The Astral Body And The Astral World

This morning we're going to speak about the Qabalistic teachings in relation to the astral body and the astral world, and try to show you, at least in part, the true Qabalistic interpretation of what we read to you from St. John, which incidentally has much and very much to do with just the subject we are going to discuss together this morning.

We know that there has been much written, much taught in the various schools of thought regarding the astral body, the astral world, survival, and so on, and much of it becomes very confusing. In actuality then, a basic and true understanding of this experience, because it is an experience, and you will see exactly what we mean, can be understood, this understanding can be had, that is, only if we actually understand the Qabalah, which is represented here, as you see, on the Tree of Life, and through the Tarot keys which connect them since they also represent the fields of force that connect the basic spheres of activity of the one life and therefore of our lives now then in our little Bible reading we mentioned and it has often been mentioned before where Jesus says in In my Father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And notice how Jesus stresses the idea of the Father in me.

If thou knowest me, then thou knowest the Father.

This, incidentally, has almost everything to do with survival. That is, with eternal beingness.

And so we will ask you to look at the tree of life for a moment while we speak or keep glancing at it back and forth whenever we mention a particular aspect and what we'd like to point out to you first is that the yellow circle in the middle is related to the christ consciousness remember in In Qabalah, this particular name is given as the Mashiach in Hebrew, which means Messiah. And the Greek word for Messiah is Christ. So that we have the ideas of Messiah completely in line with the ideas of Savior. However, here is where people have gotten so confused, especially not realizing that Jesus was, after all, a Qabalist. His entire mystical training, his preparation for his great mission, was in and through the Qabalistic training, which it is our privilege to now represent, which we are the custodian of for the Western world at this time. So always remember that there are various names given to each of these spheres of activity or types of beingness as they act through consciousness and the many different names given to each one actually are a commentary on a group of ideas that must be connected therefore for along with the idea of the savior the mashiach christ these are all the same thing remember we're just giving it to you in different words we also have the name of adam which means again generic humanity we have the term son son s-o-n remember jesus was the son of god but he was also the son of man and we are the son of god as we are also the son of man so that in essence we might say generic humanity which is adam the son of god which is adam generic humanity the savior which is generic humanity this is the idea related to that Sephirah and in relation to jesus What we must also remember is that he, after all, attained to the full awareness of who and what he was and is, whereas we are still growing into and towards that awareness.

This is the only difference, beloved, beloved ones, between Jesus the Christ and us. It's a difference in degree of awareness of who and what we are.

If Jesus were the great exception, how could he inspire us to become more than what we are? It needs someone who is not the great exception, but who has just gone this way before us, who is kith and kin to us. This is what it requires to take Jesus as an inspiration, and this is not saying that Jesus is not the Son of God.

Indeed beloved and glorious and blessed be he this son of god but so are we and if we but knew it as jesus said if you but knew who I am but we can say the same to you if you but knew who you are and this is what our work attempts to bring to you the techniques the the methods, the ways, and the means through which you can know who and what you are and then do the works that Jesus did. Remember, in this reading, he said, in greater works shall ye do.

And so now we come to the idea of the Father and then we will relate it to the astral body, the astral world, as taught in Qabalah. If you will again look at the tree of life for a moment and look at the upper gray circle, that's called a Sephirah. That is related in Qabalah to the Father.

That is the Cosmic Father. Now, if you'll notice the path that connects the Cosmic Father to the Son, and that's the yellow circle, this is the path and tarot of the Emperor, that is the King. And remember, the Son of God has also been called King. You'll recall in the stories of the New Testament how it was said the King has come and how this was made as an excuse to persecute Jesus, saying he wants to become the ruler in terms of the materialistic ideas of ruler. Whereas here, the idea was much more profound, and we are going to explain it to you because we must know it and understand it fully if we would travel a path of return in truth and not just be deluded that we are so doing. The king is the ruler and he who has learned how to rule his own image making faculties because again that yellow circle is assigned to the creative image making faculties he who has learned to rule his creative image making faculties in terms of the father in terms of a connection an inner knowingness of who and what he is and remember when we say he we're speaking of generic humanity and it also means she something unhappily many Orthodox thinkers have overlooked so it is through the power of the father working at conscious union with the father that the son can rule nevertheless the son is the son whether it's an infant or whether it's one who has attained what jesus attained our image making faculties rule what we are and what becomes of us now we are going to relate this to the qabalistic teachings in relation to survival the astral world the astral body if you will look again on this tree of life below notice the violet circle just above the bottom very bottom one that violet circle is called the foundation and when we recite the pattern on the trestle board in relation to the foundation remember we say in thought and word and deed I rest my life from day to day upon the sure foundation of eternal being.

