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[11/16/2013 6:11:58 PM] Thuan Thi Do: THE ETHERIC DOUBLE The Health Aura of Man

A.E.Powell


Publisher's Preface

The author's aim in compiling the books in this series was to save students much time and labour by providing a condensed synthesis of the considerable literature on the respective subjects of each volume, coming mostly from the pens of Annie Besant and C.W.Leadbeater. The accompanying list shows the large number of books from which he drew. So far as possible, the method adopted was to explain the form side first, before the life side: to describe the objective mechanism of phenomena and then the activities of consciousness that are expressed through the mechanism. There is no attempt to prove or even justify any of the statements. Marginal references give opportunity to refer to the sources.

The works of H.P.Blavatsky were not used because the author said that the necessary research in The Secret Doctrine and other writings would have been too vast a task for him to undertake. He added: "The debt to H.P.Blavatsky is greater than could ever be indicated by quotations from her monumental volumes. Had she not show the way in the first instance, later investigators might never have found the trail at all."


Foreword

by members of the Science Group of the Theosophical Research centre, London, England

The Etheric Double was first published in 1925 as one of a series by the same author dealing with the inner structure of Man. It is now represented to the public unchanged except for the omission from the last chapter of a reference to local research, active when the book was written.

No attempt has been made to augment or otherwise bring up to date this classic in the light of understanding accumulated during the intervening forty-odd years. As A.E.Powell said himself in his introduction, this is a compilation from forty main works published between 1897 and 1921 and in view of their wide range and the painstaking thoroughness with which they were extracted, the collated information may fairly be taken to summarise the general views upon the subject up to 1925.

In more recent years, a better appreciation has been built up of the way the unconscious mind functions, and sources of possible error have been discerned in the operation of mediumistic faculties which necessitate caution concerning information obtained through their use. Much of the contents of The Etheric Double is derived from the exercise of clair-sentience (or extrasensory perception, as it is now called) and although the contents may be accurate, there is as yet no accepted method of confirming them. This is not to cast doubt on the honesty of those who recorded the observations; they were persons of unimpeachable integrity who continually emphasised their pioneering status and fallibility. There is no doubt that the psychic phenomena they described were experienced by them and, indeed, others have since confirmed some of their accounts. The sources of possible error referred to lie one state deeper than that - in the psychic mechanisms for experiencing what they did. This is the still unresolved and fascinating province of parapsychology.

Further assistance can be expected towards corroborating or refuting the observations and the theory of the etheric double from data emerging in the natural sciences, but at present there are few points of contact. Space craft have taken recording instruments to Mars and Venus, and electron microscopes in common laboratory service provide enormous magnifications of what is normally invisible, but there is hardly any information relating to etheric states of matter that has been acquired in a similar direct and orthodox way. Work with recording devices has so far failed to detect etheric matter in its normal working state and thereby confirm it as physical or near-physical substance. Probably the closest approach has been in studies of ectoplasm, which seems to be the temporary and abnormal condition of a plastic and extrudable component of the human body that becomes amenable to test only when it has been made external and densified into tangible form by the special and unconsciously exercised psychic abilities of certain rare people. When the densification ceases and the material is withdrawn again into the donor's body, it could well be returning to its function as part of a less easily identified etheric constitution. However, much more work is needed before this can be concluded with any confidence.

Since rigorously established evidence can still neither confirm nor deny, it is reasonable to hold the theory and information presented here as a hypothesis for further investigation. This is the procedure in all scientific work and, in fact, little progress can be made without some tentative working concept as context and guide. But it is essential to remember that an adopted hypothesis may have to be modified or even rejected as the work proceeds, and this is most likely during the early stages of an exploration. It happens frequently in the natural sciences of the physical world for which our ordinary language and mathematical symbology are expressly designed. How much more likely must this be in a domain more psychic than physical.

Modern investigators continue the quest for a deeper understanding of Man's nature and constitution and they have noted the more recent developments in psychology and parapsychology that underlie the caution sounded here. However, their gratitude is due to Powell for his orderly presentation of statements and ideas current in the 1925; time and effort need not now be spent on the reference material that he so ably examined for them. Here is ample justification for reprinting his work just as he wrote it.

