I propose to use two phrases which have been suggested to me; the psychic[psychic]-astral and the divine-astral. This seems the only way to make my meaning clear, for the word astral has two meanings, its own proper derivative one, from the Sanskrit stri to strew light, and that given it by the use of all occultists. Paracelsus appropriated the word for all things sidereal, subject to the moon and stars, part and parcel of this material universe, even though formed as Dryden says of “purest atoms of the air.” In this sense the spiritualists and psychics have the right of custom to use it as they do, to describe their world of finer forms. In this meaning an astral shape is the form of the human soul, still in possession of the passions which make it human; and the astral senses perceive not the subtle and supreme glory which Shelley seized on in Prometheus, but a region full of shapes and forms differing but little from those we now wear, and still distinctly material.
The “astral man” in the “Comments on Light on the Path” should have been written the divine-astral man, according to this evident difference of meaning between the present writer and all other writers on occultism.
II.
“Are not the astral senses used by every great poet or inventor though he does not see clairvoyantly at all? i.e. does not see elementals, astral pictures, forms, &c.”
Faust.
The answer to the former question seems to contain the answer to this, which is clearly prompted by a conception of the word “astral” in its divine sense.
III.
1. “There is a law of nature which insists that a man shall read these mysteries for himself. Will all men seeking the occult path read these mysteries alike, or will each man find the interpretation peculiarly adapted to his own phrase of development. No two men read the mysteries contained in the Bhagavat Gita quite alike, each gains the glimpses of light which he is able to assimilate and no more.”
A. This seems to be rather a statement of a truth than a question which can be answered in any way other than putting it into different words, perhaps not so good.
2. “Is the outer world the reflection of the world within? like a shadowed reproduction in clumsy form, the inner being reality?”