Now this foundation in Qabalah is assigned to the sphere of the moon.

And the sphere of the moon, again in Qabalah, is known to be the subconscious aspect of beingness. The moon.

Subconsciousness.

The subconscious aspect of beingness is the foundation for all our experience and it is the foundation for what we call physical existence therefore though little is said about it and few realize it it is our subconscious minds or that which we call we've given it a name and think we understand it it is that which we recall our subconscious minds, which happen to be in actuality our astral bodies. Now think for a moment. Is it not what we hold in subconsciousness that always reflects in what happens to us? If we hold subconscious fears, are we not forever creating these conditions in the outer world. If we hold subconscious anxieties, does this not reflect in all ways? If subconsciously we actually feel love, is this not reflected in our experience? And we are mixed in so many areas, of course. We have mixtures of love and hate, of hope, of despair. Bear. All of this is in our subconsciousness. All of this is the condition of our astral body.

Now, before we analyze this a little further, look at the bottom circle on the tree of life, and there you will find what is called Malkuth. That Sephirah, that circle, is assigned to the the physical world. It is called the flower of God, by the way. It is physical existence.

And in Qabalah, the Hebrew word for this, which will interest those of you who haven't heard it before, for this body, which means the larger body of God as the physical universe, as well as the more minute body of God, which happens to be whatever vehicle we're walking around in, this body has the term in Qabalah of goof.

Now consider it a moment, goof.

You know, this word has come into English usage through this mystical and mystery school training, though it is not generally known except by deep scholars and those who've been trained in the understandings and experiences.

Goof. Now anybody who thinks he's just a body is known in our era now as being a goof. And when people do very foolish things based on delusions and illusions, they're called rather goofy. So here you have something that really is very significant.

He who thinks he's just a physical body is a goof. And he'll act goofy. And so many of us though we give lip service to having a spiritual body to having a spiritual beingness so we'll give beautiful lip service to it but if we'll watch ourselves and our daily activities will discover that we're just as goofy as the next fellow we get all hot and bothered about the actual physical thing as though it were eternal and the physical thing incidentally in a sense is eternal but not as what it represents only that which makes it up in other words the eternal aspect of it is the fact that the eternal foundation keeps manufacturing exactly the physical conditions which anyone who's a who's goof enough to have faith in physical conditions as such will have to experience until he gets awfully sick and tired of it eventually but we're suckers for punishment aren't we and we keep ourselves in a goofy stew much of the time unfortunately still eventually we'll wake up little by little at any rate so the physical body the physical conditions they are actually the projection of our astral body.

This is the truth of the matter as far as looking for what makes physical conditions.

However, we need to understand a little more about astral body.

Remember, we told you that the astral body really is the subconscious aspect of our personalities, both in the little sense which is our own particular ones and in the larger sense where you might say it is the cosmic astral vehicle existing all right what happens when we die let's consider that a moment we don't go anywhere there's nowhere to go we live in and through our subconscious right now the reason we're not aware of it exactly in the way a so-called astral entity is aware of it is merely because we have the great privilege and we unhappily do not recognize it we have the great privilege of having our attention sharply focused in a vibrational range which will bring us the experience of of the glory, the dress, the raiment, the garments of the Lord of the Universe.

And in actuality, of course, the garment is not really finished. You might say, in a way, we are still cutting it, sewing it, we're working on it.

And for that reason, of course, we have some pretty peculiar specimens in the dresses that our souls wear, but it isn't because we're evil in any sense at all. We're just learning how to cut and sew and fit that which is the beautiful. And remember the yellow circle again, which is the Son of God, is also called beauty. All manifestation is for the purpose of of expressing the true harmony, beauty, in and through the kingdom of God, which is the physical universe.

So in the physical universe, in actuality, we experience ourselves as living in and through a physical body, not because there is such a thing in itself, but because the attention is focused on a vibratory level that makes us aware of the condition of our subconsciousness. You get that point?

