Psychic Body

A Spiritualist term loosely applied to an impalpable body which clothes the soul on the "great dissolution of death" or to the soul itself. Edward William Cox in his book Mechanism of Man (2 vols., 1876) declared that the soul (quite distinct from mind, or intelligence, which is only a function of the brain) is composed of attenuated matter and has the same form as the physical body that it permeates in every part. From the soul radiates the psychic force, by means of which all the wonders of Spiritualism are performed. Through its agency, human beings become endowed with telekinetic and clairvoyant powers, and with its aid they can affect such natural forces as gravitation. When free of the body, the soul can travel at a lightning speed, nor is it hindered by such material objects as stone walls or closed doors.

The psychic body is also regarded as an intermediary between the physical body and the soul, a sort of shell or envelope, more material than the soul itself, which encloses it at death. It is this envelope, the psychic body or nervengeist, that, some believed, became visible during materialization by attracting to itself other and still more material particles.

According to traditional Spiritualist teachings, in time the psychic body decays just as did the physical and leaves the soul free. During trance, the soul leaves the body, but the vital functions are continued by the psychic body.

(See also astral body ; etheric double )