Human aura

The human physical body - that we observe and feel with our senses and waking consciousness - is surrounded by a threefold aura that can be observed by clairvoyant or supersensory perception, and which shows the expression, in many coloured forms, of:

• the different Human temperaments and dispositions of people
• the stages of spiritual development
• all varying moods, inclinations, joys and pains.

The aura has the form of a so-called 'auric egg' and is sized 2 to 3 (upto 6) times the height, and 4 times the width of the physical body.

The three members, body, soul and spirit, come to expression in the aura:

• The first aura is a mirror of the influence the body exercises on the human soul;
• the second characterizes the life of the soul itself, the soul that has raised itself above the direct influence of the senses, but is not yet devoted to the service of the eternal;
• the third mirrors the eternal spirit, see causal body and Man's higher triad

Aspects

• size and form (FMC00.253)
• difference awake and asleep (FMC00.387)
• what characteristics can be perceived by clairvoyant observation in the human aura (colours, patterns) - see FMC00.250 and FMC00.251
• various
  • Walter J. Kilner published one of the first western medical studies on the aura in 1911, proposing its existence as an indicator of health and mood, for possible use in medical diagnosis (see references below).

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.250 is a summary table sketching the threefold aura

Schema FMC00.569 sketches the development of the human bodily principles as related to the human aura. The blue represents the astral aura, the violet indigo the mental body or Man's higher triad, the black point and circle the Human 'I'. The black dot is the spot where the spiritual streamed into the human astral body in the middle of the Lemurian epoch. With the Development of the I and the workings of the threefold soul in Man, the spiritual gets hold of and shapes the astral matter as the individuality develops. With the age of the consciousness soul, this work of transformation and spiritualization becomes a personal responsibility, see (self-)initiation and initiation exercises. In the future, Man will develop as the adept sketched on the right, and the human I will become a conscious creative spiritual force.

Schema FMC00.253 is purely intended to imagine the size of the 'auric egg', normally two to three times, but - in the case for initiates - can become as large a 6 times (or more) the height of the physical body .

Schema FMC00.251 provides an overview on the multitude of colours and forms on the three aspects that find expression in the auras

Schema FMC00.387 illustrates how the aura of Man is different in waking state versus during sleep.

Schema FMC00.570: connects three levels of viewing evolution: at the level of planetary stage of evolution to Condition of Consciousness for the spiritual hierarchy of humanity, how this develops on the fourth planetary stage Earth, and how we can follow this evolution for the human being.

The high level cosmic principles such as Mahat (Schema FMC00.568) and the principle of creation by the three logoi (Schema FMC00.067A and Schema FMC00.067B) are connected to the development of Man's bodily principles and how this can be followed with clairvoyant spiritual vision in the aura of the human being (Schema FMC00.569).

Note this is an ambitious schema in terms of conceptual scope, this first implementation of the idea is probably suboptimal. For now, this Schema will make sense and come to life when studying seven lectures together, as presented on Schema FMC00.570A.

Lecture coverage and references

1903-12-29-GA088

is a lecture dedicated to Man's threefold aura or body, and senses:

When we consider the physical body of human beings, as we know it, we see that it is just a crystallized solid mass. The so-called aura sur­rounds the physical body in a kind of egg form. By and large the aura is always larger than the physical body itself. It is smallest among un­developed people; and the more developed a person is, the larger it is. The aura of a highly evolved human being can be six times his or her height. You are picturing the whole human being only if you imagine his or her height extending three times higher and three times lower.

There are three things in the aura we must distinguish:

• first, the so-called astral body. This is the body that contains for the eyes of seers what human beings otherwise only feel within: drives, desires, and passions. A seer can distinguish very precisely from this aura whether a human being has pure or ugly passions such as greed, com­passion, good will, and the like.
• Then, second, there is the mental aura. This contains what we feel subjectively to be as our intellect, as our power of reasoning, the lower spiritual power.

After death these two are dissolved, just as the physical body dissolves. The astral aura is dissolved in kamaloca, and the mental aura in lower devachan. They are counted among the transitory parts of a human being.

• The enduring being of a human is objectively observable in the third aura. This is the aura of the causal body, the body that goes through all incarnations. Among unevolved people who understand little of what is enduring, the causal body is only indicated. If we observe the aura of an unevolved person we find little of any causal body. Those human beings who seek deeper knowledge develop this causal aura. The more a person is evolved the more this causal aura is developed. Then a kind of radiant system is inserted into the aura, so that a more highly developed person sends out rays of spiritual light that can be noticed in his or her causal aura.

