On The Astral Body
At times it can be interesting to trace the ideas that appear in modern occultism to their earliest roots in classical sources. Generally if you dig far enough your trail ends in references to the works of late classical Neoplatonic authors whose ideas and metaphysics deeply influenced Jewish and Christian mystics. Within Neoplatonic literature the astral body isn't some hazy half real counterpart to the physical body that we all possess. Instead the astral body is a great achievement, a near physical embodiment of our divine nature that can act and manifest in ways independent of our conscious volition. I would like to reproduce a quote from Gershom Scholem's "On The Mystical Shape of the Godhead" originally translated from a version of the Zohar:
"We find in the Book of Sorcery of Asmodai that if someone wishes to indulge in the sorcery of the Left Side and immerse himself in it, he should stand in the light of a lamp, or in another place where his own images can be seen, and say the words prescribed by this kind of sorcery, and summon these unclean powers by their unclean names. He should then commit his images on oath to those he has summoned, and say that he is of his own free will prepared to obey their command. Such a man leaves the authority of his Creator and assigns his soul to the power of uncleanness. And with these words of sorcery which he pronounces and with which he adjures the images, two spirits are revealed, and they are embodied in his images in human form, and they give him information both for good and evil purposes for particular occasions. These two spirits that were not comprised within a body are now comprised in these images and are embodied in them."
