ch presents the "pearly" appearance of the
opalescent body, which we have just noted. This appearance is manifested
neither by any of the mental or emotional states, nor is it the
prana-aura or vital force which I have described in a previous chapter.
It is the manifestation of what is known to occultists as "etheric
substance," and is a very interesting feature of the auric phenomena.

This etheric substance, which manifests this peculiar radiance in the
body of the aura, composes that which is called by some occultists "the
astral body," but this latter term is also employed in another sense,
and I prefer to use the term "etheric double" to indicate what some
others know as "the astral body." Etheric substance is much finer form
of substance than that which composes the physical body. It is really
matter in a very high degree of vibration--much higher than even the
ultra-gaseous matter of physical substance. It may be sensed,
ordinarily, only on the astral plane, which is its own particular plane
of activity.

The etheric double, composed of this etheric substance, is the exact
counterpart of its physical counterpart--the ordinary physical body of
the individual--although it is capable of great expansion or shrinking
in space. Like the physical body it radiates an aura, and this combining
with the other forms of the auric body, gives to it its peculiar pearly
appearance, which is the background of its opalescence previously noted.

The etheric double explains the phenomenon of spectral appearances or
ghosts, for it persists for a time after the death of the physical body,
and under some conditions becomes visible to the ordinary sight. It
sometimes is projected from the physical body, and at such times appears
as an apparition of the living, of which there are many cases recorded
by the societies investigating psychical subjects.

The etheric double, or astral body, is referred to here, however, merely
to explain the peculiar pearly tint of the background, or body, of the
aura, in and through which the mental and emotional auric colors play
and move. It may interest you, however, to know that this phase of aura
is always present around and about a "ghost" or dematerialized
disembodied soul, or "spirit" as common usage terms it.

The aura of the wide-awake person is, of course, far more active and
more deeply colored than is that of the person in reverie, dream, or
sleep. And, again the aura of the person manifesti