The Etheric Double - The Health Aura of Man by Arthur E Powell.pdf - Arthur E Powell - morefaya2006

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

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.

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 are

known 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

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