Astral Light

Blavatsky

Original sense

The invisible, plastic medium surrounding the earth — a storehouse of all terrestrial impressions, the workshop of elementals, and the source of much that passes for spirit communication. It is not holy. It reflects, distorts, and seduces. Mediums, she said, usually read this lower light, not the spirit of the dead.

The Astral Light is the universal picture-gallery… the great deceiver, the father of illusions.

She took Lévi’s term and folded it into her physics as the lower range of Akasha. Adepts can use it; the untrained are used by it. Ghosts, thought-forms, and many ‘guides’ are phenomena of this light.

New Age

Later sense

Rarely named as such. Its functions were split: the recording side became the Akashic Records; the travel side became the astral plane; the deceptive side was mostly dropped. When the phrase appears, it is usually a pretty synonym for spiritual atmosphere.

Typical use. Occasional esoteric blogs; otherwise replaced by ‘the field,’ ‘the veil,’ or ‘the other side.’