And it is by becoming aware of the condition of our subconsciousness, or shall we say astral body, that we learn how to do more things with it. In other words, and again, we are in the process of learning how to direct and control the mental and emotional workings of our consciousness. We can learn how to direct and control only in and through concentration on a specific vibrational level, and that specific vibrational level is the physical world so-called so we live in the astral world right here and now the astral world and the astral body actually are the immediate projectors of our physical condition and when we die all that we do is withdraw our attention from from the concentration of this vibrational level, which then becomes aware of itself in its astral level or in its subconscious state.

And here's where we really have a time of it.

Because you see, humanity is an infant, and let's not forget it ever. Humanity is an infant. Therefore the subconscious or astral condition of humanity or shall we say the ability to direct the mental emotional workings of consciousness are very poor very poor indeed and unless we we concentrate on developing those extra controls here in the only area of life that it can be done. When we die, in quotes, because we do not die at all, we cannot die, when our consciousness withdraws from the level that holds the physical body together as a living expression for the one life, we find ourselves stuck with what our controls or lack of controls have been we can do nothing about it on that level what we can do if we've achieved a certain state of growth is develop insight on that level as to what it is we have done and not done that has been foolish and then we become very eager to get right back and try to take more advantage of the only way in which we truly can evolve self-conscious knowledge of who and what we are to become aware of the fact that we are the son of god and all the works which go with this awareness now then let's speak about psychic types and people who have some of these awareness so that we can understand it a little better there are many types of psychism there are for instance the types of psychism which are not anything except an indication that this particular individual is still in a most primeval state of evolution as a human being because if you will recall practically all primitives and all animals are psychic therefore a great mistake has been made by many many people in thinking that when a person is psychic this means that he is spiritual or has has grown into something specific.

The vast majority of psychics actually are still primitive in their consciousness. They have not yet learned how to fully concentrate their attention on the level that keeps them focused in the physical world while they are there in order to become familiar with all the laws and the workings and the ins and the outs and the beauties and the glories and the blessings and opportunities of that physical level. This is true of the vast majority of what we call psychics. Now we have other types. This is just one category, though, as we said, unfortunately, it is the largest category.

We also have people who, in some previous incarnations, have thought that it would be so wonderful to be psychic and have sort of worked at trying to develop it and they get what they ask for and they regret it because you see being psychic really in especially in this type of instance means that there is a wavering of the consciousness in its ability to fully concentrate in the physical area while it is functioning there and so the attention washes back and forth a great deal between the, shall we say, self-conscious and subconscious states of awareness.

And the result is that this particular type of psychic has less opportunity to remain alert and aware and therefore to control and direct and practice the rulership because the focus is forever being divided and this is not a very happy state even in the Eastern philosophies in yoga it says that one of the greatest hindrances on the path is psychism and yet so many people seem to long for it now then we have another type of psychic who who, perhaps because of mixed good karma along with some nonsense, comes in deliberately, you might say sacrificing, some of the opportunities of being able to concentrate in order to help humanity in certain ways. Incidentally, these are very, very few, although there'd be no doubt at all that every psychic would be sure that he is that kind. Nevertheless, these are very few indeed. These are the ones who, because, after all, materialistic-minded consciousness needs to have certain experiences or certain verifications to sort of give them hope that there's more than just being a goof. Well, though they might not call it that in their own minds.

There are a few who act as channels who bring real data of survival, but they suffer greatly for it, incidentally, because any time a vehicle cannot stay, a consciousness cannot stay completely focused in the area where it's functioning, it is open to the subconscious workings and washings of everything about it. And so you see it has a very rough time of it emotionally and mentally and yet perhaps it does this also maybe it has to pay off some karma maybe it may have been one of those kinds who delighted in burning witches at the stake who knows what brings this particular type of psychic although we have reason to love them and be very grateful to them because scientific research has shown that there are indications of survival that are so fantastic that anyone who takes even the slightest trouble to look into them knows that it is really being non-compos mentis to question the matter of of survival at all.

So we have reason to be grateful to these people, but we do not know why they had to make this personal sacrifice, which is a great one, because they are not able to utilize certain conditions as fully as those who are well-centered on the physical plane.

Now, there is another type of sensitivity also. You see, there are so many. My father's house, there are many mansions indeed. There's another kind of sensitivity and this is not the usual psychism this kind of sensitivity has learned how to remain well centered in Tiphareth the yellow circle in other words it has already learned how to control enough it isn't that it is fully developed not until you're Jesus Christ have you fully developed that but there are degrees of this development after all and there are certain sensitives who have developed enough of that awareness so that they are able to act as a channel through which to teach and help and inspire others but they also pay a price because if you look there at the tree all things from the higher levels must go through subconsciousness you see it it must go through it it cannot skip it therefore because these teachings these insights these perceptions must come through true subconsciousness, there's always a wider door of perception between the objective and the subjective world in true teachers who are at least to whatever degree centered in the yellow circle in knowledge of the Son of God.

