the augoeides okhêma, 'luminous vehicle' or 'body of light', which he identified as the immortal vehicle of the rational soul. Synesius, a 4th-century Greek bishop, according to Isaac Myer equated the divine body with ' Imagination' ( phantasia) itself, considering it to be "something very subtle, yet material," referring to it as "the first body of the soul." īuilding on concepts described by Iamblichus and Plotinus, the late Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century), who is credited as the first to speak of subtle planes, posited two subtle bodies, vehicles, or 'carriers' ( okhema), intermediate between spirit and the physical body. Thomas Taylor commented on Porphyry's use of the term:įor here he evidently conjoins the rational soul, or the etherial sense, with its splendid vehicle, or the fire of simple ether since it is well known that this vehicle, according to Plato, is rendered by proper purgation 'augoeides', or luciform, and divine. The word originates from Ancient Greek and has been interpreted as deriving from ' αυγο', meaning 'egg', or ' αυγή', meaning 'dawn', combined with ' είδηση', indicative of 'news' or 'a message', or with ' εἴδωλον', an 'idol' or 'reflection'. The early Neoplatonist Porphyry (3rd century) wrote of the Augoeides, a term which is encountered in the literature of Neoplatonic theurgy. Neoplatonists agreed as to the immortality of the rational soul but disagreed as to whether man's "irrational soul" was immortal and celestial ("starry", hence astral) or whether it remained on earth and dissolved after death. He taught that man was composed of mortal body, immortal reason and an intermediate 'spirit'. In the Myth of Er, particularly, Plato rendered an account of the afterlife which involved a journey through seven planetary spheres and then eventual reincarnation. Neoplatonism is a branch of classical philosophy that uses the works of Plato as a guide to understanding religion and the world. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know-God knows." Neoplatonism Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians contains a reference to the astral plane or astral projection: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Such doctrines were commonplace in mystery-schools, Gnostic and Hermetic sects throughout the Roman Empire, and influenced the early Christian church. It is for this reason, you know, that some are accustomed to say that his consciousness corresponds with the nature of the fixed stars, his reason in its contemplative aspect with Saturn and in its social aspect with Jupiter, (and) as to his irrational part, the passionate nature with Mars, the eloquent with Mercury, the appetitive with Venus, the sensitive with the Sun and the vegetative with the Moon. He is also divided up according to the universe. For, just like the Whole, he possesses both mind and reason, both a divine and a mortal body. In his commentaries on Plato's Timaeus, Proclus wrote In the astral mysticism of the classical world the human psyche was composed of the same material, thus accounting for the influence of the stars upon human affairs. Plato and Aristotle taught that the stars were composed of a type of matter different from the four earthly elements - a fifth, ethereal element or quintessence. The concept of the astral body or body of light was adopted by 19th-century ceremonial magician Éliphas Lévi, Florence Farr and the magicians of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, including Aleister Crowley. Throughout the Renaissance, philosophers and alchemists, healers including Paracelsus and his students, and natural scientists such as John Dee, continued to discuss the nature of the astral world intermediate between earth and the divine. Neoplatonists Porphyry and Proclus elaborated on Plato's description of the starry nature of the human psyche. The idea is rooted in common worldwide religious accounts of the afterlife in which the soul's journey or "ascent" is described in such terms as "an ecstatic, mystical or out-of body experience, wherein the spiritual traveller leaves the physical body and travels in their body of light into 'higher' realms." 
The concept derives from the philosophy of Plato: the word 'astral' means 'of the stars' thus the astral plane consists of the Seven Heavens of the classical planets. Other terms used for this body include body of glory, spirit-body, radiant body, luciform body, augoeides ('radiant'), astroeides (' starry or sidereal body'), and celestial body.
The body of light, sometimes called the 'astral body' or the 'subtle body,' is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body, being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual, posited by a number of philosophers, and elaborated on according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings.
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