Psychic Powers and the Astral Light: Behind the Veil of Illusion

1). What is the Astral Plane? – Nature’s Magic Mirror

Related References

Wm. Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy
… In the Astral Light are pictures of all things whatsoever that happened to any person, and as well also pictures of those events to come the causes for which are sufficiently well marked and made. If the causes are yet indefinite, so will be the images of the future. But for the mass of events for several years to come all the producing and efficient causes are always laid down with enough definiteness to permit the seer to see them in advance as if present. By means of these pictures, seen with the inner senses, all clairvoyants exercise their strange faculty. Yet it is a faculty common to all men, though in the majority but slightly developed; but occultism asserts that were it not for the germ of this power slightly active in every one no man could convey to another any idea whatsoever.

  Wm. Q. Judge, The Epitome of Theosophy
Theosophy also teaches the existence of a universal diffused and highly ethereal medium, which has been called the “Astral Light” and “Akasa.” It is the repository of all past, present, and future events, and in it are recorded the effects of spiritual causes, and of all acts and thoughts from the direction of either spirit or matter. It may be called the Book of the Recording Angel.

Through the means of the Astral Light and the help of Elementals, the various material elements may be drawn down and precipitated from the atmosphere upon either a plane surface or in the form of a solid object; this precipitation may be made permanent, or it may be of such a light cohesive power as soon to fade away. But the help of the elementals can only be obtained by a strong will added to a complete knowledge of the laws which govern the being of the elementals. It is useless to give further details on this point; first, because the untrained student cannot understand; and second, the complete explanation is not permitted, were it even possible in this space.

  HPB, Transactions Of The Blavatsky Lodge, Appendix – Dreams
Q. What relation have the Astral Light and Akasa to memory?

A. The former is the “tablet of the memory” of the animal man, the latter of the spiritual Ego. The “dreams” of the Ego, as much as the acts of the physical man, are all recorded, since both are actions based on causes and producing results. Our “dreams,” being simply the waking state and actions of the true Self, must be, of course, recorded somewhere. Read “Karmic Visions” in Lucifer, and note the description of the real Ego, sitting as a spectator of the life of the hero, and perhaps something will strike you.

Q. What, in reality, is the Astral Light?

A. As the Esoteric Philosophy teaches us, the Astral Light is simply the dregs of Akasa or the Universal Ideation in its metaphysical sense. Though invisible, it is yet, so to speak, the phosphorescent radiation of the latter, and is the medium between it and man’s thought-faculties. It is these which pollute the Astral Light, and make it what it is –the storehouse of all human and especially psychic iniquities. In its primordial genesis, the astral light as a radiation is quite pure, though the lower it descends approaching our terrestrial sphere, the more it differentiates, and becomes as a result impure in its very constitution. But man helps considerably to this pollution, and gives it back its essence far worse than when he received it.

Q. Can you explain to us how it is related to man, and its action in dream-life?

A. Differentiation in the physical world is infinite. Universal ideation– or Mahat, if you like it — sends its homogeneous radiation into the heterogeneous world, and this reaches the human or personal minds through the Astral Light.

 HPB, S.D., I, pg. 644
Therefore, if any one is helpless before these immutable laws, it is not ourselves, the artificers of our destinies, but rather those angels, the guardians of harmony. Karma-Nemesis is no more than the (spiritual)dynamical effect of causes produced and forces awakened into activity by our own actions. It is a law of occult dynamics that “a given amount of energy expended on the spiritual or astral plane is productive of far greater results than the same amount expended on the physical objective plane of existence.”

  HPB, Isis Unveiled, I, pg. 129
The thaumaturgists of all periods, schools, and countries, produced their wonders, because they were perfectly familiar with the imponderable– in their effects — but otherwise perfectly tangible waves of the astral light. They controlled the currents by guiding them with their will-power. The wonders were both of physical and psychological character; the former embracing effects produced upon material objects, the latter the mental phenomena of Mesmer and his successors. This class has been represented in our time by two illustrious men, Du Potet and Regazzoni, whose wonderful powers were well attested in France and other countries. Mesmerism is the most important branch of magic; and its phenomena are the effects of the universal agent which underlies all magic and has produced at all ages the so-called miracles.

The ancients called it Chaos; Plato and the Pythagoreans named it the Soul of the World. According to the Hindus, the Deity in the shape of AEther pervades all things. It is the invisible, but, as we have said before, too tangible Fluid. Among other names this universal Proteus –or “the nebulous Almighty,” as de Mirville calls it in derision — was termed by the theurgists “the living fire,”** the “Spirit of Light,” and Magnes. This last appellation indicates its magnetic properties and shows its magical nature. For, as truly expressed by one of its enemies– [[magos]] and [[magnes]] are two branches growing from the same trunk, and shooting forth the same resultants.

  Additional Related References of Interest

Articles by Wm. Q. Judge:
– Occult Arts – Disintegration – Reintegration
– Occult Arts – Some Propositions By H.P. Blavatsky
– Astral Intoxication

Articles by H. P. Blavatsky
– Dialogues Between Two Editors
– Elementals
– A Note On “Memory
– Occultism Versus The Occult Arts

Back to Theosophy – Living the Life