Astral Body What It Is and How It Works What is the astral body? The astral body, which is the point of reference for the nakshatra descriptions,  is body composed of subtle particles which is "hidden" inside the interstitial spaces of the physical body. Sometimes the astral body is referred to as a "body double" or a "ghost" because it looks pretty much like the physical body, except that it is paler and you can put your hand right through it.  The astral body doesn't suffer physical death, because it isn't made out of organic stuff that dies. It might not be absolutely eternal, but it is quite long-lasting and it re-incarnates (takes a new meat-body) rather chronically. When an incarnate human being dies, the corpse starts to break down right away, but the astral body lifts up and out of the decaying physical form, and floats up to the level of the cosmos which is the natural residence for astral entities.  The astral body is where one's memories and emotions are stored, along with hopes, dreams, aspirations of all kinds, fears, hatred, bliss, misery,  and all the luggage of past lives.  Why can't I see these astral bodies? Seeing humans as predominantly astral beings is not a normal perspective for modernized folk.  These days, the appearance of the astral body can only be detected by those who believe it can be detected! That it, those who have lived with conscious natural clairvoyance throughout life, or those who have intentionally undertaken training to re-awaken a broad range of intuitive perceptions that have been culturally suppressed.  This specialized training was not always necessary. Historically, most people have been aware of astral-level reality and most people did lucid dreaming and most people were guided by their ancestors who communicated in trance and in dreams. This type of woo-woo communication used to be absolutely normal. In a few remaining traditional societies, even for men, it still is.  The norm today seems to be: Folks from traditional, pre-mentalized cultures use the astral plane as their PRIMARY reference for reality. Secondary reference is the material plane, the land of five-senses ouch! reality. Folks from modernized societies use the five-senses material plane as their primary reference for reality. Secondary reference is the causal plane, the land of Conceptual Thought.  Of course this creates some interpretive conflict in vocabulary references for our discussion of the term "reality", but we'll get through it. The astral plane is real and can be described in surprisingly accurate language. (even English!) Most women in both traditional and modern cultures are naturally clairvoyant (or "oversensitive" : )) Men from traditional cultures typically do not suppress their ability to detect the presence of spirits. Or at least they are in a better position to recover their clairvoyance. Modernized men tend to have a heck of a time doing battle with the positivistic paradigm, but they can overcome this crippling ideology if their desire to learn is strong enough. For this discussion, which is directed to modernists mainly (although if you are here at an astrology website you are naturally in the "cultural-creative" group)  a partially clairvoyant perspective -- or at least a psychologized-vocabulary version of it -- can be adopted.  In ego-mentalized modern culture, citizens are trained to downplay the reality of instinctive choice-making. Rational choice-making is over-emphasized, and the underlying patterns of instinctive selection which occur at each fork in the road, throughout the day and throughout the lifetime, are ridiculed or ignored.  The study of the Jyotisha nativity can begin to correct this ideological limitation of modernity, by re-introducing the native to the familiar yet disregarded repeating patterns of emotional cravings, needs, and embedded, reactive responses which can be articulated not only through direct psychic investigation, but also through the legacy descriptions of the nakshatras.
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