Astral body

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The astral body (from Greek ἀστήρ ástēr = "star", literally star body; German: Astralleib), also called Kama-Rupa in Indian theosophical terminology, is one of the 4 basic members of the earthly embodied human being. It is the basic carrier of consciousness, but not that of self-consciousness, which solely develops through the ego. The astral body of the human being "is the manifestation of his passions, his instincts, drives and desires, but also of all his thoughts and ideas. In this astral body the clairvoyant consciousness sees depicted all that is called mental experiences, from the lowest instinct up to the highest moral ideals."<rev>The instincts have their actual origin in the wise formation of the physical body and the drives spring from the etheric body, but only in the astral body do they find their more or less conscious or semi-conscious expression. Only the desires also have their direct origin in the astral body.</ref> (Lit.:GA 104, p. 52) It facilitates the experience of our senses, likes and dislikes, as well as sympathy and antipathy which are aroused by it and finally it allows for independent movement of the body and its sensory perception. Insofar as a more or less conscious inner world of the soul is already formed, the astral body forms the vessel in which the body of the soul unites or meshes with the soul of sensory perception (Lit.:GA 9, p. 58ff).

Fundamental properties of the astral body

„The third member of the human being is the so-called sentient or astral body. It is the bearer of pain and pleasure, of impulse, desire and passion, etc.. A being which consists only of physical body and etheric body does not experience this. All of the above can be summarized under the expression: sentience. The plants are not equipped with sentience. If some scholars of our time deduce that plants too have a certain capacity for sentience, purely from the fact that some plants respond to stimuli with movements or in some other way, then they indicate that they do not know the essence of sentience. It does not depend on the fact that the being in question gives an answer to an external stimulus, but rather on the fact that the stimulus is reflected by an inner process, such as pleasure, pain, instinct or desire, etc. If this were not established, then he would only be ignorant of the essence of sensation. Likewise, one would also be justified in saying that blue litmus paper possesses sentience, because it reddens in response to certain substances.“ (Lit.:GA 34, p. 315)

The astral body is male-female, thus hermaphroditic. Animals also possess their own astral body. The name comes from the fact that it is of cosmic origin and was originally a soul-like image of the cosmic conditions, which is why Paracelsus also called it the sidereal man or the evestrum (the eternal substance of heaven). In fact, the instincts and the sensations of pleasure and displeasure connected with them, namely in the animals, are connected to the originally cosmically conditioned, but later increasingly internalized - as it were "embodied" - diurnal and seasonal rhythms.

„Among the various reasons that justify this expression is this that the astral being of man as such is not subject to the conditions which are operative within the earth. Spiritual science recognizes that within the astral being of man it is not the natural laws of the earth which are mainly active, but those laws which come into consideration when observing the processes of the celestial world.“ (Lit.:GA 17, p. 39f)

In the Egyptian mysteries the Ba was regarded as the carrier of the unmistakable soul qualities of the human personality and corresponds in anthroposophical terminology to the astral body, closely connected with the sentient soul. It was symbolically represented very aptly in the form of a bird with a human head. After death it accompanies Schut, the shadow of man, into the hereafter.

Plato in the dialogue of Phaidros speaks in this contest of a soul vehicle, or soul carriage, which, pulled by two horses, one white and one black, carries the winged soul into the higher world of the planetary spheres, or synonymously of the "garment" or a "cover" of the soul. The Neoplatonist Proclus then for the first time called this soul vehicle "starlike" (Greek: astroeidés). The term "astral body," however, was not coined until modern times.[1]

Aristotle calls the astral body aesthetikon; according to Rudolf Steiner, the Hebrew term is lamuel (Hebrew למואל, consecrated to God) (Lit.:GA 116, p. 82). In sleep - metaphorically speaking - the upper parts of the astral body lift themselves out of the body together with the I and remain connected with it only by the so-called silver cord or string of pearls formed from kundalini fire, which breaks only at death (Lit.:GA 88, p. 237f). After death the largest part of the astral body dissolves in the Kamaloka and scatters in the astral world. Unresolved remnants of the astral body can appear as doppelgangers in a later incarnation (Lit.:GA 93a, p. 28f).

Awareness of the astral body is awakened especially by the third subsidiary exercise, which trains the equanimity of feeling. Rudolf Steiner shows a meditative way to experience the astral body in (Lit.:GA 16, p. 48ff).

