,theosophical ,manuals4 ,no4 #c4 ,,death--,,and ,,after8 ,,by ,,annie ,,besant4 7#bj,,th ,,thousand7 ,theosophical ,publishing ,society ,london and ,benares ,city ,agents1 ,percy ,lund ,humphries ,co4 ,amen ,corner1 ,london1 ,e4,c4 #aijf ,,price ,,one ,,shilling ,,preface4 ,few words are needed in sending this little book out into the world4 ,it is the third of a series of ,manuals designed to meet the public demand for a simple exposition of ,theosophical teachings4 ,some have complained that our literature is at once too abstruse1 too technical1 and too expensive for the ordinary reader1 and it is our hope that the present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real want4 ,theosophy is not only for the learned2 it is for all4 ,perhaps among those who in these little books catch their first glimpse of its teachings1 there may be a few who will be led by them to penetrate more deeply into its philosophy1 its science1 and its religion1 facing its abstruser problems with the student's zeal and the neophyte's ardour4 ,but these ,manuals are not written for the eager student1 whom no initial difficulties can daunt2 they are written for the busy men and women of the work-a-day world1 and seek to make plain some of the great truths that render life easier to bear and death easier to face4 ,written by servants of the ,masters who are the ,elder ,brothers of our race1 they can have no other object than to serve our fellow-men4 ,,death--,,and ,,after8 ,who does not remember the story of the ,christian missionary in ,britain1 sitting one evening in the vast hall of a ,saxon king1 surrounded by his thanes1 having come thither to preach the gospel of his ,master2 and as he spoke of life and death and immortality1 a bird flew in through an unglazed window1 circled the hall in its flight1 and flew out once more into the darkness of the night4 ,the ,christian priest bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the hall the transitory life of man1 and claimed for his faith that it showed the soul1 in passing from the hall of life1 winging its way not into the darkness of night1 but into the sunlit radiance of a more glorious world4 ,out of the darkness1 through the open window of ,birth1 the life of a man comes to the earth2 it dwells for a while before our eyes2 into the darkness1 through the open window of ,death1 it vanishes out of our sight4 ,and man has questioned ever of ,religion1 ,whence comes it8 ,whither goes it8 and the answers have varied with the faiths4 ,to-day1 many a hundred year since ,paulinus talked with ,edwin1 there are more people in ,christendom who question whether man has a spirit to come anywhence or to go anywhither than1 perhaps1 in the world's history could ever before have been found at one time4 ,and the very ,christians who claim that ,death's terrors have been abolished1 have surrounded the bier and the tomb with more gloom and more dismal funeral pomp than have the votaries of any other creed4 ,what can be more depressing than the darkness in which a house is kept shrouded1 while the dead body is awaiting sepulture8 ,what more repellent than the sweeping robes of lustreless crape1 and the purposed hideousness of the heavy cap in which the widow laments the deliverance of her husband from the burden of the flesh8 ,what more revolting than the artificially long faces of the undertaker's men1 the drooping weepers1 the carefully-arranged white handkerchiefs1 and1 until lately1 the pall-like funeral cloaks8 ,during the last few years1 a great and marked improvement has been made4 ,the plumes1 cloaks1 and weepers have well-nigh disappeared4 ,the grotesquely ghastly hearse is almost a thing of the past1 and the coffin goes forth heaped over with flowers instead of shrouded in the heavy black velvet pall4 ,men and women1 though still wearing black1 do not roll themselves up in shapeless garments like sable winding-sheets1 as if trying to see how miserable they could make themselves by the imposition of artificial discomforts4 ,welcome common-sense has driven custom from its throne1 and has refused any longer to add these gratuitous annoyances to natural human grief4 ,in literature and in art1 alike1 this gloomy fashion of regarding ,death has been characteristic of ,christianity4 ,death has been painted as a skeleton grasping a scythe1 a grinning skull1 a threatening figure with terrible face and uplifted dart1 a bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass--all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named ,king of ,terrors4 ,milton1 who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern ,christianity1 has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror the figure of ,death4 ,the other shape1 ,if shape it might be called1 that shape had none ,distinguishable in member1 joint1 or limb1 ,or substance might be called that shadow seemed1 ,for each seemed either2 black it stood as night1 ,fierce as ten furies1 terrible as hell1 ,and shook a dreadful dart2 what seemed his head ,the likeness of a kingly crown had on4 ,satan was now at hand1 and from his seat ,the monster moving onward came as fast1 ,with horrid strides2 hell trembled as he strode4444 444 ,so spoke the grisly terror3 and in shape ,so speaking1 and so threatening1 grew tenfold ,more dreadful and deform4444 444 but he1 my inbred enemy1 ,forth issued1 brandishing his fatal dart1 ,made to destroy3 ,i fled1 and cried out ,death6 ,hell trembled at the hideous name1 and sighed ,from all her caves1 and back resounded ,death4#a ,that such a view of ,death should be taken by the professed followers of a ,teacher said to have brought life and immortality to light is passing strange4 ,the claim1 that as late in the history of the world as a mere eighteen centuries ago the immortality of the ,spirit in man was brought to light1 is of course transparently absurd1 in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary available on all hands4 ,the stately ,egyptian ,ritual with its ,book of the ,dead1 in which are traced the post-mortem journeys of the ,soul1 should be enough1 if it stood alone1 to put out of court for ever so preposterous a claim4 ,hear the cry of the ,soul of the righteous3 ,o ye1 who make the escort of the ,god1 stretch out to me your arms1 for ,i become one of you4 7xvii4 #bb47 ,hail to thee1 ,osiris1 ,lord of ,light1 dwelling in the mighty abode1 in the bosom of the absolute darkness4 ,i come to thee1 a purified ,soul2 my two hands are around thee4 7xxi4 #a47 ,i open heaven2 ,i do what was commanded in ,memphis4 ,i have knowledge of my heart2 ,i am in possession of my heart1 ,i am in possession of my arms1 ,i am in possession of my legs1 at the will of myself4 ,my ,soul is not imprisoned in my body at the gates of ,amenti4 7xxvi4 #e1 #f47 ,not to multiply to weariness quotations from a book that is wholly composed of the doings and sayings of the disembodied man1 let it suffice to give the final judgment on the victorious ,soul3 ,the defunct shall be deified among the ,gods in the lower divine region1 he shall never be rejected4444 ,he shall drink from the current of the celestial river4444 ,his ,soul shall not be imprisoned1 since it is a ,soul that brings salvation to those near it4 ,the worms shall not devour it4 7clxiv4 #ad-af47 ,the general belief in ,re-incarnation is enough to prove that the religions of which it formed a central doctrine believed in the survival of the ,soul after ,death2 but one may quote as an example a passage from the ,ordinances of ,manu1 following on a disquisition on metempsychosis1 and answering the question of deliverance from rebirths4 ,amid all these holy acts1 the knowledge of self should be translated1 knowledge of the ,self1 ,atm is said 7to be7 the highest2 this indeed is the foremost of all sciences1 since from it immortality is obtained4#b ,the testimony of the great ,zarathustrean ,religion is clear1 as is shown by the following1 translated from the ,avesta1 in which1 the journey of the ,soul after death having been described1 the ancient ,scripture proceeds3 ,the soul of the pure man goes the first step and arrives at 7the ,paradise7 ,humata2 the soul of the pure man takes the second step and arrives at 7the ,paradise7 ,hukhta2 it goes the third step and arrives at 7the ,paradise7 ,hvarst2 the soul of the pure man takes the fourth step and arrives at the ,eternal ,lights4 ,to it speaks a pure one deceased before1 asking it3 ,how art thou1 ,o pure deceased1 come away from the fleshy dwellings1 from the earthly possessions1 from the corporeal world hither to the invisible1 from the perishable world hither to the imperishable1 as it happened to thee--to whom hail6 ,then speaks ,ahura-,mazda3 ,ask not him whom thou asketh1 7for7 he is come on the fearful1 terrible1 trembling way1 the separation of body and soul4#c ,the ,persian ,desatir speaks with equal definiteness4 ,this work consists of fifteen books1 written by ,persian prophets1 and was written originally in the ,avestaic language2 ,god is ,ahura-,mazda1 or ,yazdan3 ,god selected man from animals to confer on him the soul1 which is a substance free1 simple1 immaterial1 non-compounded and non-appetitive4 ,and that becomes an angel by improvement4 ,by his profound wisdom and most sublime intelligence1 he connected the soul with the material body4 ,if he 7man7 does good in the material body1 and has a good knowledge and religion he is ,hartasp4444 ,as soon as he leaves this material body1 ,i 7,god7 take him up to the world of angels1 that he may have an interview with the angels1 and behold me4 ,and if he is not ,hartasp1 but has wisdom and abstains from vice1 ,i will promote him to the rank of angels4 ,every person in proportion to his wisdom and piety will find a place in the rank of wise men1 among the heavens and stars4 ,and in that region of happiness he will remain for ever4#d ,in ,china1 the immemorial custom of worshipping the ,souls of ancestors shows how completely the life of man was regarded as extending beyond the tomb4 ,the ,sh ,king--placed by ,mr4 ,james ,legge as the most ancient of ,chinese classics1 containing historical documents ranging from ,b4,c4 #bceg-fbg--;is full of allusions to these ,souls1 who with other spiritual beings1 watch over the affairs of their descendants and the welfare of the kingdom4 ,thus ,pan-kang1 ruling from ,b4,c4 #adja-acgd1 exhorts his subjects3 ,my object is to support and nourish you all4 ,i think of my ancestors 7who are now7 the spiritual sovereigns4444 ,were ,i to err in my government1 and remain long here1 my high sovereign 7the founder of our dynasty7 would send down on me great punishment for my crime1 and say1 ,why do you oppress my people8 ,if you1 the myriads of the people1 do not attend to the perpetuation of your lives1 and cherish one mind with me1 the ,one man1 in my plans1 the former kings will send down on you great punishment for your crime1 and say1 ,why do you not agree with our young grandson1 but go on to forfeit your virtue8 ,when they punish you from above1 you will have no way of escape4444 ,your ancestors and fathers will 7now7 cut you off and abandon you1 and not save you from death4#e ,indeed1 so practical is this ,chinese belief1 held to-day as in those long-past ages1 that the change that men call ,death seems to play a very small part in the thoughts and lives of the people of the ,flowery ,land4 ,these quotations1 which might be multiplied a hundred-fold1 may suffice to prove the folly of the idea that immortality came to light through the gospel4 ,the whole ancient world basked in the full sunshine of belief in the immortality of man1 lived in it daily1 voiced it in its literature1 went with it in calm serenity through the gate of ,death4 ,it remains a problem why ,christianity1 which vigorously and joyously re-affirmed it1 should have growing in its midst the unique terror of ,death that has played so large a part in its social life1 its literature1 and its art4 ,it is not simply the belief in hell that has surrounded the grave with horror1 for other ,religions have had their hells1 and yet their followers have not been harassed by this shadowy ,fear4 ,the ,chinese1 for instance1 who take ,death as such a light and trivial thing1 have a collection of hells quite unique in their varied unpleasantness4 ,maybe the difference is a question of race rather than of creed2 that the vigorous life of the ,west shrinks from its antithesis1 and that its unimaginative common-sense finds a bodiless condition too lacking in solidity of comfort2 whereas the more dreamy1 mystical ,east1 prone to meditation1 and ever seeking to escape from the thraldom of the senses during earthly life1 looks on the disembodied state as eminently desirable1 and as most conducive to unfettered thought4 ,ere passing to the consideration of the history of man in the post-mortem state1 it is necessary1 however briefly1 to state the constitution of man1 as viewed by the ,esoteric ,philosophy1 for we must have in mind the constituents of his being ere we can understand their disintegration4 ,man then consists of ,the ,immortal ,triad3 ,atm4 ,buddhi4 ,manas4 ,the ,perishable ,quaternary3 ,kma4 ,prna4 ,etheric ,double4 ,dense ,body4 ,the dense body is the physical body1 the visible1 tangible outer form1 composed of various tissues4 ,the etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the body1 composed of the physical ethers4 ,prna is vitality1 the integrating energy that co-ordinates the physical molecules and holds them together in a definite organism2 it is the life-breath within the organism1 the portion of the universal ,life-,breath1 appropriated by the organism during the span of existence that we speak of as a life4 ,kma is the aggregate of appetites1 passions1 and emotions1 common to man and brute4 ,manas is the ,thinker in us1 the ,intelligence4 ,buddhi is the vehicle wherein ,atm1 the ,spirit1 dwells1 and in which alone it can manifest4 ,now the link between the ,immortal ,triad and the ,perishable ,quaternary is ,manas1 which is dual during earth life1 or incarnation1 and functions as ,higher ,manas and ,lower ,manas4 ,higher ,manas sends out a ,ray1 ,lower ,manas1 which works in and through the human brain1 functioning there as brain-consciousness1 as the ratiocinating intelligence4 ,this mingles with ,kma1 the passional nature1 the passions and emotions thus becoming a part of ,mind1 as defined in ,western ,psychology4 ,and so we have the link formed between the higher and lower natures in man1 this ,kma-,manas belonging to the higher by its mnasic1 and to the lower by its kmic1 elements4 ,as this forms the battleground during life1 so does it play an important part in post-mortem existence4 ,we might now classify our seven principles a little differently1 having in view this mingling in ,kma-,manas of perishable and imperishable elements3 ,atm4 ,immortal4 ,buddhi4 ,higher-,manas4 ,conditionally ,immortal4 ,kma-,manas4 ,prna4 ,mortal4 ,etheric ,double4 ,dense ,body4 ,some ,christian writers have adopted a classification similar to this1 declaring ,spirit to be inherently immortal1 as being ,divine2 ,soul to be conditionally immortal1 i4e41 capable of winning immortality by uniting itself with ,spirit2 ,body to be inherently mortal4 ,the majority of uninstructed ,christians chop man into two1 the ,body that perishes at ,death1 and the something--called indifferently ,soul or ,spirit--that survives ,death4 ,this last classification--if classification it may be called--is entirely inadequate1 if we are to seek any rational explanation1 or even lucid statement1 of the phenomena of post-mortem existence4 ,the tripartite view of man's nature gives a more reasonable representation of his constitution1 but is inadequate to explain many phenomena4 ,the septenary division alone gives a reasonable theory consistent with the facts we have to deal with1 and therefore1 though it may seem elaborate1 the student will do wisely to make himself familiar with it4 ,if he were studying only the body1 and desired to understand its activities1 he would have to classify its tissues at far greater length and with far more minuteness than ,i am using here4 ,he would have to learn the differences between muscular1 nervous1 glandular1 bony1 cartilaginous1 epithelial1 connective1 tissues1 and all their varieties2 and if he rebelled1 in his ignorance1 against such an elaborate division1 it would be explained to him that only by such an analysis of the different components of the body can the varied and complicated phenomena of life-activity be understood4 ,one kind of tissue is wanted for support1 another for movement1 another for secretion1 another for absorption1 and so on2 and if each kind does not have its own distinctive name1 dire confusion and misunderstanding must result1 and physical functions remain unintelligible4 ,in the long run time is gained1 as well as clearness1 by learning a few necessary technical terms1 and as clearness is above all things needed in trying to explain and to understand very complicated post-mortem phenomena1 ,i find myself compelled--contrary to my habit in these elementary papers--to resort to these technical names at the outset1 for the ,english language has as yet no equivalents for them1 and the use of long descriptive phrases is extremely cumbersome and inconvenient4 ,for myself1 ,i believe that very much of the antagonism between the adherents of the ,esoteric ,philosophy and those of ,spiritualism has arisen from confusion of terms1 and consequent misunderstanding of each others meaning4 ,one eminent ,spiritualist lately impatiently said that he