According to several traditions all over the world, you have more than just a physical body, but also between one and seven astral bodies (depending on belief). Sometimes, this astral body is called something else. In the West, it is often called the aura. To make it easier to understand this occult notion, we will refer to it as the astral body. It can detach from the physical body willingly, and help you transcend and overcome the usual limits of space and time in order to perform an astral travel.
The aura: another name for the astral body
Many religions, traditions, and beliefs all over the world indeed mention the astral body, even if there might be another name for it. You can hear about astral doubles, ethereal bodies, energy fields… it all depends on the source. The astral body is usually described as surrounding the physical body, having roughly the same shape. This notion can even be found in monotheist religions, and especially in Christianity where it is called the aura.
According to Christianity, the aura of the saints is one of the shapes of the astral body, even if most of the time the aura is only mentioned as the halo, the crown of light found above the head of Christ, of the Holy Virgin, and the saints. In the Christian religion, the aura is depicted as a halo of light on paintings and pictures that can be found in churches, cathedrals, and holy places.
This halo of light radiates around the head of the saints. It is considered as proof of their high level of awakening or spiritual transcendence, thanks to the worthy actions that they performed on Earth while serving human beings and promoting Good. This bright circle found in the Christian tradition around the head of the saints can be considered an equivalent to the astral body recognized by many other traditions in Eastern and Western cultures.
The light represents energy
In several disciplines relative to parapsychology or even some other sciences, this aura would be called an astral body materializing a field of energy or life force for that person.
While Christianity “reserves” this aura for the holiest people, all the characteristics of an astral body can also be found around the body of people with extrasensory powers. This astral body lets them distinguish what is currently considered an energy or electromagnetic field that can be measured by some devices and that is called the Kirlian effect (see below).
Who can see the aura or the astral body?
A limited amount of people can see the aura or the astral body. It includes anyone who developed their parapsychic powers and those who followed a long spiritual, religious, or occult path of training. This is true for famous figures in spiritual traditions, the saints, but also psychics, mediums, and anyone with extrasensory perceptions.
Likewise, all the higher beings that can be found in other worlds, like the angels and archangels, or the ascended masters, have the ability to see your astral body just as easily as they can see the physical one. Anyone can also perceive the aura provided they undergo a kind of initiatory path and reach a certain level of spiritual evolution. Once you do, you can also perceive this luminous body and use its powers.
Enlightened people can all do it
If you believe that you cannot do it, just keep in mind all the ascended masters who, given the good deeds they had performed on earth, swiftly climbed the ladder leading them to the higher reaches of the celestial worlds! Now some have even become higher beings as soon as they passed away, because they had led such a virtuous life, elevating them to a rank equivalent to the saints in Christianism. This notion can also be found in some branches of Islam and Judaism.
Likewise, polytheist religions such as Hinduism also recognize several extrasensory powers among holy people, like the Sadhus who only focus on the practice of spiritual teachings, while spiritual masters focus on sharing them. Sadhus are the equivalent of hermits in the Western world, though most of them do not live in caves but among the crowd, like on the riverbanks of the Ganges in India. Likewise, just like the Sadhus, in eastern traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism, it is commonly known that spiritual masters, or gurus, also have powers. In these civilizations, these parapsychic abilities of the sadhus are seen as normal, while they are considered parapsychic in the West.
Among all the parapsychological abilities, a great majority of holy people practice aura reading, or perception of the astral body, before and beyond their death.
Countless testimonials attest the existence of the astral body
Outside the religious and spiritual sphere, there are several tales attesting the existence of the astral body. One of the most famous and most ancient examples comes from ancient Egypt and the pharaohs, which mentioned the Ba soul with a description quite similar to the astral body as it is currently known. Hinduism calls astral bodies “subtle bodies”. The astral body as defined here matches one of these subtle bodies called the “body of desire”.
It is called as such because it deals with the lower mind (perceiving emotions, impressions, and feelings) and with the desires and human personal inclinations common to most human beings, like urges, centers of interest, passions, personal tastes, sex drive…
In ancient Babylon (current Iraq), souls were believed to go through celestial spheres, each time draping themselves with the spiritual characteristics of these celestial spheres like an invisible cloak. This theory can also be found in ancient Persia, among Gnostics, in the Quran, and in Judaism among others.
In Ancient times, these notions about an astral body can also be found among great Greek philosophers like Plato, who mentioned a pneumatic body (meaning astral).
