The Astral Body by A.E. Powell

Today I finished reading the book "The Astral Body". I have below 2 versions of its review. One a shorter version. For those who are interested read on the extractions from the book that caught my attention.
The first impact of this book is, it removed the fear of death significantly. The delusions of hell are clarified to a greater extent. Physical death is the beginning of a new life which is far more liberal. The right preparation can make life after a greater celebration, learning and growing experience. It's a must read for all.
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Some interesting extracts from the book:

Astral beings respond to sounds. They also respond to colours. The intensity of impact of the colours is same as sound.
Insights
* This is probably the significance of applying tumeric and Kumkum powder at the entrance. What a perfect Feng shui for the houses!
* This also could be the significance of Rangoli, it's structures and the colours used in front of the houses
* The mandalas in the homa and Buddhist mandalas needs more study to understand the significance.

Something interesting.... The emotions of greed and depression form vertical bars in the astral body. Which looks like a cage. How true...we do imprison ourselves when we are under the influence of such emotions.

The web of the chakra offers no resistance to the higher budhic and atmic vibrations. While it filters to its level best the lower astral energies. This explains how the physical life is isolated from astral, even though the two worlds co-exist in space. God's creation and strategies are simply outstanding... Please read the Pranic healing books by Master Choa to appreciate the omniscient aspect of God in this design.

Function of thought forms in the astral plane is a very useful information in this book. I was awestruck to know Goddess Kali was a thought form ​created by the Atlantans and this entity has lived for so many many years. The sacrifices offered to these deities and similar practices are now more understandable.
An author of a novel creates thought forms of the characters in the story. Often when these thought forms become stronger...they tend to guide the author in a different story line depending on the characteristics it has picked up. This answers why most authors start with a story in their mind but usually end up writing it very differently.
The astral plane has characters like Sherlock Holmes, Robinson Crusoe.....which appear to be real people but are actually thought forms.!!!

Smoking/tobacco kills astral body. It will decompose certain parts of the astral body anthe.... So that emotions are sort of dead. That's y in the physical body you feel relieved. But when the physical body dies, it's like having a handicap astral body. It's very painful and difficult.
Alcohol on the other hand attracts astral beings who feed on the scent of blood and spirit. So they tempt the alcoholic person to involve in such activities that will fulfill the desire of these elementals.

A higher thought or emotion produces 💯 times more effect/vibrations than the lower. This is because it is easier to move the finer particles of Astral and mental body than coarser lower particle.
If not for this ordinary people can never make any progress. What a designing principle!!

If the soul has been a habitual drinker in the past incarnation, these desires exist in the astral body. They are under control of the will when the body is awake but when the physical body is asleep, the consciousness may slip out of the control of the soul and reach the drinking temptations. Hence sometimes a non alcoholic person dreams of drinking and enjoying the alcohol in his dream.

When the soul escapes to the astral body either in sleep or in death, it communicates with the astral plane with the grossest astral particle since it's closest to the physical life. As the soul evolves it starts communicating with the finer particles of the astral body. Then the awareness of  lower emotions​ and the physical body starts to become dimmer and faded out.
That's why the friend in the astral plane appears to have evolved. Actually it's the self which has evolved and now the self is aware of higher qualities than the lower.

This explains why Master Choa said..." You see in others, what is in you"
The existence of Werewolf and vampire is almost extinct but under rare occassions they exist. Mainly through the Voodoo system. They exist only near their dead physical body and they have partially materialized astral body. They extend their life on astral plain by feeding on the energy of other animals and humans. Their body is preserved by keeping it immersed in blood. However if the body is cremated...they loose their source of existence and disintegrate or die.

The initial meaning of spiritualism:
This goes back to the preliminary initiation period. A dead person was chosen, awakened sufficiently on the astral plane, trained with the principles and powers of Astral plane and then handed over to the spiritual group with some purpose. This trained person would further train other dead people on the same lines and this group would impress the spiritual purpose on the earthly life. The Master of the group would guide the spiritual guide of the group. When it became impossible to hold back this leader of the group, he was allowed to move on to the higher world which was long pending for him. Now the new leader was chosen and he would take on the astral form of the later or use his shade(mental image in astral plane) to carry on with the work.
However no Master/adept of the Himalayas were involved in this, since this was artificial and also prone to the black magician influence. Which inventually did happen. I think this was the downfall of the Atlantans.

When a soul reincarnates, it attracts the mental and astral material around itself from its past life. So the previous habits virtues and vices are present in the latent form. Egs. Drinking affinity. However if the soul is virtuously guided by the parents, in this incarnation the soul might refrain from these habits. Then these latent tendencies slowly die and are not carried forward in the next incarnation. Such is the importance of the parents and the teachers in the journey of the monad.
Sometimes the soul gets stuck in its shade/ yet to disintegrate astral corpse/ the astral body of the animal that the soul had previously abducted. Such souls generally don't reach the physical world unless they are free from it. Under rare circumstances the human soul reincarnates in the animal body. The body of the animal is more of prison than any good for the growth of the soul. Under most cases these souls are born with predominant animal nature. The physical body may sometimes reassemble the animal.