When observed, the aura of an ad­ept is much greater than a house, so that the whole person appears infinitely larger than the physical person appears for the physical eye. The causal aura that we can see with highly developed people is also suggested in the undeveloped; and not as a small body, but also large, but it is not yet luminous. With unevolved people it is a weak, glimmering light and becomes constantly more luminous the more a person develops. Rays of light enter as a person takes in more and more content. The more people develop within themselves what is enduring, what will appear again, the more they will have luminous power within. It is the objectively perceptible that a person carries over from one incarnation into another.

[Astral aura]

I will first consider human beings with their astral aura: we can observe them in three successive states.

• The first state is the one in which the actual power to form thoughts is as yet very little devel­oped. That was the case with the third root race and at the beginning of the fourth; that is, from the middle of the Lemurian until the first half of the Atlantean time. Lemurians and the first Atlanteans did not think using reason, but they thought out of their memory.
• Only in the course of the fourth root race was the power to reason gradually developed; and the aura was also changed. In the third root race and in the first half of the fourth, the astral aura was developed in such a way that the aura surrounded the human body. It was just a little bit larger than the skin and it was much mistier than later; it was like a dark mass of fog, but much stormier and intense because of human passions. Only the first beginnings of the mental aura were present at that time. Evolution progressed up until our present root race, so that today a kind of high point has been reached. This is the second stage in which the mental aura is developed to a certain extent.
• The third stage is that of advanced human beings who have devel­oped so-called astral clairvoyance. They are also in a position to see this aura. They can see not only what is in the physical world but also what is present in the astral world. The astral aura of such peo­ple looks a little different. Wheel-shaped figures appear with the aura of Atlantean and post-Atlantean human beings. Such figures are in the aura of every human being today; with Lemurians they were still barely noticeable. When these "wheels" are in motion in present-day people, then astral vision enters. When they are at rest then the astral seeing is stopped.

...

Now among more highly evolved human beings, in whom the chakras are moving, a different process occurs. They are able to with­draw the kundalini fire [editor: see Human astral body] voluntarily from the organism; at the same time there are opposing streams from within, working outward; what earlier streamed into the human being only from outside can now be regulated from within by the human being. The entire process can now be voluntarily brought into motion.

With this achievement, human beings have complete ability to control their astral body. Now I ask you to consider that this con­dition will enter more and more into human evolution.

• Today it is those who are psychically evolved who have such an astral body, but humanity itself is quickly moving to such a condition.
• It will have the ability to use the astral body in the sixth race. We human beings will have a physical body within what is an astral body, which we can use in this way.
• In the next round, however, human beings will not have any physical body, but only an astral body that they will then be able to use freely just as they use the physical body today. The physi­cal body will no longer exist; our lowest body will be the astral body.

[Mental body and sense]

We find something similar to the astral body in the mental body. The astral body has individual sense-centers; there is an astral nerve corresponding to the optic nerve; so too the auditory nerve, the olfac­tory nerve, and so forth. The mental body no longer has such individ­ual senses. It has but one single sense; it is permeated by the mental capacity of understanding, so that it can perceive mentally with that one single sense. For this reason, it is able to relate all things to each other and to everything as a whole.

The shadow of the mental sense is the understanding. When you hear a bell sounding, you turn yourself around in order to perceive also with your face. The astral senses are also connected to the mental senses with a kind of kundalini fire. Kundalini fire is a kind of in-between-matter, which unites the individual conditions with each other.

1904-01-12-GA090A

is called 'The building of the Aura - Part 1'

edited machine translation, SWCC.

This lecture expands on 1904-02-02-GA090A descriptions, read the latter first, see: Creation by the three Logoi#1904-02-02-GA090A

We will best understand the cosmos if I preface this with something about the human aura, and we will thereby be better able to depict the development of the rounds and races with regard to the influence of the so-called Pitris. You will see why I am including this.

That which is called the physical human being is only a part of the human being; the complete human being consists of a series of limbs that are actually visible to those whose sensory organs are open to them. Although you know all this in essence, in order to describe it accurately I must link it to what I have to say.

• The physical human being then has the so-called etheric double body - as I would like to call it - within him; visible to those who have etheric vision. It is a faithful double image of the ordinary physical body.
• A so-called soul body or astral body then penetrates these two.
  • This astral body protrudes beyond the physical body, is somewhat larger and has the shape of an oval, an egg, as it protrudes a little more at the head and is somewhat narrower.
  • It contains all the feelings, passions and desires that the human inner life contains. All things that are caused by physical life are contained in it as dark cloud formations. The purer it is, the more it resembles the stars.
  • It has a color that plays from orange to yellow. If you think away the physical body, you have a kind of elongated circular shape, which has the orange color as its basic tone. You can see the most diverse cloud formations flickering in it and the tiniest figures playing in it. In the case of the average person today, this is visible to the observer.
• You will then find this astral body permeated with another form, with what we call the mental body.
  • This mental body has only been present in human beings since the middle of the third epoch; the Lemurians, who were at the beginning of their development, did not yet have a mental body.