These people have at least enough controls and awareness so they can recognize the impingement of other subconscious states of mind and emotion and differentiate them from their own. They are at least not deluded, but they suffer a great deal. Let me tell you the story of Dr. Case. When he was still in the process of being trained for this great work, he was in his very early 20s and had been in training for quite a while but had not yet realized the significance of some of these things, he decided to go in for certain experiments and because he came in with this sensitive vehicle the experiments he tried incidentally were very foolish ones and he realized it I guess he had to know that they were foolish so he could help protect others in the future he got open wide between the subconscious and objective state or between the astral and physical state it doesn't matter what terms you give it and these doors opened so wide that he couldn't close them he reports that he would ride on the streetcar this was in Chicago and he would be aware of what was going on in the underneath meanderings of everybody and the horror of it was beyond description because it kept making an impact in him you see on subconscious levels my darlings we have telepathy on subconscious levels there's an intercommunication going on all the time and when you open yourself to the impact of the hates the resentments the anxieties the fears the sorrows the loneliness the murderous inclinations after all whenever we say I'd like to I would just like to do so and so to so and so you'd be surprised what it looks like and feels like to one who is aware on that level so he found himself in what you can certainly call a state of absolute hell being aware of the impact of all these forces and he got desperate enough so that he looked up everything he could in order to close those doors he had opened them prematurely for one thing and for another it is very foolish to attempt opening these doors at all one who attains the consciousness of Tiphareth beauty the son of god learns how to control and direct it from above when you try working at it from below up you surely are in trouble did you know that every human being who's insane and we say every human being who is insane has varying degrees of this break between the subconscious and objective awarenesses in other words the astral subconscious level he's too open to it when he is insane there are many different kinds of insanity only me because we have many different types of personalities and when you see a paranoid one who is subject to persecution complex it's because being so open to this astral sphere we'll explain that a little more in just a little while which has also incidentally been called the sphere of illusion you know and having within his own basic subconsciousness feelings of being martyred and you know how many of us feel like martyrs and how often are the doors of perceptions uh being broken up open like that before the true controls and true love has been developed uh the illusions the thought forms in fact usually their own thought forms although also other people's thought forms can all collect there's a focus because there's no separation and the funny thing is they really do experience all these things that they say these hallucinations they certainly do but they're still hallucinations they have opened themselves to an area they have not first learned how to direct and control or perhaps it's some comic thing perhaps they drove other people wacky at some time or other or did many things so that they need to experience that sort of thing for themselves maybe they once utilized these subconscious forces for selfish gain but insanity is always a breaking down of doors which we are not ready to handle so never long for psychism it is not the thing you're really after though you might think you are what you're after is to directly perceive the true state of who and what you are the ecstasy and the rapture and the knowledge of your eternal beingness as the son of god the daughter of god and from that all the controls will flow gradually in a safe manner now then again in relation to this astral world and subconsciousness basically in essence you see there isn't such a thing as just an astral world in qabalah it's taught every Sephirah has a small tree within it so that there's a tree within a tree within a tree therefore there are 10 levels because there are 10 Sephirah there are 10 levels of being within each one of these states of consciousness and in the subconscious or or we may call it astral world if we want to think of it that way for this talk, there are also the ten levels and so on right on up through the whole tree.

Now, where the doors of perception are weak between the two worlds from the physical world to the astral world, Usually it is those entities who have remained in their lowest level of development who are the most readily contacted, as you can see, because it's like Jacob's ladder. Each step goes up and up and up. And that is why in so many of the spiritualistic circles, though it isn't always true, but in most of them we usually find such nonsense coming through the thought forms the emotion forms the egos and so on these float around and the psychic picks them up and gives them out as being words of God and people who are foolish enough to accept it deserve the repercussions because how else are so they're going to learn never to rely on this type of thing or this type of level. In the ancient mystery trainings, there's a place in one of the initiations where the aspirant is warned, stoop not down to those darkly splendid worlds.

