The Subtle Body

Genuinely separate Greek Neoplatonic, Indian and Tibetan traditions each independently developed their own specific accounts of such a body. A single influential nineteenth-century Theosophical book fused these genuinely distinct systems into one composite 'seven bodies' scheme now often mistaken for what the original Indian and Tibetan sources themselves actually say.

A. P. Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism (1883); G. R. S. Mead, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition (1919)

The widespread idea of an energetic or spiritual body distinct from the physical one, now often presented as one unified ancient teaching shared across cultures.

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