did not see the need of exact definition1 and that he meant by ,spirit all the part of man's nature that survived ,death1 and was not body4 ,one might as well insist on saying that man's body consists of bone and blood1 and asked to define blood1 answer3 ,oh6 ,i mean everything that is not bone4 ,a clear definition of terms1 and a rigid adherence to them when once adopted1 will at least enable us all to understand each other1 and that is the first step to any fruitful comparison of experiences4 ,,the ,,fate ,,of ,,the ,,body4 ,the human body is constantly undergoing a process of decay and of reconstruction4 ,first builded into the etheric form in the womb of the mother1 it is built up continually by the insetting of fresh materials4 ,with every moment tiny molecules are passing away from it2 with every moment tiny molecules are streaming into it4 ,the outgoing stream is scattered over the environment1 and helps to rebuild bodies of all kinds in the mineral1 vegetable1 animal1 and human kingdoms1 the physical basis of all these being one and the same4 ,the idea that the human tabernacle is built by countless lives1 just in the same way as the rocky crust of our ,earth was1 has nothing repulsive in it for the true mystic4444 ,science teaches us that the living as well as the dead organism of both man and animal are swarming with bacteria of a hundred various kinds2 that from without we are threatened with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw1 and from within by leucomaines1 robes1 robes1 anrobes1 and what not4 ,but ,science never yet went so far as to assert with the ,occult ,doctrine that our bodies1 as well as those of animals1 plants1 and stones1 are themselves altogether built up of such beings1 which1 except larger species1 no microscope can detect4 ,so far as regards the purely animal and material portion of man1 ,science is on its way to discoveries that will go far towards corroborating this theory4 ,chemistry and physiology are the two great magicians of the future1 who are destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great physical truths4 ,with every day1 the identity between the animal and physical man1 between the plant and man1 and even between the reptile and its nest1 the rock1 and man1 is more and more clearly shown4 ,the physical and chemical constituents of all being found to be identical1 chemical ,science may well say that there is no difference between the matter which composes the ox and that which forms man4 ,but the ,occult ,doctrine is far more explicit4 ,it says3 ,not only the chemical compounds are the same1 but the same infinitesimal invisible lives compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the daisy1 of man and the ant1 of the elephant1 and of the tree which shelters him from the sun4 ,each particle--whether you call it organic or inorganic--is a life4#f ,these lives which1 separate and independent1 are the minute vehicles of ,prna1 aggregated together form the molecules and cells of the physical body1 and they stream in and stream out1 during all the years of bodily life1 thus forming a continual bridge between man and his environment4 ,controlling these are the ,fiery ,lives1 the ,devourers1 which constrain these to their work of building up the cells of the body1 so that they work harmoniously and in order1 subordinated to the higher manifestation of life in the complex organism called ,man4 ,these ,fiery ,lives on our plane correspond1 in this controlling and organising function1 with the ,one ,life of the ,universe1#g and when they no longer exercise this function in the human body1 the lower lives run rampant1 and begin to break down the hitherto definitely organised body4 ,during bodily life they are marshalled as an army2 marching in regular order under the command of a general1 performing various evolutions1 keeping step1 moving as a single body4 ,at ,death they become a disorganised and tumultuous mob1 rushing hither and thither1 jostling each other1 tumbling over each other1 with no common object1 no generally recognised authority4 ,the body is never more alive than when it is dead2 but it is alive in its units1 and dead in its totality2 alive as a congeries1 dead as an organism4 ,science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by a mysterious force called the life-principle4 ,to the ,materialist1 the only difference between a living and a dead body is that in the one case that force is active1 in the other latent4 ,when it is extinct or entirely latent1 the molecules obey a superior attraction1 which draws them asunder and scatters them through space4 ,this dispersion must be ,death1 if it is possible to conceive such a thing as ,death1 where the very molecules of the dead body manifest an intense vital energy4444 ,says ,eliphas ,levi3 ,change attests movement1 and movement only reveals life4 ,the corpse would not decompose if it were dead2 all the molecules which compose it are living and struggle to separate4#h ,those who have read ,the ,seven ,principles of ,man1#i know that the etheric double is the vehicle of ,prna1 the life-principle1 or vitality4 ,through the etheric double ,prna exercises the controlling and co-ordinating force spoken of above1 and ,death takes triumphant possession of the body when the etheric double is finally withdrawn and the delicate cord which unites it with the body is snapped4 ,the process of withdrawal has been watched by clairvoyants1 and definitely described4 ,thus ,andrew ,jackson ,davis1 the ,poughkeepsie ,seer1 describes how he himself watched this escape of the ethereal body1 and he states that the magnetic cord did not break for some thirty-six hours after apparent death4 ,others have described1 in similar terms1 how they saw a faint violet mist rise from the dying body1 gradually condensing into a figure which was the counterpart of the expiring person1 and attached to that person by a glistening thread4 ,the snapping of the thread means the breaking of the last magnetic link between the dense body and the remaining principles of the human constitution2 the body has dropped away from the man2 he is excarnated1 disembodied2 six principles still remain as his constitution immediately after death1 the seventh1 or the dense body1 being left as a cast-off garment4 ,death consists1 indeed1 in a repeated process of unrobing1 or unsheathing4 ,the immortal part of man shakes off from itself1 one after the other1 its outer casings1 and--as the snake from its skin1 the butterfly from its chrysalis--emerges from one after another1 passing into a higher state of consciousness4 ,now it is the fact that this escape from the body1 and this dwelling of the conscious entity either in the vehicle called the body of desire1 the kmic or astral body1 or in a yet more ethereal ,thought ,body1 can be effected during earth-life2 so that man may become familiar with the excarnated condition1 and it may lose for him all the terrors that encircle the unknown4 ,he can know himself as a conscious entity in either of these vehicles1 and so prove to his own satisfaction that life does not depend on his functioning through the physical body4 ,why should a man who has thus repeatedly shed his lower bodies1 and has found the process result1 not in unconsciousness1 but in a vastly extended freedom and vividness of life--why should he fear the final casting away of his fetters1 and the freeing of his ,immortal ,self from what he realises as the prison of the flesh8 ,this view of human life is an essential part of the ,esoteric ,philosophy4 ,man is primarily divine1 a spark of the ,divine ,life4 ,this living flame1 passing out from the ,central ,fire1 weaves for itself coverings within which it dwells1 and thus becomes the ,triad1 the ,atm-,buddhi-,manas1 the reflection of the ,immortal ,self4 ,this sends out its ,ray1 which becomes encased in grosser matter1 in the desire body1 or kmic elements1 the passional nature1 and in the etheric double and the physical body4 ,the once free immortal ,intelligence thus entangled1 enswathed1 enchained1 works heavily and laboriously through the coatings that enwrap it4 ,in its own nature it remains ever the free ,bird of ,heaven1 but its wings are bound to its side by the matter into which it is plunged4 ,when man recognises his own inherent nature1 he learns to open his prison doors occasionally and escapes from his encircling gaol2 first he learns to identify himself with the ,immortal ,triad1 and rises above the body and its passions into a pure mental and moral life2 then he learns that the conquered body cannot hold him prisoner1 and he unlocks its door and steps out into the sunshine of his true life4 ,so when ,death unlocks the door for him1 he knows the country into which he emerges1 having trodden its ways at his own will4 ,and at last he grows to recognise that fact of supreme importance1 that ,life has nothing to do with body and with this material plane2 that ,life is his conscious existence1 unbroken1 unbreakable1 and that the brief interludes in that ,life1 during which he sojourns on ,earth1 are but a minute fraction of his conscious existence1 and a fraction1 moreover1 during which he is less alive1 because of the heavy coverings which weigh him down4 ,for only during these interludes 7save in exceptional cases7 may he wholly lose his consciousness of continued life1 being surrounded by these coverings which delude him and blind him to the truth of things1 making that real which is illusion1 and that stable which is transitory4 ,the sunlight ranges over the universe1 and at incarnation we step out of it into the twilight of the body1 and see but dimly during the period of our incarceration2 at ,death we step out of the prison again into the sunlight1 and are nearer to the reality4 ,short are the twilight periods1 and long the periods of the sunlight2 but in our blinded state we call the twilight life1 and to us it is the real existence1 while we call the sunlight ,death1 and shiver at the thought of passing into it4 ,well did ,giordano ,bruno1 one of the greatest teachers of our ,philosophy in the ,middle ,ages1 state the truth as to the body and ,man4 ,of the real ,man he says3 ,he will be present in the body in such wise that the best part of himself will be absent from it1 and will join himself by an indissoluble sacrament to divine things1 in such a way that he will not feel either love or hatred of things mortal4 ,considering himself as master1 and that he ought not to be servant and slave to his body1 which he would regard only as the prison which holds his liberty in confinement1 the glue which smears his wings1 chains which bind fast his hands1 stocks which fix his feet1 veil which hides his view4 ,let him not be servant1 captive1 ensnared1 chained1 idle1 stolid1 and blind1 for the body which he himself abandons cannot tyrannise over him1 so that thus the spirit in a certain degree comes before him as the corporeal world1 and matter is subject to the divinity and to nature4#aj ,when once we thus come to regard the body1 and by conquering it we gain our liberty1 ,death loses for us all his terrors1 and at his touch the body slips from us as a garment1 and we stand out from it erect and free4 ,on the same lines of thought ,dr4 ,franz ,hartmann writes3 ,according to certain views of the ,west man is a developed ape4 ,according to the views of ,indian ,sages1 which also coincide with those of the ,philosophers of past ages and with the teachings of the ,christian ,mystics1 man is a ,god1 who is united during his earthly life1 through his own carnal tendencies1 to an animal 7his animal nature74 ,the ,god who dwells within him endows man with wisdom4 ,the animal endows him with force4 ,after death1 the ,god effects his own release from the man by departing from the animal body4 ,as man carries within him this divine consciousness1 it is his task to battle with his animal inclinations1 and to raise himself above them1 by the help of the divine principle1 a task which the animal cannot achieve1 and which therefore is not demanded of it4#aa ,the man1 using the word in the sense of personality1 as it is used in the latter half of this sentence1 is only conditionally immortal2 the true man1 the evolving ,god1 releases himself1 and so much of the personality goes with him as has raised itself into union with the divine4 ,the body thus left to the rioting of the countless lives--previously held in constraint by ,prna1 acting through its vehicle the etheric double--begins to decay1 that is to break up1 and with the disintegration of its cells and molecules1 its particles pass away into other combinations4 ,on our return to ,earth we may meet again some of those same countless lives that in a previous incarnation made of our then body their passing dwelling2 but all that we are just now concerned with is the breaking up of the body whose life-span is over1 and its fate is complete disintegration4 ,to the dense body1 then1 ,death means dissolution as an organism1 the loosing of the bonds that united the many into one4 ,,the ,,fate ,,of ,,the ,,etheric ,,double4 ,the etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of man4 ,it is the double that is sometimes seen during life in the neighbourhood of the body1 and its absence from the body is generally marked by the heaviness or semi-lethargy of the latter4 ,acting as the reservoir1 or vehicle1 of the life-principle during earth-life1 its withdrawal from the body is naturally marked by the lowering of all vital functions1 even while the cord which unites the two is still unbroken4 ,as has been already said1 the snapping of the cord means the death of the body4 ,when the etheric double finally quits the body1 it does not travel to any distance from it4 ,normally it remains floating over the body1 the state of consciousness being dreamy and peaceful1 unless tumultuous distress and violent emotion surround the corpse from which it has just issued4 ,and here it may be well to say that during the slow process of dying1 while the etheric double is withdrawing from the body1 taking with it the higher principles1 as after it has withdrawn1 extreme quiet and self-control should be observed in the chamber of ,death4 ,for during this time the whole life passes swiftly in review before the ,ego1 the individual1 as those have related who have passed in drowning into this unconscious and pulseless state4 ,a ,master has written3 ,at the last moment the whole life is reflected in our memory1 and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners1 picture after picture1 one event after another4444 ,the man may often appear dead1 yet from the last pulsation1 from and between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when the last spark of animal heat leaves the body1 the brain thinks1 and the ,ego lives over in those few brief seconds his whole life4 ,speak in whispers1 ye who assist at a deathbed1 and find yourselves in the solemn presence of death4 ,especially have ye to keep quiet just after death has laid her clammy hand upon the body4 ,speak in whispers1 ,i say1 lest ye disturb the quiet ripple of thought1 and hinder the busy work of the past1 casting its reflection upon the veil of the future4#ab ,this is the time during which the thought-images of the ended earth-life1 clustering around their maker1 group and interweave themselves into the completed image of that life1 and are impressed in their totality on the ,astral ,light4 ,the dominant tendencies1 the strongest thought-habits1 assert their pre-eminence1 and stamp themselves as the characteristics which will appear as innate qualities in the succeeding incarnation4 ,this balancing-up of the life-issues1 this reading of the krmic records1 is too solemn and momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of personal relatives and friends4 ,at the solemn moment of death every man1 even when death is sudden1 sees the whole of his past life marshalled before him1 in its minutest details4 ,for one short instant the personal become one with the individual and all-knowing ,ego4 ,but this instant is enough to show to him the whole chain of causes which have been at work during his life4 ,he sees and now understands himself as he is1 unadorned by flattery or self-deception4 ,he reads his life1 remaining as a spectator1 looking down into the arena he is quitting4#ac ,this vivid sight is succeeded1 in the ordinary person1 by the dreamy1 peaceful semi-consciousness spoken of above1 as the etheric double floats above the body to which it has belonged1 now completely separated from it4 ,sometimes this double is seen by persons in the house1 or in the neighbourhood1 when the thought of the dying has been strongly turned to some one left behind1 when some anxiety has been in the mind at the last1 something left undone which needed doing1 or when some local disturbance has shaken the tranquillity of the passing entity4 ,under these conditions1 or others of a similar nature1 the double may be seen or heard2 when seen1 it shows the dreamy1 hazy consciousness alluded to1 is silent1 vague in its aspect1 unresponsive4 ,as the days go on1 the five higher principles gradually disengage themselves from the etheric double1 and shake this off as they previously shook off the grosser body4 ,they pass on1 as a fivefold entity1 into a state to be next studied1 leaving the etheric double1 with the dense body of which it is the counterpart1 thus becoming an ethereal corpse1 as much as the body had become a dense corpse4 ,this ethereal corpse remains near the dense one1 and they disintegrate together2 clairvoyants see these ethereal wraiths in churchyards1 sometimes showing likeness to the dead dense body1 sometimes as violet mists or lights4 ,such an ethereal corpse has been seen by a friend of my own1 passing through the horribly repulsive stages of decomposition1 a ghastly vision in face of which clairvoyance was certainly no blessing4 ,the process goes on pari passu1 until all but the actual bony skeleton of the dense body is completely disintegrated1 and the particles have gone to form other combinations4 ,one of the great advantages of cremation--apart from all sanitary conditions--lies in the swift restoration to ,mother ,nature of the physical elements composing the dense and ethereal corpses1 brought about by the burning4 ,instead of slow and gradual decomposition1 swift dissociation takes place1 and no physical remnants are left1 working possible mischief4 ,the ethereal corpse may to some extent be revivified for a short period after its death4 ,dr4 ,hartmann says3 ,the fresh corpse of a person who has suddenly been killed may be galvanised into a semblance of life by the application of a galvanic battery4 ,likewise the astral corpse of a person may be brought back into an artificial life by being infused with a part of the life principle of the medium4 ,if that corpse is one of a very intellectual person1 it may talk very intellectually2 and if it was that of a fool it will talk like a fool4#ad ,this mischievous procedure can only be carried out in the neighbourhood of the corpse1 and for a very limited time after death1 but there are cases on record of such galvanising of the ethereal corpse1 performed at the grave of the departed person4 ,needless to say that such a process belongs distinctly to ,black ,magic1 and is wholly evil4 ,ethereal corpses1 like dense ones1 if not swiftly destroyed by burning1 should be left in the silence and the darkness1 a silence and a darkness that it is the worst profanity to break4 ,k,,maloka1 ,,and ,,the ,,fate ,,of ,,pr,,na ,,and ,k,,ma4 ,loka is a ,sanskrit word that may be translated as place1 world1 land1 so that ,kmaloka is literally the place or the world of ,kma1 ,kma being the name of that part of the human organism that includes all the passions1 desires1 and emotions which man has in common with the lower animals4#ae ,in this division of the universe1 the ,kmaloka1 dwell all the human entities that have shaken off the dense body and its ethereal double1 but have not yet disentangled themselves from the passional and emotional nature4 ,kmaloka has many other tenants1 but we are concerned only with the human beings who have lately passed through the gateway of ,death1 and it is on these that we must concentrate our study4 ,a momentary digression may be pardoned on the question of the existence of regions in the universe1 other than the physical1 peopled with intelligent beings4 ,the existence of such regions is postulated by the ,esoteric ,philosophy1 and is known to the ,adepts and to very many less highly evolved men and women by personal experience2 all that is needed for the study of these regions is the evolution of the faculties latent in every man2 a living man1 in ordinary parlance1 can leave his dense and ethereal bodies behind him1 and explore these regions without going through ,death's gateway4 ,thus we read in the ,theosophist that real knowledge may be acquired by the ,spirit in the living man coming into conscious relations with the world of ,spirit4 ,as in the case1 say1 of an initiated ,adept1 who brings back upon earth with him the clear and distinct recollection--correct to a detail--of facts gathered1 and the information obtained1 in the invisible sphere of ,realities4#af ,in this way those regions become to him matters of knowledge as definite1 as certain1 as familiar1 as if he should travel to ,africa in ordinary fashion1 explore its deserts1 and return to his own land the richer for the knowledge and experience gained4 ,a seasoned ,african explorer would care but little for the criticisms passed on his report by persons who had never been thither2 he might tell what he saw1 describe the animals whose habits he had studied1 sketch the country he had traversed1 sum up its products and its characteristics4 ,if he was contradicted1 laughed at1 set right1 by untravelled critics1 he would be neither ruffled nor distressed1 but would merely leave them alone4 ,ignorance cannot convince knowledge by repeated asseveration of its nescience4 ,the opinion of a hundred persons on a subject on which they are wholly ignorant is of no more weight than the opinion of one such person4 ,evidence is strengthened by many consenting witnesses1 testifying each to his knowledge of a fact1 but nothing multiplied a thousand times remains nothing4 ,strange1 indeed1 would it be if all the ,space around us be empty1 mere waste void1 and the inhabitants of earth the only forms in which intelligence could clothe itself4 ,as ,dr4 ,huxley said3 ,without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known1 it is easy to people the cosmos with entities1 in ascending scale1 until we reach something practically indistinguishable from omnipotence1 omnipresence1 and omniscience4#ag ,if these entities did not have organs of sense like our own1 if their senses responded to vibrations different from those which affect ours1 they and we might walk side by side1 pass each other1 meet each other1 pass through each other1 and yet be never the wiser as to each other's existence4 ,mr4 ,crookes gives us a glimpse of the possibility of such unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings1 and but a very slight effort of imagination is needed to realise the conception4 ,it is not improbable that other sentient beings have organs of sense which do not respond to some or any of the rays to which our eyes are sensitive1 but are able to appreciate other vibrations to which we are blind4 ,such beings would practically be living in a different world to our own4 ,imagine1 for instance1 what idea we should form of surrounding objects were we endowed with eyes not sensitive to the ordinary rays of light1 but sensitive to the vibrations concerned in electric and magnetic phenomena4 ,glass and crystal would be among the most opaque of bodies4 ,metals would be more or less transparent1 and a telegraph wire through the air would look like a long narrow hole drilled through an impervious solid body4 ,a dynamo in active work would resemble a conflagration1 whilst a permanent magnet would realise the dream of medival mystics1 and become an everlasting lamp with no expenditure of energy or consumption of fuel4#ah ,kmaloka is a region peopled by intelligent and semi-intelligent entities1 just as our own is thus peopled2 it is crowded1 like our world1 with many types and forms of living things1 as diverse from each other as a blade of grass is different from a tiger1 a tiger from a man4 ,it interpenetrates our own world and is interpenetrated by it1 but1 as the states of matter in the two worlds differ1 they co-exist without the knowledge of the intelligent beings in either4 ,only under abnormal circumstances can consciousness of each other's presence arise among the inhabitants of the two worlds2 by certain peculiar training a living human being can come into conscious contact with and control many of the sub-human denizens of ,kmaloka2 human beings1 who have quitted earth and in whom the kmic elements were strong1 may very readily be attracted by the kmic elements in embodied men1 and by their help become conscious again of the presence of the scenes they had left2 and human beings still embodied may set up methods of communication with the disembodied1 and may1 as said1 leave their own bodies for awhile1 and become conscious in ,kmaloka by the use of faculties through which they have accustomed their consciousness to act4 ,the point which is here to be clearly grasped is the existence of ,kmaloka as a definite region1 inhabited by a large diversity of entities1 among whom are disembodied human beings4 ,from this necessary digression we return to the particular human being whose fate1 as a type1 we may be said to be tracing1 and of whose dense body and etheric double we have already disposed4 ,let us contemplate him in the state of very brief duration that follows the shaking off of these two casings4 ,says ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky1 after quoting from ,plutarch a description of the man after death3 ,here you have our doctrine1 which shows man a septenary during life2 a quintile just after death1 in ,kmaloka4#ai ,prna1 the portion of the life-energy appropriated by the man in his embodied state1 having lost its vehicle1 the ethereal double1 which1 with the physical body1 has slipped away from its controlling energy1 must pass back into the great life-reservoir of the universe4 ,as water enclosed in a glass vessel and plunged into a tank mingles with the surrounding water if the vessel be broken1 so ,prna1 as the bodies drop from it1 mingles again with the ,life ,universal4 ,it is only just after death that man is a quintile1 or fivefold in his constitution1 for ,prna1 as a distinctively human principle1 cannot remain appropriated when its vehicle disintegrates4 ,the man now is clothed1 but with the ,kma ,rpa1 or body of ,kma1 the desire body1 a body of astral matter1 often termed fluidic1 so easily does it1 during earth-life1 take any form impressed upon it from without or moulded from within4 ,the living man is there1 the immortal ,triad1 still clad in the last of its terrestrial garments1 in the subtle1 sensitive1 responsive form which lent it during embodiment the power to feel1 to desire1 to enjoy1 to suffer1 in the physical world4 ,when the man dies1 his three lower principles leave him for ever2 i4e41 body1 life1 and the vehicle of the latter1 the etheric body1 or the double of the living man4 ,and then his four principles--the central or middle principle 7the animal soul or ,kma ,rpa1 with what it has assimilated from the lower ,manas7 and the higher ,triad--find themselves in ,kmaloka4#bj ,this desire body undergoes a marked change soon after death4 ,the different densities of the astral matter of which it is composed arrange themselves in a series of shells or envelopes1 the densest being outside1 shutting the consciousness away from all but very limited contact and expression4 ,the consciousness turns in on itself1 if left undisturbed1 and prepares itself for the next step onwards1 while the desire body gradually disintegrates1 shell after shell4 ,up to the point of this re-arrangement of the matter of the desire body1 the post-mortem experience of all is much the same2 it is a dreamy1 peaceful semi-consciousness1 as before said1 and this1 in the happiest cases1 passes without vivid awakening into the deeper pre-devachanic unconsciousness which ends with the blissful wakening in ,devachan1 for the period of repose that intervenes between two incarnations4 ,but as1 at this point1 different possibilities arise1 let us trace a normal uninterrupted progression in ,kmaloka1 up to the threshold of ,devachan1 and then we can return to consider other classes of circumstances4 ,if a person has led a pure life1 and has steadfastly striven to rise and to identify himself with the higher rather than the lower parts of his nature1 after shaking off the dense body and the etheric double1 and after ,prna has re-mingled with the ocean of ,life1 and he is clothed only with the ,kma ,rpa1 the passional elements in him1 being but weak and accustomed to comparatively little activity1 will not be able to assert themselves strongly in ,kmaloka4 ,now during earth-life ,kma and the ,lower ,manas are strongly united and interwoven with each other2 in the case we are considering ,kma is weak1 and the ,lower ,manas has purified ,kma to a great extent4 ,the mind1 woven with the passions1 emotions1 and desires1 has purified them1 and has assimilated their pure part1 absorbed it into itself1 so that all that is left of ,kma is a mere residue1 easily to be gotten rid of1 from which the ,immortal ,triad can readily free itself4 ,slowly this ,immortal ,triad1 the true ,man1 draws in all his forces2 he draws into himself the memories of the earth-life just ended1 its loves1 its hopes1 its aspirations1 and prepares to pass out of ,kmaloka into the blissful rest of ,devachan1 the abode of the ,gods1 or as some say1 the land of bliss4 ,kmaloka ,is an astral locality1 the ,limbus of scholastic theology1 the ,hades of the ancients1 and1 strictly speaking1 a locality only in a relative sense4 ,it has neither a definite area1 nor boundary1 but exists within subjective space1 i4e41 is beyond our sensuous perceptions4 ,still it exists1 and it is there that the astral eidolons of all the beings that have lived1 animals included1 await their second death4 ,for the animals it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of their astral particles to the last4 ,for the human eidolon it begins when the ,atm-,buddhi-,mnasic ,triad is said to separate itself from its lower principles or the reflection of the ex-personality1 by falling into the ,devachanic state4#ba ,this second death is the passage1 then1 of the ,immortal ,triad from the kmalokic sphere1 so closely related to the earth sphere1 into the higher state of ,devachan1 of which we must speak later4 ,the type of man we are considering passes through this1 in the peaceful dreamy state already described1 and1 if left undisturbed1 will not regain full consciousness until these stages are passed through1 and peace gives way to bliss4 ,but during the whole period that the four principles--the ,immortal ,triad and ,kma--remain in ,kmaloka1 whether the period be long or short1 days or centuries1 they are within the reach of the earth-influences4 ,in the case of such a person as we have been describing1 an awakening may be caused by the passionate sorrow and desires of friends left on earth1 and these violently vibrating kmic elements in the embodied persons may set up vibrations in the desire body of the disembodied1 and so reach and rouse the lower ,manas1 not yet withdrawn to and reunited with its parent1 the ,spiritual ,intelligence4 ,thus it may be roused from its dreamy state to vivid remembrance of the earth-life so lately left1 and may--if any sensitive or medium is concerned1 either directly1 or indirectly through one of these grieving friends in communication with the medium--use the medium's etheric and dense bodies to speak or write to those left behind4 ,this awakening is often accompanied with acute suffering1 and even if this be avoided1 the natural process of the ,triad freeing itself is rudely disturbed1 and the completion of its freedom is delayed4 ,in speaking of this possibility of communication during the period immediately succeeding death and before the freed ,man passes on into ,devachan1 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky says3 ,whether any living mortal1 save a few exceptional cases--when the intensity of the desire in the dying person to return for some purpose forced the higher consciousness to remain awake1 and1 therefore1 it was really the individuality1 the ,spirit1 that communicated--has derived much benefit from the return of the ,spirit into the objective plane is another question4 ,the ,spirit is dazed after death1 and falls very soon into what we call pre-devachanic unconsciousness4#bb ,intense desire may move the disembodied entity to spontaneously return to the sorrowing ones left behind1 but this spontaneous return is rare in the case of persons of the type we are just now considering4 ,if they are left at peace1 they will generally sleep themselves quietly into ,devachan1 and so avoid any struggle or suffering in connection with the second death4 ,on the final escape of the ,immortal ,triad there is left behind in ,kmaloka only the desire body1 the shell or mere empty phantom1 which gradually disintegrates2 but it will be better to deal with this in considering the next type1 the average man or woman1 without marked spirituality of an elevated kind1 but also without marked evil tendencies4 ,when an average man or woman reaches ,kmaloka1 the spiritual ,intelligence is clothed with a desire body1 which possesses considerable vigour and vitality2 the lower ,manas1 closely interwoven with ,kma during the earth-life just ended1 having lived much in the enjoyment of objects of sense and in the pleasures of the emotions1 cannot quickly disentangle itself from the web of its own weaving1 and return to its ,parent ,mind1 the source of its own being4 ,hence a considerable delay in the world of transition1 in ,kmaloka1 while the desires wear out and fade away to a point at which they can no longer detain the ,soul with their clinging arms4 ,as said1 during the period that the ,immortal ,triad and ,kma remain together in ,kmaloka1 communication between the disembodied entity and the embodied entities on earth is possible4 ,such communication will generally be welcomed by these disembodied ones1 because their desires and emotions still cling to the earth they have left1 and the mind has not sufficiently lived on its own plane to find therein full satisfaction and contentment4 ,the lower ,manas still yearns towards kmic gratifications and the vivid highly coloured sensations of earth-life1 and can by these yearnings be drawn back to the scenes it has regretfully quitted4 ,speaking of the possibility of communication between the ,ego of the deceased person and a medium1 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky says in the ,theosophist1#bc