[evolution of the mental aura - see also Man's higher triad]

If we go back to the region south of the front and rear of India towards Australia, where the Lemurians lived, they had a physical body, somewhat condensed in the middle, and then the astral body. Nothing else could be seen in them.

The more the Lemurian race developed, the more a dark, black, spherical spot appeared inside these astral bodies at one point - if you want to call it that, where our physical brain has its center. This black spot, this spherical spot, signified within the astral body what is actually called the I of the human being, which has then developed since Lemurian times. This is the outer form of the I. Since the development of the Lemurian race, the beginning of what I have called the mental body has been located within this point.

In this point begins an emanation which grows larger and larger and which penetrates the aura so that the aura is enlivened from within.

In the Lemurians the point was still very small; it grew larger and larger, and now in the average human being it rises above the astral body to the extent that it gains a preponderance over the passions and instincts through thinking, through the intellect, through moral feeling; this is what has developed since the Lemurian race.

We must now ask ourselves: Why does this develop?

The answer to the question as to the 'why' of this mental body lies in the fact that only now does that appear in Man which one is actually entitled to call spirit. Since that time, since the spiritual impact has taken place in Man - that is, in the middle of the Lemurian epoch - the emergence of Man's mental body has been taking place.

Now I ask you to consider that the driving force behind what causes the mental body to well up is the higher self: Atma-Budhi-Manas; this wells up.

If we could see it alone in its welling up, it would be a blue mass which, the further outward it goes, becomes more and more violet. The fact that it is also mixed with the earlier formations of the astral body gives it various other nuances; it is mixed. That which is the I in Man was only this point in the time of the Lemurian race, for in truth this point then becomes the boundary of the mental aura, so that you must imagine - let us say - the astral body of the Lemurian age in such a way that what was at first merely a black point formed a mental skin which becomes larger and larger [see sketch]; and in the mental skin is the I. We have progressed so far in our development.

[before the middle of the Lemurian epoch]

Let us now go back to the time when, apart from the astral body, the Lemurian human being hovered completely in absolute darkness and only the astral body was luminous, when the black spot appeared and the astral body began to radiate.

Before that, the astral body was surrounded by a bluish shell. They were in an astral body that was surrounded from the outside by a blue shell. But this was not there in itself; it continued on to the blue shell of the next Lemurian. This blue atmosphere represents the common human spirit that holds together from the outside what was organized there. The development consists in the fact that this blue mass is sucked in, absorbed; the entire blue auric mass is finally sucked in so that it is completely absorbed.

Then the Lemurians are pure astral bodies. This now also comes to light in the point I mentioned and wells up from within. Then the whole mental world is sucked in and the astral body now glows in the dark.

[beginning of Earth development]

We are now going back more and more. The whole astral bodies were therefore enclosed in the general aura belonging to them. If we were to go back to the beginning of our earthly development, then we would have that which underlies the development. If we look at these natures, these astral spheres, they are the descendants of what we call the Pitris. Everything that is in these astral auras comes from the Pitris, which have come over from the Old Moon stage into our Earth planetary stage of development. This total matter that is in the aura comes from the Old Moon stage.

In the interim between the Old Moon and Earth stages, these entire astral formations were present as seeds and slumbered over. So that you must now imagine the blue total aura as a total mass that is sucked in, that appears as a total mass in a very dark violet, so that it could also be seen during the pralaya, so that it could be seen as it developed from the lunar to the earthly development; you would see how it is present in a dark violet.

When the Earth stage of development begins, the Earth is in a red state; it glows reddish; but it has the blue atmosphere around it. The reddish globe is what has formed from the Pitri seeds. The Pitri seeds form the reddish Arupa sphere, and that which is spirit surrounds this Arupa sphere as a blue atmosphere. This spirit that was there, however, is differentiated as such; it is differentiated in itself, i.e. it already carries the spiritual seed for every person who comes into being later. Just as our soul contains individual thoughts, so it - the spirit - carries the individual human being as a thought within itself. There are dark spots at the intersections [see sketch].

When the Old moon was in its nirvana, the individual Pitris were completely separate from each other; they had the most perfect astral bodies imaginable.

What I have just described comes over from the Old Moon stage. What comes over? The Pitri seeds and their whole auric atmosphere; they go through the pralaya.

But they would not be able to develop further in earthly evolution if they did not now encounter something that is present everywhere in the universe, but which can only be suitable for them in a certain form, namely that which can later become physical materiality and which is present everywhere in world space as world dust.

Worlds are always coming into being and worlds are always passing away, filling the entire universe with world dust. Take the comet discovered by Biela as an example. It split into two parts, then into several parts, finally into many parts; it will eventually fly apart into world atoms. World dust is a discovery of the nineteenth century. It makes it so that when we calculate a planetary orbit, we get a slightly too large number, because the planets have to overcome the masses of dust.

Now you have to imagine that what comes over there as the Pitri seeds and the auric atmosphere unite the world dust with them, but such world dust, which is attracted by themselves with a magnetic force, which is as they need it so that they can incorporate it and become solid. This gives them the physical body.

The world-dust is thus organized by the Pitris; the Pitri is dependent on absorbing the world-dust, just as the plant absorbs the earth-dust from the soil. This process is expressed in this way in the theosophical writings: The pitris form the seed forms and then build the forms with matter so that the blue spiritual atmosphere can be drawn in.

Construction takes place from two sides:

• From within, from the Pitri seeds, the physical body is built;
• and the blue atmosphere, flowing in from outside, forms the mental body.

.

[See Schema FMC00.067 and Schema FMC00.067B: on Creation by the three Logoi .. Old Moon Pitris are seeds, can be called L2 (Second Logos), the world dust is L3 (Third Logos) representing the soil]

The Pitris exist in different degrees of perfection; not all have reached the same high level.

It is just like Plato, Pythagoras and so on, who, when the nirvana of the Earth is reached, will be more advanced than humanity in general; they were just more advanced.

The most advanced were the solar Pitris. There are two genera of them.

But then there are two genera of Lunar Pitris who had reached a fairly normal development, namely such that they were already able to form a kind of karma within themselves, a karma similar to that which will be the karma of our animals at the end of our earth evolution. Certain animals will have reached the point where it will be possible to speak of guilt and atonement. Our animals do not have this yet, but they will have it at the end of their development. The karmic principle was already present in some species. In other species it was only in the process of development, and in still others it was only present in a hint.

There are seven stages, which are again connected with the seven rounds of Man. In the very first initial stage, the Solarpitris were not able to intervene; they did not even need to. They were there, but they hovered around the Earth, as it were, waiting to be taken up. Let me compare this with the following:

Think back to the old days of pile dwellings in Germany. Imagine that there would have been trained engineers there; they wouldn't have been able to do anything, they wouldn't have been able to do anything; there had to be more primitive natures: These were the still less perfect Pitris. When a later stage of development was reached, only the more perfect Pitris had a chance of admission.

This continued until the fourth round, when the solar Pitris were able to intervene.

It was during the Lemurian epoch that the Solar Pitris were able to incarnate. The whole auric atmosphere was sucked in to make it swell from within. This was something that had nothing at all to do with the Earth, but which gained influence.

The more perfect beings, who already had the power in themselves to draw something out of themselves, and whom we know as the Sons of Venus - the Manasa Putras, beings of a higher kind who were not intended within the earthly development - had to intervene. They were there, and when they incarnated, the first of the still lower human beings were able to receive the first lessons.

1904-01-19-GA090A

is called 'The building of the Aura - Part 2'

edited machine translation, SWCC.

Today I would like to explain the formation of auras and show you how they gradually develop. From this you will then easily understand the rest. I will show you how the aura has developed since the middle of the Lemurian epoch.

In the middle of the Lemurian development there is an important point for the human race. Until then, the human body was built up from the outside, so that the human body is ready in the middle of the Lemurian race as a physical body, etheric body and astral body. These three are present in the aura of the Lemurian ancestor. The moment we arrive at the center of the Lemurian race, a black dot becomes visible in the center of the aura of the Lemurian ancestors.

If you think away the physical body, what remains is the etheric and astral body. This is the Lemurian human being. He then receives a black dot above his head; this is what we call the actual I of the human being. Following on from this, I will now describe the Atlantean human being.

[Atlantean Man]

If this were the physical body, the Atlantean Man would look something like this [see schema]. According to his aura, the Atlantean Man looks quite different from the Lemurian Man and the present Man.

The Atlantean Man has a black egg shape, and the astral Man is the whole aura. Within the astral aura, the black dot expands and becomes a shell for the inner core. The remnants of the Atlantean race still have this peculiar aura.

The spirit shines within the black dot; it begins to shine. That which begins to shine is blue in itself, but, depending on the astral body, it appears in various shades of blue-red, indigo and so on.

So if you think everything away, something like an indigo egg will be visible. In a person who is particularly thoughtful, it will appear through various green thought shells. In a person who has very pure thoughts, abstract thoughts, it appears through the yellow shell. Then, too, it appears in a very beautiful coloration, inclining more towards the violet. Now this, which the Atlantean man has, becomes larger and larger, so that in an average man of our present race this black egg coincides with the outline of the astral body.

[Current Postatlantean Man]

Our modern man maintains a rough balance. He occupies his mind to the extent that it interests him, and he controls his desires and urges with his intellect. Our whole external culture is basically there to satisfy urges, instincts and passions. This is expressed by the fact that your astral aura coincides with the mental aura.