The astral body and its relationship to the stellar world

„The third member or layer is the bearer of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, feelings and affection, which we call the astral body. It is the interactive link of the human being, which man has in common with the animals just as he has the etheric body in common with the plant and animal world. The mineral body he shares with the entire outer world. The name astral body has been in use since the earliest times. There is no more suitable term for this interactive link of a human being than to call it astral body. And there is perhaps no more beautiful definition of the reason why this body is called astral body than that given by the great theosophist Paracelsus. Just as at death the etheric body departs the physical body, some time thereafter the astral body leaves the etheric body too. But the astral body also exits the physical and etheric body every night. Then it is separate from us. But where does it go?

Paracelsus rightly says: Where is it, and what does it do in the night? Does it rest, does it have a task? Yes, indeed it has a task. Those who do not have clairvoyant skills cannot gaze into the activity of the astral body during the night. But every human being feels the consequences of this activity. They all go to bed tired in the evening. Fatigue is the expression of a disharmony arising between our physical and etheric bodies. It must develop when the astral body has lost its strength to create harmony between the physical and the etheric bodies. And as man is composed today, such disharmony must inevitably arise during the day-waking period. If the physical and etheric bodies were solely under the influence of the astral body - as the forces are ultimately to be joined together - then our etheric and physical bodies would always be in harmony. But not only does the astral body live in the physical body, but on the level of consciousness which humanity has reached on the earth planet, the whole environment of physical, sensorially perceptible objects has an effect on man. The impressions of the eye and ear and the other senses flow into him from outside. During the day-waking activities some disharmony will occur in all those that have not yet reached a certain higher stage of spiritual development. If this astral body could never dwell in any other place than in our physical and etheric body, it would itself become disordered. Then its currents of force would not remain what they have to be in order to form a proper etheric and physical body. During the day the inner harmony of the astral body comes into some disorder, and its expression for this disorder manifests in fatigue. The moment you feel the fatigue, the inner disharmony is present. But then, where has the astral body gone during the night?

Paracelsus rightly says: When the lines of force that connect it with the physical body during the day begin to loosen, then it enters into connection with the whole harmonious system of forces that floods the starry sky. The moment man falls asleep, he rests in the harmony of the spheres, and from there he returns charged with the strength to rebalance what has been consumed during the day. Thus the astral body rests during the night in the world of the stars; there it has its real home. And when it returns, it brings with it the powers of the stars in order to remove the depleting substances. Therefore sleep is an excellent doctor, because order and harmony can only come about when the astral body again rests for some time in that world which contains the laws for the celestial heavens, and these are the laws for the spiritual world in general. If man has no sleep, health is undermined because the astral body has not rested for a time in the stellar world. That is why the astral body has been given this name. In former times names were not given as long as they did not correspond to the essence of a thing. And before we correct occult names and designations, we must first reflect on the name for what it was given. Today, when a comet or small planet is discovered, one opens an encyclopedia of mythology and from it gives the star a name. The principle of naming in spiritual times was to let the essence of the thing itself resonate tonally in a name: the connection with the world resonated within the name.“ (Lit.:GA 284, p. 53ff)

The evolution of the astral body

The first seminal stage of the astral body was created during the planetary phase of development of the old moon. In terms of development, it is thus younger than the etheric- and the physical body and therefore still in its infancy. However, the soul organs of the astral body, tha chakras or lotuses can consciously be further developed through an appropriate spiritual training.

How does one become aware of the astral body?

In order to become aware of the astral body, we have to restrain our desires and develop serenity towards pleasure and suffering, joy and pain. This is the third of the so-called subsidiary exercises that the disciple on the path of spiritual training has to do. The etheric body, on the other hand, becomes familiar through the second subsidiary exercise, the exercise of will, that is, through activity, through the initiative of action.

„In order to become conscious of our astral body, we must do exactly the opposite. We must hold back the desires surging in the astral body, we must develop composure and equanimity towards them. We must establish absolute calm, absolute tranquillity within ourselves. Only then do we feel the outer astral world push against our inner astral world. Just as we come up against the ethereal world by interfering with it in our will, we feel the outer astral world by remaining calm within ourselves, by putting all our desires and wishes to rest.

Before the astral body is ready, it numbs itself through screams. We know that pain arises when the physical body and the etheric body are not in proper contact. The astral body feels this as pain. The little child, when it feels pain, cries out. It tries to drown out the pain by crying. The adult may call out: "Ouch! If man were able to let his pain flow completely in the vibrations of sound, then such changes would occur in the formation of the etheric body through its vibrations that he would not feel the pain, but that it would sink down into the subconscious.