as from the teachings received by her from the ,adept ,brothers1 that such communication may occur during two intervals3 ,interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual ,ego into that state which is known in the ,arhat esoteric doctrine as ,bar-do4 ,we have translated this as the gestation period pre-devachanic4 ,some of the communications made through mediums are from this source1 from the disembodied entity1 thus drawn back to the earth-sphere--a cruel kindness1 delaying its forward evolution and introducing an element of disharmony into what should be an orderly progression4 ,the period in ,kmaloka is thus lengthened1 the desire body is fed and its hold on the ,ego is maintained1 and thus is the freedom of the ,soul deferred1 the immortal ,swallow being still held down by the bird-lime of earth4 ,persons who have led an evil life1 who have gratified and stimulated their animal passions1 and have full fed the desire body while they have starved even the lower mind--these remain for long1 denizens of ,kmaloka1 and are filled with yearnings for the earth-life they have left1 and for the animal delights that they can no longer--in the absence of the physical body--directly taste4 ,these gather round the medium and the sensitive1 endeavouring to utilise them for their own gratification1 and these are among the more dangerous of the forces so rashly confronted in their ignorance by the thoughtless and the curious4 ,another class of disembodied entities includes those whose lives on earth have been prematurely cut short1 by their own act1 the act of others1 or by accident4 ,their fate in ,kmaloka depends on the conditions which surrounded their outgoings from earthly life1 for not all suicides are guilty of felo de se1 and the measure of responsibility may vary within very wide limits4 ,the condition of such has been thus described3 ,suicides1 although not wholly dissevered from their sixth and seventh principles1 and quite potent in the sance room1 nevertheless to the day when they would have died a natural death1 are separated from their higher principles by a gulf4 ,the sixth and seventh principles remain passive and negative1 whereas in cases of accidental death the higher and the lower groups actually attract each other4 ,in cases of good and innocent ,egos1 moreover1 the latter gravitates irresistibly toward the sixth and seventh1 and thus either slumbers surrounded by happy dreams1 or sleeps a dreamless profound sleep until the hour strikes4 ,with a little reflection and an eye to the eternal justice and fitness of things1 you will see why4 ,the victim1 whether good or bad1 is irresponsible for his death4 ,even if his death were due to some action in a previous life or an antecedent birth1 was an act1 in short1 of the ,law of ,retribution1 still it was not the direct result of an act deliberately committed by the personal ,ego of that life during which he happened to be killed4 ,had he been allowed to live longer he might have atoned for his antecedent sins still more effectually1 and even now1 the ,ego having been made to pay off the debt of his maker1 the personal ,ego is free from the blows of retributive justice4 ,the ,dhyn ,chohans1 who have no hand in the guidance of the living human ,ego1 protect the helpless victim when it is violently thrust out of its element into a new one1 before it is matured and made fit and ready for it4 ,these1 whether suicides or killed by accident1 can communicate with those in earth-life1 but much to their own injury4 ,as said above1 the good and innocent sleep happily till the life-period is over4 ,but where the victim of an accident is depraved and gross1 his fate is a sad one4 ,unhappy shades1 if sinful and sensual1 they wander about 7not shells1 for their connection with their two higher principles is not quite broken7 until their death-hour comes4 ,cut off in the full flush of earthly passions which bind them to familiar scenes1 they are enticed by the opportunities which mediums afford to gratify them vicariously4 ,they are the ,pishchas1 the ,incubi and ,succub of medival times2 the demons of thirst1 gluttony1 lust1 and avarice--,elementaries of intensified craft1 wickedness1 and cruelty2 provoking their victims to horrid crimes1 and revelling in their commission6 ,they not only ruin their victims1 but these psychic vampires1 borne along by the torrent of their hellish impulses1 at last--at the fixed close of their natural period of life--they are carried out of the earth's aura into regions where for ages they endure exquisite suffering and end with entire destruction4 99 99 99 99 99 ,now the causes producing the new being and determining the nature of ,karma are ,trishn 7,tanh7--thirst1 desire for sentient existence--and ,updna1 which is the realisation or consummation of ,trishn1 or that desire4 ,and both of these the medium helps to develop ne plus ultra in an ,elementary1 be he a suicide or a victim4 ,the rule is that a person who dies a natural death will remain from a few hours to several short years within the earth's attraction--i4e41 the ,kmaloka4 ,but exceptions are the cases of suicides and those who die a violent death in general4 ,hence1 one of such ,egos who was destined to live1 say1 eighty or ninety years--but who either killed himself or was killed by some accident1 let us suppose at the age of twenty--would have to pass in the ,kmaloka not a few years1 but in his case sixty or seventy years1 as an ,elementary1 or rather an earth-walker1 since he is not1 unfortunately for him1 even a ,shell4 ,happy1 thrice happy1 in comparison1 are those disembodied entities who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom of ,space6 ,and woe to those whose ,trishn will attract them to mediums1 and woe to the latter who tempt them with such an easy ,updna4 ,for1 in grasping them and satisfying their thirst for life1 the medium helps to develop in them--is1 in fact1 the cause of--a new set of ,skandhas1 a new body with far worse tendencies and passions than the one they lost4 ,all the future of this new body will be determined thus1 not only by the ,karma of demerit of the previous set or group1 but also by that of the new set of the future being4 ,were the mediums and spiritualists but to know1 as ,i said1 that with every new angel-guide they welcome with rapture1 they entice the latter into a ,updna1 which will be productive of untold evils for the new ,ego that will be reborn under its nefarious shadow1 and that with every sance1 especially for materialization1 they multiply the causes for misery1 causes that will make the unfortunate ,ego fail in his spiritual birth1 or be reborn into a far worse existence than ever--they would1 perhaps1 be less lavish in their hospitality4 ,premature death brought on by vicious courses1 by over-study1 or by voluntary sacrifice for some great cause1 will bring about delay in ,kmaloka1 but the state of the disembodied entity will depend on the motive that cut short the life4 ,there are very few1 if any1 of the men who indulge in these vices1 who feel perfectly sure that such a course of action will lead them eventually to premature death4 ,such is the penalty of ,my4 ,the vices will not escape their punishment2 but it is the cause1 not the effect1 that will be punished1 especially an unforeseen1 though probable effect4 ,as well call a man a suicide who meets his death in a storm at sea1 as one who kills himself with over-study4 ,water is liable to drown a man1 and too much brain work to produce a softening of the brain matter which may carry him away4 ,in such a case no one ought to cross the ,klapni1 nor even to take a bath for fear of getting faint in it and drowned 7for we all know of such cases71 nor should a man do his duty1 least of all sacrifice himself for even a laudable and highly beneficial cause as many of us do4 ,motive is everything1 and man is punished in a case of direct responsibility1 never otherwise4 ,in the victim's case the natural hour of death was anticipated accidentally1 while in that of the suicide death is brought on voluntarily and with a full and deliberate knowledge of its immediate consequences4 ,thus a man who causes his death in a fit of temporary insanity is not a felo de se1 to the great grief and often trouble of the ,life ,insurance ,companies4 ,nor is he left a prey to the temptations of the ,kmaloka1 but falls asleep like any other victim4 ,the population of ,kmaloka is thus recruited with a peculiarly dangerous element by all the acts of violence1 legal and illegal1 which wrench the physical body from the soul and send the latter into ,kmaloka clad in the desire body1 throbbing with pulses of hatred1 passion1 emotion1 palpitating with longings for revenge1 with unsatiated lusts4 ,a murderer in the body is not a pleasant member of society1 but a murderer suddenly expelled from the body is a far more dangerous entity2 society may protect itself against the first1 but in its present state of ignorance it is defenceless as against the second4 ,finally1 the ,immortal ,triad sets itself free from the desire body1 and passes out of ,kmaloka2 the ,higher ,manas draws back its ,ray1 coloured with the life-scenes it has passed through1 and carrying with it the experiences gained through the personality it has informed4 ,the labourer is called in from the field1 and he returns home bearing his sheaves with him1 rich or poor1 according to the fruitage of the life4 ,when the ,triad has quitted ,kmaloka1 it passes wholly out of the sphere of earth attractions3 ,as soon as it has stepped outside the ,kmaloka--crossed the ,golden ,bridge leading to the ,seven ,golden ,mountains--the ,ego can confabulate no more with easy-going mediums4 ,there are some exceptional possibilities of reaching such an ,ego1 that will be explained later1 but the ,ego is out of the reach of the ordinary medium and cannot be recalled into the earth-sphere4 ,but ere we follow the further course of the ,triad1 we must consider the fate of the now deserted desire body1 left as a mere reliquum in ,kmaloka4 ,k,,maloka4 ,,the ,,shells4 ,the ,shell is the desire body1 emptied of the ,triad1 which has now passed onwards2 it is the third of the transitory garments of ,soul1 cast aside and left in ,kmaloka to disintegrate4 ,when the past earth-life has been noble1 or even when it has been of average purity and utility1 this ,shell retains but little vitality after the passing onwards of the ,triad1 and rapidly dissolves4 ,its molecules1 however1 retain1 during this process of disintegration1 the impressions made upon them during the earth-life1 the tendency to vibrate in response to stimuli constantly experienced during that period4 ,every student of physiology is familiar with what is termed automatic action1 with the tendency of cells to repeat vibrations originally set up by purposive action2 thus are formed what we term habits1 and we unconsciously repeat motions which at first were done with thought4 ,so strong is this automatism of the body1 that1 as everyone knows by experience1 it is difficult to break off the use of a phrase or of a gesture that has become habitual4 ,now the desire body is during earth-life the recipient of and the respondent to all stimuli from without1 and it also continually receives and responds to stimuli from the lower ,manas4 ,in it are set up habits1 tendencies to repeat automatically familiar vibrations1 vibrations of love and desire1 vibrations imaging past experiences of all kinds4 ,just as the hand may repeat a familiar gesture1 so may the desire body repeat a familiar feeling or thought4 ,and when the ,triad has left it1 this automatism remains1 and the ,shell may thus simulate feelings and thoughts which are empty of all true intelligence and will4 ,many of the responses to eager enquiries at sances come from such ,shells1 drawn to the neighbourhood of friends and relatives by the magnetic attractions so long familiar and dear1 and automatically responding to the waves of emotion and remembrance1 to the impulse of which they had so often answered during the lately closed earth-life4 ,phrases of affection1 moral platitudes1 memories of past events1 will be all the communications such ,shells can make1 but these may be literally poured out under favourable conditions under the magnetic stimuli freely applied by the embodied friends and relatives4 ,in cases where the lower ,manas during earth-life has been strongly attached to material objects and to intellectual pursuits directed by a self-seeking motive1 the desire body may have acquired a very considerable automatism of an intellectual character1 and may give forth responses of considerable intellectual merit4 ,but still the mark of non-originality will be present3 the apparent intellectuality will only give out reproductions1 and there will be no sign of the new and independent thought which would be the inevitable outcome of a strong intelligence working with originality amid new surroundings4 ,intellectual sterility brands the great majority of communications from the spirit world2 reflections of earthly scenes1 earthly conditions1 earthly arrangements1 are plentiful1 but we usually seek in vain for strong1 new thought1 worthy of ,intelligences freed from the prison of the flesh4 ,the communications of a loftier kind occasionally granted are1 for the most part1 from non-human ,intelligences1 attracted by the pure atmosphere of the medium or sitters4 ,and there is an ever-present danger in this commerce with the ,shells4 ,just because they are ,shells1 and nothing more1 they answer to the impulses that strike on them from without1 and easily become malicious and mischievous1 automatically responding to evil vibrations4 ,thus a medium1 or sitters of poor moral character1 will impress the ,shells that flock around them with impulses of a low order1 and any animal desires1 petty and foolish thoughts1 will set up similar vibrations in the blindly responsive ,shells4 ,again1 the ,shell is very easily taken possession of by ,elementals1 the semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of ,nature1 and may be used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick4 ,the etheric double of the medium1 and the desire bodies emptied of their immortal ,tenants1 give the material basis by which ,elementals can work many a curious and startling result2 and frequenters of sances may be confidently appealed to1 and asked whether many of the childish freaks with which they are familiar--pullings of hair1 pinchings1 slaps1 throwing about of objects1 piling up of furniture1 playing on accordions1 c4--are not more rationally accounted for as the tricky vagaries of sub-human forces1 than as the actions of spirits who1 while in the body1 were certainly incapable of such vulgarities4 ,let us leave the ,shells alone to peacefully dissolve into their elements1 and mingle once again in the crucible of ,nature4 ,the authors of the ,perfect ,way put very well the real character of the ,shell4 ,the true ghost consists of the exterior and earthly portion of the ,soul1 that portion which1 being weighted with cares1 attachments1 and memories merely mundane1 is detached by the ,soul and remains in the astral sphere1 an existence more or less definite and personal1 and capable of holding1 through a sensitive1 converse with the living4 ,it is1 however1 but as a cast-off vestment of the ,soul1 and is incapable of endurance as ghost4 ,the true ,soul and real person1 the anima divina1 parts at death with all those lower affections which would have retained it near its earthly haunts4#bd ,if we would find our beloved1 it is not among the decaying remnants in ,kmaloka that we should seek them4 ,why seek ye the living among the dead8 ,k,,maloka4 ,,the ,,elementaries4 ,the word ,elementary has been so loosely used that it has given rise to a good deal of confusion4 ,it is thus defined by ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky3 ,properly1 the disembodied souls of the depraved2 these souls having1 at some time prior to death1 separated from themselves their divine spirits1 and so lost their chance for immortality4 ,but at the present stage of learning it has been thought best to apply the term to the spooks or phantoms of disembodied persons1 in general to those whose temporary habitation is the ,kmaloka4444 ,once divorced from their higher ,triads and their bodies1 these souls remain in their ,kma ,rpic envelopes1 and are irresistibly drawn to the earth amid elements congenial to their gross natures4 ,their stay in the ,kmaloka varies as to its duration2 but ends invariably in disintegration1 dissolving like a column of mist1 atom by atom1 in the surrounding elements4#be ,students of this series of ,manuals know that it is possible for the lower ,manas to so entangle itself with ,kma as to wrench itself away from its source1 and this is spoken of in ,occultism as the loss of the ,soul4#bf ,it is1 in other words1 the loss of the personal self1 which has separated itself from its ,parent1 the ,higher ,ego1 and has thus doomed itself to perish4 ,such a ,soul1 having thus separated itself from the ,immortal ,triad during its earth-life1 becomes a true ,elementary1 after it has quitted the dense and etheric bodies4 ,then1 clad in its desire body1 it lives for awhile1 for a longer or shorter time according to the vigour of its vitality1 a wholly evil thing1 dangerous and malignant1 seeking to renew its fading vitality by any means laid open to it by the folly or ignorance of still embodied souls4 ,its ultimate fate is1 indeed1 destruction1 but it may work much evil on its way to