[Current Initiate]

If you look at a more highly developed person in the current development, it is somewhat different. There the mental aura goes beyond the astral aura; it is slightly in front. The I goes even further.

In a chela or an adept you have the astral body in the middle, then the mental body and only then the black egg, the I, so that he has the astral surrounded by the mental and that is first covered with the I, so that the astral is used for mental purposes.

The I is a point in the moment of becoming the I in the middle of the Lemurian race. The I is now the outermost shell. The brain becomes more and more the center of the whole organism.

In the first cultural age of our Aryan population, the actual moving point in the mental aura is still somewhat above the physical brain and only gradually migrates into the physical brain.

Those who incarnated as adepts within the Atlantean race were under a much higher intuition, an intuition that was still impersonal. Then it gradually migrated into the being, and only later does the spiritual emerge from the personal.

The adepts of the fourth Atlantean race - were still God-inspired seers; those of the sixth race will be Self-inspired seers!

This is the difference between the beginnings of our epoch [i.e. the fifth] and ourselves! This is also one reason why, at the beginning of the theosophical development or movement, the adepts, who are our adepts, were difficult to understand; why they themselves felt how they could make themselves so difficult to understand. It was because the adepts, who belonged to the earliest population, had an even more spiritual life that had not yet descended into mere comprehension. Western man wants to understand. Therefore, if you read in the "Secret Doctrine", you will find the passage where the Master says: "You, with your occidental judgment, find it difficult to understand!

Everything in the aura can be seen by the seer, absolutely everything. The only thing he does not see, and in which no seer can see anything, is the essence of the dark, which means the I, whether it is the black dot or the black tire. What is visible is what was formed from the outside and what was formed from the inside. No seer can see that which constitutes the human being's actual I! You can follow exactly what nature has brought forth as the I, but you can never see it in its self-sufficiency. For everyone, even for the highest seer, there is a dark spot in man. Just as one cannot say <I> to another person, we cannot see what is I in the aura of the other.

Something about consciousness: You are made up of cells. Each cell has a cell consciousness. Your consciousness is the totality of the cell consciousnesses. The consciousness I am talking about here will never merge into another. As you incarnate in a cellular body, so a higher consciousness will incarnate in that which comes from the different Is. In each session, the totality of the participants is the body for a higher entity. The actual I is therefore not transparent.

[Recap]

• With the Lemurian there is therefore a dark spot,
• with the Atlantean there is a circle or an egg shape within the aura,
• with us this black roughly coincides with the boundary of the aura,
• with the adept the mental aura goes beyond the astral aura, and where it does so it becomes brilliant in the most beautiful sense; it then plays into the blue or violet.
• The rose-red is that which is actually creative, that where the I in the creative forces begins to rework the world in a spiritual way, and where the adept begins to become a real planetary spirit. [editor: see Twelve conditions of consciousness and Schema FMC00.187 on Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension]

1904-GA009

(Theosophy - Chapter 6):

In this way the soul and spirit nature of man appear as the supersensible part of the whole human being.

The color effects perceptible to the spirit eye that ray out around the physical man observed in his activity, and that envelop him like a somewhat egg-shaped cloud, are the human aura. The size of this aura varies in different people, but we may say that the entire man appears on the average twice as long and four times as wide as the physical man.

The most varied shades of color flood the aura. This color flooding is a true picture of the inner human life. As this changes, so do the shades of color change. Certain permanent qualities such as talents, habits and traits of character, however, express themselves also in permanent fundamental color shades.

• [... We might imagine that what are here described as colors would stand before the soul just as the physical colors stand before the physical eye, but such a soul color would be nothing but hallucination. Spiritual science is not in the least concerned with hallucinatory impressions, and they are not what is meant in the description now before us. We reach a correct conception if we keep the following in mind. With a physical color, the soul experiences not only the sense impression, but through it, it has a soul-experience. When through the eye the soul perceives a yellow surface, this soul-experience is different from what it is when it perceives a blue surface. One may call this experience “living in yellow” or “living in blue.” Now the soul that has followed the path of knowledge has a similar “experience in yellow” when observing the active soul-experience of other beings; an “experience in blue” when observing devotional soul-moods. The essential thing is not that the seer in visualization of another soul sees blue just as he sees this blue in the physical world, but that he has an experience that justifies his calling the visualization blue; just as the physical man calls a curtain blue, for instance. Further, it is essential that the seer should be conscious of standing in an experience free of the body so that he gains the possibility of speaking about the value and the meaning of the soul-life in a world whose perception is not mediated through the human body. Although this meaning of the description must be taken into account, yet it is altogether a matter of course for the seer to speak of blue, yellow, green, and so forth, in the aura.]

The aura varies greatly according to

• the different temperaments and dispositions of people. It likewise varies in accordance with
• the stages of spiritual development. A man who yields completely to his animal impulses has an entirely different aura from one who lives much in the world of thought. The aura of a religiously disposed nature differs essentially from one that loses itself in the trivial experiences of the day. In addition to this,
• all varying moods, all inclinations, joys and pains, find their expression in the aura.