The Science Group, Theosophical Research Centre, London, England.

H.Tudor Edmunds, Chairman - 1968
[11/16/2013 6:12:01 PM] Thuan Thi Do: INTRODUCTION

This book has been compiled with the object of presenting to the student of Occultism a coherent synthesis of all, or nearly all, the information regarding the Etheric Double, and other closely allied phenomena, which has been given to the world through the medium of modern Theosophical and psychical research literature.

This information is scattered over a very large number of books and articles, some forty of which the compiler has consulted, a list of these being given at the end of this document. The writer wishes it understood that his work is a compilation - nothing more. All he has done is to collect and arrange the material which others have provided.

There are many advantages in this method of study. In these busy days few have the leisure, even if they possess the inclination, to search through some scores of books for scattered item of knowledge, and then to weld them into a coherent whole. It is better, therefore, for one to do this work, that others may benefit and save their own time and labour. The work of the compiler brings to light many new relationships between fragments culled from divers sources, and under his hand the mosaic gradually forms itself into a pattern. His work, necessarily intensive, recalls to notice many isolated and often forgotten facts, which may be of little value or interest considered individually, but which collectively constituted a substantial and useful array. Finally, the picture which the compiler presents not only displays in orderly fashion what is know today, but, by its very orderliness, reveals where our knowledge is incomplete. Recognising such gaps in our knowledge, other investigators may perhaps turn their attention in those directions and so make the picture more nearly complete.

The compiler has throughout used his best endeavour to present the material he has gathered with scrupulous exactitude. In very many cases he has employed the actual words, adapted or abridged where necessary to the context, of the authors he has consulted; but, not to make the text burdensome and unsightly with large numbers of inverted commas, these have been consistently omitted. In order, however, that students may, if they wish, refer to the original sources of information, the references have been provided, in abbreviated or long form,

The compiler would be grateful to any students who would call his attention (1) to any inaccuracies in his work; (2) to any omissions of material which he may have overlooked. The diagrams and charts contained in the text are original; they are intended to be purely

diagrammatic, and in no sense pictures of the actual phenomena they attempt to illustrate. A.E.Powell


CHAPTER 1

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Every student of Occultism is familiar with the fact that man possesses several bodies or vehicles through which he is enabled to express himself on the various planes of nature – physical, astral, mental, and so forth.

The occultist finds that physical matter exists in seven grades or orders of density, viz. :

Atomic Subatomic Super-Etheric Etheric Gaseous Liquid Solid

Particles of all these grades enter into the composition of the physical vehicle. The latter, however, has two well-marked divisions, viz., the dense body, composed of solids, liquids and gases, and the Etheric Body, or Double, as it is frequently called, consisting of the four finer grades of physical matter.

It will be our purpose in these chapters to study this Etheric Double; its nature, appearance, functions, its relationships to the other vehicles, its connection with Prâna, or Vitality, its birth, growth and decay, its connection with certain methods of healing, with mesmerism, with mediumship and materialisations, the powers it can be made to exercise, and a host of miscellaneous etheric phenomena with which it is connected.

