"Within the Astral Light which we individually carry with us at all times and in all places, we live and move and have our being. Every living thing breathes and intakes this Light freely, and to none is it exclusive or private. Indeed in it we live very much as fish lives in water, surrounded on all sides and in every direction; and like a fish we constantly breathe in and out through astral gills, as it were, taking energy therefrom and adding a variety of impressions thereto with the passing of each moment. Not only is this magical agent the Imagination of Nature, but it also fills the role of the Memory of Nature, for each act that we perform, each thought that enters our brain, each emotion it leaves in the heart, registers itself on the astral matter, remaining there for all time as an eternal record so that those who are able to may see and read."
Israel Regardie
THE TREE OF LIFE
a Study in Magic
(chapter four)
"This animal soul is at one and the same time a principle of energy and plastic substance, the totality of the vital life currents as well as the astral mould on which the gross atoms arrange themselves as the physical body. As a substantive principle it is the astral body, the plastic double built of astral substance and serving as the basis and design of the physical body. Nourished by the Astral Light, upon which it draws precisely as the physical body is nourished by the produce and energies of earth, it is comparable to what is termed Subconscious although possessing neither mind nor intelligence of its own- in that every thought that we think, every emotion felt, every action performed, leaves an indelible impress or memory upon that substance, thus preserving in the Astral body the reflection and automatic record of the past life."
Israel Regardie
THE TREE OF LIFE
a Study in Magic
(chapter five)