We have to compare the auras of various soul-experiences with each other in order to learn to understand the meaning of the color shades. To begin with, take soul-experiences shot through with strongly marked emotions. They may be divided into two kinds:

• those in which the soul is impelled to these emotions chiefly by the animal nature, and
• those in which these passions take a more subtle form, in which they are, so to speak, strongly influenced by reflection.

In the first kind of experiences brown and reddish-yellow streams of color surge through the aura in definite locations.

In persons with more subtle passions there appear in the same locations brighter reddish-yellow and green shades.

One can notice that as intelligence increases the green shades become more frequent. Persons who are very intelligent, but who give themselves over entirely to satisfying their animal impulses, show much green in their aura, but this green will always have an admixture more or less of brown or brownish-red. Unintelligent people show a great part of their aura permeated by brownish-red or even by dark blood-red currents.

The auras of quiet, meditative, thoughtful soul-moods are essentially different from those of such passionate conditions. The brownish and reddish tones become less prominent and various shades of green emerge. In strenuous thinking the aura shows a pleasing green undertone. This is to a special degree the appearance of those natures who know how to adapt themselves to every condition of life.

Shades of blue appear in soul-moods full of devotion. The more a man places his self in the service of a cause, the more pronounced become the blue shades. In this class also one finds two quite different kinds of people.

• There are natures who are not in the habit of exerting their power of thought — passive souls who, as it were, have nothing to throw into the streams of events in the world but their good nature. Their aura glimmers with beautiful blue. This is also the appearance of many religious and devotional natures. Compassionate souls and those who find pleasure in giving themselves up to a life of benevolence have a similar aura. If such people are intelligent in addition, green and blue currents alternate, or the blue itself perhaps takes on a greenish shade.
• It is the peculiarity of the active souls in contrast to the passive, that their blue saturates itself from within with bright shades of color. Inventive natures, having fruitful thoughts, radiate bright shades of color as if from an inner center. This is true to the highest degree in those persons whom we call wise, and especially in those full of fruitful ideas.

Generally speaking,

• all that implies spiritual activity takes more the form of rays spreading out from within, while
• everything that arises from the animal nature has the form of irregular clouds surging through the aura.

The variations in color nuances showing themselves in the corresponding aura formations depend on whether thoughts, sprinting from the soul's activity, are at the service of the soul's animal nature or that of an ideal, objective interest.

• The inventive person who applies all his thoughts to the satisfaction of his sensual passions shows dark blue-red shades.
• He, on the contrary, who places his thoughts selflessly at the service of an interest outside himself shows light reddish-blue color tones.
• A spiritual life combined with noble devotion and capacity for sacrifice shows rose-pink or light violet colors.

Not only does the fundamental disposition of the soul show its color surgings in the aura, but also transient passions, moods and other inner experiences. A violent anger that breaks out suddenly creates red streams; feelings of injured dignity that expend themselves in a sudden welling up can be seen appearing in dark green clouds. Color phenomena, however, do not appear only in irregular cloud forms but also in distinctly defined, regularly shaped figures.

• If we observe a man under the influence of an attack of fear, we see this, for instance, in his aura from top to bottom as undulating stripes of blue color suffused with a bluish-red shimmer.
• When we observe a person who expects some particular event with anxiety, we can see red-blue stripes like rays constantly streaming through his aura from within outwards.

Every sensation received from without can be observed by the one who has developed the faculty of exact spiritual perception.

• Persons who are greatly excited by every external impression show a continuous flickering of small bluish-red spots and flecks in the aura.
• In people who do not feel intensely, these flecks have an orange-yellow or even a beautiful yellow coloring.
• So-called absent-mindedness shows bluish flecks playing over into green and more or less changing in form.

By means of a more highly developed spiritual vision three aspects of color phenomena can be distinguished within the aura radiating and surging round a person.

• Firstly, there are colors that bear more or less the character of opaqueness and dullness. Certainly, if we compare them with colors seen with our physical eyes, they appear fugitive and transparent in comparison. Within the supersensible world itself, however, they make the space that they fill, comparatively speaking, opaque. They fill it in the manner of mist formations.
• A second species of colors consists of those that are light itself, as it were. They light up the space they fill so that it becomes through them itself a space of light.
• Color phenomena of the third kind are quite different from the first two. They have a raying, sparkling, glittering character. They fill space not merely with light but with glistening, glittering rays. There is something active and inherently mobile in these colors. The others are somewhat quiet and lack brilliance. These, on the contrary, continuously produce themselves out of themselves, as it were.

Space is filled by the first two species of colors with a subtle fluidity that remains quietly in it. By the third, space is filled with an ever self-enkindling life, with never resting activity.

