There are some limitations to this “seeing all around” when in the astral body, however, which I should note in passing.  For instance, if when in the astral body you examine the akashic records of the past, or else peer into the scenes of the future, you will see these things merely as a picture, and will not be conscious of being present personally in the scene. (An apparent exception is to be noted here, also, viz., if your past-time visioning includes the perception of yourself in a former incarnation, you may be conscious of living and acting in your former personality; again, if you are psychometrizing from fossil remains, or anything concerned with a living creature of the past, you may “take on” the mental or emotional conditions of that creature, and seem to sense things from the inside, rather than from the outside.  This, of course, is also a characteristic of the ordinary clairvoyant vision of the past.) But when, in the astral body, you perceive a present-time scene in space, you are, to all intents and purposes, an actual participant—­you are actually present at the place and time.  The sense of “being actually present in the body” is the leading characteristic of the astral body visioning, and distinguishes it from the “picture seeing” sensing of ordinary clairvoyance.  This is stating the matter is as plain and simple form as is possible, ignoring many technical details and particulars.

You, being a student of occultism, of course know that the astral body is a fine counterpart of the physical body, composed of a far more subtle form of substance than is the latter, that under certain conditions you may travel in your astral body, detached from your physical body (except being connected with it with a slender astral cord, bearing a close resemblance to the umbilical cord which connects the newborn babe with the placenta in the womb of its mother), and explore the realms of the astral plane.  This projection of the astral body, as a rule, occurs only when the physical body is stilled in sleep, or in trance condition.  In fact, the astral body frequently is projected by us during the course of our ordinary sleep, but we fail to remember what we have seen in our astral journeys, except, occasionally, dim flashes of partial recollection upon awakening.  In some cases, however, our astral visioning is so distinct and vivid, that we awaken with a sense of having had a peculiar experience, and as having actually been out of the physical body at the time.

In some cases, the person traveling in the astral is able to actually take part in the distant scene, and may, under certain circumstances actually materialize himself so as to be seen by persons in their physical bodies.  I am speaking now, of course, of the untrained person.  The trained and developed occultist, of course, is able to do these things deliberately and consciously, instead of unconsciously and without intention as in the case of the ordinary person.  I shall quote here from another writer on the subject, whose point of view, in connection with my own, may serve to bring about a clear understanding in the mind of the student—­it is always well to view any subject from as many angles as possible.  This writer says: