Mental body

The mental body (the mind) is one of the subtle bodies in esoteric philosophies, in some religious teachings and in New Age thought. It is understood as a sort of body made up of thoughts, just as the emotional body consists of emotions and the physical body is made up of matter. In occult understanding, thoughts are not just subjective qualia, but have an existence apart from the associated physical organ, the brain.

Theosophical and New Age conceptions

According to Theosophists C.W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant (Adyar School of Theosophy), and later Alice Bailey, the mental body is equivalent to the "Lower Manas" of Blavatsky's original seven principles of man. But the New Age writer Barbara Brennan describes the Mental body as intermediate between the Emotional and the Astral body in terms of the layers in the "Human Energy Field" or Aura.

The mental body is usually considered in terms of an aura that includes thoughtforms. In Theosophical and Alice Bailey's teachings, it corresponds to the Mental plane.

Subtle body

A subtle body is one of a series of psycho-spiritual constituents of living beings, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. According to such beliefs each subtle body corresponds to a subtle plane of existence, in a hierarchy or great chain of being that culminates in the physical form.

According to Bhagavad Gita, one of the most sacred texts of Hinduism, the subtle body is composed of mind, intelligence and ego, which controls the gross physical body. It is also known in other different spiritual traditions: "the most sacred body" (wujud al-aqdas) and "true and genuine body" (jism asli haqiqi) in Sufism, "the diamond body" in Taoism and Vajrayana, "the light body" or "rainbow body" in Tibetan Buddhism, "the body of bliss" in Kriya Yoga, and "the immortal body" (soma athanaton) in Hermeticism. The various attributes of the subtle body are frequently described in terms of often obscure symbolism: Tantra features references to the sun and moon as well as various Indian rivers and deities, while Taoist alchemy speaks of cauldrons and cinnabar fields.