Briefly, we shall find that the Etheric Double, while necessary to the life of the physical body, is not, properly speaking, a separate vehicle of consciousness: that it receives and distributes the vital force which emanates from the sun and is thus intimately connected with physical health: that it possesses certain Chakrams or Force-Centres of its own, each with its distinct function: that upon the action of etheric matter mainly depends the memory of the dream life: that it plays an important part in determining the kind of physical vehicle which an incarnating ego will receive: that, like the physical body, it dies and decays in due course, releasing the “soul” for the next stage in its cyclic journey: that it is especially associated with what is known as Vital or Magnetic Healing, and also with Mesmerism, whether for purposes of healing, anæsthesia, or trance: that it is the principal factor concerned in séance-room phenomena, such as the movement of objects, production of “raps” and other sounds, and materialisations of all kinds: that the development of etheric faculties confers new powers and reveals many etheric phenomena, which are beyond the experience of most men: that by the use of the matter of the etheric body objects may be “magnetised”, much as living beings may be mesmerised: and, finally, that the etheric body provides the material out of which the substance known as ectoplasm is formed.
[11/16/2013 6:24:14 PM] Thuan Thi Do: The first root race was primarily spiritual (Astral/Etheric), and did not leave physical remains. The second (tee Hyperborean) were also non-physical (etheric).
[11/16/2013 6:24:26 PM] Thuan Thi Do: The Lemurians were the first with physical bodies. They were described as a race of three eyed giants and inhabited a "lost continent" of Lemuria which is where the Indian and Pacific oceans now are. Mdern theosophists identify Lemuria with the actual ancient supercontinent of Palaeos comGondwana.
[11/16/2013 6:43:30 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
The Etheric Double has been given a variety of names. In early Theosophical literature it was often called the astral body, the astral man, or the Linga Sharîra. In all later writings, however, none of these terms are ever applied to the Etheric Double, as they belong properly to the body composed of astral matter, the body of Kâma of the Hindus. In reading the Secret Doctrine, therefore, and other books of the older literature, the student must be on his guard not to confuse the two quite distinct bodies, known today as the Etheric Double and the Astral Body.

The correct Hindu name for the Etheric Double is Prânamâyakosha, or vehicle of Prâna: in German it is known as the “Doppelgänger” : after death, when separated from the dense physical body, it is known as the “wraith”, and has also been called the “phantom”, “apparition”, or “churchyard ghost”. In Râja Yoga the Etheric Double and the dense body together areknown as the Sth•lopâdhi, or lowest Upâdhi of Âtmâ.

Every solid, liquid and gaseous particle of the physical body is surrounded with an etheric envelope: hence the Etheric Double, as its name implies, is a perfect duplicate of the dense form. In size it projects about one quarter of an inch beyond the skin. The etheric aura, however, or health Aura as it is frequently called, projects normally several inches beyond the skin: this will be further described later.

It is important to notice that the dense body and the Etheric Double vary together as to their quality: hence one who sets himself deliberately to purify his dense body, at the same time automatically refines its etheric counterpart.

Into the composition of the Etheric Double must enter something of all the different grades of etheric matter, but the proportions may vary greatly, and are determined by several factors, such as the race, sub-race, and the type of man, as well as by his individual karma.

As yet, the only information which the compiler has been able to gather regarding the particular properties and functions of each of the four grades of etheric matter is the following :

The following is stated, in Theosophy for May, 1922, by F.T. Pierce, to be probably correct:

 
In appearance the Etheric Double is a pale violet-grey or blue-grey, faintly luminous, and coarse or fine in texture according as the dense physical body is coarse or fine.

The Etheric Double has two main functions. Firstly, it absorbs Prâna, or Vitality, and distributes this to the whole body, as we shall see in detail presently.

Secondly, it acts as an intermediary or bridge between the dense physical body and the astral body, transmitting the consciousness of physical sense-contacts through the etheric brain to the astral body, and also transmitting consciousness from the astral and higher levels down into the physical brain and nervous system.

In addition, the Etheric Double develops within itself certain Centres by means of which the man is able to cognise the etheric world and its hosts of etheric phenomena. These powers or faculties will also be described in due course.

It is important to recognise that the Etheric Double, being merely a part of the physical body, is not normally capable of acting as a separate vehicle of consciousness, in which a man can live or function. It has only a diffused consciousness belonging to its parts, and has no mentality, nor does it readily serve as a medium of mentality, when disjoined from the dense counterpart. As it is a vehicle, not of mental consciousness, but of Prâna or Vitality, its dislocation from the dense particles to which it conveys the life-currents is disturbing and unhealthy. In normal, healthy persons, in fact, the separation of the Etheric Double from the dense body is a matter of difficulty, and the Double is unable to move away from the body to which it belongs.

In persons known as physical or materialising mediums the Double is comparatively easily detachable, and its etheric matter forms the basis of many phenomena of materialisation, which will be dealt with more fully in a later chapter.

