CHAPTER III.

THE ASTRAL COLORS.

The term "astral," so frequently employed by all occultists, is
difficult to explain or define except to those who have pursued a
regular course of study in occult science. For the purpose of the
present consideration, it is enough to say that over and above the
ordinary physical sense plane there is another and more subtle plane,
known as the Astral Plane. Every human being possesses the innate and
inherent faculty of sensing the things of this astral plane, by means of
an extension or enlargement of the powers of the ordinary senses, so to
speak. But, in the majority of persons in the present stage of
development, these astral senses are lying dormant, and only here and
there do we find individuals who are able to sense on the astral plane,
although in the course of evolution the entire race will be able to do
so, of course. The colors of the human aura, mentioned in the preceding
two chapters, and which arise from the various mental and emotional
states, belong to the phenomena of the astral plane, and hence bear the
name of "the astral colors." Belonging to the astral plane, and not to
the ordinary physical plane, they are perceived only by the senses
functioning on the astral plane, and are invisible to the ordinary
physical plane sight. But, to those who have developed the astral sight,
or clairvoyance, these colors are as real as are the ordinary colors to
the average person, and their phenomena have been as carefully recorded
by occult science as have the physical plane colors by physical science.
The fact that to the ordinary physical senses they are invisible, does
not render them any the less real. Remember, in this connection, that to
the blind man our physical colors do not exist. And, for that matter,
the ordinary colors do not exist to "color blind" persons. The ordinary
physical plane person is simply "color blind" to the astral
colors--that's all.

On the astral plane each shade of mental or emotional state has its
corresponding astral color, the latter manifesting when the form
appears. It follows then, of course, that when once the occultist has
the key to this color correspondence, and thus is able to perceive the
astral colors by means of his astral vision, he also is able to read the
mental and emotional states of any person within the range of his
vision, as easily as you are now reading the printed words of this book.

Before proceeding to a consideration o