page_title: Plane (esotericism)
section_title: Astral plane
hierarchical_section_title: Plane (esotericism) / The planes / Astral plane
caption_attribution_description: Le livre du Ciel et du Monde Illustration of the Celestial spheres Note that although the order of the spheres is conventional, with the Moon and Mercury closest to the Earth and Saturn and the stars farthest, the spheres are convex upward centered on God rather than convex downward centered on the Earth.
context_page_description: In esoteric cosmology, a plane is conceived as a subtle state, level, or region of reality, each plane corresponding to some type, kind, or category of being.
  The concept may be found in religious and esoteric teachings—e.g. Vedanta, Ayyavazhi, shamanism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Kashmir Shaivism, Sant Mat/Surat Shabd Yoga, Sufism, Druze, Kabbalah, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, Eckankar, Ascended Master Teachings, etc.—which propound the idea of a whole series of subtle planes or worlds or dimensions which, from a center, interpenetrate themselves and the physical planet in which we live, the solar systems, and all the physical structures of the universe. This interpenetration of planes culminates in the universe itself as a physical structured, dynamic and evolutive expression emanated through a series of steadily denser stages, becoming progressively more material and embodied.
context_section_description: The astral plane, also called the astral world, is where consciousness goes after physical death. According to occult philosophy, all people possess an astral body. The astral plane (also known as the astral world) was postulated by classical (particularly neoplatonic), medieval, oriental, and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions. It is the world of the planetary spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and generally said to be populated by angels, spirits, or other immaterial beings.  In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism.
  Throughout the Renaissance, philosophers, Paracelsians, Rosicrucians and alchemists continued to discuss the nature of the astral world intermediate between Earth and the divine. The Barzakh, olam mithal or intermediate world in Islam and the "World of Yetzirah" in Lurianic Kabbalah are related concepts.
  According to occult teachings the astral plane can be visited consciously through astral projection, meditation, and mantra, near-death experience, lucid dreaming, or other means.  Individuals that are trained in the use of the astral vehicle can separate their consciousness in the astral vehicle from the physical body at will.
  The Theosophist author Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa wrote: "When a person dies, they become fully conscious in the astral body. After a certain time, the astral body disintegrates, and the person then becomes conscious on the mental plane." 
  Occultist George Arundale wrote:
  In the astral world exist temporarily all those physical entities, men and animals, for whom sleep involves a separation of the physical body for a time from the higher bodies. While we "sleep", we live in our astral bodies, either fully conscious and active, or partly conscious and semi-dormant, as the case may be, according to our evolutionary growth; when we "wake", the physical and the higher bodies are interlocked again, and we cease to be inhabitants of the astral world.” 
  
  Some writers have asserted the astral plane can be reached by dreaming. Sylvan Muldoon and psychical researcher Hereward Carrington in their book The Projection of the Astral Body (1929) wrote:
  "When you are dreaming you are not really in the same world as when you are conscious – in the physical – although the two worlds merge into one another. While dreaming, you really are in the astral plane, and usually your astral body is in the zone of quietude."
  Astral projection author Robert Bruce describes the astral as seven planes that take the form of planar surfaces when approached from a distance, separated by immense coloured "buffer zones".  These planes are endlessly repeating ruled Cartesian coordinate system grids, tiled with a single signature pattern that is different for each plane. Higher planes have bright, colourful patterns, whereas lower planes appear far duller. Every detail of these patterns acts as a consistent portal to a different kingdom inside the plane, which itself comprises many separate realms. Bruce notes that the astral may also be entered by means of long tubes that bear visual similarity to these planes, and conjectures that the grids and tubes are in fact the same structures approached from a different perceptual angle.
  In his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda provides details about the astral planes learned from his resurrected guru Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. Yogananda reveals that nearly all individuals enter the astral planes after death. There they work out the seeds of past karma through astral incarnations, or (if their karma requires) they return to earthly incarnations for further refinement. Once an individual has attained the meditative state of nirvikalpa samadhi in an earthy or astral incarnation, the soul may progress upward to the "illumined astral planet" of Hiranyaloka. After this transitional stage, the soul may then move upward to the more subtle causal spheres where many incarnations allow them to further refine until final unification.
caption: The astral spheres were thought to be planes of angelic existence intermediate between Earth and heaven.
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