ASTRAL PLANE by-C H LeadbeaterASTRAL PLANE by-C H Leadbeater, Ezoteryka OOBE, Inne
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
THEOSOPHICAL MANUALS NO, 5 THE ASTRAL PLANE ITS SCENERY, INHABITANTS, AND PHENOMENA BY 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. 9 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 17 Inhabitants. —I. Human. (1) Living:—The Adept or his Pupil—The Psychically Developed Person—The Ordinary Person—The Black Magician 29 (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 35 II. Non-human:—The Elemental Essence—The Astral Bodies of Animals—Various Classes of Nature-Spirits, commonly called Fairies—Kamadevas—Rupadevas—Arupadevas—The Devarajas 62 III. Artificial:—Elementals formed Unconsciously—Guardian Angels—Elementals formed Consciously—Human Artificials—The True Origin of Spiritualism 87 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 9 10 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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
Podobne
|