Akasha and the Astral Light by Geoffrey A. Farthing

Here there is introduced a teaching that goes far beyond anything known to today's sciences. Although not easy to grasp at first, it will be found to throw much light on areas of experience at present little understood even by psychology, for example, the mystical and psychic.

It has been stated that there is no such thing as empty space in the universe. Esoteric Science teaches that the entire cosmos is pervaded by Akasha, primordial substance, or rather the noumenon—the non-sensuous reality—beyond substance. In the Theosophical Glossary, Akasha (from a Sanskrit word meaning "brilliant" or "luminous") is described as "the subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space." This primordial substance differentiates into all the forms of matter, those of the invisible as of the visible regions of the universe. Hence the definition of Akasha as "the Universal Soul ¼ from which all that exists is born by separation or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it fills all the infinite Space."

The lowest region of Akasha, immediately above the gross physical plane, is termed the Astral Light. It is "the invisible region that surrounds our globe" and everything in it, and corresponds to the subtle vehicle or "double" in man, the Linga-sharira. In it is impressed indelibly everything that takes place in the physical, psychical, and mental realms. It is thus the storehouse of memory, both in the cosmos and in mankind.