The Double may be separated from the dense physical body by accident, death, anæsthetics, such as ether or gas, or mesmerism. The Double being the connecting link between the brain and the higher consciousness, the forcible extrusion of it from the dense physical body by anæsthetics necessarily produces anæsthesia.

Further than this, the etheric matter thus forced out usually wraps itself round the astral body, and dulls the consciousness of that vehicle also; hence after the effects of anæsthetics have worn off there is usually no memory in the brain consciousness of the time spent in the astral vehicle.

The method and consequences of withdrawal of etheric matter by mesmerism will be dealt with more fully in the chapter specially devoted to the purpose.

In conditions of weak health or nervous excitement the Etheric Double may also in great part be extruded from its dense counterpart: the latter then becomes very dully conscious, or entranced, according to the lesser or greater amount of the etheric matter extruded.

Separation of the Double from the dense body is generally accompanied by a considerable decrease of vitality in the latter, the double becoming more vitalised as the energy in the dense body diminishes. In Posthumous Humanity Colonel Olcott says :

“When the double is projected by a trained expert, even the body seems torpid, and the mind in a ‘brown study’ or dazed state; the eyes are lifeless in expression, the heart and lung actions feeble and often temperature much lowered. It is very dangerous to make any sudden noise or burst into a room under such circumstances; for, the double being by instantaneous reaction drawn back into the body, the heart convulsively palpitates, and death may be caused.”

So intimate, in fact, is the connection between the etheric and the dense bodies that an injury inflicted on the Etheric Double will appear as a lesion on the dense body, this being an instance of the curious phenomenon known as repercussion. It is well known that repercussion can also occur in the case of the astral body, an injury to the latter, under certain circumstances, reproducing itself in the physical body.

It seems probable, however, that repercussion can occur only in the case of a perfect materialisation, where the form is both visible and tangible, and not when it is :-1.) tangible though not visible, or 2.) visible though not tangible

It must be born in mind that the above applies only where matter of the Etheric Double is used for the materialised form. When the materialisation is formed of matter, from the circumambient ether, an injury to the form could affect the physical body by repercussion no more than an injury to a marble statue could injure the man himself.
[11/16/2013 6:45:48 PM] Thuan Thi Do: 1 Etheric The medium of ordinary current electricity, and of sound.
2 Super-Etheric The medium of light.
3 Subatomic The medium of the “finer forms of electricity”.
4 Atomic The medium for the transmission of thought from brain to
brain
[11/16/2013 7:00:10 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Occult Chemistry Physics Example
E-1- Atomic Electronic Electron
E-2- Subatomic Positive Nucleus Alpha Particle
E-3- Super-Etheric Neutralised Nucleus Neutron
E-4- Etheric Atomic Nascent N.
Atomic H.
Gaseous Molecular Gas, etc. H2 , N2 or gaseous compounds
In
[11/16/2013 7:04:40 PM] Thuan Thi Do: pranayama: điều hòa hơi thở và prana (năng lượng sống)
[11/16/2013 7:06:10 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Complete_Works_of_Swami_Vivekananda/Volume_1/Raja-Yoga/Pratyahara_And_Dharana
[11/16/2013 7:10:38 PM] Thuan Thi Do: CHAPTER VI

PRATYAHARA AND DHARANA


The next step is called Pratyâhâra. What is this? You know how perceptions come. First of all there are the external instruments, then the internal organs acting in the body through the brain centres, and there is the mind. When these come together and attach themselves to some external object, then we perceive it. At the same time it is a very difficult thing to concentrate the mind and attach it to one organ only; the mind is a slave.


