The Mental Body

By Arthur E. Powell (1882 - 1969).

372 Pages | First published in 1927, second edition 2018 | Softcover | Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar | ISBN: 9788170596080.

The mental body is the vehicle of thought and is one of the subtle bodies of a human being. To plant our feet firmly on the thought-world, and reach upwards to the very abstractions of thought will surely bring us to the treshold of a world higher and purer, not only in degree, but also in kind. Through those abstractions we shall rise to the world of the spirit, and draw appreciably nearer to the God-consciousness from which we now feel and know ourselves to be temporarily exiled.

This book describes the anatomy, nature and functions of the mental body based on the first-hand testimony of noted clairvoyants like Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant. It is the third in a series by Colonel Arthur E. Powell, attempting to provide a condensed synthesis of theosophical knowledge to all lovers of esoteric lore. The others in the series are: The Etheric Double - The Health Aura, The Astral Body and Other Astral Phenomena, The Causal Body and the Ego and The Solar System.

From Chapter 13 - 'Physical or Waking Consciousness' (p. 105):

" A man's mental body is affected by almost everything in his environment. Thus, for example, the pictures, which hang on the walls of his rooms influence him, not only because they keep before his eyes the expression of certain ideas, but also because the artist puts a great deal of himself, of his inmost thought and feeling, into his work. This we may term the unseen counterparts of the picture, clearly expressed in mental and astral matter, and these radiate from the picture just as surely as scent inheres in and radiates from a flower. "