“The Seven Bodies” by Carmen de Sayve & Jocelyn Arellano

The human being is made up of seven bodies, each composed of distinct vibrational frequencies that interpenetrate and interact. The physical body is the only one accessible to the five senses, but there are others, each a different aspect of existence and awareness. The seven bodies can be thought of as energy layers. Everything obeys thought, and the various bodies are emanations of active thought. Each belongs to and acts within a different dimension; thus, we are multidimensional beings, despite our fascination with the physical plane.

The spirit, or pure consciousness, unfolds by becoming more dense in various ways, resulting in form on seven different levels. First we will speak of the major triad of the spiritual body, the causal body, and the higher mental body. The spiritual body is the divine spark; the causal body is the energetic layer in which the experiences during the whole process of manifestation and evolution are recorded; the higher mental body is where thoughts originating from spirit are processed. Then there are four less refined bodies, beginning with the lower mental body, which receives egocentric thoughts. Next is the astral, or emotional, body where the emotions necessary to three-dimensional living are generated. There is also a double ethereal body, which receives the universal energy that gives life to the seventh body, the physical body.

Our various bodies are actually layers of energy with different vibrational frequencies. The densest is the physical body, which basically runs on electricity. It is composed of physical matter, which is energy resonating at a very low frequency. But the physical body is also animated by its ethereal counterpart, the double ethereal body, which is indispensable for cohesion of the body’s atoms. This double ethereal element is present in any object formed from physical matter. As its name indicates, this body is composed of universal energy, and its function is to focus that energy into each of the physical body’s atoms. The result is an exact replica of the human body. At the moment of death, the ethereal double, also called the bioplasmic body, separates from the physical body and gradually disintegrates. These two bodies, which in effect are one, are the mortal part of the human being.

The astral, or emotional, body is the second densest. This is where all emotions, desires, passions and sensations are stored. It is the energetic template from which the physical body is generated. The emotional body has the same shape as the physical body but is made of far subtler vibrations and exists on the astral level. It is in this body where diseases generate and then manifest in the physical body. Its life lasts as long as its passage through the third dimension. It is composed of mental waves, and contracts when it is time to create another life form. When a divine spark decides to embark on an experience in the physical world, the astral body contracts and enters the body of the mother-to-be, whose genes shape it accordingly, and a new human is born.

The astral body is very sensitive to the emotions, and its vibrations become more elevated as strong emotional reactions subside. Once the separatist ego dissolves and the need for human incarnation has ended, this body disintegrates. In this sense, the astral body is the vessel that we use to enter and exit the physical world. Once that need is transcended, it ceases to be.

The mental body, as mentioned, is a subtle body that functions in two ways. Its lower aspect serves to process thoughts rising from our lower selves, while its higher aspect processes thoughts originating in the spiritual realm. This subtle body serves as the link between the two. This is where thoughts, beliefs and knowledge originate, and where all thoughts, negative and positive, are stored. The latter are those ideas that help us grow and develop. The influence of the mental body over the three lower bodies is decisive. The three lower bodies come into balance and perfection when the lower mental body is refined through meditation, self-observation and the transmutation of thoughts. As long as our attention is focused solely on worldly matters and desires, though, we are unable to access the thoughts coming from spirit.

It is in the lower mental body that judgments, attitudes, and other rigid structures in our way of thinking, establish themselves. Here, egoic thoughts created by feelings of separation and vulnerability are formed. The more rigid our mental body becomes, the more difficult it is for us to flow with life, to learn new ways of living, and to acquire new ideas that are necessary to move forward in our evolutionary development. The mental body is the instrument used by spirit to refine the denser lower bodies. It is the meeting point between the material and the spiritual, as active thought is where the quality of matter originates. Thus, our thoughts weigh either for or against cosmic balance and are responsible for human actions and the reactions they evoke, both cause and effect. If the mind’s thoughts are more refined, the material of the lower bodies also become more refined. The mental body does not eventually disappear like the astral. It simply accelerates its vibration until it receives only the loving thoughts coming from the Higher self. The lower aspect of the mental body then dissolves into light.

Actions are conscious and come from the mental body, whereas reactions or those acts we call instinctive, come from the emotional body. In today’s world, we continue for the most part to react to stimuli from the emotional body. The emotional and lower mental bodies serve us by making it possible for us to experience duality, but their content can be either positive or negative.

Less dense still is the causal body, which records everything we experience during our lengthy evolutionary process. As the word causal indicates, this body is at cause. From it comes the personality, meaning the qualities, tendencies, passions, and aversions acquired by human beings along the path to perfection. It is also where karma is inscribed. The causal body is where reside our core characteristics, with which, and against which, we must work in order to advance along the path of evolution.

Once the lower bodies have been purified, the mental and causal bodies continue their ascent toward the higher planes, eventually turning into light.

Finally we come to the spiritual body, which is the highest body and the one that generates the other six. In order to discover the spiritual body, we must work on accelerating the vibrations of the other bodies. This may be a very involved process, but it is exactly this discovery that we all live for. The spiritual body is the seat of intuition, and the more open we are to spirit, the more precise is our intuition. Because most of us are preoccupied with thoughts coming from the ego, our intuition usually goes unheeded.

The physical body, of course, manifests in the three-dimensional matrix. This is the plane where thought appears to us as solid matter.

When we manifest in the physical world, our attention and thoughts become fixed here, and we can become oblivious to our other realities and other bodies. Then, when we leave the three-dimensional world through the process of physical death, our thoughts may be trapped in this world, where they continue to manifest. Ideally, the vibrational level of our thoughts is sufficiently elevated at the moment of death to manifest at a higher plane of consciousness. This process of acceleration, or transmutation, of the vibrations of the emotional, mental and causal bodies continues until all turns into light and merges with the Creator.

From each of these bodies an aura emanates, which is the electromagnetic field enfolding and surrounding every living being.

“The Seven Bodies” is an excerpt from A Doorway to the Light: After Death Experiences by Carmen de Sayve & Jocelyn Arellano