You see, subconsciousness must be transmuted. This is the whole point. When we die we're stuck with exactly the amount of thinking feeling hoping yearning being that we've developed here and now we will therefore find ourselves in rapport with all those who are of like level and so there is in a sense such a thing as purgatory as taught in roman catholicism you know there really is such a thing but of course it isn't a final or permanent thing this is the way we learn and after we go through the realization and insights of what occur why then we're in a better position to go on and experience some of the lovely parts of our nature remember, we're all of us a conglomeration.

None of us are wholly evil, if there is such a thing as evil.

None of us are wholly selfish, so that although we certainly will find ourselves experiencing the negative aspects of our subconsciousness, we will also, when we have come to understand it, find ourselves experiencing the beautiful parts of our subconscious nature and most important of all if we have learned to control our emotions and our thoughts we will almost completely avoid avoid any of the unpleasant aspects that can be experienced by consciousness when it drops its physical vehicle or concentration on the physical level. Because developing the control of the emotions and of the mind in terms, naturally, of spiritual aspiration makes us us aware when we drop these vehicles in other words what we've been doing is developing an ability to focus attention so we drop the physical vehicle our attention has been so well developed we're aware of what has happened being aware of what has happened we can have the controls we go through the experience of analyzing through our higher soul the things we've been and done understanding it a little better and because we have developed the ability to concentrate here and now to hold our attention to direct our emotions in the ways of spiritual aspiration that this ability is then utilized on that sphere which is the true sphere where it belongs you see and we can then actively participate in evolution instead of having to reap so much nonsense because we will already have understood enough and God truly is not a vengeful God nor are the unhappy things that happen to us for punishment purposes.

There's no reason in the astral level of our beingness to have any kind of unpleasantness whatsoever no matter what kind of mistakes we've made here as long as we've learned to direct and control our emotions in spiritual terms it's the karma is actually reaped here not there and it is for this very reason that in the true esoteric teaching of western occultism which we represent we hammer and we harp and we harp and we hammer on the idea that we must take advantage of the here and now we must learn to live here with what we have and what we are we must learn to let our hearts pour with gratitude for the privilege and the opportunity to be able to see to taste to feel to touch to accomplish to love and we must train ourselves in every way we can and call upon that which is the true center of our being to aid us and incidentally it brings the aid of all the angels and all the forces of light to just call upon them to help us develop this these awarenesses and controls do you know one of the things that is not realized is that most people when they die they really don't go in for too tough a time because they haven't been very awake here and they're not very awake there you walk around in a daze here and actually what happens when you die you float around in a daze there until time to come back so of course if one wants to just be a sort of in a sense you might call it slap happy wouldn't you floating around in this daze why all I have to do is just keep marching around in a daze here and you won't suffer and you won't rejoice either you'll just float that that's actually what happens to most people because most people are not very aware however you do have your very materialistic types who are very selfish and self-centered these have been very aware all right but focused on this materialistic aspect of beingness you see get everything you can and so on well these are the ones who are what you might call earthbound and they usually wander around in a pretty miserable state for a while it really isn't so very long in terms of time but remember time means has meaning only in the physical universe not in the other levels so there is a certain experience that must be gone through when one has been that way but still it's gone through one comes back and one wonders sometimes why one has certain strong feelings actually it's because they had a few unpleasant experiences in their astral their true mental emotional nature their subconsciousness and they don't want any more of it so it's a good way to learn but I doubt whether any of us here have too much of a problem in that direction but we do even though we're aspirants we do have the problem of floating floating around in a daze, and we do have the problem of being deluded by our own thinkings and feelings by hanging on too strongly to certain ideas that are actually rather bigoted, though we unhappily fail to recognize it, we need to try to center our consciousness as much as possible on this Tiphareth idea and of course that's what the tarot is aimed for as you know we start all of you out with tarot and the purpose for this is in fact you should start then you should end and you should never stop it no matter what other things we teach you you should never stop your tarot practices you know because there's no end to the matter really in as much as there are levels upon levels upon levels there are heavens upon heavens upon heavens and mansions upon mansions and we can wherever we are whatever we be or do there's always more you know, infinitude is limitless so we have great adventure ahead and we do hope and pray that we've shown you that you're living in the astral right now and if you want to be able to function consciously and effectively in the astral when you take a vacation from this concentration on the physical, you better start doing it now.

You won't learn how to do it there. You learn how to do it here.

It's such a vast subject. There's so much more we could have said, but the time has already run out. We'll take up other aspects of this subject from time to time to try to show what else we can do. And besides, you have the lessons for the real training. This is just to enlarge and give extra insight.

Thank you.