Throughout the universe, there is simply energy in various states of motion and concreteness.
Robert: Welcome. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present, but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way, with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic for today is the etheric body and all of the information and dialogue that you’ll hear in this show emanates from the works of Alice Bailey, who wrote twenty-four volumes of literature. Not only is all of our discussion based and influenced by her literature, but the following thought is as well: there is nothing in the manifested universe that does not possess an energy form which controls, governs, and conditions the outer physical body. This is the etheric body. Well, that’s quite a sweeping statement. Can you elaborate on it?
Sarah: Yes, it is a sweeping statement, but the etheric body is a sweeping fact. Behind all physical matter, all that we can see, all the tangible outer world, is substance according to the Ageless Wisdom. If you take the word substance apart, it’s basically made-up of two syllables, sub, meaning under, and stands. That which stands behind the outer form is substance and that is the etheric counterpart of the physical world. Life and substance are identical according to the Ageless Wisdom teaching. This has enormous implications for consciousness and for evolution. It’s said that the etheric body draws upon universal substance, life and energy, which can be thought of as kind of a reservoir, that every living thing, from an atom or an amoeba to a human being and still higher beings, all are drawing from this universal reservoir of etheric substance. The entire manifested world—the outer world that we can see and touch and smell—arises from this pool of energy or etheric matter. The interaction between this substance and life itself produces consciousness, and consciousness is what enables evolution to take place. But essentially, at whatever level of consciousness the particular form stands, every form in nature on the etheric level is an inherent part of the substantial form of God himself, and I find that an incredible thought.
Dale: Every form in nature, including the human being, has this energy body which we call the etheric body—some people refer to it as an energy body—but it is made-up of very fine lines of energy itself. In the Oriental teachings these fine strands of energy are called Nadis, and these carry the energy from the etheric reservoir of the planet to the etheric body of a human being or a plant or an animal, and thereby it’s energized by the very nature of the etheric body. This etheric nature, these nadis, underlie the nervous system in the physical body, and the nervous system is the result of all these fine strands of energy.
Sarah: Coming back to this idea of this reservoir of substance or energy, the idea of God as “The One in whom we live and move and have our being,” depends upon this universal etheric substance from which all of us are drawing via these nadis. That’s the basis of the omnipresence of God, the universality of God or divinity. The basis or the foundation of that belief is in the etheric substance from which we all draw. When we think of these filaments or these interconnecting lines of energy transmission that make up a particular body, or that link one body, one physical human being with another, we realize that we are all sharing and exchanging energy. We’re all drawing from a universal pool and we’re all contributing to it with whatever we put into the world in terms of our thought and our emotions and our actions.
Dale: It’s another example of the oneness of the world and the oneness of humanity with oneness with God because we all share in this great reservoir of etheric energy.
Sarah: That’s where the idea that all things are interrelated comes.
Dale: And it’s why it’s been called “the web of life” because it is a web that literally holds the world together and everything within that web together as one.
Sarah: I think in the last couple of decades—maybe ever since the first Earth Day about twenty years ago—ecology has done wonders with bringing this realization of the web of life into a form that people can grasp. We realize now that we all draw from and put into the natural world according to what we take out of the natural world and what we leave behind in the way we use energy and the way we sometimes expend it in unnecessary ways. The inner connections between the different kingdoms: animal, vegetable, mineral, and human, the impacts that the human kingdom can make on the little snail darter—I mean, we are all affected and affecting other forms of life as well as each other. All of this comes down to the etheric web of life that we all share.
Dale: And I think what is important also to bear in mind is the function that the etheric body plays, because it is a transition agent, if you will. It enables consciousness to make the transition from the mental plane or the emotional plane down to the very physical plane. We couldn’t do that or make that jump without the etheric body.
Sarah: It’s like a clearinghouse, I suppose you could say.
Dale: Right, because it is a body that receives impacts from the more subtle planes and it receives the impacts from the physical plane and it distributes the energy throughout the body. So, it is a receiver and a distributor.
Sarah: I think the best example for our listeners of grasping the nature of the etheric body might be the solar plexus. We’ve probably all heard of the solar plexus and if we didn’t call it that, it’s sometimes called the gut. When we say, “I know something in my gut,” “I feel it in my gut,” we’re saying, essentially, that we have sensed the reality of something in the pit of our stomach. That’s where the solar plexus is located, and it’s a great SOS system for the physical body, I guess you could say. It’s what alerts us to danger. It’s what enables us to feel fear and aggression. It’s an emotional center—the solar plexus—but it does respond to emotional energy and physical energy emanating from other persons and from animals and so on. Animals have a solar plexus and that’s how they have the fight or flight mechanism. So, with that realization, I think we can imagine that we do communicate and exchange energy on a more subtle level.
Dale: Yeah, that sort of example, I think, comes up quite often between a mother and her child, because there’s a very close relationship there. Often, if the child for example, is away from home and is in trouble, the mother will feel that in her solar plexus. She’ll suddenly feel there’s danger somewhere and that’s a very strong feeling that comes through this whole etheric network from the child to the mother.
Sarah: It’s interesting that even the Bible referred to the existence of the etheric body. It called it “the golden bowl.” In, I think it’s Ecclesiastes, there’s the statement that, “or the golden bowl be broken… the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” This golden bowl, which was also the name of a novel by Henry James, is the aura or the emanation of the etheric body, which stands slightly apart from the physical body, extends a bit beyond it and for those who have eyes to see, gives off a kind of a radiance, especially in the more refined consciousness of the truly saintly spiritual people. It’s what makes life within the body possible. “Or ever the golden bowl be broken… the spirit shall return unto God who gave it,” refers to the death of the physical body. When the etheric body no longer conducts energy—as I understand it—that’s when one dies.