its self-chosen doom4 ,the word ,elementary is1 however1 very often used to describe the lower ,manas in its garment the desire body1 not broken away from the higher ,principles1 but not yet absorbed into its ,parent1 the ,higher ,manas4 ,such ,elementaries may be in any stage of progress1 harmless or mischievous4 ,some writers1 again1 use ,elementary as a synonym for ,shell1 and so cause increased confusion4 ,the word should at least be restricted to the desire body plus lower ,manas1 whether that lower ,manas be disentangling itself from the kmic elements1 in order that it may be re-absorbed into its source1 or separated from the ,higher ,ego1 and therefore on the road to destruction4 ,,devachan4 ,among the various conceptions presented by the ,esoteric ,philosophy1 there are few1 perhaps1 which the ,western mind has found more difficulty in grasping than that of ,devachan1 or ,devasthn1 the ,devaland1 or land of the ,gods4#bg ,and one of the chief difficulties has arisen from the free use of the words illusion1 dream-state1 and other similar terms1 as denoting the devachanic consciousness--a general sense of unreality having thus come to pervade the whole conception of ,devachan4 ,when the ,eastern thinker speaks of the present earthly life as ,my1 illusion1 dream1 the solid ,western at once puts down the phrases as allegorical and fanciful1 for what can be less illusory1 he thinks1 than this world of buying and selling1 of beefsteaks and bottled stout4 ,but when similar terms are applied to a state beyond ,death--a state which to him is misty and unreal in his own religion1 and which1 as he sadly feels1 is lacking in all the substantial comforts dear to the family man--then he accepts the words in their most literal and prosaic meaning1 and speaks of ,devachan as a delusion in his own sense of the word4 ,it may be well1 therefore1 on the threshold of ,devachan to put this question of illusion in its true light4 ,in a deep metaphysical sense all that is conditioned is illusory4 ,all phenomena are literally appearances1 the outer masks in which the ,one ,reality shows itself forth in our changing universe4 ,the more material and solid the appearance1 the further is it from ,reality1 and therefore the more illusory it is4 ,what can be a greater fraud than our body1 so apparently solid1 stable1 visible and tangible8 ,it is a constantly changing congeries of minute living particles1 an attractive centre into which stream continually myriads of tiny invisibles1 that become visible by their aggregation at this centre1 and then stream away again1 becoming invisible by reason of their minuteness as they separate off from this aggregation4 ,in comparison with this ever-shifting but apparently stable body how much less illusory is the mind1 which is able to expose the pretensions of the body and put it in its true light4 ,the mind is constantly imposed on by the senses1 and ,consciousness1 the most real thing in us1 is apt to regard itself as the unreal4 ,in truth1 it is the thought-world that is the nearest to reality1 and things become more and more illusory as they take on more and more of a phenomenal character4 ,again1 the mind is permanent as compared with the transitory physical world4 ,for the mind is only a clumsy name for the living ,thinker in us1 the true and conscious ,entity1 the inner ,man1 that was1 that is1 and will be1 for whom the hour shall never strike4 ,the less deeply this inner ,man is plunged into matter1 the less unreal is his life2 and when he has shaken off the garments he donned at incarnation1 his physical1 ethereal1 and passional bodies1 then he is nearer to the ,soul of ,things than he was before1 and though veils of illusion still dim his vision they are far thinner than those which clouded it when round him was wrapped the garment of the flesh4 ,his freer and less illusory life is that which is without the body1 and the disembodied is1 comparatively speaking1 his normal state4 ,out of this normal state he plunges into physical life for brief periods in order that he may gain experiences otherwise unattainable1 and bring them back to enrich his more abiding condition4 ,as a diver may plunge into the depths of the ocean to seek a pearl1 so the ,thinker plunges into the depths of the ocean of life to seek the pearl of experience2 but he does not stay there long2 it is not his own element2 he rises up again into his own atmosphere and shakes off from him the heavier element he leaves4 ,and therefore it is truly said of the ,soul that has escaped from earth that it has returned to its own place1 for its home is the land of the ,gods1 and here on earth it is an exile and a prisoner4 ,this view was very clearly put by a ,master of ,wisdom in a conversation reported by ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky1 and printed under the title ,life and ,death4#bh ,the following extracts state the case3 ,the ,vedntins1 acknowledging two kinds of conscious existence1 the terrestrial and the spiritual1 point only to the latter as an undoubted actuality4 ,as to the terrestrial life1 owing to its changeability and shortness1 it is nothing but an illusion of our senses4 ,our life in the spiritual spheres must be thought an actuality because it is there that lives our endless1 never-changing immortal ,i1 the ,strtm4 ,whereas in every new incarnation it clothes itself in a perfectly different personality1 a temporary and short-lived one4444 ,the very essence of all this1 that is to say1 spirit1 force1 and matter1 has neither end nor beginning1 but the shape acquired by this triple unity during its incarnations1 their exterior1 so to speak1 is nothing but a mere illusion of personal conceptions4 ,this is why we call the posthumous life the only reality1 and the terrestrial one1 including the personality itself1 only imaginary4 ,why in this case should we call the reality sleep1 and the phantasm waking8 ,this comparison was made by me to facilitate your comprehension4 ,from the standpoint of your terrestrial notions it is perfectly accurate4 ,note the words3 ,from the standpoint of your terrestrial notions1 for they are the key to all the phrases used about ,devachan as an illusion4 ,our gross physical matter is not there2 the limitations imposed by it are not there2 the mind is in its own realm1 where to will is to create1 where to think is to see4 ,and so1 when the ,master was asked3 ,would it not be better to say that death is nothing but a birth for a new life1 or still better1 a going back to eternity8 he answered3 ,this is how it really is1 and ,i have nothing to say against such a way of putting it4 ,only with our accepted views of material life the words live and exist are not applicable to the purely subjective condition after death2 and were they employed in our ,philosophy without a rigid definition of their meanings1 the ,vedntins would soon arrive at the ideas which are common in our times among the ,american ,spiritualists1 who preach about spirits marrying among themselves and with mortals4 ,as amongst the true1 not nominal1 ,christians so amongst the ,vedntins--the life on the other side of the grave is the land where there are no tears1 no sighs1 where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage1 and where the just realise their full perfection4 ,the dread of materialising mental and spiritual conceptions has always been very strong among the ,philosophers and oral ,teachers of the far ,east4 ,their constant effort has been to free the ,thinker as far as possible from the bonds of matter even while he is embodied1 to open the cage for the ,divine ,swallow1 even though he must return to it for awhile4 ,they are ever seeking to spiritualise the material1 while in the ,west the continual tendency has been to materialise the spiritual4 ,so the ,indian describes the life of the freed ,soul in all the terms that make it least material--illusion1 dream1 and so on--whereas the ,hebrew endeavours to delineate it in terms descriptive of the material luxury and splendour of earth--marriage feast1 streets of gold1 thrones and crowns of solid metal and precious stones2 the ,western has followed the materialising conceptions of the ,hebrew1 and pictures a heaven which is merely a double of earth with earth's sorrows extracted1 until we reach the grossest of all1 the modern ,summerland1 with its spirit-husbands1 spirit-wives1 and spirit-infants that go to school and college1 and grow up into spirit-adults4 ,in ,notes on ,devachan1#bi someone who evidently writes with knowledge remarks of the ,devachan3 ,the priori ideas of space and time do not control his perceptions2 for he absolutely creates and annihilates them at the same time4 ,physical existence has its cumulative intensity from infancy to prime1 and its diminishing energy from dotage to death2 so the dream-life of ,devachan is lived correspondentially4 ,nature cheats no more the ,devachan than she does the living physical man4 ,nature provides for him far more real bliss and happiness there than she does here1 where all the conditions of evil and chance are against him4 ,to call the ,devachan existence a dream in any other sense than that of a conventional term1 is to renounce for ever the knowledge of the ,esoteric ,doctrine1 the sole custodian of truth4 ,dream only in the sense that it is not of this plane of gross matter1 that it belongs not to the physical world4 ,let us try and take a general view of the life of the ,eternal ,pilgrim1 the inner ,man1 the human ,soul1 during a cycle of incarnation4 ,before he commences his new pilgrimage--for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the past1 during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the present one--he is a spiritual ,being1 but one who has already passed out of the passive condition of pure ,spirit1 and who by previous experience of matter in past ages has evolved intellect1 the self-conscious mind4 ,but this evolution by experience is far from being complete1 even so far as to make him master of matter2 his ignorance leaves him a prey to all the illusions of gross matter1 so soon as he comes into contact with it1 and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe1 being subject to the deceptive visions caused by gross matter--as a child1 looking through a piece of blue glass1 imagines all the outside world to be blue4 ,the object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions1 so that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter he may retain clear vision and not be blinded by illusion4 ,now the cycle of incarnation is made up of two alternating states3 a short one called life on earth1 during which the ,pilgrim-,god is plunged into gross matter1 and a comparatively long one1 called life in ,devachan1 during which he is encircled by subtle matter1 illusive still1 but far less illusive than that of earth4 ,the second state may fairly be called his normal one1 as it is of enormous extent as compared with the breaks in it that he spends upon earth2 it is comparatively normal also1 as being less removed from his essential ,divine life2 he is less encased in matter1 less deluded by its swiftly-changing appearances4 ,slowly and gradually1 by reiterated experiences1 gross matter loses its power over him and becomes his servant instead of his tyrant4 ,in the partial freedom of ,devachan he assimilates his experiences on earth1 still partly dominated by them--at first1 indeed1 almost completely dominated by them so that the devachanic life is merely a sublimated continuation of the earth-life--but gradually freeing himself more and more as he recognises them as transitory and external1 until he can move through any region of our universe with unbroken self-consciousness1 a true ,lord of ,mind1 the free and triumphant ,god4 ,such is the triumph of the ,divine ,nature manifested in the flesh1 the subduing of every form of matter to be the obedient instrument of ,spirit4 ,thus the ,master said3 ,the spiritual ,ego of the man moves in eternity like a pendulum between the hours of life and death1 but if these hours1 the periods of life terrestrial and life posthumous1 are limited in their continuation1 and even the very number of such breaks in eternity between sleep and waking1 between illusion and reality1 have their beginning as well as their end1 the spiritual ,pilgrim himself is eternal4 ,therefore the hours of his posthumous life1 when unveiled he stands face to face with truth1 and the short-lived mirages of his terrestrial existence are far from him1 compose or make up1 in our ideas1 the only reality4 ,such breaks1 in spite of the fact that they are finite1 do double service to the ,strtm1 which1 perfecting itself constantly1 follows without vacillation1 though very slowly1 the road leading to its last transformation1 when1 reaching its aim at last1 it becomes a ,divine ,being4 ,they not only contribute to the reaching of this goal1 but without these finite breaks ,strtm-,buddhi could never reach it4 ,strtm is the actor1 and its numerous and different incarnations are the actor's parts4 ,i suppose you would not apply to these parts1 and so much the less to their costumes1 the term of personality4 ,like an actor the soul is bound to play1 during the cycle of births up to the very threshold of ,parinirvna1 many such parts1 which often are disagreeable to it1 but like a bee1 collecting its honey from every flower1 and leaving the rest to feed the worms of the earth1 our spiritual individuality1 the ,strtm1 collecting only the nectar of moral qualities and consciousness from every terrestrial personality in which it has to clothe itself1 forced by ,karma1 unites at last all these qualities in one1 having then become a perfect being1 a ,dhyn ,chohan4#cj ,it is very significant1 in this connection1 that every devachanic stage is conditioned by the earth-stage that precedes it1 and the ,man can only assimilate in ,devachan the kinds of experience he has been gathering on earth4 ,a colourless1 flavourless personality has a colourless1 feeble ,devachanic state4#ca ,husband1 father1 student1 patriot1 artist1 ,christian1 ,buddhist--he must work out the effects of his earth-life in his devachanic life2 he cannot eat and assimilate more food than he has gathered2 he cannot reap more harvest than he has sown seed4 ,it takes but a moment to cast a seed into a furrow2 it takes many a month for that seed to grow into the ripened ear2 but according to the kind of the seed is the ear that grows from it1 and according to the nature of the brief earth-life is the grain reaped in the field of ,aanroo4 ,there is a change of occupation1 a continual change in ,devachan1 just as much and far more than there is in the life of any man or woman who happens to follow in his or her whole life one sole occupation1 whatever it may be1 with this difference1 that to the ,devachan this spiritual occupation is always pleasant and fills his life with rapture4 ,life in ,devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth-life2 not the indefinite prolongation of that single instant1 but its infinite developments1 the various incidents and events based upon and outflowing from that one single moment or moments4 ,the dreams of the objective become the realities of the subjective existence4444 ,the reward provided by ,nature for men who are benevolent in a large systematic way1 and who have not focussed their affections on an individual or speciality1 is that1 if pure1 they pass the quicker for that through the ,kma and ,rpa ,lokas into the higher sphere of ,tribhuvana1 since it is one where the formulation of abstract ideas and the consideration of general principles fill the thought of its occupant4#cb ,into ,devachan enters nothing that defileth1 for gross matter has been left behind with all its attributes on earth and in ,kmaloka4 ,but if the sower has sowed but little seed1 the devachanic harvest will be meagre1 and the growth of the ,soul will be delayed by the paucity of the nutriment on which it has to feed4 ,hence the enormous importance of the earth-life1 the field of sowing1 the place where experience is to be gathered4 ,it conditions1 regulates1 limits1 the growth of the ,soul2 it yields the rough ore which the ,soul then takes in hand1 and works upon during the devachanic stage1 smelting it1 forging it1 tempering it1 into the weapons it will take back with it for its next earth-life4 ,the experienced ,soul in ,devachan will make for itself a splendid instrument for its next earth-life2 the inexperienced one will forge a poor blade enough2 but in each case the only material available is that brought from earth4 ,in ,devachan the ,soul1 as it were1 sifts and sorts out its experiences2 it lives a comparatively free life1 and gradually gains the power to estimate the earthly experiences at their real value2 it works out thoroughly and completely as objective realities all the ideas of which it only conceived the germ on earth4 ,thus1 noble aspiration is a germ which the ,soul would work out into a splendid realisation in ,devachan1 and it would bring back with it to earth for its next incarnation that mental image1 to be materialised on earth when opportunity offers and suitable environment presents itself4 ,for the mind sphere is the sphere of creation1 and earth only the place for materialising the pre-existent thought4 ,and the soul is as an architect that works out his plans in silence and deep meditation1 and then brings them forth into the outer world where his edifice is to be builded2 out of the knowledge gained in his past life1 the ,soul draws his plans for the next1 