Subtle bodies

According to several esoteric traditions, the subtle bodies are invisible sheaths that are said to accompany the physical body: the etheric body, the astral or emotional body, the mental body, and then the spiritual body. Their number and names vary from school to school, from Hinduism to nineteenth-century Theosophy, which spread them in the West. The aura is held to be their visible manifestation for those who say they perceive it. This model is a symbolic representation of the human being.