The advent of Spiritism
Closer in time, the famous Renaissance Swiss physician and philosopher, Paracelsus, will be the first to mention an astral body, in 1537. Likewise, Spiritism deals with the notion of a perispirit coined in 1857 by Alan Kardec in his famous opus The Spirits Book.
This perispirit (coming from the Greek “peri” meaning “around”) is a semi-material shell connecting the body and mind that subsists beyond death. It is also the name given to the corporeal energy of the deceased. While the person is alive, the perispirit is the immaterial bond between the physical body and the world around them.
This astral body equivalent enables the interaction between the two, which explains why every human being can use their mind to influence living matter (humans but also animals, vegetables, and minerals) and inert matter (like objects, buildings, furniture…) without physical contact or using any device.
Spiritism believes that after you die, in a disincarnated spirit the perispirit represents the energy body of the deceased that can appear if they want to or if summoned by a medium or spirit talker.
You can see the astral body even without psychic powers!
According to several experts and researchers that worked on the astral body, there is a way to see the astral body without using any extrasensory perception. This has been true thanks to a device created by a Russian researcher called Semyon Kirlian (1898 – 1978). In 1939 he created a camera that let you visualize the aura. This invention came as an accident, as he was taking pictures of plants in involuntary special conditions. He was quite surprised as he developed the pictures in a darkroom, when he noticed a kind of shape around the plants, which he first took for a result of a defective film. So as a serious scientist, he decided to reproduce the exact same involuntary conditions that had led to this result that had first come with the aura, even if it was on a plant.
He got the same kind of “aura” when reproducing the same filming conditions, even with other plants. So he designed a special kind of camera meant to take pictures of this astonishing phenomenon. After performing this process on a number of plants, he thought to photograph people with a device especially designed to that effect.
After double-checking the usual doctoring cues on his pictures and made sure he used virgin film that had never been used or accidentally exposed to the light before, he noticed the same kind of glow around every volunteer. This photographic process is called Kirlian photography as an homage to this scientist. The phenomenon is commonly called the Kirlian effect.
Is the astral body a kind of larger aura?
There are, however, some differences about the notion of aura in the Christian tradition and several other traditions and spiritual paths. Christianity believes that the aura only exists in people who have reached a high level of spiritual growth, including the main Christian figures like Christ, the Holy Virgin, and the saints. Western occult tradition, and most Eastern traditions, believe that everyone has one (or more) astral body, as soon as they are born.
Anyone can use this astral body to communicate and interact with their human environment, matter, and the various living kingdoms (animal, vegetable, and mineral) without using their physical body. This astral body additionally lets you connect to the higher realms and ask the beings living there for help. In Christian religious tradition, these beings are called angels, archangels, or saints…
Can the astral body perdure from one life to the next?
Depending on your spiritual path, this astral body might follow you from one existence to the next for those who believe in past and future lives, or in life after death. In these traditions that believe in reincarnation, the astral body is the favored “means of transport” of the disincarnated in order to travel through every stage of their journey into the beyond, getting ready for their next reincarnation on Earth.
The main difference is that in Christianity the aura only radiates around the head while the astral body surrounds the entire body in most other spiritual paths including western occult tradition.
The colors of the astral body
Following occult teachings, the astral body has one or several colors that let you determine the physical and spiritual health of a person. This notion does not exist in Christianity where the aura is just a reflection of the level of spiritual growth of the saint in question, since ordinary people do not have a halo.
The color of the astral body generally depends on the physical and psychic condition of a person. The better health, and the higher spiritual growth of a person, then the brighter and clearer the aura will be. Conversely (bad health and little to no spiritual growth), the darker and thinner the aura will be.
Universal communion through astral travel
On a similar vein, hypnosis and self-hypnosis experiences can supposedly let someone separate their astral body from their physical shell. According to Rudolph Steiner – the founder of anthroposophy, a spiritual doctrine that appeared in the early 20th century – during what is called deep sleep the astral body detaches from the physical body in order to unite with the universe. As such, it is possible to take an astral trip anywhere in the world and in the invisible universes around us. This is called astral travel.
A close bond between your physical body and your astral body
When the energy armor represented as your energy body has a tear or more, your physical body and your mind are more susceptible to disease and emotional troubles. When you change your current state of mind, you strengthen your physical body, your mind, and your astral body, giving you leave to develop other extrasensory abilities.
When you do so, you radiate clear positive waves that will annihilate all the negative waves coming from the planets and from the astral bodies of other human beings. These vibrations will then turn upside down, positively if many people do it. This might change everything in the world. Planets would stop radiating heavy and dark vibrations that keep influencing the Earth.