Let us now explore the mental envelope, a realm that holds immense potential for growth and development. Most clairvoyants only have a vision of the Emotional World. It would take a monad focused in its 47:4 permanent molecule to find someone capable of exploring the mental envelope in its own habitat. Therefore, the description offered here will be largely based on the desire body, with special reference to how this complex is affected by its mental envelope. The mental envelope of a 1. Young Soul is depicted in Man Visible and Invisible by Charles Leadbeater. In its resting state, the mental envelope generally shares the same colours as the emotional envelope. However, it also encompasses all that has been developed in terms of spirituality and intellectuality in an individual. While there might not be much development in the case of a young soul, it becomes significantly important later on, as we will see in due course.
Upon examining the image of the envelope closely, we can see a dull yellow at the top, indicating some level of intellect. However, the murky colour suggests it is applied purely selfishly. The colour grey-blue, representing devotion, indicates a fetish-like worship largely driven by fear and considerations of self-interest. The muddy crimson colour suggests the beginning of affection, which at this point is likely to be primarily selfish as well. A band of dull orange indicates low pride, while a large amount of scarlet signifies a strong tendency to anger, which can be easily provoked. Having interacted with such people for many years as part of my job, I can tell you it is scary when people have limited control over their emotions.
Charles Leadbeater pointed out that “a wide band of murky green, which covers a significant part of the aura, represents deceit, treachery, and greed—the latter indicated by a brownish hue. Towards the bottom of the aura is a muddy deposit, suggesting overall selfishness and the lack of any desirable qualities.” The skill to understand these colour patterns is taught to disciples so that they don’t just apprehend what they see in the worlds they have access to but comprehend what they see.
In an underdeveloped person, the mind contains only a small amount of disorganised mental matter, mainly from the lowest level. It is mostly influenced by the lower aspects of the person and set into motion by strong emotions. Without this stimulation, it remains inactive, and even when influenced by emotions, it is slow to respond. It lacks independent activity and requires external stimuli to generate a clear response. Hence, the more intense the shocks, the better for the individual’s advancement; excessive enjoyment, anger, pain, terror, and other emotions that create turmoil in the emotional sphere stimulate mental awareness, which then contributes its own input to the external impressions it receives. Consider what has just been said here. To develop our mental capacity, we need to activate it. To do this requires energy. This energy comes from our emotions. The most violent and explosive energy we can muster is generated by strong negative emotions. So, although negative emotions are to be avoided, they are needed initially to get our “mental” show on the road. By the same token, the monads of the Elemental Kingdom seek coarse vibrations because they desire to descend into lower levels of matter, which, by their very position in the scheme of things, are lower on the vibratory scale.
Most people use only the lowest level of mental thinking, which is closely connected to emotions. Only a few individuals can access the higher levels of mental thinking (47:5). Some scientists use a higher level of mental thinking but sometimes mix it with a lower level, leading to jealousy and rivalry. The higher levels of mental thinking are less influenced by emotions. The highest level of mental thinking is very distant from emotional influences. This is predicated by the fact that the higher the level of thinking, the more refined the matter of the thought forms are, so the less likely they are to be influenced by lower vibrating matter.
This illustration from Leadbeater’s book depicts the mental envelope of an ordinary person. It shows a larger proportion of intellect (yellow), love (rose-pink), and devotion (blue). The quality of the colours has also improved, with them being much clearer. Although the level of pride remains high, the person now takes pride in their good qualities rather than just their brute force or cruelty.
A significant amount of scarlet remains, suggesting a tendency towards anger. The green is notably positive, suggesting flexibility and adaptability as opposed to deceit or trickery. In individuals with unregulated tendencies, the green is located lower in the aura, beneath the scarlet, as the qualities it embodied required a coarser type of matter for expression compared to the scarlet of anger.
The average person has more green in their aura than scarlet, which suggests that they need less coarse matter compared to the matter needed for the scarlet colour associated with anger. This indicates an overall improvement in the quality of matter in the mental envelope. The improvement in a person’s temperament automatically exchanges one grade of matter for another in both the emotional and mental envelopes.
Looking further at this image, we notice that although there is still a significant amount of selfishness indicated by the presence of brown in the aura, the colour is slightly warmer and less severe than what is observed in a young soul. Thus, the average person’s mental capacity has expanded to encompass material from the sixth, fifth, and fourth subdivisions of the mental plane, indicating greater organisation. Organisation is a keyword here. Having more radiant colours in your various envelopes is not enough. There needs to be structure within the envelope as well. Not a rigid structure, as we shall see later, but structure nonetheless.
As with the physical and emotional envelope, so with the mental envelope; exercise increases, disuse atrophies, and finally destroys. Every vibration set up in the mental envelope changes its constituents, throwing out of it the matter that cannot vibrate sympathetically and replacing it with suitable materials drawn from the practically limitless store of the Mental World.
This image shows the mental aura of a developed person. The colours representing pride (orange), anger (scarlet), and selfishness (brown) have disappeared, leaving behind expanded and improved colours that give a different impression. These refined and delicate colours indicate the absence of self-centred thoughts. Additionally, a pure violet colour with golden stars appeared at the top of the aura, symbolising the acquisition of new and greater qualities, such as spiritual aspiration.
The power from above radiates through a developed person’s causal envelope, acting also through their mental envelope, albeit with slightly less force. Taking into account the variation in colour tones across different levels of the mind, the mental envelope now closely resembles the causal envelope. Similarly, the emotional envelope replicates the mental envelope at its own level of vibration.
The mental state of an evolved individual reflects their higher self, as they have learned to follow the guidance of their higher self and base their reasoning on it. The higher self is our guardian angels’ still, quiet voice, not some aspect of ourselves that we are somehow cut off from. I have never understood how some students of The Wisdom imagine that there is a part of themselves which is smart, but the part we get to interact with is dumb. I guess it must be consoling for some to imagine that they are not stupid somewhere in a parallel universe. The qualities expressed in the causal envelope are also reflected in the mental and emotional states. However, as these qualities descend to lower planes, the expression becomes less delicate, less luminous, and less ethereal.
A spiritually developed person has eliminated all the coarser combinations of mental matter so that their mind contains only the finer varieties of matter from the four lower mental subdivisions. The materials of the fourth and fifth sub-planes predominate over those of the sixth and seventh sub-planes. This means that the mental envelope is responsive to all the higher workings of the intellect, the delicate contacts of the higher arts, and the pure thrills of the loftier emotions. This state allows the mental envelope to reproduce every impulse from the real person in the causal envelope, the Thinker, which is capable of expression in lower mental matter. Both the emotional and mental aspects of a spiritual person should consistently display four or five wonderful emotions, including love, devotion, sympathy, and intellectual aspiration.
The mental envelope and also the emotional envelope of an Arhat, a monad that has taken the (i4), have very little of their own characteristic colour but are reproductions of the causal envelope as much as their lower envelopes can express it. They have a beautiful shimmering iridescence – a kind of opalescent, mother-of-pearl effect – far beyond explanation or visual representation.
In the following presentation, we will complete our look at how our envelopes change, as witnessed through the clairvoyant abilities of Charles Leadbeater.