Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/193

179 system and another, and is as infinite as the original cosmic matter. It is the result of motion in that very cosmic matter. Astral light is not âkâsh, but a different form of cosmic ether. It is simply that entity in the manifested solar system, which corresponds to what we have called the fourth principle in man. It is a manifestation of undifferentiated matter. It is a kind of matter far more ethereal than any with which we are acquainted. Perhaps matter in its ultra-gaseous condition—radiant matter—may help us to a conception of the astral fluid. Though it exists uniformly throughout space in the solar system, it is yet more dense around certain objects by reason of their molecular action, this is especially the ease around the brain and spinal cord of human beings, where it forms what is called the aura. It is this aura round the nerve cells and nerve tubes which enables a man to catch the impressions made upon the astral light in the cosmos. If we divide mental phenomena into the three branches of modern psychologists; intellectual images, emotions and volition, we find that volition always makes itself felt by an increase of vibration in the astral aura. The intellectual image makes itself felt by the impression of the image on the aura; and in other cases there is a change of colour which also corresponds to change of spiritual feelings.

It is asserted that each colour corresponds to a certain emotion, but I am not prepared to say occultists agree with phrenologists in their arrangement.

If I have the idea of a circle, the figure of a circle is formed in the sensitive's odic aura. All mental ideas have their pictures in astral light which are almost similar to the images that afterwards rise in the brain, but the intermediate link between the two, the nerve current in the brain, does not actually describe the picture in the mind. If there were in space no medium to serve as a means of communication between one human being and another, all thought-transference would be impossible, it is impossible so conceive of communication without a medium.