But the good gods have predisposed man to be weaker, and it is good that way, for otherwise there would be no suffering and also no articulate language. The esotericist must come to bear all pain, in general everything that is stimulated in him by the outer world, everything that goes on in him, calmly, serenely, equanimously. Then he will not make attacks (through his astral body) upon the outer world, but the attacks will turn upon him from without. But since he has developed complete composure, they only touch his physical and etheric body. The astral body remains untouched. It becomes free, so to speak, and can be observed. So through the exercise in serenity I come to know my astral body.“ (Lit.:GA 266c, p. 243)

The I is recognised through the fourth subsidiary exercise, the exercise of positivity.

The Astral Body as a Carrier of Consciousness

The astral body possesses an independent, very wise consciousness, which forms the basis of consciousness in animals and humans, but which is partly strongly corrupted by the Luciferian influence and distorted into desire. The astral body, from which the soul is also substantially taken, forms the actual carrier of consciousness. In waking consciousness, however, this astral consciousness is normally only accessible to us to a small degree, but as a subconsciousness which is tied to the ego it constantly weaves in the background of our waking consciousness activity. Only in dreams does the astral consciousness emerge more clearly, because then it is not overshadowed by the brighter daytime consciousness. Dream-filled sleep occurs when the astral body has already separated from the physical body, as is usual during sleep, but still it has a certain connection with the etheric body, which remains in bed. The human being then begins to perceive in pictorial form certain processes in his etheric body. In dreams in which one faces oneself, one perceives a part of one's own astral body. Our dream-consciousness today is a transformed rudiment of the picture-consciousness that man had on the old moon. It is closely related to our emotional life; in feeling we actually dream constantly even during the waking life of the day.

„From the etheric body the extrasensory observation ascends to a further interconnecting member of the human being. In order to form an idea of this member, it points to the appearance of sleep, just as it pointed to death in the case of the etheric body. - All human creativity is based on waking activity, as far as the manifested is considered. This activity, however, is only possible if man again and again obtains the strengthening of his exhausted powers from sleep. Action and thought fade away in sleep, all pain, all pleasure sink away from conscious life. As if from hidden, mysterious wells, conscious forces arise from the unconsciousness of sleep when the human being awakens. It is the same consciousness that sinks down into the dark depths when we fall asleep and that rises up again when we awake. That which life awakens again and again from the state of unconsciousness is, in the sense of extrasensory knowledge, the third interconnecting layer of the human being. It may be called the astral body. Just as the physical body cannot preserve its own form through the mineral substances and its forces within, it must, for the sake of this preservation, be interspersed with the etheric body, likewise the energies of the etheric body cannot, by themselves, illuminate themselves with the light of consciousness. An etheric body left to itself would have to remain in a state of sleep. One could also say that it could only maintain a plant-like existence in the physical body. An awake etheric body is illuminated by an astral body. For sensory observation the effect of this astral body disappears when the human being sinks into sleep. Extrasensory observation can still perceive but shows separately from the etheric body. The sensory perception does therefore not perceive the astral body itself, but only its effects in its manifested stage. And such effects are not directly present during sleep. In the same sense that man has his physical body in common with minerals and his etheric body with plants, his astral body is of the same kind with regard to animals . The plants are in a perpetual state of sleep. He who does not judge these things accurately can easily fall into the trap of ascribing a kind of consciousness to plants like that which animals and men have in the waking state. This can only happen, however, if one has an inaccurate idea of consciousness. One then says that when an external stimulus is exerted on the plant, it performs certain movements just like the animal. One speaks of the sensitivity of some plants which, for example, contract their leaves when certain external stimuli act upon them. But it is not the characteristic of consciousness that a being shows a certain counter-effect to an external stimulus, but that the being experiences something within itself which is added as a new quality rather than a mere reaction . Otherwise one could also speak of consciousness when a piece of iron expands under the influence of heat. Consciousness is only present when the being experiences the effect of heat as for instance, inwardly pain .“ (Lit.:GA 13, p. 58ff)

The destructive forces of the astral body

The passions and desires of the astral body have a consuming effect on the etheric- and subsequently also on the physical body.

„... that which our astral body breaks down in our etheric body is essentially connected to our becoming weaker in the course of life and, when we have become utterly weakened, with our dying. The astral body in relation to the etheric body is essentially connected with death. We can die by way of our astral body gradually consuming the forces of the etheric body, and the etheric body in turn consuming the physical body.“ (Lit.:GA 169, p. 86)

Passion and Love

{{GZ|How we gradually build up our astral body during the course of our life, from birth, or let's say from conception, is connected with our karma. Whether we are inclined to develop strong affects, strong passions in the astral body, is of course connected with our karma. But these passions can also be of human significance in a certain respect. Let us take a characteristic which plays a part in the whole of human life and yet is a passion, even if it is the noblest passion, the one which can develop in its noblest form in such a way that it is free from all selfishness, the passion of love. Love is a passion, but it can be freed from all selfishness. It is the only passion that can become free from egoism. But it sits in the astral body, so the astral body is its vehicle.

