What is the astral realm like?

[magickmandy]

Has anyone really consciously visiting the astral realm? What is it like? Is it just like the earth? Or did you notice any differences? I will be really glad to listen to your experiences.

[Kao]

best way i can describe it, if ether/kether is the highest emanation of life, and physical life is one of the lowest, astral would be the inbetween space connecting the two, not on all levels, but as a stepping stone to reach the end point of kether/ether. within astral one finds various levels and layers, each different level has different guides and lessons to learn, if one has mastered all in one layer (and each layer is quite vast) and you have the right understandings you start to ascend higher, as you do so you find more guidance in various beings who make it their home, as an example alot of the indian related deities like Kalima make their home on the higher levels of astral, the last layer before entering etheric basicly.
now, one also gets mindspace, and general mindspace, which is more a journey through the collective unconcious of man, thus a moving through every thought ever concieved, many mistake this for astral, if i can give advice to know for yourself truth from only images in the mind it is the following, learn to push out your energy, when you think you have made it onto astral push out to everything around you, if you get a actual energy feedback or feel other entities pushing back on you then you are more than likely in astral a opposed to mindspace, and congrats, enjoy it, make the most of it and always keep aiming up till you hold kether and ether in your hands and heart.

[acidtron]

Man lives also in a world of thoughts, ideas, and feelings besides that of the physical
plane of time, space, and matter like a fourth dimension. The astral plane is also described
as the fourth dimension because the matter that composes bodies on the astral plane
can be seen together with all its sides, like a fourth dimensional view of matter.
A man goes in and out of the astral plane in his day to day life, psychics are ones who can
become sensitive to the vibrations of the astral plane and astral light, at will.
We enter and leave the astral plane in sleep and in trance, and yes there are several
levels or sub-divisions on the astral plane and animals only touch the lower astral plane.
Everything has its double there, and around the astral body is several layers of colored
light called the aura, which all living things on that plane have around them.
Prana is seen as flashing red light there, going to and fro through the body.
Thoughts affect every astral body, and strong thought seems to be retained in places on the
astral plane. Meditation can enable one to become sensitive to the astral light and rise on the
planes, which is usually done by imagining yourself as rising higher and higher, and in some
cultures it is done by descending.

.'. Acidtron

[Aleph Amad]

Kao and Acidtron, your posts compliment one another. Kao, I am also a Thelemite, and am familiar with qabalistic philosophy. It makes more sense to attribute the various realms of being to the four worlds, which are themselves attributed to the four letters of the tetragram (IHVH), rather than stretching them out over the ten sephirah of the tree of life.
The Four Worlds:
1. ATZILVTH, godhead ("I",or Yodh)
2. BRIAH, the archangelic world ("H",or Heh)
3. YETZIRAH, the angelic world ("V",or Vau)
4. ASSIAH, the material world ("H",or Heh)

Assiah is physical existence, or Earth-life; this is also the world of the shells, or Qliphoth.
Yetzirah is the world of angels who clothe themselves in luminous garments when they appear unto man; it is my personal opinion that our astral body, or soul, exists in Yetzirah at all times, as our intellectual body (Rauch,mind,ego) does immediately after death, when we dream and during out-of-body experiences (Samadhi, NDE). I also think that when a soul becomes a "ghost", it is because it is unable to transend the terrestrial atmosphere (Assiah) and return to Yetzirah, where it world normally remain until the time came for it to be reborn, lest of course it had acheived transcendence of the birth-death expereince.
Briah is the world of archetypes, the abode of the demi-gods, who are known to take human birth when they are so inclined (Horus,Isis,Krishna,etc.etc); here also is the abode of those perfected (or "spiritualized") souls who are of the Holy Spirit. Briah is without form, being a direct emanation from Godhead.
Atziluth is without features because it is ultimate unity, the Homoousia; nothing true can be said about it.

this is my first post, just signed up. hope someone gets sometning out of it. If you want to learn more about qabala, I highly recommend "777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley". For a different take, check out "The Talking Tree" by William Gray.

LOVE IS THE LAW, LOVE UNDER WILL
-Aleph Amad