Astral Plane

The Astral Plane is a non-physical dimension of existence postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions. This sphere is made of astral matter, a subtle form of matter which is said to be translucent and radiant.

Mme. Blavatsky's teachings

Prakritic Planes

Mme. Blavatsky regards the astral plane as the second (counting from below up), the one that is immediately above the objective or physical, whether on the macrocosmic or microcosmic world. Normal human beings are aware on it when asleep:

The instinctual mind finds expression through the cerebellum, and is also that of the animals. With man during sleep the functions of the cerebrum cease, and the cerebellum carries him on to the Astral plane, a still more unreal state than even the waking plane of illusion; for so we call this state which the majority of you think so real.

Sensitives, mediums, and clairvoyants can perceive this plane in their waking or "objective" consciousness. However, the nature of this plane is regarded to be illusory and deceptive:

The Astral plane is still more deceptive [than the phsyical], because it reflects indiscriminately the good and the bad, and is so chaotic.

That which mediums see, hear, and sense, is "real" but untrue; it is either gathered from the astral plane, so deceptive in its vibrations and suggestions, or from pure hallucinations, which have no actual existence, but for him who perceives them.

The first of the prakritic planes is called "Objective Prakritic" or "Terrestrial". It is divided into seven sub-planes, and the second is the astral (objective) plane. This is an "instinctual plane" for those beings that are limited to it, whether by nature or accident:

Astral Instinctual Consciousness. The consciousness of sensitive plants, of ants, spiders, and some night-flies (Indian), but not of bees. . . . On this plane is the consciousness of idiots. The common phrase, “he has lost his mind,” is an occult truth; for when, through fright or other cause, the lower mind becomes paralyzed, then the consciousness acts on the astral plane. The study of lunacy will throw much light on this point. This may well be called the “nerve plane.” It is cognized by our “nervous senses,” of which, as yet, modern physiology knows nothing. Hence it is that a clairvoyant can read with the eyes bandaged, with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach, etc. This consciousness is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb. On this plane everything is reversed, reflected upside down.

Astral Prakritic consciousness

Astral Prakritic Plane with its seven sub-planes

The second of the prakritic planes is called astral prakritic, and it presents seven degrees (or sub-planes) of consciousness. Mme. Blavatsky described them as follows:

1. Objective Consciousness. Everything seen on this plane must be reversed in translating it into terms of objective consciousness. For in. stance, numbers appear as though written backwards: 591 would appear as 195. The objective Astral corresponds in everything to the objective Terrestrial, or sensuous consciousness.

2. Astral Consciousness. This second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the objects here seen are of extreme tenuity, astralized astrals, so to say. This plane is the limit of the vision of the ordinary medium. To reach it a non-mediumistic person must be asleep, or in a trance, or under the influence of laughing-gas, or of some drug. In ordinary delirium the consciousness passes on to this plane.

3. Kâma-Prânic Consciousness. This state is of an intensely vivid nature. The consciousness is on it in the delirium of high fever. In delirium tremens the drunkard passes to this plane, and may even go on to the next. Lunatics also are often in this state of consciousness, and see most terrible visions. This plane overlaps the next, the Kâma-Mânasic Consciousness.

4. Kâma-Mânasic Consciousness. This is the worst of the Astral planes, Kâmic and terrible. Hence come the images that tempt: images of drunkards and libertines in Kâma-Loka, impelling their victims to drink and wanton; images of every lust and vice, inoculating men with the desire to commit crimes. People of weak and mediumistic natures imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish fashion, and so fall beneath their influence. Here are strewed the seeds of epidemics of vice, of cycles of disasters, and general catastrophes of all kinds that happen in groups––a series of murders, of earthquakes, of shipwrecks. In the most acute cases of delirium tremens the consciousness of the sufferer is on this plane.

5. Mânasic Consciousness. This plane is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from the lower mentality, of glimpses into the past and future, the plane of things mental and not spiritual.

6. Buddhic Consciousness. From this plane come all beautiful inspirations of art, poetry, and music, high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here may be caught glimpses of past incarnations, although it may not be possible to locate or analyze them.

7. Auric Consciousness. The consciousness is on this plane at the moment of death, or in exceptional visions. Here is the consciousness of the drowning man when he remembers all the past incidents of his life in a flash. The memory of this consciousness must be stored in the heart, “the seat of Buddhi.” Then it will remain there, but impressions from this Âtmic plane cannot be made on the physical brain.

Later teachings

In the Adyar tradition, Annie Besant's and C. W. Leadbeater's presented the planes in a different way, according to the kind of matter that composed them. Their view of the Astral Plane seems to be a combination of the second and third planes in Mme. Blavatsky's teachings.

They described it as follows:

The astral plane is the region of the universe next to the physical, if the word “next” may be permitted in such a connection. Life there is more active than on the physical plane, and form is more plastic. . . . The word “next” is, however, inappropriate, as suggesting the idea that the planes of the universe are arranged as concentric circles, one ending where the next begins. Rather they are concentric interpenetrating spheres, not separated from each other by distance but by difference of constitution.

The spirit-matter of the astral plane exists in seven subdivisions, as we have seen in the spirit-matter of the physical. There, as here, there are numberless combinations, forming the astral solids, liquids, gases, and ethers. But most material forms there have a brightness, a translucency, as compared to forms here, which have caused the epithet astral, or starry, to be applied to them – an epithet which is, on the whole, misleading, but is too firmly established by use to be changed. As there are no specific names for the subdivisions of astral spirit-matter, we may use the terrestrial designations. The main idea to be grasped is that astral objects are combinations of astral matter, as physical objects are combinations of physical matter, and that the astral world scenery much resembles that of earth in consequence of its being largely made up of the astral duplicates of physical objects.

The astral region which I am to attempt to describe is the second of these great Planes of Nature – the next above (or within) that physical world with which we are all familiar. It has often been called the realm of illusion – not that it is [6] itself any more illusory than the physical world, but, because of the extreme unreliability of the impressions brought back from it by the untrained seer.

Why should this be so? 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 very 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; it is therefore obvious that an inexperienced visitor to this new world may well find considerable difficulty in understanding what he really does see, and still more in translating his vision into the very inadequate language of ordinary speech.

A good example of the sort of mistake that is likely to occur is the frequent reversal of any number which the seer has to read from the astral light, so that he would be liable to render, say, 139 as 931, and so on.

Further reading

• The Astral Plane by Annie Besant
• The Astral Plane - It's Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena by C. W. Leadbeater
• The Reality of the Astral Plane by C. W. Leadbeater