I
Astral, or “starlike,” is the Other World, unbeliavable and mythical to many, yet met by all in dreams – and after death. It is an inner world, without objectivity, made of and sensed by associations, the magical imaginatio of the living, projecting mind. But since our mind is never ours alone, but a curious matrix of all the minds interwoven, human and spiritual and daimonic all together, the astral realms are a matrix of interwoven dreams, hopes, nightmares, despairs, a conscious and subconscious house of many rooms.
Like how a human life is one great whole consisting of several instrumentally separable elements, so can (and should) we separate astral realms into spheres that are individual, even though they continually merge into each other. These different astral spheres are:
WHITE astral: energies of a material, substantial kind, although unseen
RED astral: phantasms with no tangible substance, the solid stuff of dreams
BLACK astral: the mythical, archaic layer deeper than a dream
These are the bodily, the emotional, and the deep intellectual (spiritual) realms of the astral world and connect to the corresponding principles in a human being. The whole astral world is made of these human energies, or vice versa. These three realms together form our sensing and living, animate nature: under them in matter are only crude corporeal bodies which alone are as living as an inanimate golem or Frankenstein’s monster without the electric spark that brings it to life; and over them, guiding them, is the realm of true actual spirituality, the innermost, the nirvanic, the atma-buddhic, the monadic realm which has no form but is Life, Meaning, Divinity itself.
PHYSICAL (Corporeality)
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WHITE ASTRAL (Body as a living, sensate entity)
RED ASTRAL (Feelings: attractions and repulsions)
BLACK ASTRAL (Symbols of the intellect: sphere of the mythic journey)
PHYSICAL (Corporeality)
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DIVINE (Formless, Absolute being)
In this model, the lines —- between the worlds consist of prâna or life force, known as jiva, between the astral realms and the divine world. These two uniting, animating energies that bind astral realms to the physical below and to the divine above are the two “lightnings,” the two flaming serpents, that give us both life (making us living, breathing, sensate beings) and death (because they have artificially forced living soul into the corporeal body, a charnel house that it must eventually escape).
II
The Other World is sensed in a controlled occult practice by realization of a world that is like an exact replica of ours, at first, but onto which one then lets oneself project images that are not objective. In reality, this is what we do all the time since our sensations of the “outer” nature are not actually outer or objective by any means: they are, and have always been, only our subjective experiences. When I sense, for example, this table, it is not that I can touch or see the actual table:
I see only the fragmented image that has been reflected upon my retinae; I sense only that something, a tiny spot, has been touched by some structure, or so my brain tells me. What we sense are always only astral images; an abstract and non-existing image of the table as we think it is. These images are always associations, and so the table is different for every one of us.
There are esoterical schools that seek to find the “true” table (the ones of philosophical exactitude and divine mysticism), schools that seek to create a “useful” table (the ones of utility of both the physical and magical kind), and schools that seek to escape the problem altogether (the ones of escapism, annihilation, and nirvâna). They can be followed separately or together, but it is best to forget each one’s claims for supremacy. In astral working, no supreme truth is claimed, but both the goal and the working are after Meaningfulness: to experience, to create, to live something True. And yet, this Truth is the most elusive thing in the astral world.
“What is truth?” Pilatus’ question is not only the question of the overtly sceptical, contemporary, profane world; it is also the question of astral experiences. For what truth is, what it consists of, and what is meant by truth are the vital questions in astral working, and unless these questions are kept steadily with one’s working, insanity will claim the magician: this is a fact most unavoidable and absolute. Most of the world’s madmen and madwomen are those not realized as such, but they think themselves quite sane. The two worlds, the “objective” and the “subjective,” the outer universe and the astral matrix, are intertwined in a most intimate, wonderful way, and from this miraculous union, magic is made. Those of us who have experienced undeniable telepathic communions know this already, and those who still think that their own minds are theirs alone can come to know this in their astral working. In reality, there is no “you” and “me,” sodalis, but only one divine mind seemingly separated into individual spirits that are connected with the most subtle and breathtaking harmonies and apparent disharmonies. This is the Great Pattern, the Lock and Key to the Great Work. It consists of the streams of transparent spheres colliding into each other, all becoming One all the time.
III
The magician starts by projecting with his mind this double of the universe he sees and mentally stepping into the double thus created. This starts with the Red astral of phantasms, and, with practice, can later be done in the White or Black astral as well. In a normal profane condition, these White and Black astral spheres are reached only in illness (bodily or mental) and in death, more rarely in a trance and deep dream state. The usual dream state, just like the usual daydream imagination, consists of Red astral only and lacks the physical possibilities of the White and the spiritual possibilities of the Black.
The next step is creation: one projects the wished changes upon the tabula rasa of the self-created double world, virginal because it has just been conjured up by a conscious realization of its illusionary nature. This might demand practice, or it might be instantaneous if the aspirant has gone through the correct metaphysical schooling and has already realized the nature of the world as a projected, unreal world made by the mind. In such a case where the higher gates already function, the magical projection can be conjured up as an almost pristine creation, crystal-like and precious. They step into this world of mind’s creation and start to make it to their own liking, step by step, room by room, layer by intersecting layer.
But, as mentioned above, in this, one will constantly face the danger or untruthfulness, for making a world from the dregs and toxins of others will create a hellhole where one will suffocate: not instantly, but only after the ebb and flow of one’s outer life. For a true magician, the creation of this astral world as more pure, more perfect, more beautiful, and not less so, will be a worthy goal. When they seek to change the world inside and outside, this magical astral working reaches for better forms and not the ones that seem just to help them personally. Such personal help is of secondary importance to the work, and even though it too must be gone through, it will be worked with the new understanding of one’s own magnetic being, not the old “I take into myself the things that I like, and repel the thing I don’t,” but a new kind of understanding: “I go through the things I have taken into myself and make them beautiful for the whole.”
The astral working thus begins with the Red and is the purification of the inner imagery, artistic and devotional. It then goes to the Black, to the depth of the innermost, most arcane and archaic depths of one’s self, where the beings and not oneself start to slowly move their immense bodies. This starts the heroic journey, where the aspirant realizes that it is not she who rides the forces, but the forces who use her in their much deeper and much more important cycles of advancement in order to reincarnate consciously through her. And finally, the White astral working will be added to these, the work of conscious Becoming. For the one already versed in yoga or other physically energetical processes, this will be much easier, but it will be done for every adept when he finally reaches for his aetheric unfolding.
From the White astral, the adept will unfold, one by one, all the four double natures of the elements: first, the Unseen Fire, then Renewing Breath, Living Water, and finally, the rainbow-hued Diamond Body. In this final astral infusion, he makes himself the master, the one with the master within, imperishable. When this has been accomplished, there will be no ceasing of individuality nor the apparent loss of memory, and the adept can live wholly for the Work without the smallest speck of doubt, ill-projected shame, guilt, or animal grief.
Salome 