These three species of colors, however, are not ranged alongside each other in the human aura. They are not each enclosed in a separate section of space, but they interpenetrate and suffuse each other in the most varied ways. All three species can be seen playing through each other in one region of the aura, just a physical body, such as a bell, can simultaneously be heard and seen.

The aura thus becomes an exceedingly complicated phenomenon because we have to do with three auras within each other, interpenetrating each other. We can, however, overcome the difficulty by directing our attention to the three species alternately. In the supersensible world we then do something similar to what we do in the sensible, for example, when we close our eyes in order to give ourselves up fully to the impressions of a piece of music. The seer has three different organs for the three species of color, and in order to observe undisturbed, he can open or close any one of the organs to impressions. As a rule only one kind of organ can at first be developed by a seer, namely, the organ for the first species of color. A person at this stage can see only the one aura; the other two remain invisible to him. In the same way a person may be accessible to impressions from the first two but not from the third. The higher stage of the gift of seeing consists in a person's being able to see all three auras, and for the purpose of study to direct his attention to the one or the other.

The threefold aura is thus the supersensibly visible expression of the being of man. The three members, body, soul and spirit, come to expression in it.

• The first aura is a mirror of the influence the body exercises on the human soul;
• the second characterizes the life of the soul itself, the soul that has raised itself above the direct influence of the senses, but is not yet devoted to the service of the eternal;
• the third mirrors the mastery the eternal spirit has won over the transitory man.

When descriptions of the aura are given, as here, it must be emphasized that these things are not only difficult to observe but above all difficult to describe. No one, therefore, should see in a description like this anything more than a stimulus to thought.

Thus, for the seer, the peculiarity of the soul's life expresses itself in the constitution of the aura.

• When he encounters a soul life that is given up entirely to passing impulses, passions and momentary external incitements, he sees the first aura in loudest colors; the second, on the contrary is only slightly developed. He sees in it only scanty color formations, while the third is barely indicated. Only here and there a small glittering spark of color shows itself, indicating that even in such a soul-mood the eternal already lives in man as a germ, but that it is driven into the background by the action of the sensory nature as has been indicated.
• The more a man gets rid of his lower impulses, the less obtrusive becomes the first part of the aura. The second part then grows larger and larger, filling the color body within which the physical man lives ever more completely with its illuminating force.
• The more a man proves himself to be a servant of the eternal, the more does the wonderful third aura show itself to be the part that bears witness to the extent to which he has become a citizen of the spiritual world because the divine self radiates into the earthly life through this part of the human aura. Insofar as men show this aura, they are flames through whom the Godhead illumines this world. They show through this part of the aura how far they know how to live not for themselves, but for the eternally True, the nobly Beautiful and the Good. They show how far they have wrung from their narrower self the power to offer themselves up on the altar of cosmic world activity.

Thus there comes to expression in the aura what a man has made of himself in the course of his incarnation.

All three parts of the aura contain colors of the most varied shades, but the character of these shades changes with the stage of man's development.

• In the first part of the aura there can be seen the undeveloped life of impulse in all shades from red to blue. These shades have a dull, muddy character. The obtrusive red shades point to the sensual desires, to the fleshly lusts, to the passion for the enjoyments of the palate and the stomach. Green shades appear to be found especially in those lower natures that incline to obtuseness and indifference, greedily giving themselves over to each enjoyment, but nevertheless shunning the exertions necessary to bring them to satisfaction. Where the desires are passionately bent on some goal beyond the reach of the capacities already acquired, brownish-green and yellowish-green auric colors appear. Certain modern modes of life actually breed this kind of aura. A personal conceit that is entirely rooted in low inclinations, thus representing the lowest stage of egotism, shows itself in tones of muddy yellow to brown. Now it is clear that the animal life of impulse can take on a pleasing character. There is a purely natural capacity for self-sacrifice, a high form of which is to be found even in the animal kingdom. This development of an animal impulse finds its most beautiful consummation in natural mother love. These selfless natural impulses come to expression in the first aura in light reddish to rose-red shades of color. Cowardly fear and timidity in the face of external causes show themselves in the aura in brown-blue and grey-blue colors.