Dale: Yes, and the etheric body eventually disintegrates, and it moves on. All the substance returns to the great reservoir.
Robert: I’m a bit confused, Sarah and Dale. Is the soul synonymous with the etheric body?
Sarah: No, the etheric body is more synonymous with—but not identical to—the physical body. The etheric body is an aspect of the form nature, the outer vehicle in which the soul resides for a time. The soul is consciousness. It’s the consciousness aspect. But for consciousness to make contact with the physical body, it requires the etheric body, which conducts the energy of the soul. Depending upon the state of the etheric body, that’s the determining factor in how much of the soul’s level of consciousness can reach the brain, the physical aspect of the human being. This is where the whole teaching of the Eastern religions on the seven centers or chakras enters in. Essentially, it’s the soul force playing upon the etheric body, which evolves these seven centers and causes them to awaken and function, which then in turn make their impact on the physical. The soul works through the etheric body, but it is not the etheric body. Would you add anything to that?
Dale: Well, you brought up the idea of the seven centers. Actually, each of those centers is made-up of these fine strands of energy called the Nadis, and where…
Sarah: Clumps of nadis. (laughter)
Dale: Clumps of nadis, ganglia of nadis, wherever a lot of these fine strands of energy cross each other, then you have a clump or a ganglia, and it’s at that point where usually a major center is formed, and that becomes a major receptive center for energies that flow in through the etheric body.
Sarah: And don’t you think another verification of the system of nadis is in acupuncture, which works with those nadis? These are not just airy-fairy theories. People are beginning to work with them. Well, the Chinese have worked with them for ages.
Dale: Yeah, I don’t know if they’ve ever really admitted that it is related to the etheric.
Sarah: I think so. They call it chi, the life force.
Dale: Yeah, they use different terminology, but the little needles block the flow, apparently, of the energy flow through the nadis.
Sarah: Redirect it.
Dale: It blocks the flow of the energy through the nervous system at that particular point.
Robert: Are centers, nadis, and chakras, are they all synonymous?
Sarah: No, center and chakra are synonymous. Some people like to use the Sanskrit term to show off or whatever, but center is a perfectly acceptable word, meaning a congregation or a confluence of energy: a center. Just like any kind of center, it’s where things congregate. Nadis are finer pathways for the transmission of prana, or life force, throughout the body of anything, whether we’re talking about a human being, or a group, or a nation, or a tree, or whatever.
Dale: Maybe it’s important to point out that there are seven of these major centers in the body that go up the spine, actually. They’re in the etheric body, and they’re not located in the physical. Sometimes people mistake that. The centers themselves, the seven major centers that go up the spine and into the head, are located in the etheric nature, which actually could be extending two or three inches beyond the physical.
Sarah: Maybe we should talk about the centers in more detail in another program.
Robert: I’m fascinated by this, and I guess even for the purpose of understanding who I am and who the self is, knowledge of the etheric body is quite useful. But what are some of the other reasons why it’s important for the individual to understand what the etheric body is.
Sarah: Well, it’s a good question because we transform ourselves, we help to transform our group or our nation or our family through our understanding of the etheric mechanism that we work through. In other words, these centers of consciousness become awakened and we are able to raise the consciousness. So, we change ourselves, we lift our consciousness through the quality of the etheric energy that we allow into our mechanism. If we continually inhabit a world of low quality and low activity, then that is going to be the level on which our consciousness resides. If we do not permit thoughts of hatred and separatism and prejudice to come into our minds or into our feelings, we help to purify our etheric mechanism and bring about a change in our real attitudes and our health.
Dale: Yes, and by way of these chakras or the centers, we can actually transform our energies in our body and lift them up; it’s the whole process of redemption, really.
Sarah: “As a man thinketh, so is he.”
Dale: Right, and the energies of the solar plexus—which primarily deal with the emotional nature—those energies can be lifted up to the heart, through the heart center, and then from the heart into the throat and into the head centers. All of that is helping in the redemptive process of lifting one’s consciousness and refining one’s consciousness. So yes, it’s very definitely a part of the etheric body.
Sarah: Somewhere in the writings of Alice Bailey, it said that there’s great value in listening to classical music each day. Do something that leads you into an experience of beauty every day, and that can help to refine the mechanism. Practice clearing the mind of any low-quality thoughts or emotions each day. Clean house, in a sense.
Dale: Yes, as you do that, you’re pulling in more refined energies because you don’t just fluff off the old coarser energies. They are replaced by something better if one is moving and definitely trying to move in that direction.
Sarah: And when groups of people work in this way on behalf of the larger society or even on behalf of humanity, we can help to uplift the consciousness of the whole world by helping to inject more upliftment in the ideas that circulate through the world. We know that ideas don’t just stay inside our own cranium. Ideas infect a group, a community, a nation, for better or for worse. The quality of thinking permeates the whole group. This is all part of the etheric realm that we share. So, we can all help to raise and lift the quality of our larger community, whatever we think of as our environment. It’s a means of service.
Dale: Absolutely, and as we said earlier, it’s a great function of the etheric body to act as a transitional body. It receives energies and it distributes energies and the distribution of the energies depend a lot on the focus of one’s consciousness.
Sarah: And to become aware of where your consciousness is focused is a start. Most people just receive and transmit without any awareness at all and they’re just living without a great deal of thought. But if you start to really analyze the quality of the energies working through you, then you can begin to take control of them and redirect them.
Robert: Are you saying that by adopting a more loving consciousness, that we can open up our chakras and refine them and make them more sensitive to the esoteric world.
Sarah: It happens automatically.
Robert: That’s very interesting.
Sarah: Focus on developing more love.
Robert: Yeah, well, I hope we can follow up on this topic. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called The Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of The Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
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