We hear "Be good," and "Be good," and "Be good," taught all over the world. There is hardly a child, born in any country in the world, who has not been told, "Do not steal," "Do not tell a lie," but nobody tells the child how he can help doing them. Talking will not help him. Why should he not become a thief? We do not teach him how not to steal; we simply tell him, "Do not steal." Only when we teach him to control his mind do we really help him. All actions, internal and external, occur when the mind joins itself to certain centres, called the organs. Willingly or unwillingly it is drawn to join itself to the centres, and that is why people do foolish deeds and feel miserable, which, if the mind were under control, they would not do. What would be the result of controlling the mind? It then would not join itself to the centres of perception, and, naturally, feeling and willing would be under control. It is clear so far. Is it possible? It is perfectly possible. You see it in modern times; the faith-healers teach people to deny misery and pain and evil. Their philosophy is rather roundabout, but it is a part of Yoga upon which they have somehow stumbled. Where they succeed in making a person throw off suffering by denying it, they really use a part of Pratyahara, as they make the mind of the person strong enough to ignore the senses. The hypnotists in a similar manner, by their suggestion, excite in the patient a sort of morbid Pratyahara for the time being. The so-called hypnotic suggestion can only act upon a weak mind. And until the operator, by means of fixed gaze or otherwise, has succeeded in putting the mind of the subject in a sort of passive, morbid condition, his suggestions never work.


Now the control of the centres which is established in a hypnotic patient or the patient of faith-healing, by the operator, for a time, is reprehensible, because it leads to ultimate ruin. It is not really controlling the brain centres by the power of one's own will, but is, as it were, stunning the patient's mind for a time by sudden blows which another's will delivers to it. It is not checking by means of reins and muscular strength the mad career of a fiery team, but rather by asking another to deliver heavy blows on the heads of the horses, to stun them for a time into gentleness. At each one of these processes the man operated upon loses a part of his mental energies, till at last, the mind, instead of gaining the power of perfect control, becomes a shapeless, powerless mass, and the only goal of the patient is the lunatic asylum.
[11/16/2013 7:21:37 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Every attempt at control which is not voluntary, not with the controller's own mind, is not only disastrous, but it defeats the end. The goal of each soul is freedom, mastery — freedom from the slavery of matter and thought, mastery of external and internal nature. Instead of leading towards that, every will-current from another, in whatever form it comes, either as direct control of organs, or as forcing to control them while under a morbid condition, only rivets one link more to the already existing heavy chain of bondage of past thoughts, past superstitions. Therefore, beware how you allow yourselves to be acted upon by others. Beware how you unknowingly bring another to ruin. True, some succeed in doing good to many for a time, by giving a new trend to their propensities, but at the same time, they bring ruin to millions by the unconscious suggestions they throw around, rousing in men and women that morbid, passive, hypnotic condition which makes them almost soulless at last. Whosoever, therefore, asks any one to believe blindly, or drags people behind him by the controlling power of his superior will, does an injury to humanity, though he may not intend it.


Therefore use your own minds, control body and mind yourselves, remember that until you are a diseased person, no extraneous will can work upon you; avoid everyone, however great and good he may be, who asks you to believe blindly. All over the world there have been dancing and jumping and howling sects, who spread like infection when they begin to sing and dance and preach; they also are a sort of hypnotists. They exercise a singular control for the time being over sensitive persons, alas! often, in the long run, to degenerate whole races. Ay, it is healthier for the individual or the race to remain wicked than be made apparently good by such morbid extraneous control. One's heart sinks to think of the amount of injury done to humanity by such irresponsible yet well-meaning religious fanatics. They little know that the minds which attain to sudden spiritual upheaval under their suggestions, with music and prayers, are simply making themselves passive, morbid, and powerless, and opening themselves to any other suggestion, be it ever so evil. Little do these ignorant, deluded persons dream that whilst they are congratulating themselves upon their miraculous power to transform human hearts, which power they think was poured upon them by some Being above the clouds, they are sowing the seeds of future decay, of crime, of lunacy, and of death. Therefore, beware of everything that takes away your freedom. Know that it is dangerous, and avoid it by all the means in your power.


He who has succeeded in attaching or detaching his mind to or from the centres at will has succeeded in Pratyahara, which means, "gathering towards," checking the outgoing powers of the mind, freeing it from the thraldom of the senses. When we can do this, we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step towards freedom; before that we are mere machines.
[11/16/2013 7:34:29 PM] Thuan Thi Do: http://thongthienhoc.net/truongbigiao/DaiCuongTiengVoThinh4.htm
[11/16/2013 9:51:30 PM] *** Call ended, duration 3:48:23 ***