• The second aura again shows the most varied grades of colors. Brown and orange colored formations point to strongly developed conceit, pride and ambition. Inquisitiveness also announces its presence through red-yellow flecks. A bright yellow mirrors clear thinking and intelligence; green expresses understanding of life and the world. Children who learn easily have much green in this part of the aura. A green yellow in the second aura seems to betoken a good memory. Rose-red indicates a benevolent, affectionate nature; blue is the sign of piety. The more piety approaches religious fervor, the more does the blue pass over into violet. Idealism and an earnest view of life in a higher sense is to be seen as indigo blue.
• The fundamental colors of the third aura are yellow, green and blue. Bright yellow appears here if the thinking is filled with lofty, comprehensive ideas that grasp the details as part of the whole of the divine world order. If the thinking is intuitive and also completely purified of all sensuous visualizations, the yellow has a golden brilliance. Green expresses love towards all beings; blue is the sign of a capacity for selfless sacrifice for all beings. If this capacity for sacrifice rises to the height of strong willing, devoting itself to the active service of the world, the blue brightens to light violet. If pride and desire for honor, as last remnants of personal egoism, are still present despite a more highly developed soul nature, others verging on orange appear beside the yellow shades. It must be remarked, however, that in this part of the aura the colors are quite different from the shades we are accustomed to see in the world of the senses. The seer beholds a beauty and an exaltedness with which nothing in the ordinary world can be compared.

This presentation of the aura cannot be rightly judged by anyone who does not attach the chief weight to the fact that the seeing of the aura implies an extension and enrichment of what is perceived in the physical world — an extension, indeed, that aims at knowing the form of the soul life that possesses spiritual reality apart from the world of the senses. This whole presentation has nothing whatever to do with reading character or a man's thoughts from an aura perceived in the manner of a hallucination. It seeks to expand knowledge in the direction of the spiritual world and has nothing in common with the questionable art of reading human souls from their auras.

1905-10-05-GA093A

If we consider man's being in its entirety, we have to begin with the physical body, then the etheric body, then the astral body. The physical body of man can be seen by everyone. The etheric body becomes visible when the physical body is suggested away by a strong act of will. Then the space of the physical body remains filled with the etheric body. The occultist considers the etheric as actually being the lowest body. It is the body according to which the physical body is formed. Taking the descending line, the form of the etheric body is the reverse of the physical. It is only in the ascending line that they are identical. A woman has a masculine etheric body, and a man a feminine etheric body.

Around the etheric body appears the astral body. It is the outer form for the entire content of the soul: for passions, emotions, impulses, desires, joy, unhappiness, enthusiasm, and so on. It manifests itself in forms of every description. The surrounding part shows cloud formations; it radiates the most varied colours. Frequently somewhat tattered formations are attached to it. The forms and colours are different and changing. Green shows sympathy and compassion for one's fellow men. The lower levels of the population show much red in the astral body, brownish red, brick red, blood red.

With every human being all the fluctuations of the astral body are enclosed in an egg-shaped sheath. This has an underlying blue colour and shows, as an important factor, a dark violet spot in the middle of the brain. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls this egg-shaped sheath the auric egg. In the case of little children the auric egg is predominant; in their case many bright, luminous clouds of color appear within it. In the lower parts, however, little children also have dark clouds, indicating lower impulses. This is the inherited karma that they have in common with their ancestors — ‘the sins of the fathers’. These sins of the fathers are inherited down to the seventh generation.

Discussion

Note 1 - What is being perceived and described?

Clairvoyance should not be confused with physical vision of the mineral kingdom as part of Waking consciousness.

See stages of clairvoyance, the the characteristics of the astral world, or, to get a feel for the three different worlds: astral, lower and higher spirit worlds, see eg middle column of FMC00.175.

Clairvoyance in the astral world is very different than that of higher spirit world. The higher mental world does not map to space and time, this needs to be considered when drawing or imagining a localized aura for the human I, as in for example FMC00.164, though of course the spiritual I uses the threefold soul to take hold of the three lower bodies, and the first component of our refined astral body will shine through as the spirit self (manas or causal body). Also, compare FMC00.325 with FMC00.036.

Various

• Steiner in lecturing audience expansion of consciousness
• Daskalos description
• example of Eliah 'cloud around person', and also descriptions of the early years of Christ in Jesus (see lectures fifth gospel?)
  • [[The being of Elijah#Note [1] - Rudolf Steiner's personal note in context Elijah]]
• note humble magician

Related pages

• Man - the human being
• Man's bodily principles
• Human astral body
• Man's higher triad
• Interpenetration of astral and spirit worlds

References and further reading

• Auguste Marques (1841-1929): 'The human aura: a study' (1896).
• C.W. Leadbeater (1854-1934): 'Man visible and invisible' (1902)
• Dr. Walter J. Kilner: 'The Human Atmosphere' (1911)
• William Walker Atkinson: 'The human aura - astral colors and thought forms' (1912)
• Notes on the 'auric egg' by Blavatsky and G. de Purucker
• Karl Spiesberger: Die Aura des Menschen (1963, and also 1987 - unclear whether this is another book or second edition)
• Geoffrey Hodson (1882-1983)
  • eg chapter 'The Human Aura: Its Colors And Their Meanings' in the book 'Theosophy Answers Some Problems of Life'
• Barbara Brennan (1939-): 'Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field' (1987)
• Dora Kunz: 'The personal aura' (1991)