs—Reduplication—Precipitation of Letters

and Pictures—Slate-writing—Levitation—Spirit Lights—

Handling Fire—Transmutation—Repercussion

104

Conclusion.

125

THE ASTRAL PLANE.

INTRODUCTION .

T HOUGH 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 under world of the Greeks, the

purgatory or intermediate state of Christianity which was

called by mediaeval 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.

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