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diff --git a/18266-8.txt b/18266-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ab369d --- /dev/null +++ b/18266-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3168 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Death--and After?, by Annie Besant + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Death--and After? + +Author: Annie Besant + +Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #18266] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH--AND AFTER? *** + + + + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _Theosophical Manuals. No. 3._ + + + + + DEATH--AND AFTER? + + BY + + ANNIE BESANT. + + + + (20TH THOUSAND) + + + + + Theosophical Publishing Society + + London and Benares + + City Agents, Percy Lund Humphries & Co. + + Amen Corner, London, E.C. + + + 1906 + + + _PRICE ONE SHILLING_ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +_Few words are needed in sending this little book out into the world. +It is the third of a series of Manuals designed to meet the public +demand for a simple exposition of Theosophical teachings. Some have +complained that our literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, +and too expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope that the +present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real want. +Theosophy is not only for the learned; it is for all. Perhaps among +those who in these little books catch their first glimpse of its +teachings, there may be a few who will be led by them to penetrate +more deeply into its philosophy, its science, and its religion, facing +its abstruser problems with the student's zeal and the neophyte's +ardour. But these Manuals are not written for the eager student, whom +no initial difficulties can daunt; they are written for the busy men +and women of the work-a-day world, and seek to make plain some of the +great truths that render life easier to bear and death easier to face. +Written by servants of the Masters who are the Elder Brothers of our +race, they can have no other object than to serve our fellow-men._ + + +DEATH--AND AFTER? + +Who does not remember the story of the Christian missionary in +Britain, sitting one evening in the vast hall of a Saxon king, +surrounded by his thanes, having come thither to preach the gospel of +his Master; and as he spoke of life and death and immortality, a bird +flew in through an unglazed window, circled the hall in its flight, +and flew out once more into the darkness of the night. The Christian +priest bade the king see in the flight of the bird within the hall the +transitory life of man, and claimed for his faith that it showed the +soul, in passing from the hall of life, winging its way not into the +darkness of night, but into the sunlit radiance of a more glorious +world. Out of the darkness, through the open window of Birth, the life +of a man comes to the earth; it dwells for a while before our eyes; +into the darkness, through the open window of Death, it vanishes out +of our sight. And man has questioned ever of Religion, Whence comes +it? Whither goes it? and the answers have varied with the faiths. +To-day, many a hundred year since Paulinus talked with Edwin, there +are more people in Christendom who question whether man has a spirit +to come anywhence or to go anywhither than, perhaps, in the world's +history could ever before have been found at one time. And the very +Christians who claim that Death's terrors have been abolished, have +surrounded the bier and the tomb with more gloom and more dismal +funeral pomp than have the votaries of any other creed. What can be +more depressing than the darkness in which a house is kept shrouded, +while the dead body is awaiting sepulture? What more repellent than +the sweeping robes of lustreless crape, and the purposed hideousness +of the heavy cap in which the widow laments the "deliverance" of her +husband "from the burden of the flesh"? What more revolting than the +artificially long faces of the undertaker's men, the drooping +"weepers", the carefully-arranged white handkerchiefs, and, until +lately, the pall-like funeral cloaks? During the last few years, a +great and marked improvement has been made. The plumes, cloaks, and +weepers have well-nigh disappeared. The grotesquely ghastly hearse is +almost a thing of the past, and the coffin goes forth heaped over with +flowers instead of shrouded in the heavy black velvet pall. Men and +women, though still wearing black, do not roll themselves up in +shapeless garments like sable winding-sheets, as if trying to see how +miserable they could make themselves by the imposition of artificial +discomforts. Welcome common-sense has driven custom from its throne, +and has refused any longer to add these gratuitous annoyances to +natural human grief. + +In literature and in art, alike, this gloomy fashion of regarding +Death has been characteristic of Christianity. Death has been painted +as a skeleton grasping a scythe, a grinning skull, a threatening +figure with terrible face and uplifted dart, a bony scarecrow shaking +an hour-glass--all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round +this rightly-named King of Terrors. Milton, who has done so much with +his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern +Christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent +diction to surround with horror the figure of Death. + + The other shape, + If shape it might be called, that shape had none + Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, + Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, + For each seemed either; black it stood as night, + Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, + And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head + The likeness of a kingly crown had on. + Satan was now at hand, and from his seat + The monster moving onward came as fast, + With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.... + ... So spoke the grisly terror: and in shape + So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold + More dreadful and deform.... + ... but he, my inbred enemy, + Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, + Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out _Death!_ + Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed + From all her caves, and back resounded _Death_.