and he returns to earth to put into objective material form the edifices he has planned4 ,this is the description of a ,logos in creative activity3 ,whilst ,brahm formerly1 in the beginning of the ,kalpas1 was meditating on creation1 there appeared a creation beginning with ignorance and consisting of darkness4444 ,brahm1 beholding that it was defective1 designed another2 and whilst he thus meditated1 the animal creation was manifested4444 ,beholding this creation also imperfect1 ,brahm again meditated1 and a third creation appeared1 abounding with the quality of goodness4#cc ,the objective manifestation follows the mental meditation2 first idea1 then form4 ,hence it will be seen that the notion current among many ,theosophists that ,devachan is waste time1 is but one of the illusions due to the gross matter that blinds them1 and that their impatience of the idea of ,devachan arises from the delusion that fussing about in gross matter is the only real activity4 ,whereas1 in truth1 all effective action has its source in deep meditation1 and out of the ,silence comes ever the creative ,word4 ,action on this plane would be less feeble and inefficient if it were the mere blossom of the profound root of meditation1 and if the ,soul embodied passed oftener out of the body into ,devachan during earth-life1 there would be less foolish action and consequent waste of time4 ,for ,devachan is a state of consciousness1 the consciousness of the ,soul escaped for awhile from the net of gross matter1 and may be entered at any time by one who has learned to withdraw his ,soul from the senses as the tortoise withdraws itself within its shell4 ,and then1 coming forth once more1 action is prompt1 direct1 purposeful1 and the time wasted in meditation is more than saved by the directness and strength of the mind-engendered act4 ,devachan is the sphere of the mind1 as said1 it is the land of the ,gods1 or the ,souls4 ,in the before quoted ,notes on ,devachan we read3 ,there are two fields of causal manifestations3 the objective and the subjective4 ,the grosser energies find their outcome in the new personality of each birth in the cycle of evoluting individuality4 ,the moral and spiritual activities find their sphere of effects in ,devachan4 ,as the moral and spiritual activities are the most important1 and as on the development of these depends the growth of the true ,man1 and therefore the accomplishing of the object of creation1 the liberation of ,soul1 we may begin to understand something of the vast importance of the devachanic state4 ,,the ,,devachan4 ,when the ,triad has shaken off its last garment1 it crosses the threshold of ,devachan1 and becomes a ,devachan4 ,we have seen that it is in a peaceful dreamy state before this passage out of the earth sphere1 the second death1 or pre-devachanic unconsciousness4 ,this condition is otherwise spoken of as the gestation period1 because it precedes the birth of the ,ego into the devachanic life4 ,regarded from the earth-sphere the passage is death1 while regarded from that of ,devachan it is birth4 ,thus we find in ,notes on ,devachan3 ,as in actual earth-life1 so there is for the ,ego in ,devachan the first flutter of psychic life1 the attainment of prime1 the gradual exhaustion of force passing into semi-consciousness and lethargy1 total oblivion1 and--not death but birth1 birth into another personality1 and the resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of causes that must be worked out in another term of ,devachan1 and still another physical birth as a new personality4 ,what the lives in ,devachan and upon earth shall be respectively in each instance is determined by ,karma1 and this weary round of birth must be ever and ever run through until the being reaches the end of the seventh ,round1 or attains in the interim the wisdom of an ,arhat1 then that of a ,buddha1 and thus gets relieved for a ,round or two4 ,when the devachanic entity is born into this new sphere it has passed beyond recall to earth4 ,the embodied ,soul may rise to it1 but it cannot be drawn back to our world4 ,on this a ,master has spoken decisively3 ,from ,sukhvat down to the ,territory of ,doubt1 there is a variety of spiritual states1 but 444 as soon as it has stepped outside the ,kmaloka1 crossed the ,golden ,bridge leading to the ,seven ,golden ,mountains1 the ,ego can confabulate no more with easy-going mediums4 ,no ,ernest or ,joey has ever returned from the ,rpa ,loka1 let alone the ,arupa ,loka1 to hold sweet intercourse with men4 ,in the ,notes on ,devachan1 again1 we read3 ,certainly the new ,ego1 once that it is reborn 7in ,devachan71 retains for a certain time--proportionate to its earth-life--a complete recollection of his life on earth2 but it can never revisit the ,earth from ,devachan except in ,re-incarnation4 ,the ,devachan is generally spoken of as the ,immortal ,triad1 ,atm-,buddhi-,manas1 but it is well always to bear in mind that ,atman is no individual property of any man1 but is the ,divine ,essence which has no body1 no form1 which is imponderable1 invisible1 and indivisible1 that which does not exist and yet is1 as the ,buddhists say of ,nirvna4 ,it only overshadows the mortal2 that which enters into him and pervades the whole body being only it's omni-present rays or light1 radiated through ,buddhi1 its vehicle and direct emanation4#cd ,buddhi and ,manas united1 with this overshadowing of ,atm1 form the ,devachan2 now1 as we have seen in studying the ,seven ,principles1 ,manas is dual during earth-life1 and the ,lower ,manas is redrawn into the ,higher during the kmalokic interlude4 ,by this reuniting of the ,ray and its ,source1 ,manas re-becomes one1 and carries the pure and noble experiences of the earth-life into ,devachan with it1 thus maintaining the past personality as the marked characteristic of the ,devachan1 and it is in this prolongation of the personal ,ego1 so to speak1 that the illusion of the ,devachan consists4 ,were the mnasic entity free from all illusion1 it would see all ,egos as its brother-,souls1 and looking back over its past would recognise all the varied relationships it had borne to others in many lives1 as the actor would remember the many parts he had played with other actors1 and would think of each brother actor as a man1 and not in the parts he had played as his father1 his son1 his judge1 his murderer1 his master1 his friend4 ,the deeper human relationship would prevent the brother actors from identifying each other with their parts1 and so the perfected spiritual ,egos1 recognising their deep unity and full brotherhood1 would no longer be deluded by the trappings of earthly relationships4 ,but the ,devachan1 at least in the lower stages1 is still within the personal boundaries of his past earth-life2 he is shut into the relationships of the one incarnation2 his paradise is peopled with those he loved best with an undying love1 that holy feeling that alone survives1 and thus the purified personal ,ego is the salient feature1 as above said1 in the ,devachan4 ,again quoting from the ,notes on ,devachan3 ,who goes to ,devachan8 ,the personal ,ego1 of course2 but beatified1 purified1 holy4 ,every ,ego--the combination of the sixth and seventh principles#ce--which after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the ,devachan1 is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe4 ,the fact of his being reborn at all shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality4 ,and while the ,karma of ,evil steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth re-incarnation1 he brings along with him but the ,karma of his good deeds1 words and thoughts into this ,devachan4 ,bad is a relative term for us--as you were told more than once before--and the ,law of ,retribution is the only law that never errs4 ,hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality go to the ,devachan4 ,they will have to pay for their sins1 voluntary and involuntary1 later on4 ,meanwhile they are rewarded2 receive the effects of the causes produced by them4 ,now in some people a sense of repulsion arises at the idea that the ties they form on earth in one life are not to be permanent in eternity4 ,but let us look at the question calmly for a moment4 ,when a mother first clasps her baby-son in her arms1 that one relationship seems perfect1 and if the child should die1 her longing would be to re-possess him as her babe2 but as he lives on through youth to manhood the tie changes1 and the protective love of the mother and the clinging obedience of the child merge into a different love of friends and comrades1 richer than ordinary friendship from the old recollections2 yet later1 when the mother is aged and the son in the prime of middle life1 their positions are reversed and the son protects while the mother depends on him for guidance4 ,would the relation have been more perfect had it ceased in infancy with only the one tie1 or is it not the richer and the sweeter from the different strands of which the tie is woven8 ,and so with ,egos2 in many lives they may hold to each other many relationships1 and finally1 standing as ,brothers of the ,lodge closely knit together1 may look back over past lives and see themselves in earth-life related in the many ways possible to human beings1 till the cord is woven of every strand of love and duty2 would not the final unity be the richer not the poorer for the many-stranded tie8 ,finally1 ,i say2 but the word is only of this cycle1 for what lies beyond1 of wider life and less separateness1 no mind of man may know4 ,to me it seems that this very variety of experiences makes the tie stronger1 not weaker1 and that it is a rather thin and poor thing to know oneself and another in only one little aspect of many-sided humanity for endless ages of years2 a thousand or so years of one person in one character would1 to me1 be ample1 and ,i should prefer to know him or her in some new aspect of his nature4 ,but those who object to this view need not feel distressed1 for they will enjoy the presence of their beloved in the one personal aspect held by him or her in the one incarnation they are conscious of for as long as the desire for that presence remains4 ,only let them not desire to impose their own form of bliss on everybody else1 nor insist that the kind of happiness which seems to them at this stage the only one desirable and satisfying1 must be stereotyped to all eternity1 through all the millions of years that lie before us4 ,nature gives to each in ,devachan the satisfaction of all pure desires1 and ,manas there exercises that faculty of his innate divinity1 that he never wills in vain4 ,will not this suffice8 ,but leaving aside disputes as to what may be to us happiness in a future separated from our present by millions of years1 so that we are no more fitted now to formulate its conditions than is a child1 playing with its dolls1 to formulate the deeper joys and interests of its maturity1 let us understand that1 according to the teachings of the ,esoteric ,philosophy1 the ,devachan is surrounded by all he loved on earth1 with pure affection1 and the union being on the plane of the ,ego1 not on the physical plane1 it is free from all the sufferings which would be inevitable were the ,devachan present in consciousness on the physical plane with all its illusory and transitory joys and sorrows4 ,it is surrounded by its beloved in the higher consciousness1 but is not agonised by the knowledge of what they are suffering in the lower consciousness1 held in the bonds of the flesh4 ,according to the orthodox ,christian view1 ,death is a separation1 and the spirits of the dead wait for reunion until those they love also pass through ,death's gateway1 or--according to some--until after the judgment-day is over4 ,as against this the ,esoteric ,philosophy teaches that ,death cannot touch the higher consciousness of man1 and that it can only separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are concerned2 the man living on earth1 blinded by matter1 feels separated from those who have passed onwards1 but the ,devachan1 says ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky1 has a complete conviction that there is no such thing as ,death at all1 having left behind it all those vehicles over which ,death has power4 ,therefore1 to its less blinded eyes1 its beloved are still with it2 for it1 the veil of matter that separates has been torn away4 ,a mother dies1 leaving behind her little helpless children1 whom she adores1 perhaps a beloved husband also4 ,we say that her ,spirit or ,ego--that individuality which is now wholly impregnated1 for the entire ,devachanic period1 with the noblest feelings held by its late personality1 i4e41 love for her children1 pity for those who suffer1 and so on--is now entirely separated from the vale of tears1 that its future bliss consists in that blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind 444 that the post-mortem spiritual consciousness of the mother will represent to her that she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved2 that no gap1 no link will be missing to make her disembodied state the most perfect and absolute happiness4#cf ,and so again3 ,as to the ordinary mortal his bliss in ,devachan is complete4 ,it is an absolute oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in the past incarnation1 and even oblivion of the fact that such things as pain or sorrow exist at all4 ,the ,devachan lives its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by everything it had aspired to in vain1 and in the companionship of everything it loved on earth4 ,it has reached the fulfilment of all its soul-yearnings4 ,and thus it lives throughout long centuries an existence of unalloyed happiness1 which is the reward for its sufferings in earth-life4 ,in short1 it bathes in a sea of uninterrupted felicity spanned only by events of still greater felicity in degree4#cg ,when we take the wider sweep in thought demanded by the ,esoteric ,philosophy1 a far more fascinating prospect of persistent love and union between individual ,egos rolls itself out before our eyes than was offered to us by the more limited creed of exoteric ,christendom4 ,mothers love their children with an immortal love1 says ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky1 and the reason for this immortality in love is easily grasped when we realise that it is the same ,egos that play so many parts in the drama of life1 that the experience of each part is recorded in the memory of the ,soul1 and that between the ,souls there is no separation1 though during incarnation they may not realise the fact in its fulness and beauty4 ,we are with those whom we have lost in material form1 and far1 far nearer to them now than when they were alive4 ,and it is not only in the fancy of the ,devachan1 as some may imagine1 but in reality4 ,for pure divine love is not merely the blossom of a human heart1 but has its roots in eternity4 ,spiritual holy love is immortal1 and ,karma brings sooner or later all those who loved each other with such a spiritual affection to incarnate once more in the same family group4#ch ,love has its roots in eternity1 and those to whom on earth we are strongly drawn are the ,egos we have loved in past earth-lives and dwelt with in ,devachan2 coming back to earth these enduring bonds of love draw us together yet again1 and add to the strength and beauty of the tie1 and so on and on till all illusions are lived down1 and the strong and perfected ,egos stand side by side1 sharing the experience of their well-nigh illimitable past4 ,,the ,,return ,,to ,,earth4 ,at length the causes that carried the ,ego into ,devachan are exhausted1 the experiences gathered have been wholly assimilated1 and the ,soul begins to feel again the thirst for sentient material life that can be gratified only on the physical plane4 ,the greater the degree of spirituality reached1 the purer and loftier the preceding earth-life1 the longer the stay in ,devachan1 the world of spiritual1 pure1 and lofty effects4 ,i am here ignoring the special conditions surrounding one who is forcing his own evolution1 and has entered on the ,path that leads to ,adeptship within a very limited number of lives4 ,the average time in ,devachan is from ten to fifteen centuries1 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky tells us1 and the fifteen centuries cycle is the one most plainly marked in history4#ci ,but in modern life this period has much shortened1 in consequence of the greater attraction exercised by physical objects over the heart of man4 ,further1 it must be remembered that the average time is not the time spent in ,devachan by any person4 ,if one person spends there #ajjj years1 and another fifty1 the average is #ebe4 ,the devachanic period is longer or shorter according to the type of life which preceded it2 the more there was of spiritual1 intellectual1 and emotional activity of a lofty kind1 the longer will be the gathering in of the harvest2 the more there was of activity directed to selfish gain on earth1 the shorter will be the devachanic period4 ,when the experiences are assimilated1 be the time long or short1 the ,ego is ready to return1 and he brings back with him his now increased experience1 and any further gains he may have made in ,devachan along the lines of abstract thought2 for1 while in ,devachan1 ,in one sense we can acquire more knowledge2 that is1 we can develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after during life1 provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal things1 such as music1 painting1 