What Is the Difference Between an Astral Body and an Astral Shell? Q.  What is the difference between an astral shell and an Astral Body? A.  When an animal dies, it takes about three days for its astral energies to be depleted individually from each of the cells. At that point, the Astral Body has dissolved and the energies have returned to the pool of Animal Life Essence. The dissolving Astral Body of an animal stays with the animal’s physical body after death and does not travel around on the Astral Plane. Human beings have an Astral Body that stays with their physical body all the time and it can be “seen” by a clairvoyant as a narrow band of light around the physical body. When the human physical body dies, the Astral Body disappears as the Animal Life Essence departs. An astral shell can be formed at will almost instantly while a human being is functioning out of body or while between incarnations on the Astral Plane. This shell is used for identification purposes. When one’s Ego is away from the physical body to allow it to sleep, he can Egoically travel. Your Ego is either mentally associated with your body in awake consciousness or else away from the body during sleep. The person who has learned to mentally project his experiences during Egoic traveling upon his sleeping body’s brain, whereby it can be recalled upon awakening, is said to be an astral traveler. Masters residing on the Mental Plane of existence use a Mental Body. One fully develops his Mental Body somewhere around the eleventh degree of Brotherhood. Masters prefer to mentally induce an image of how They want to be seen. They prefer not to create an astral shell since it takes about three days for the shell to dissolve. During that time, lower entities might inhabit the shell in order to impersonate Higher Beings.
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