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The mind-body is not naturally visible to astral sight at all, and consequently the pupil who works in it learns to gather round himself a temporary veil of astral matter when in the course of his work he wishes to*become perceptible to the inhabitants of the lowe* plane in order to help them more efficiently. This temporary body is usually formed for the pupil by his Master on the first occasion, and he is then instructed anci assisted until he can form it for himsdlfeasily and expeditiously. Such a vehicle, though an exact reproduction of the man in appearance, contains none of the matter of his own astral body, but corresponds to it in the same way as a materialization corresponds to a physical body.
At an earlier stage of his development the pupihmay be found functioning in the astral body like any one else; but whichever vehicle he is employing, the man who is introduced to the astral plane under the guidance of a competent teacher has always the fullest possible consciousness there, and is able to function perfectly aasily upon all its subdivisions. He is in fact himself, exactly as his friends know him on earth, minus only the four lower principles in the one case and the three lower in the other, and plus the additional powers and faculties of this higher condition, \fhich enable him to carry on far more easily and far more efficiently on that plane during sleep the Theosophical work which occupies so much of *his thought in