by Bruce Johnson —
Bruce Johnson has over 30 years of study in the fields of Ancient Wisdom and occultism. He has taught classes on a wide range of topics, from Atlantis to mediums to Zoroaster. He is also a spiritualist minister, with a background in spiritual astrology. He lives in Colorado with his wife and their cat.

The Ancient Wisdom affirms that every solid, liquid and gaseous particle in physical manifestation is surrounded by an envelope of intangible etheric matter. This etheric aura contains within itself the energy form variously called the vital body, etheric body, etheric double and the etheric duplicate among other names. The etheric duplicate is the foundation of, and the pattern for, the dense physical body of all things, whether a stone, a human or a planet.
An etheric vehicle is always an instrument of pranic life-energy to whatever physically manifest form it underlies and animates. Composed of four grades of invisible etheric matter, the vital body receives, distributes and transmits solar prana throughout the etheric double via a network of golden-colored channels called nadis and thence to the respective dense physical form. Prana or Vitality is the life-principle of any organism and the integrating force that holds and coordinates its physical molecules together.
Earth’s etheric body is a macrocosmic form of the human etheric vehicle with its nadis, major and minor chakras, and is the receiver, distributer and transmitter of pranic energy for our planet. The etheric vital body of Earth absorbs solar prana, assimilates what it needs, and radiates off excess energy in the form of a planetary radiation. Like a web of light, our planet’ pranic body is a continuous and unified whole that links every form and entity on the planet together with interconnected streams of vital life-force.
All humans live within the aura of Earth’s vital body while being bathed in its pranic radiations. Further, all individual human etheric vehicles are microcosmic life-atoms in the greater totality of Earth’s macrocosmic etheric duplicate. Additionally, the etheric double of each person is an interlinked living cell within the greater etheric body of Humanity, whom Occultism sees as one entity. Esotericism has always taught of the One Life manifesting through diverse forms. An aggregation of lesser lives forming one greater life. The doctrine of the One Life is the scientific basis for the unity of all life.

A person’s etheric body is not a limited and isolated separate vehicle of vitality, but an integral part of the planetary etheric body from which it can’t be disconnected or divided without physical death resulting. We as humans, whether incarnate or discarnate, are all miniature lives within the greater vital body of our planet. The illusion that we are separate and distinct living entities and not part of a Greater Life is rooted in our limited physical sense perception. As yet, relatively few people are able to observe and understand, or have read about, the forms of energy and life that exist on etheric levels.
Believing oneself to be an isolated being disconnected and separate from the rest of Humanity, is to give power to a mirage of the senses and participate in an unreality. In the future, more widespread investigation of etheric levels combined with the development of etheric vision will prove the existence of etheric duplicates. Earth’s etheric double is a portion of the etheric body of our solar system, which is part of a larger system containing seven solar systems. The etheric duplicate of these seven solar systems is a fraction of a galactic etheric vehicle, which is a small fragment of the vital body of the universe we call space.