poetry1 c4#dj ,but the ,ego meets1 as he crosses the threshold of ,devachan on his way outwards--dying out of ,devachan to be reborn on earth--he meets in the atmosphere of the terrestrial plane1 the seeds of evil sown in his preceding life on earth4 ,during the devachanic rest he has been free from all pain1 all sorrow1 but the evil he did in his past has been in a state of suspended animation1 not of death4 ,as seeds sown in the autumn for the spring-time lie dormant beneath the surface of the soil1 but touched by the soft rain and penetrating warmth of sun begin to swell and the embryo expands and grows1 so do the seeds of evil we have sown lie dormant while the ,soul takes its rest in ,devachan1 but shoot out their roots into the new personality which begins to form itself for the incarnation of the returning man4 ,the ,ego has to take up the burden of his past1 and these germs or seeds1 coming over as the harvest of the past life1 are the ,skandhas1 to borrow a convenient word from our ,buddhist brethren4 ,they consist of material qualities1 sensations1 abstract ideas1 tendencies of mind1 mental powers1 and while the pure aroma of these attached itself to the ,ego and passed with it into ,devachan1 all that was gross1 base and evil remained in the state of suspended animation spoken of above4 ,these are taken up by the ,ego as he passes outwards towards terrestrial life1 and are built into the new man of flesh which the true man is to inhabit4 ,and so the round of births and deaths goes on1 the turning of the ,wheel of ,life2 the treading of the ,cycle of ,necessity1 until the work is done and the building of the ,perfect ,man is completed4 ,,nirv,,na4 ,what ,devachan is to each earth-life1 ,nirvna is to the finished cycle of ,re-incarnation1 but any effective discussion of that glorious state would here be out of place4 ,it is mentioned only to round off the ,after of ,death1 for no word of man1 strictly limited within the narrow bounds of his lower consciousness1 may avail to explain what ,nirvna is1 can do aught save disfigure it in striving to describe4 ,what it is not may be roughly1 baldly stated--it is not annihilation1 it is not destruction of consciousness4 ,mr4 ,a4,p4 ,sinnett has put effectively and briefly the absurdity of many of the ideas current in the ,west about ,nirvna4 ,he has been speaking of absolute consciousness1 and proceeds3 ,we may use such phrases as intellectual counters1 but for no ordinary mind--dominated by its physical brain and brain-born intellect--can they have a living signification4 ,all that words can convey is that ,nirvna is a sublime state of conscious rest in omniscience4 ,it would be ludicrous1 after all that has gone before1 to turn to the various discussions which have been carried on by students of exoteric ,buddhism as to whether ,nirvna does or does not mean annihilation4 ,worldly similes fall short of indicating the feeling with which the graduates of ,esoteric ,science regard such a question4 ,does the last penalty of the law mean the highest honour of the peerage8 ,is a wooden spoon the emblem of the most illustrious pre-eminence in learning8 ,such questions as these but faintly symbolise the extravagance of the question whether ,nirvna is held by ,buddhism to be equivalent to annihilation4#da ,so we learn from the ,secret ,doctrine that the ,nirvn returns to cosmic activity in a new cycle of manifestation1 and that ,the thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in ,nirvna1 re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the ,great ,law calls all things back into action4#db ,,communications ,,between ,,the ,,earth ,,and ,,other ,,spheres4 ,we are now in position to discriminate between the various kinds of communication possible between those whom we foolishly divide into dead and living1 as though the body were the man1 or the man could die4 ,communications between the embodied and the disembodied would be a more satisfactory phrase4 ,first1 let us put aside as unsuitable the word ,spirit3 ,spirit does not communicate with ,spirit in any way conceivable by us4 ,that highest principle is not yet manifest in the flesh2 it remains the hidden fount of all1 the eternal ,energy1 one of the poles of ,being in manifestation4 ,the word is loosely used to denote lofty ,intelligences1 who live and move beyond all conditions of matter imaginable by us1 but pure ,spirit is at present as inconceivable by us as pure matter4 ,and as in dealing with possible communications we have average human beings as recipients1 we may as well exclude the word ,spirit as much as possible1 and so get rid of ambiguity4 ,but in quotations the word often occurs1 in deference to the habit of the day1 and it then denotes the ,ego4 ,taking the stages through which the living man passes after ,death1 or the shaking off of the body1 we can readily classify the communications that may be received1 or the appearances that may be seen3 ,i4 ,while the ,soul has shaken off only the dense body1 and remains still clothed in the etheric double4 ,this is a brief period only1 but during it the disembodied ,soul may show itself1 clad in this ethereal garment4 ,for a very short period after death1 while the incorporeal principles remain within the sphere of our earth's attraction1 it is possible for spirit1 under peculiar and favourable conditions1 to appear4#dc ,it makes no communications during this brief interval1 nor while dwelling in this form4 ,such ghosts are silent1 dreamy1 like sleep-walkers1 and indeed they are nothing more than astral sleep-walkers4 ,equally irresponsive1 but capable of expressing a single thought1 as of sorrow1 anxiety1 accident1 murder1 c41 are apparitions which are merely a thought of the dying1 taking shape in the astral world1 and carried by the dying person's will to some particular person1 with whom the dying intensely longs to communicate4 ,such a thought1 sometimes called a ,mayvi ,rpa1 or illusory form ,may be often thrown into objectivity1 as in the case of apparitions after death2 but1 unless it is projected with the knowledge of 7whether latent or potential71 or owing to the intensity of the desire to see or appear to some one shooting through1 the dying brain1 the apparition will be simply automatical2 it will not be due to any sympathetic attraction1 or to any act of volition1 any more than the reflection of a person passing unconsciously near a mirror is due to the desire of the latter4 ,when the ,soul has left the etheric double1 shaking it off as it shook off the dense body1 the double thus left as a mere empty corpse may be galvanised into an artificial life2 but fortunately the method of such galvanisation is known to few4 ,,ii4 ,while the ,soul is in ,kmaloka4 ,this period is of very variable duration4 ,the ,soul is clad in an astral body1 the last but one of its perishable garments1 and while thus clad it can utilise the physical bodies of a medium1 thus consciously procuring for itself an instrument whereby it can act on the world it has left1 and communicate with those living in the body4 ,in this way it may give information as to facts known to itself only1 or to itself and another person1 in the earth-life just closed2 and for as long as it remains within the terrestrial atmosphere such communication is possible4 ,the harm and the peril of such communication has been previously explained1 whether the ,lower ,manas be united with the ,divine ,triad and so on its way to ,devachan1 or wrenched from it and on its way to destruction4 ,,iii4 ,while the ,soul is in ,devachan1 if an embodied ,soul is capable of rising to its sphere1 or of coming into rapport with it4 ,to the ,devachan1 as we have seen1 the beloved are present in consciousness and full communication1 the ,egos being in touch with each other1 though one is embodied and one is disembodied1 but the higher consciousness of the embodied rarely affects the brain4 ,as a matter of fact1 all that we know on the physical plane of our friend1 while we both are embodied1 is the mental image caused by the impression he makes on us4 ,this is1 to our consciousness1 our friend1 and lacks nothing in objectivity4 ,a similar image is present to the consciousness of the ,devachan1 and to him lacks nothing in objectivity4 ,as the physical plane friend is visible to an observer on earth1 so is the mental plane friend visible to an observer on that plane4 ,the amount of the friend that ensouls the image is dependent on his own evolution1 a highly evolved person being capable of far more communication with a ,devachan than one who is unevolved4 ,communication when the body is sleeping is easier than when it is awake1 and many a vivid dream of one on the other side of death is a real interview with him in ,kmaloka or in ,devachan4 ,love beyond the grave1 illusion though you may call it1#dd has a magic and divine potency that re-acts on the living4 ,a mother's ,ego1 filled with love for the imaginary children it sees near itself1 living a life of happiness1 as real to it as when on earth--that love will always be felt by the children in flesh4 ,it will manifest in their dreams and often in various events--in providential protections and escapes1 for love is a strong shield1 and is not limited by space or time4 ,as with this ,devachanic mother1 so with the rest of human relationships and attachments1 save the purely selfish or material4#de ,remembering that a thought becomes an active entity1 capable of working good or evil1 we easily see that as embodied ,souls can send to those they love helping and protecting forces1 so the ,devachan1 thinking of those dear to him1 may send out such helpful and protective thoughts1 to act as veritable guardian angels round his beloved on earth4 ,but this is a very different thing from the ,spirit of the mother coming back to earth to be the almost helpless spectator of the child's woes4 ,the ,soul embodied may sometimes escape from its prison of flesh1 and come into relations with the ,devachan4 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky writes3 ,whenever years after the death of a person his spirit is claimed to have wandered back to earth to give advice to those it loved1 it is always in a subjective vision1 in dream or in trance1 and in that case it is the ,soul of the living seer that is drawn to the disembodied spirit1 and not the latter which wanders back to our spheres4#df ,where the sensitive1 or medium1 is of a pure and lofty nature1 this rising of the freed ,ego to the ,devachan is practicable1 and naturally gives the impression to the sensitive that the departed ,ego has come back to him4 ,the ,devachan is wrapped in its happy illusion1 and ,the ,souls1 or astral ,egos1 of pure loving sensitives1 labouring under the same delusion1 think their loved ones come down to them on earth1 while it is their own spirits that are raised towards those in the ,devachan4#dg ,this attraction can be exercised by the departed ,soul from ,kmaloka or from ,devachan3 ,a spirit or the spiritual ,ego1 cannot descend to the medium1 but it can attract the spirit of the latter to itself1 and it can do this only during the two intervals--before and after its gestation period4 ,interval the first is that period between the physical death and the merging of the spiritual ,ego into that state which is known in the ,arhat ,esoteric ,doctrine as ,bar-do4 ,we have translated this as the gestation period1 and it lasts from a few days to several years1 according to the evidence of the ,adepts4 ,interval the second lasts so long as the merits of the old personal ,ego entitle the being to reap the fruit of its reward in its new regenerated ,egoship4 ,it occurs after the gestation period is over1 and the new spiritual ,ego is reborn--like the fabled ,phoenix from its ashes--from the old one4 ,the locality which the former inhabits is called by the northern ,buddhist ,occultists ,devachan4#dh ,so also may the incorporeal principles of pure sensitives be placed en rapport with disembodied ,souls1 although information thus obtained is not reliable1 partly in consequence of the difficulty of transferring to the physical brain the impressions received1 and partly from the difficulty of observing accurately1 when the seer is untrained4#di ,a pure medium's ,ego can be drawn to and made1 for an instant1 to unite in a magnetic787 relation with a real disembodied spirit1 whereas the soul of an impure medium can only confabulate with the ,astral ,soul1 or ,shell1 of the deceased4 ,the former possibility explains those extremely rare cases of direct writing in recognised autographs1 and of messages from the higher class of disembodied intelligences4 ,but the confusion in messages thus obtained is considerable1 not only from the causes above-named1 but also because ,even the best and purest sensitive can at most only be placed at any time en rapport with a particular spiritual entity1 and can only know1 see1 and feel what that particular entity knows1 sees1 and feels4 ,hence much possibility of error if generalisations are indulged in1 since each ,devachan lives in his own paradise1 and there is no peeping down to earth1 ,nor is there any conscious communication with the flying ,souls that come as it were to learn where the ,spirits are1 what they are doing1 and what they think1 feel1 and see4 ,what then is being en rapport8 ,it is simply an identity of molecular vibration between the astral part of the incarnated sensitive and the astral part of the dis-incarnated personality4 ,the spirit of the sensitive gets odylised1 so to speak1 by the aura of the spirit1 whether this be hybernating in the earthly region or dreaming in the ,devachan2 identity of molecular vibration is established1 and for a brief space the sensitive becomes the departed personality1 and writes in its handwriting1 uses its language1 and thinks its thoughts4 ,at such times sensitives may believe that those with whom they are for the moment en rapport descend to earth and communicate with them1 whereas1 in reality1 it is merely their own spirits which1 being correctly attuned to those others1 are for the time blended with them4#ej ,in a special case under examination1 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky said that the communication might have come from an ,elementary1 but that it was ,far more likely that the medium's spirit really became en rapport with some spiritual entity in ,devachan1 the thoughts1 knowledge1 and sentiments of which formed the substance1 while the medium's own personality and pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the communication4#ea ,while these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions stated1 ,we would remark that it may possibly be that there really is a distinct spiritual entity impressing our correspondent's mind4 ,in other words1 there may1 for all we know1 be some spirit1 with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually1 for the time1 thoroughly harmonised1 and whose thoughts1 language1 c41 become his for the time1 the result being that this spirit seems to communicate with him4444 ,it is possible 7though by no means probable7 that he habitually passes into a state of rapport with a genuine spirit1 and1 for the time1 is assimilated therewith1 thinking 7to a great extent if not entirely7 the thoughts that spirit would think1 writing in its handwriting1 c4 ,but even so1 ,mr4 ,terry must not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with him1 or knows in any way anything of him1 or any other person or thing on earth4 ,it is simply that1 the rapport established1 he1 ,mr4 ,terry1 becomes for the nonce assimilated with that other personality1 and thinks1 speaks1 and writes as it would have done on earth4444 ,the molecules of his astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison with those of some spirit of such a person1 now in ,devachan1 and the result may be that he appears to be in communication with that spirit1 and to be advised1 c41 by him1 and clairvoyants may see in the ,astral ,light a picture of the earth-life form of that spirit4 ,,iv4 ,communications other than those from disembodied ,souls1 passing through normal post mortem states4 7a7 ,from ,shells4 ,these1 while but the cast-off garment of the liberated ,soul1 retain for some time the impress of their late inhabitant1 and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and expression1 just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual gestures4 ,reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the physical1 but all reflex action is marked by its character of repetition1 and absence of all power to initiate movement4 ,it answers to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action1 but it initiates nothing4 ,when people sit for development1 or when at a sance they anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends1 they supply just the stimulus needed1 and obtain the signs of recognition for which they expectantly watch4 7b7 ,from ,elementaries4 ,these1 possessing the lower capacities of the mind1 i4e41 all the intellectual faculties that found their expression through the physical brain during life1 may produce communications of a highly intellectual character4 ,these1 however1 are rare1 as may be seen from a survey of the messages published as received from departed ,spirits4 7c7 ,from ,elementals4 ,these semi-conscious centres of force play a great part at sances1 and are mostly the agents who are active in producing physical phenomena4 ,they throw about or carry objects1 make noises1 ring bells1 etc41 etc4 ,sometimes they play pranks with ,shells1 animating them and representing them to be the spirits of great personalities who have lived on earth1 but who have sadly degenerated in the spirit-world1 judging by their effusions4 ,sometimes1 in materialising sances1 they busy themselves in throwing pictures from the ,astral ,light on the fluidic forms produced1 so causing them to assume likenesses of various persons4 ,there are also ,elementals of a high type who occasionally communicate with very gifted mediums1 ,shining ,ones from other spheres4 7d7 ,from ,nirmnakyas4 ,for these communications1 as for the two classes next mentioned1 the medium must be of a very pure and lofty nature4 ,the ,nirmnakya is a perfected man1 who has cast aside his physical body but retains his other lower principles1 and remains in the earth-sphere for the sake of helping forward the evolution of mankind4 ,nirmnakyas ,have1 out of pity for mankind and those they left on earth1 renounced the ,nirvnic state4 ,such an ,adept1 or ,saint1 or whatever you may call him1 believing it a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the burden of misery produced by ignorance1 renounces ,nirvna and determines to remain invisible in spirit on this earth4 ,they have no material body1 as they have left it behind2 but otherwise they remain with all their principles even in astral life in our sphere4 ,and such can and do communicate with a few elect ones1 only surely not with ordinary mediums4#eb 7e7 ,from ,adepts now living on earth4 ,these often communicate with ,their disciples1 without using the ordinary methods of communication1 and when any tie exists1 perchance from some past incarnation1 between an ,adept and a medium1 constituting that medium a disciple1 a message from the ,adept might readily be mistaken for a message from a ,spirit4 ,the receipt of such messages by precipitated writing or spoken words is within the knowledge of some4 7f7 ,from the medium's ,higher ,ego4 ,where a pure and earnest man or woman is striving after the light1 this upward striving is met by a downward reaching of the higher nature1 and light from the higher streams downward1 illuminating the lower consciousness4 ,then the lower mind is1 for the time1 united with its parent1 and transmits as much of its knowledge as it is able to retain4 ,from this brief sketch it will be seen how varied may be the sources from which communications apparently from the other side of ,death may be received4 ,as said by ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky3 ,the variety of the causes of phenomena is great1 and one need be an ,adept1 and actually look into and examine what transpires1 in order to be able to explain in each case what really underlies it4#ec ,to complete the statement it may be added that what the average ,soul can do when it has passed through the gateway of ,death1 it can do on this side1 and communications may be as readily obtained by writing1 in trance1 and by the other means of receiving messages1 from embodied as from disembodied ,souls4 ,if each developed within himself the powers of his own ,soul1 instead of drifting about aimlessly1 or ignorantly plunging into dangerous experiments1 knowledge might be safely accumulated and the evolution of the ,soul might be accelerated4 ,this one thing is sure3 ,man is to-day a living ,soul1 over whom ,death has no power1 and the key of the prison-house of the body is in his own hands1 so that he may learn its use if he will4 ,it is because his true ,self1 while blinded by the body1 has lost touch with other ,selves1 that ,death has been a gulf instead of a gateway between embodied and disembodied ,souls4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,appendix4 ,the following passage on the fate of suicides is taken from the ,theosophist1 ,september1 #ahhb4 ,we do not pretend--we are not permitted--to deal exhaustively with the question at present1 but we may refer to one of the most important classes of entities1 who can participate in objective phenomena1 other than ,elementaries and ,elementals4 ,this class comprises the ,spirits of conscious sane suicides4 ,they are ,spirits1 and not ,shells1 because there is not in their cases1 at any rate until later1 a total and permanent divorce between the fourth and fifth principles on the one hand1 and the sixth and seventh on the other4 ,the two duads are divided1 they exist apart1 but a line of connection still unites them1 they may yet reunite1 and the sorely threatened personality avert its doom2 the fifth principle still holds in its hands the clue by which1 traversing the labyrinth of earthly sins and passions1 it may regain the sacred penetralia4 ,but for the time1 though really a ,spirit1 and therefore so designated1 it is practically not far removed from a ,shell4 ,this class of ,spirit can undoubtedly communicate with men1 but1 as a rule1 its members have to pay dearly for exercising the privilege1 while it is scarcely possible for them to do otherwise than lower and debase the moral nature of those with and through whom they have much communication4 ,it is merely1 broadly speaking1 a question of degree2 of much or little injury resulting from such communication2 the cases in which real1 permanent good can arise are too absolutely exceptional to require consideration4 ,understand how the case stands4 ,the unhappy being revolting against the trials of life--trials1 the results of its own former actions1 trials1 heaven's merciful medicine for the mentally and spiritually diseased--determines1 instead of manfully taking arms against a sea of troubles1 to let the curtain drop1 and1 as it fancies1 end them4 ,it destroys the body1 but finds itself precisely as much alive mentally as before4 ,it had an appointed life-term determined by an intricate web of prior causes1 which its own wilful sudden act cannot shorten4 ,that term must run out its appointed sands4 ,you may smash the lower half of the hand hour-glass1 so that the impalpable sand shooting from the upper bell is dissipated by the passing aerial currents as it issues2 but that stream will run on1 unnoticed though it remain1 until the whole store in that upper receptacle is exhausted4 ,so you may destroy the body1 but not the appointed period of sentient existence1 foredoomed 7because simply the effect of a plexus of causes7 to intervene before the dissolution of the personality2 this must run on for its appointed period4 ,this is so in other cases1 e4g41 those of the victims of accident or violence2 they1 too1 have to complete their life-term1 and of these1 too1 we may speak on another occasion--but here it is sufficient to notice that1 whether good or bad1 their mental attitude at the time of death alters wholly their subsequent position4 ,they1 too1 have to wait on within the ,region of ,desires until their wave of life runs on to and reaches its appointed shore1 but they wait on1 wrapped in dreams soothing and blissful1 or the reverse1 according to their mental and moral state at1 and prior to the fatal hour1 but nearly exempt from further material temptations1 and1 broadly speaking1 incapable 7except just at the moment of real death7 of communicating scio motu with mankind1 though not wholly beyond the possible reach of the higher forms of the ,accursed ,science1 ,necromancy4 ,the question is a profoundly abstruse one2 it would be impossible to explain within the brief space still remaining to us1 how the conditions immediately after death differ so entirely as they do in the case 7#a7 of the man who deliberately lays down 7not merely risks7 his life from altruistic motives in the hope of saving those of others2 and 7#b7 of him who deliberately sacrifices his life from selfish motives1 in the hope of escaping trials and troubles which loom before him4 ,nature or ,providence1 ,fate1 or ,god1 being merely a self-adjusting machine1 it would at first sight seem as if the results must be identical in both cases4 ,but1 machine though it be1 we must remember that it is a machine sui generis-- ,out of himself he span ,the eternal web of right and wrong2 ,and ever feels the subtlest thrill1 ,the slenderest thread along4 ,a machine compared with whose perfect sensitiveness and adjustment the highest human intellect is but a coarse clumsy replica1 in petto4 ,and we must remember that thoughts and motives are material1 and at times marvellously potent material1 forces1 and we may then begin to comprehend why the hero1 sacrificing his life on pure altruistic grounds1 sinks as his life-blood ebbs away into a sweet dream1 wherein ,all that he wishes and all that he loves1 ,come smiling round his sunny way1 only to wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the ,region of ,happiness1 while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who1 seeking to elude fate1 selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks the golden bowl1 finds himself terribly alive and awake1 instinct with all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life1 without a body in which to gratify these1 and capable of only such partial alleviation as is possible by more or less vicarious gratification1 and this only at the cost of the ultimate complete rupture with his sixth and seventh principles1 and consequent ultimate annihilation after1 alas6 prolonged periods of suffering4 ,let it not be supposed that there is no hope for this class--the sane deliberate suicide4 ,if1 bearing steadfastly his cross1 he suffers patiently his punishment1 striving against carnal appetites still alive in him1 in all their intensity1 though1 of course1 each in proportion to the degree to which it had been indulged in earth-life4 ,if1 we say1 he bears this humbly1 never allowing himself to be tempted here or there into unlawful gratifications of unholy desires1 then when his fated death-hour strikes1 his four higher principles reunite1 and1 in the final separation that then ensues1 it may well be that all may be well with him1 and that he passes on to the gestation period and its subsequent developments4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #a3 ,book ii41 from lines #fff-ghi4 ,the whole passage bristles with horrors4 ,footnote #b3 xii4 #he4 ,trans41 of ,burnell and ,hopkins4 ,footnote #c3 ,from the translation of ,dhunjeebhoy ,jamsetjee ,medhora1 ,zoroastrian and some other ,ancient ,systems1 xxvii4 ,footnote #d3 ,trans41 by ,mirza ,mohamed ,hadi4 ,the ,platonist1 #cjf4 ,footnote #e3 ,the ,sacred ,books of the ,east1 iii1 #aji1 #aaj4 ,footnote #f3 ,secret ,doctrine1 vol4 i4 p4 #bha4 ,footnote #g3 ,see ibid41 p4 #bhc4 ,footnote #h3 ,isis ,unveiled1 vol4 i4 p4 #dhj4 ,footnote #i3 ,theosophical ,manuals1 ,no4 #a4 ,footnote #aj3 ,the ,heroic ,enthusiasts1 ,trans41 by ,l4 ,williams4 part ii4 pp4 #bb1 #bc4 ,footnote #aa3 ,cremation1 ,theosophical ,siftings1 vol4 iii4 ,footnote #ab3 ,man3 ,fragments of ,forgotten ,history1 pp4 #aai1 #abj4 ,footnote #ac3 ,key to ,theosophy1 ,h4,p4 ,blavatsky1 p4 #aji4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #ad3 ,magic1 ,white and ,black1 ,dr4 ,franz ,hartmann1 pp4 #aji1 #aaj4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #ae3 ,see ,the ,seven ,principles of ,man1 pp4 #ag-ba4 ,footnote #af3 ,theosophist1 ,march1 #ahhb1 p4 #aeh1 note4 ,footnote #ag3 ,essays upon some ,controverted ,questions1 p4 #cf4 ,footnote #ah3 ,fortnightly ,review1 #ahib1 p4 #agf4 ,footnote #ai3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #fg4 ,footnote #bj3 ,ibid41 p4 #ig4 ,footnote #ba3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #ig ,footnote #bb3 ,ibid41 p4 #ajb4 ,footnote #bc3 ,june1 #ahhb1 art4 ,seeming ,discrepancies4 ,footnote #bd3 ,pp4 #gc1 #gd4 ,ed4 #ahhg4 ,footnote #be3 ,theosophical ,glossary1 ,elementaries4 ,footnote #bf3 ,see ,the ,seven ,principles of ,man1 p4p4 #dd-df4 ,footnote #bg3 ,the name ,sukhvat1 borrowed from ,tibetan ,buddhism1 is sometimes used instead of that of ,devachan4 ,sukhvat1 according to ,schlagintweit1 is the abode of the blessed1 into which ascend those who have accumulated much merit by the practice of virtues1 and involves the deliverance from metempsychosis 7,buddhism in ,tibet1 p4 #ii74 ,according to the ,prasanga school1 the higher ,path leads to ,nirvna1 the lower to ,sukhvat4 ,but ,eitel calls ,sukhvat the ,nirvna of the common people1 where the saints revel in physical bliss for ons1 until they renter the circle of transmigration 7,sanskrit-,chinese ,dictionary74 ,eitel1 however1 under ,amitbha states that the popular mind regards the paradise of the ,west as the haven of final redemption from the eddies of transmigration4 ,when used by one of the ,teachers of the ,esoteric ,philosophy it covers the higher ,devachanic states1 but from all of these the ,soul comes back to earth4 ,footnote #bh3 ,see ,lucifer1 ,oct1 #ahib1 ,vol4 ,,xi4 ,no4 #fb4 ,footnote #bi3 ,the ,path1 ,may1 #ahij4 ,footnote #cj3 ,ibid4 ,footnote #ca3 ,notes on ,devachan1 as cited4 ,footnote #cb3 ,notes on ,devachan1 as before4 ,there are a variety of stages in ,devachan2 the ,rpa ,loka is an inferior stage1 where the ,soul is still surrounded by forms4 ,it has escaped from these personalities in the ,tribhuvana4 ,footnote #cc3 ,vishnu ,purna1 ,bk4 ,i4 ch4 v4 ,footnote #cd3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #fi4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #ce3 ,sixth and seventh in the older nomenclature1 fifth and sixth in the later--i4e41 ,manas and ,buddhi4 ,footnote #cf3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #ii4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #cg3 ,ibid41 p4 #ajj4 ,footnote #ch3 ,ibid41 p4 #aja4 ,footnote #ci3 ,see ,manual ,no4 #b ,re-incarnation1 pp4 #fj1 #fa4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #dj3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #aje4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #da3 ,esoteric ,buddhism1 p4 #aig4 ,eighth ,edition4 ,footnote #db3 ,quoted in the ,secret ,doctrine1 vol4 ii4 p4 #hc4 ,the student will do well to read1 for a fair presentation of the subject1 ,g4,r4,s4 ,mead's ,note on ,nirvna in ,lucifer1 for ,march1 ,april1 and ,may1 #ahic4 7,re-printed in ,theosophical ,siftings74 ,footnote #dc3 ,theosophist1 ,sept41 #ahhb1 p4 #caj4 ,footnote #dd3 ,see on illusion what was said under the heading ,devachan4 ,footnote #de3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #ajb4 ,third ,edition4 ,footnote #df3 ,theosophist1 ,sept4 #ahha4 ,footnote #dg3 ,notes on ,devachan1 ,path1 ,june1 #ahij1 p4 #hj4 ,footnote #dh3 ,theosophist1 ,june1 #ahhb1 p4 #bbf4 ,footnote #di3 ,summarised from article in ,theosophist1 ,sept41 #ahhb4 ,footnote #ej3 ,ibid41 p4 #cji4 ,footnote #ea3 ,ibid41 p4 #caj4 ,footnote #eb3 ,key to ,theosophy1 p4 #aea4 ,footnote #ec3 ,theosophist1 ,sept41 #ahhb1 p4 #caj4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,index4 ,accident1 ,death by1 #cg4 ,appendix1 #ha4 ,astral ,body1 #ai1 ,fate of1 #ca4 ,astral ,shell or ,soul1 #ge4 ,avesta1 quoted1 #i4 ,blavatsky1 ,h4,p41 quoted1 #af1 #ag1 #bd1 #cj1 #ca1 #cc1 #cd1 #ce1 #de1 #di1 #fj1 #fe1 #ff1 #fg1 #gc1 #gd1 #gh4 ,book of the ,dead1 quoted1 #h4 ,bruno1 ,giordano1 quoted1 #ba4 ,buddhism in ,tibet1 quoted1 #dg1 7note74 ,communications between ,earth and other ,spheres1 #gj4 between ,earth and ,soul in ,etheric ,body1 #ga4 between ,earth1 and soul in ,devachan1 #gb1 between ,earth and soul in ,kmaloka1 #gb4 from ,adepts now living1 #gi4 from ,elementals1 #gh4 from ,elementaries1 #gg4 from ,medium's ,higher ,ego1 #gi4 from ,nirmnakyas1 #gh4 from ,shells1 #dc1 #gg4 ,controverted ,questions1 ,essays upon some1 quoted1 #bh4 ,cremation1 quoted1 #ba4 ,cycle of ,incarnation1 #eb et seq4 ,death1 a ,gateway1 #gi4 ,chinese ,ideas of1 #aa4 ,christian ,ideas of1 #f4 ,egyptian ,ideas of1 #h4 ,theosophic ,ideas of1 #ah4 ,desatir1 quoted1 #i4 ,devachan1 #cc1 #df4 et seq4 ,devachan1 ,passing into1 of the average-living1 #cc4 ,devachan1 ,the ,soul in1 #gb4 ,devachan1 ,the1 #eh et seq4 ,earth1 ,the return to1 #ff4 ,egos1 ,many lives of1 #fc et seq4 ,elementals1 #dd1 #gh4 ,elementaries1 #de1 #gg4 ,esoteric ,buddhism1 quoted1 #fi4 ,etheric ,double1 #ab1 #bb et seq41 #bd1 #be1 #ga et seq4 ,fiery ,lives1 #ag4 ,fortnightly ,review1 quoted1 #bi4 ,heroic ,enthusiasts1 ,the1 quoted1 #ba4 ,immortal ,triad1 ,the1 #ab1 #ac1 #ca1 #cc1 #eh1 #fj4 ,isis ,unveiled1 quoted1 #ag4 ,kmaloka1 #bf1 #bg1 #bi1 #cb1 #cd1 #da4 ,kmaloka1 ,the ,soul in1 #gb4 ,kma ,rpa1 #cj4 ,key to ,theosophy1 quoted1 #bd1 #cj1 #ca1 #cc1 #fj1 #fe1 #fg1 #gc1 #gh4 ,lucifer1 quoted1 #di1 #gj4 ,magic1 ,white and ,black1 quoted1 #bf4 ,man3 ,fragments of ,forgotten ,history1 quoted1 #bc4 ,man3 ,how ,made1 #ab et seq4 ,my1 #dg4 ,medium1 ,communications from ,higher ,egos of1 #gi4 ,nirvna1 #fi4 ,ordinances of ,manu1 quoted1 #i4 ,paradise ,lost1 quoted1 #g4 ,path1 quoted1 #ea1 #ed1 #ee1 #ef1 #ei et seq4 ,perfect ,way1 quoted1 #dd4 ,perishable ,quaternary1 #ab4 ,pishchas1 #ch4 ,prna1 #bf1 #cj4 ,premature ,death1 #cf1 #ci4 ,re-incarnation1 #h1 #fg4 ,sanskrit-,chinese ,dictionary1 quoted1 #dg 7,footnote3 #bg74 ,seven principles of ,man1 quoted1 #bf1 #de4 ,shell1 ,astral ,soul1 or1 #ge4 ,shells1 ,the1 #da4 ,sh ,king1 quoted1 #aj4 ,soul1 ,growth of1 in ,devachan1 #ef1 ,powers of the1 #hj4 ,relations of1 with ,devachan1 #gd et seq4 ,the ,disembodied1 #ga et seq4 ,spiritualism and ,esoteric ,philosophy1 #ae4 ,suicides1 #cf1 et seq41 #ha4 ,theosophical ,glossary1 quoted1 #de4 ,theosophical ,siftings1 quoted1 #ba4 ,theosophist1 ,the1 quoted1 #bg1 #ce1 #ga1 #gd1 #ge et seq4 ,theosophist4 ,the1 summarised1 #ge1 #gi1 #ha4 ,unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings1 #bh et seq4 ,vishnu ,purna1 quoted1 #eg4 99 99 99 99 99