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Though the astral aura from the brilliancy of its flashes of colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerye-ether and the efheric double are really of a much denser order of matter, being within the limits of the pljysical plane, though invisible to ordinary sight. If we examine with psychic faculty the body of a newly-born child, we shall find it permeated not only by astral matter of every degree of density, but also by the several grades of etheric matter ; and if we take the trouble to trace thesfe inner bodies backwards to their origin, we find that it is of the latter that the etheric double—the mould upon which the physical body is built up—is formed by the agents of the Lords of karma; while the astral matter has been'gathered together by the descending ego, not of course consciously, but automatically, as he passes through the astral plane. (See Manual No. IV., p. 44.)