A gentle correction, nibbana is not conditioned. The path leads to nibbana, but doesn’t create it.
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Thanks Paul, yes bad choice of words 
The Mind states leading to Nibbana are conditioned. 
For clarity of the initial message I’ll edit it in line with this better wording 
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I have revised the interpretation of this illustration (1776, gouache and gold paint) and now think the series of four pairs represents a stream enterer, since there are three fetters removed in the process. The second figure in gold paint represents the refined form of the human body. Note that with the last pair, the figures are reversed, indicating the fruition of the path of stream-winning (the object above the fetter bars looks like a fruit or lotus bud). This corresponds with the dhammakaya meditation description of an initial stage as the final figure holds a white crystal at abdomen level:
Dhammakaya aside, this illustrates an important process in path development where there is the present stage (orange-clad figure), and the striving stage (gold, note the raised arms), both existing concurrently, and that could be a lengthy procedure. The mind-made body (gold figure) is simply a visualization strategy to accomplish striving and once fruition is attained, dispensed with.
The Thai text on the illustrations identifies them as follows:
Top row, left to right: anāgāmimagga, anāgāmiphala, arahattamagga, arahattaphala.
Bottom row, left to right: sotāpattimagga, sotāpattiphala, sakadāgāmimagga, sakadāgāmiphala.
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Contributors here know that dhammakaya meditation is poorly based on the suttas, and that Luang Pu Sodh may have independently developed it through his own psychic experiences, but is a millennial phenomenon and not going away, so it’s necessary to study what exactly its connections are. The technique of visualization in particular is easier for many than understanding the Pali texts. For example in the manuscript illustration under discussion here, the path & fruition process is personified and the public find that simpler to mentally picture, just as temple mural illustrations function as teaching resources.
"Practitioners of the method state the method is capable of changing people for the better, and has positive effects in their daily life.[119] Dhammakaya meditation has been promoted as a fast meditation method for professionals with little time, easy enough to be learned by children, one able to “effect radical changes in one’s life if practised regularly”—Wikipedia
It has to be realized classical Theravada techniques will be transformed into 21st century mode when they appear in the public areana, and this is happening at a rapid pace:
“Often, after a patient becomes familiar with the idea of acceptance, they will accompany it with change. DBT has five specific states of change which the therapist will review with the patient: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.[24] Precontemplation is the first stage, in which the patient is completely unaware of their problem. In the second stage, contemplation, the patient realizes the reality of their illness: this is not an action, but a realization. It is not until the third stage, preparation, that the patient is likely to take action, and prepares to move forward. This could be as simple as researching or contacting therapists. Finally, in stage 4, the patient takes action and receives treatment. In the final stage, maintenance, the patient must strengthen their change in order to prevent relapse. After grasping acceptance and change, a patient can fully advance to mindfulness techniques.”—Dialectical behaviour therapy.
Investigating dharmakaya meditation may yield some further insight into vizualization in Theravada, but for serious practitioners there remains the dynamics between as Viveka says, precise and specific connections beginning with sila, samadhi, panna.
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Here’s an older article that may be of interest.
The Ancient Theravāda Meditation System, Borān
Kammaṭṭhāna: Ānāpānasati or ‘Mindfulness of The Breath’
in Kammatthan Majjima Baeb LamdubAndrew Skilton and Phibul Choompolpaisal
King’s College LondonAbstract
In Thailand the pre-reform Theravāda meditation system, borān
kammaṭṭhāna, is now practised only by small and isolated groups.
To promote detailed comparative study of borān kammaṭṭhāna, the
tradition of it taught at Wat Ratchasittharam, Thonburi, is explored
through a translation of a text on ānāpānasati attributed to Suk
Kaitheun, the head of its lineage. This is followed by a detailed discussion and comparison with the description of the same technique
in the Visuddhimagga. Some close connections between these two
sources are identified and it is speculated that, despite features concerning nimittas, bodily location, terminology etc. that are diagnostically distinctive for borān kammaṭṭhāna, its method for ānāpānasati
can be seen as a rational development of earlier techniques advocated by Buddhaghosa.
Despite appearances to the contrary, the majority of contemporary Theravāda
meditation practices are of relatively recent construction. They stem from a variety of reform movements that emerged in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka from
the early nineteenth century onwards and are based usually on textual models.
The selection of canonical texts for this function gives some reform meditations
ancient roots and invokes the assumption of uninterrupted lineages transmitting
ancient practices from the Buddha’s day to this.
