The Mental Body is not a body in the strict sense of the term but a spheroidal energy field surrounding the sun-like form of the Soul. It is for this reason that in some teachings the Mental Body is also known as “the Mental Unit”.
The Mental Body is made of the mental substance used for the creation of common thoughts. This type of substance is attracted to a projection of Soul energy into the lowest levels of the mental plane by the magnetic power of Soul energy — as it will be seen later, the Soul also sends projections of its own energy into the astral and physical planes to induce the formation of the other two bodies of the Persona. The projections of the Soul energy into the concrete levels of the mental plane endow the Persona with self-awareness and some measure of discrimination, logic, creative intelligence and memory.
Because of its intimate connection with the Soul, the Mental Body experiences all the livingness, the vibrations and the attractiveness of the energy of the Soul itself and of the Intelligent Essence or Self at its center. Through this close association also some degree of the psychic energy and consciousness of the Self transpires in the Mental Body. This is what makes possible for the Mental Body to be the temporary seat for the Self or sense of “I AM” and for the activities of consciousness in the average human being during incarnation through the Persona.
The Mental Body constitutes that which conventional psychology understands as “the mind”. However, the higher mental potencies and attributes of the Soul are not the focus of attention of the psychological sciences because for human science neither the Soul nor the Self exist independently from the Persona. Unfortunately, the study of those higher mental faculties is left today to the speculations and the rhetoric of religionists and philosophers. When human science will dare to use its proceedings and resources with an open mind to study those subtle yet powerful components of the human being, a great step forward will be taken for the progress of humanity.
The Mental Body can also be described as “the common sense” because of its capacity to gather information from many levels and to process it with discrimination, logic and intelligence. The coherent synthesis that is produced in this process increases the individual's fields of knowledge and brings closer the realization of the powers of Spirit.
The information arriving to the Mental Body always comes via the magnetic projections of the Soul energy into the instruments of the Persona — analogous to the transmission of information through bands of electromagnetic frequencies. This information comes from the following sources:
- From the physical realm via the Soul projections that pattern and sustain the physical senses and the central nervous system.
- From the astral plane via the sentient body and the solar plexus center or “chakra”.
- From the mental environment via the meanings and symbolisms contained in the spoken and written language and in mathematical formulations, and via the natural, though unconsciously used, mental telepathy of all human beings.
- In the advanced human being, information likewise arrives to the Mental Body from the realms of Spirit, enhancing thus the capacity for progress.
Another way to describe the Mental Body is as a radio station for mental energies or frequencies of many kinds. The reader who is familiar with how a radio set works will remember that to tune into a specific frequency band the radio set emits the same desired frequency wave. When the frequency emitted by the radio set is similar to the frequency broadcasted by the radio station, the instrument then receives the transmission. This analogy accurately describes the transmitting and receiving powers of the Mental Body. Therefore, the type and the quality of the thought-forms that one usually creates in the everyday life condition the sort of experiences that one attracts to oneself, as well as the type and the quality of the field of awareness that one perceives. The implications of this empowerment facilitated by the Mental Body are far reaching:
The usual contents of our thoughts and the usual motives behind them explain the type of events and circumstances that surround each of us and the kind of relationships that we establish and sustain.
The integrating and synthetic capacities possessed by the incarnated human being, because of the Mental Body, have to be unfolded and mastered to a relatively high degree before true progress on the Spiritual Path can be accomplished. This development is achieved through the normal opportunities that the modern educational systems provide. All fields of study contribute to the desired development; however, mathematics, science and philosophy, when used to understand relationships and synthesis, facilitate more and accelerate the desired development and control of the mind. It is important to point out that this objective is not reached in only one incarnation; it requires several incarnations during which experiences with diverse fields of knowledge are gained and during which a well rounded development is pursued.