The Mental Body

The Mental Body, according to Barbara Brennan
(from her book Hands of Light)

Ideational Body
Astral Body
Mental Body
Emotional Body
Etheric Body
Physical Body

The Mental Body is the vehicle of the principle of Mind within the Physical Universe. There is some disagreement among clairvoyants as to the actual appearance of the Mental body.  The Theosophist Leadbeater sees it as a more refined and subtle version of the Emotional body, but otherwise identical.  But Barbara Ann Brennan, in her book Hands of Light, states that it is a uniform yellow in colour, and consists of a fine network of lines, not unlike those of the Etheric body, with various thought-forms attached.  See illustration above.  Joseph Ostrom [You and Your Aura] also describes the mental body as yellow, but indicates it lacks inner structure, so in form it is an ovoid like the emotional/"astral" body.  Rather more interesting is the representation of the aura given by two anonymous clairvoyants and disciples of the theosophical writer Alice Bailey.  Although not specifically referred to as the "mental aura", the reference to "thoughtforms" and the "lower mental plane" in this context indicates that what is being described is the Physical Mental Body, rather than the mental plane of the psychic universe.

The Adyar Theosophists refer to two grades of Mental Body; a lower or concrete mental and a higher or abstract mental - also called the Causal body. These two would seem to be repeated in Barbara Brennan's description of the Mental body and the "Ketheric Template", which are both "structural" bodies. The Theosophical mental bodies in contrast are much more like what Barbara Brennan describes as the emotional body.

The lower and higher Mental body

The Mental Body	The "Ketheric Template

There may also be higher, completely transpersonal resonances of the Mental body.

Links

The Mental Body - We're Not What It Thinks

| The Middle Mental Body - Intellectual thinking faculty - Reason | the Mental according to Sri Aurobindo (Integral Psychology) | Reason | Mind | Intelligence |