…
…It is certainly the case that a number of commentators have already suggested that borān kammaṭṭhāna is unorthodox.62 It is therefore worthwhile to note that the KMBL tradition can be seen, in its
account of ānāpānasati, as firmly located within a quite narrow and specific lineage which we can trace as far as the Visuddhimagga, for as has been pointed out,
the schema of the eight stages for developing this meditation subject, here abbreviated to four, is specific to the Visuddhimagga alone and is neither shared with
non-Theravāda sources nor even with other Theravāda sources. In this sense, the
present KMBL ‘looks back’ directly and exclusively to Buddhaghosa’s account.
Only comparative studies of the ānāpānasati (and pīti) practice in other borān
kammaṭṭhāna sources and lineages will indicate the extent to which assimilation
with the Visuddhimagga might be a distinctive feature of KMBL alone.
…
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I think it’s interesting and noteworthy that this approach to meditation is called, in Thai, Boran Kammatthan. The Thais were clearly aware of the historical shift resulting from the originally text-based reforms starting in the mid-19th century. It reminds of the phrase pubbadeva (“former god”) used of the the asuras in the Suttas, or the litany found in the oldest myth of all, Gilgamesh, of still older myths. Sometimes mythologies or oral cultures have their own records of history.
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Kate Crosby is presenting the case (which I don’t agree with) that boran kammatthana is the original form of Theravada meditation:
"Theravada Buddhism, often understood as the school that most carefully preserved the practices taught by the Buddha, has undergone tremendous change over time. Prior to Western colonialism in Asia—which brought Western and modernist intellectual concerns, such as the separation of science and religion, to bear on Buddhism—there existed a tradition of embodied, esoteric, and culturally regional Theravada meditation practices. This once-dominant traditional meditation system, known as borān kammatthāna, is related to—yet remarkably distinct from—Vipassana and other Buddhist and secular mindfulness practices that would become the hallmark of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. Drawing on a quarter century of research, scholar Kate Crosby offers the first holistic discussion of borān kammatthāna, illuminating the historical events and cultural processes by which the practice has been marginalized in the modern era.— “Esoteric Theravada,” Crosby
I don’t think she is arguing that Borān Kammatthāna is “original Buddhism”. She’s arguing that Theravada changed over time and Borān Kammatthāna was one of the developments. This evolution over time also applies to current Theravada, and the reforms that started in the 19th C seem quite well documented.
[My very un-scholarly impression is that The Thai Forest movement (as explained by the Thai Ajahns - not so much westerners) seems to be something of a reaction to those reforms…]
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“The Thai Forest movement (as explained by the Thai Ajahns - not so much westerners) seems to be something of a reaction to those reforms”
Explanation to readers:
The Thai Forest Tradition was a reaction to the increasing scholasticism in monasteries where it was believed in modern conditions, attainment of nibbana was no longer possible, provoking a return to the forest.
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It’s interesting how things played out in different countries. Of course, it’s difficult to disentangle facts from the impressions we have that come from the particular teachers and teachings that we are aware of in the West. However, it seems reasonably clear that in Burma the reforms led to the development of intensive meditation practice, notably retreats, for lay people as well as monastics, and some of the literature does address attainments.
My impression is that the idea of lay retreats, and some of the Burmese approaches, were subsequently imported into Thailand. I have no data on this, but, for example, you can find plenty of places in Thailand whose approach is based on Mahasi’s. [My local monastery here in NZ is a branch of a Bangkok monastery that generally uses that approach.]
Linking back to the OP, the development of Theravada in SE Asia has been, and continues to be, organic and complex.
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Esoteric or Tantric practices are usually for leading to supernormal powers, and/or a life of immortality.
But I am not sure what kinds of ‘supernormal powers’ the Esoteric Theravada (or Borān Kammatthāna) traditionally believes one can attain in the practices.
As for ‘a life of immortality’, I guess possibly it is in the sense of a permanent soul as Nibbana/Nirvana.
I’m not sure that is necessarily the case here. The paper I linked to above discussed an approach to anapanasati that was a little different from the Visuddhimagga, but with essentially the same aim (jhāna).
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Can a comprehensive explanation be provided of the fetters (horizontal bars) related to the four stages of noble persons ? The first three clearly represent the sotapanna, and the single last one, ignorance standing for the five higher fetters, and the middle two sensuous craving and ill-will. But how do the bars under the feet of the monk accurately relate to the removed fetters? The assumption is that the initial single bar means faith and gives the idea that the positive factors generated in overcoming the fetters, such as non-personality view, unshakable confidence and reliance on direct experience are a support for the next attainment, a basic sutta strategy where the next stage is discerned dependent on its opposite (SN 14.11). But the three bars of the sotapanna stage seem to support the remainder of the path.