Let us now suppose that an artist who has a real feeling for realities - that is, not a naturalist, for he has no feeling for realities, he sees only abstract naturalistic matter, so-called realities - is confronted with the task of forming a human figure which is completely, suffused with the breath of the passion of love, with the noble passion of love, so to speak. Each time an artist was confronted by the task of creating a Venus or an Aphrodite, he had to feel that the human form must be completely permeated by this passion of love. Love must have something pre-eminent, it has to pour itself out. What could possibly be the case then? One cannot say that one can form an ordinary female figure as Aphrodite or as Venus. So the astral body of an Aphrodite or Venus cannot be like any female astral body, for otherwise every woman, every girl, would be an Aphrodite or Venus. That is not the case, is it? So it is a question of the astral body has to be formed in a very special way. The artist doesn't need to know spiritual science, he doesn't need to know that, but when he forms a Venus he must feel that the astral body must be more developed, more intensely developed, than in the case of the non-Aphrodite or non-Venus. But the astral body, we have said, has something consuming, something really consuming. I must express that. How then will the artist form a Venus who really feels this, who really has a feeling that there is a consuming astral body present? He will make visible that the physical body has something about it by which it is gradually consumed. Here the spiritual scientist is in a different situation from, let's say, a modern doctor.

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Sando Botticelli: The Birth of Venus, 1483 - 85, Uffizi (Florence)

Let us suppose that an artist forms such a Venus, in the formation of which he has felt correctly: There is a more consuming astral body than in an ordinary woman. We will see it in the narrow neck, in the formation of the thorax, we will also see it in the other parts that there is something consuming in the astral body, we will perhaps see it in the figure that it cannot grow particularly old if the artist expresses this aspect physically. The spiritual scientist will say, when an artist does something like this, that this artist has felt what actually underlies reality. From this point of view we will say to ourselves: Often the artist, in creating, feels a real spiritual reality. - What will the doctor say, who is not a spiritual scientist, when he sees that an artist has formed such a figure? "That is a consumptive figure," he will say, for indeed: in someone who has consumption, the astral body is also a stronger burning astral body through the karma of a previous incarnation than in someone who does not have consumption. Botticelli has created a very beautiful, much admired Venus, most of you will know her. In this picture of Venus standing on the shell, we see a real physical body, so formed by Botticelli that we have to think: a real consuming astral body underpins this image. This is why a dispute has arisen among the scholars of art. Some admire the figure of this Venus, which differs from the so-called normal figures, with the narrow neck, the strange upper chest and so on; others say that it only comes from the fact that he had a consumptive model. - Certainly, everything can be explained materialistically. Probably even that Botticelli did use a consumptive model: this Simonetta, who died at the age of twenty-three. But it is not this that matters, but the fact that he felt he had to use precisely this model for a Venus, which offered him the possibility of making a human being with an astral body that consumes the physical body more quickly than in others. And indeed, in this very picture - I will let it go round slowly, it is a bad imitation, but I have no better at present - you will see how it is indeed noticeable that we are dealing with a different kind of astral body, with an astral body consuming the physical body through the etheric body. You see how spiritual science can guide us, how spiritual science can show us the way to understanding such things.|169|87ff}}

The Astral Body of Man and Woman

The astral body is more differentiated in women than in men:

„Throughout life the astral body has a greater significance in the female sex than in the male sex. The whole female structure is oriented more towards the cosmos through its astral body. The female nature reveals shows things which are actually secrets of the cosmos. The astral body of the female nature is in itself more differentiated, much more richly structured than the astral body of man, which in a certain way is more unstructured, undifferentiated, coarser.“ (Lit.:GA 302, p. 74)

More precisely, one must distinguish two halves in the astral body, namely a feminine and a masculine. The astral body is hermaphroditic:

„One must distinguish in the astral body itself a second half: like the other pole in a magnet.

In man the second astral body is feminine; in woman the second astral body is masculine, that is, the astral body is hermaphroditic. The Kundalini fire is now the activity excited in the second astral body, which is first of all warmth and light.

As long as the kundalini fire is not excited, one gropes between the objects and beings of the higher world; as during the night between physical objects. If the kundalini fire is there, one illuminates the objects oneself.“ (Lit.: Contributions 51, p. 21)


Literature

  1. ↑ Eric Robertson Dodds (Hrsg): Proclus: The Elements of Theology. A Revised Text, Oxford 1963, S. 313-321
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