Introduction
This article is an attempt to outline what the word astral
refers to in the world of esotericism and self-knowledge.
The Word Astral
The word astral comes from the Latin ‘astrum’ and the Greek ‘astron’
meaning star and according to many modern dictionaries astral means “of or
having to do with the stars”. Even the word astral shares the first four
letters of the word astronomy, which is the study of the stars. This meaning however
seems not to correlate so well with the topic of astral travel and lucid
dreaming.
It wasn’t until the late 1900’s that the word astral came to
take on the meaning of “pertaining to suprasensible substances”. This meaning was
introduced by the Theosophists, namely Madame Blavatsky to begin with, and was
originally used to describe the substances that make up the higher dimensions
of nature. A little later on it became widely used in the context of astral
projection and lucid dreaming.
The word is also used to name a dimension of nature – the astral
plane or astral world. Such a dimension is distinct to the physical world of
three dimensions, and is a dimension with different laws to the physical and
furthermore is a world that the human being can project his or her
consciousness into and therefore visit.
Summary
The word astral was originally used to describe a
suprasensible substance of which the things of higher dimensions where made of.
It was later refined to take on a more specific meaning, which was the
substance that constituted the astral world, which was considered to be lighter
than the ether but denser than the mental plane.
Now days though astral still means the same thing though it
when it is used it is most commonly used in relation to astral plane, astral
body and astral travel. There was also some mention of the word astral light.
The articles to follow further explain what the astral is
from the perspective of astral travel or projection.
End (746).
No comments:
Post a Comment