Astral plane

The Astral plane, also called the Astral World or Desire World, is a plane of existence according to various philosophies and belief systems.

Origin and history of the term

Although the word "astral" is often associated with New Age ideas, this term was also used historically by alchemists. In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy, especially as developed by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, and later Alice Bailey. In this cosmology, the Astral is the first metaphysical plane beyond the Physical, but is "denser" than the mental plane. The astral plane is also sometimes termed the "World of Emotion" and the "World of Illusion", and corresponds to Blavatsky's Kamic Plane.

It should be noted however that in original theosophical literature (such as those written by Blavatsky), the term "astral" does not have the same meaning as the term is used in later theosophical literature (such as C. W. Leadbeater). The astral body, in her works, does not refer to the emotional body but to the etheric double or linga sarira.

Some equivalent concepts to Astral in various esoteric tecahings are the Barzakh or Imaginal or Inter-world in Islamic Esotericism (Ishraqism, Sufism, etc), the World of Asiyah in Lurianic Kabbalah (although this sometimes includes the physical plane as well), or Yetzirah in some interpretations of Hermetic Kabbalah, the "spirit world" in Spiritualism, the "Nervous" State in Max Theon's teachings, and the "Vital" World in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa.

In his book 'Autobiography of a Yogi' Sri Sri Paramhansa Yogananda has explained with amazing clarity and detail the difference between the physical, astral, and causal planes, as per traditional Hindu philosophy. According to him when one dies his soul moves to the astral plane. There he reaps the results of his past actions or karmas and accordingly reinhabits a physical body or moves on to the higher causal plane.

The term 'astral plane' has also more recently come to mean a plane of existence where otherkin believe their souls reside.

The Astral Plane and Astral Experience

According to Occult, Theosophical, and New Age teachings, the astral plane can be visited consciously with the astral body through means of meditation and mantra, lucid dreaming, or other forms of occult training and development. Some people would visit the astral plane by accident, simply by getting out of bed while the physical body remains sleeping. Unconsciously, the astral plane is the location of our consciousness while the vital body repairs damaged tissue and processes the wastes of the physical body.

Some forms of Theosophy state that the Astral World vibrates its energy through astral atoms that copenetrate the physical world without trouble or confusion; and that all physical things have astral (and other subtle) counterparts.

According to Max Heindel's Rosicrucian writings, in the Desire (Astral) World, on the contrary of the Physical world, force and matter are almost indistinguishable one from the other. The desire-stuff may be described as a type of force-matter, for it is in incessant motion, responsive to the slightest feeling of a vast multitude of beings which populate this world. He refers that a number of people and things may exist in the same place at the same time and be engaged in most diverse activities, regardless of what others are doing. The Desire World is also said to be the abode of deceased persons, for some time subsequent to the event of death and, as it interpenetrates the physical world, these entities, the "dead", very often stay for a long while among their still living friends. It is also the home, among other various classes of beings, of the Archangels which are native beings of this World.

In the lower regions of the Desire World the whole body of each being may be seen, but in the highest regions only the head seems to remain. In the lower regions of the Desire World, there is the same diversity of tongues as on Earth, and the "dead" of one nation find it impossible to converse with those who lived in another country. In the higher Regions of the Desire World the confusion of tongues gives place to a universal mode of expression which absolutely prevents misunderstandings of meaning: thoughts take a definite form and color perceptible to all, and this thought-symbol emits a certain tone, which conveys the meaning to the one to whom they are addressed. He states that in the Desire World all is light and there is but one long day, and as the Spirit is not fettered by a heavy physical body, it does not need sleep and existence is unbroken. Spiritual substances are not subject to contraction and expansion such as arise here from heat and cold, hence summer and winter are also non-existent. Thus there is nothing to differentiate one moment from another in respect of the conditions of light and darkness, summer and winter, which mark time in the physical world. Due to inexistence of these conditions, only students of the stellar science are able to calculate the passage of time in this Desire (Astral) world.

Philosophical Interpretations

On the one hand, the idea of an astral plane can be regarded as an extension to Descartes' dualism where the physical world is strictly separated from the world of thought and consciousness. The dualist position has long been abandonded by neuroscientists and most of the philosophers studying consciousness.

However according to the emanationist and esoteric perspectives, which do not accept the physicalist paradigm, consider the Astral as an authentic metaphysical and ontological reality, the universe immediately preceding the Physical, which gives rise to it.

Astral Plane in Popular Culture

In the standard Dungeons and Dragons RPG planar cosmology, the Astral Plane is a dimension coexistent with all others, used as a means of transportation between planes. Color pools on the plane lead to the other worlds it touches.

The Astral Plane is also a location in the world of the X-Men. It is a metaphorical level of existence with ties to the physical world which only psychic entities can visit.

References

• Heindel, Max, The Rosicrucian Mysteries (Chapter III, The Visible and the Invisible Worlds), 1911, ISBN 0-911274-86-3, www
• Powell, Arthur E. The Astral Body and other Astral Phenomena
• Steiner, Rudolph, Theosophy: An introduction to the supersensible knowledge of the world and the destination of man. London: Rudolf Steiner Press. (1904) 1970
• ----- Occult Science - An Outline. Trans. George and Mary Adams. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1909, 1969

See also

• Esoteric cosmology & Plane (cosmology)
• Subtle bodies
• Etheric body & Etheric plane
• Astral body & Astral projection
• Mental body & Mental plane