Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Subtle Body

This chapter introduces the idea of the subtle body and frames the problematics in the treating the concept in a rigorous way. It treats popular ontological, epistemological, and methodological frameworks that are commonly used to address it before proposing the utility of an historical genealogy. It introduces the reader to the broad philosophical and historical scope of the rest of the book.

Chakras and Endocrine Glands

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-25
Author(s):  
Andrea Jain
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Endocrine Glands ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Modern Yoga ◽  
Unique System ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This paper is an exploration of preksha dhyana as a case study of modern yoga. Preksha is a system of yoga and meditation introduced by Acarya Mahaprajna of the Jain Svetambara Terapanth in the late twentieth century. I argue that preksha is an attempt to join the newly emerging transnational yoga market whereby yoga has become a practice oriented around the attainment of physical health and psychological well-being. I will evaluate the ways in which Mahaprajna appropriates scientific discourse and in so doing constructs a new and unique system of Jain modern yoga. In particular, I evaluate the appropriation of physical and meditative techniques from ancient yoga systems in addition to the explanation of yoga metaphysics by means of biomedical discourse. I will demonstrate how, in Mahaprajna’s preksha system, the metaphysical subtle body becomes somaticized. In other words, Mahaprajna uses the bio-medical understanding of physiology to locate and identify the functions of metaphysical subtle body parts and processes in the physiological body.

The Wisdom of the Mahatmas

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-115
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Early Formation

This chapter begins with the early formation of academic Tibetology and examines how Tibet was folded into Europe’s nineteenth-century India-centric Orientalism. The chapter then moves on to the story of Helena Blavatsky and the foundation of the Theosophical Society in 1875, examining how the subtle body was portrayed in her books published in the 1870s and 1880s. It shows how her engagement with the subtle body—that is, her weaving together of Neoplatonic, Kabbalistic, Darwninan, German idealist, Transcendentalist, and Orientalist strands—significantly laid the groundwork for future permutations of the subtle body in both popular and academic arenas.

Theosophical Gnosis and Astral Hermeneutics

2021 ◽  
pp. 116-136
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Body Concept ◽  
And Function

This chapter traces the subtle body concept through the writings of Blavatsky’s heirs, the major figures in the second generation of theosophy, zeroing in specifically on their reformulations of a mystical form of Christianity informed by the yoga of the subtle body. First, it examines the life and works of Annie Besant and her mythological subtle body interpretations of the Bible. Next, it moves on to Charles Leadbeater, his Kundalini experiences, and how these informed his own subtle body ideas drawn from Kabbalah, Hindu philosophy, and his own personal experience. Lastly, the chapter examines Blavatsky’s former secretary, G. R. S. Mead, and how the subtle body concept is formulated in his numerous books. It ends by looking at Mead’s prognostications about a future wherein the sciences, parapsychology, and humanities are brought together to answer questions about the nature and function of the subtle body.

Jacob Boehme’s Spiritual Alchemy of Rebirth

2021 ◽  
pp. 48-68
Author(s):  
Mike A. Zuber
Keyword(s):  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
New Birth ◽  
Jacob Boehme

This chapter presents the first fully developed spiritual alchemy as encountered in the later works of Jacob Boehme, including his Signatura rerum of 1622. In his earliest work of 1612, Aurora, alchemy did not yet play a role, and rebirth had not yet acquired its distinct shape. That changed as Boehme gained access to networks of correspondents and supporters who introduced him to alchemical terminology and the notion of rebirth as developed by Valentin Weigel and others. In works composed between 1619 and 1622, Boehme frequently used alchemical language to describe rebirth, thus formulating the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. For him the ubiquitous body of Christ was the philosophers’ stone and the subtle body of the new birth at once.

The Alchemical Body of Carl Jung

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-191
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Substance P ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Active Imagination ◽  
Kundalini Yoga ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Dream Analysis ◽  
Critical Reflexivity ◽  
Body Concept ◽  
Quantum Revolution ◽  
Eastern Traditions

This chapter traces the subtle body concept through the work of Carl Jung, who is introduced to the idea by G. R. S. Mead’s theosophical books. After tracing Jung’s early engagement with the Orient, the chapter moves to an analysis of the subtle body concept in his work, specifically in his engagements with Eastern traditions: Daoism, Kundalini Yoga, and Tibetan Bardo Yoga. After examining Jung’s use of the subtle body concept in his translation-commentaries on Eastern texts, the chapter turns to how Jung incorporates the concept into his own psychology of individuation based on the techniques of active imagination and dream analysis. The chapter turns to Jung’s seminars on Nietzsche, where he presents the subtle body concept with a unique dose of critical reflexivity and Kantian rigor. It ends with Jung’s late-life speculation about a future where, following the quantum revolution and spitting of the atom, humans evolve into subtle body–dwelling creatures who occupy a world of psychical substance.

Hinduism and Meditation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Flood
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Axis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Physical Body ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Pure Awareness ◽  
Different Levels

Meditation has been integral to Hindu and Buddhist tantric traditions, in particular involving visualization or visual contemplation, practiced as part of ritual and also in its own right in order to achieve the goals of liberation from the cycle of reincarnation and also to achieve pleasure or power in this and other worlds. Visual contemplation is particularly focused on the body envisioned as being pervaded by a vertical axis at a subtle level, along which are located different levels of experience associated with different levels of the hierarchical cosmos. Power is awakened through meditation that rises up through these levels up to the very highest realization. This visual contemplation is thought to be of the subtle body as the support of the soul that leaves the physical body at death. There is also meditation without visualization that emphasizes the flow of pure awareness. This essay examines these practices in the major Hindu tantric traditions focused on the deity Śiva with some reference to the traditions of the Goddess, Viṣṇu, and Buddhism. These traditions influence the later Yoga tradition and have been transformed in the modern West.

Subtle Body

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-248
Author(s):  
Richard E. Messer
Keyword(s):  
Subtle Body
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