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The astral plane, also called the astral world, is a plane of existence postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions.〔G.R.S.Mead, ''The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition'', Watkins 1919.〕 It is the world of the celestial spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and generally said to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings.〔Plato, ''The Republic'', trans. Desmond Lee, Harmondsworth.〕 In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularised by Theosophy and neo-Rosicrucianism. The ''Barzakh'', ''olam mithal'' or intermediate world in Islam and the "World of ''Yetzirah''" in Lurianic Kabbalah are related concepts. ==History== 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. 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. In his commentaries on Plato's Timaeus, Proclus wrote; Man is a little world (mikros cosmos). For, just like the Whole, he possesses both mind and reason, both a divine and a mortal body. He is also divided up according to the universe. 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.〔Quoted in; G.R.S.Mead, ''The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition'', Watkins 1919, page 84 (Slightly adapted).〕 Such doctrines were commonplace in mystery-schools and Hermetic and gnostic sects throughout the Roman Empire and influenced the early Christian church.〔Frederick Copleston, ''The History of Philosophy Vol 2'', IMAGE BOOKS 1993–1994.〕 Among Muslims the "astral" world-view was soon rendered orthodox by Quranic references to the Prophet's ascent through the seven heavens. Scholars took up the Greek Neoplatonist accounts as well as similar material in Hindu and Zoroastrian texts.〔The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "There are two states for man – the state in this world and the state in the next; there is also a third state, the state intermediate between these two, which can be likened to the dream (). While in the intermediate state a man experiences both the other states, that of this world and that in the next; and the manner whereof is as follows: when he dies he lives only in the subtle body, on which are left the impressions of his past deeds, and of those impressions is he aware, illumined as they are by the light of the Transcendent Self"〕 The expositions of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the Brotherhood of Purity and others, when translated into Latin in the Norman era, were to have a profound effect upon European mediaeval alchemy and astrology. By the 14th century Dante was describing his own imaginary journey through the astral spheres of Paradise.〔Miguel Asín Palacios ''La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Eschatology in the Divine Comedy )'' (1919). Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ''An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines'', University of New York Press, ''passim''. Idries Shah, ''The Sufis'', Octagon Press, 1st Ed. 1964.〕 Throughout the Renaissance, philosophers, Paracelsians, Rosicrucians and alchemists continued to discuss the nature of the astral world intermediate between earth and the divine. Once the telescope established that no spiritual heaven was visible around the solar system, the idea was superseded in mainstream science.〔(Frances Yates - see; )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「astral plane」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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