The Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.
The Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body.
The germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.
“The Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that the Astral is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke, gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâma Rûpa. At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never come out during life.
The Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not form in vacuo. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.
In spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly caused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from the living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing to do with the clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a materialization has been paid for.”
The Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering it up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary between the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life.
Life cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for Nature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is the intermediary between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the life.
The spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen is only a cover for the real spleen.
Now Life is in reality Divinity, Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on the Physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is too gross, it must have a medium, viz., the Astral. [pg 594] Astral matter is not homogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real Divine Light; it is however not molecular.