[1] + +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 strange. The claim, 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 light, is of course transparently absurd, in the face +of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary available on all hands. +The stately Egyptian Ritual with its _Book of the Dead_, in which are +traced the post-mortem journeys of the Soul, should be enough, if it +stood alone, to put out of court for ever so preposterous a claim. +Hear the cry of the Soul of the righteous: + + O ye, who make the escort of the God, stretch out to me your + arms, for I become one of you. (xvii. 22.) + + Hail to thee, Osiris, Lord of Light, dwelling in the mighty + abode, in the bosom of the absolute darkness. I come to thee, + a purified Soul; my two hands are around thee. (xxi. 1.) + + I open heaven; I do what was commanded in Memphis. I have + knowledge of my heart; I am in possession of my heart, I am + in possession of my arms, I am in possession of my legs, at + the will of myself. My Soul is not imprisoned in my body at + the gates of Amenti. (xxvi. 5, 6.) + +Not to multiply to weariness quotations from a book that is wholly +composed of the doings and sayings of the disembodied man, let it +suffice to give the final judgment on the victorious Soul: + + The defunct shall be deified among the Gods in the lower + divine region, he shall never be rejected.... He shall drink + from the current of the celestial river.... His Soul shall + not be imprisoned, since it is a Soul that brings salvation + to those near it. The worms shall not devour it. (clxiv. + 14-16.) + +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 Death; but one may quote as an example a +passage from the _Ordinances of Manu_, following on a disquisition on +metempsychosis, and answering the question of deliverance from +rebirths. + + Amid all these holy acts, the knowledge of self [should be + translated, knowledge of the _Self_, Atmâ] is said (to be) + the highest; this indeed is the foremost of all sciences, + since from it immortality is obtained.[2] + +The testimony of the great Zarathustrean Religion is clear, as is +shown by the following, translated from the _Avesta_, in which, the +journey of the Soul after death having been described, the ancient +Scripture proceeds: + + The soul of the pure man goes the first step and arrives at + (the Paradise) Humata; the soul of the pure man takes the + second step and arrives at (the Paradise) Hukhta; it goes the + third step and arrives at (the Paradise) Hvarst; the soul of + the pure man takes the fourth step and arrives at the Eternal + Lights. + + To it speaks a pure one deceased before, asking it: How art + thou, O pure deceased, come away from the fleshy dwellings, + from the earthly possessions, from the corporeal world hither + to the invisible, from the perishable world hither to the + imperishable, as it happened to thee--to whom hail! + + Then speaks Ahura-Mazda: Ask not him whom thou asketh, (for) + he is come on the fearful, terrible, trembling way, the + separation of body and soul.[3] + +The Persian _Desatir_ speaks with equal definiteness. This work +consists of fifteen books, written by Persian prophets, and was +written originally in the Avestaic language; "God" is Ahura-Mazda, or +Yazdan: + + God selected man from animals to confer on him the soul, + which is a substance free, simple, immaterial, non-compounded + and non-appetitive. And that becomes an angel by improvement. + + By his profound wisdom and most sublime intelligence, he + connected the soul with the material body. + + If he (man) does good in the material body, and has a good + knowledge and religion he is _Hartasp_.... + + As soon as he leaves this material body, I (God) take him up + to the world of angels, that he may have an interview with + the angels, and behold me. + + And if he is not Hartasp, but has wisdom and abstains from + vice, I will promote him to the rank of angels. + + Every person in proportion to his wisdom and piety will find + a place in the rank of wise men, among the heavens and stars. + And in that region of happiness he will remain for ever.[4] + +In China, the immemorial custom of worshipping the Souls of ancestors +shows how completely the life of man was regarded as extending beyond +the tomb. The _Shû King_--placed by Mr. James Legge as the most +ancient of Chinese classics, containing historical documents ranging +from B.C. 2357-627--is full of allusions to these Souls, who with +other spiritual beings, watch over the affairs of their descendants +and the welfare of the kingdom. Thus Pan-kang, ruling from B.C. +1401-1374, exhorts his subjects: + + My object is to support and nourish you all. I think of my + ancestors (who are now) the spiritual sovereigns.... Were I + to err in my government, and remain long here, my high + sovereign (the founder of our dynasty) would send down on me + great punishment for my crime, and say, "Why do you oppress + my people?" If you, the myriads of the people, do not attend + to the perpetuation of your lives, and cherish one mind with + me, the One man, in my plans, the former kings will send down + on you great punishment for your crime, and say, "Why do you + not agree with our young grandson, but go on to forfeit your + virtue?" When they punish you from above, you will have no + way of escape.... Your ancestors and fathers will (now) cut + you off and abandon you, and not save you from death.[5] + +Indeed, so practical is this Chinese belief, held to-day as in those +long-past ages, 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 +Land. + +These quotations, which might be multiplied a hundred-fold, may +suffice to prove the folly of the idea that immortality came to "light +through the gospel". The whole ancient world basked in the full +sunshine of belief in the immortality of man, lived in it daily, +voiced it in its literature, went with it in calm serenity through the +gate of Death. + +It remains a problem why Christianity, which vigorously and joyously +re-affirmed it, should have growing in its midst the unique terror of +Death that has played so large a part in its social life, its +literature, and its art. It is not simply the belief in hell that has +surrounded the grave with horror, for other Religions have had their +hells, and yet their followers have not been harassed by this shadowy +Fear. The Chinese, for instance, who take Death as such a light and +trivial thing, have a collection of hells quite unique in their varied +unpleasantness. Maybe the difference is a question of race rather than +of creed; that the vigorous life of the West shrinks from its +antithesis, and that its unimaginative common-sense finds a bodiless +condition too lacking in solidity of comfort; whereas the more dreamy, +mystical East, prone to meditation, and ever seeking to escape from +the thraldom of the senses during earthly life, looks on the +disembodied state as eminently desirable, and as most conducive to +unfettered thought. + +Ere passing to the consideration of the history of man in the +post-mortem state, it is necessary, however briefly, to state the +constitution of man, as viewed by the Esoteric Philosophy, for we must +have in mind the constituents of his being ere we can understand their +disintegration. Man then consists of + +_The Immortal Triad_: + +Atmâ. +Buddhi. +Manas. + +_The Perishable Quaternary_: + +Kâma. +Prâna. +Etheric Double. +Dense Body. + +The dense body is the physical body, the visible, tangible outer form, +composed of various tissues. The etheric double is the ethereal +counterpart of the body, composed of the physical ethers. Prâna is +vitality, the integrating energy that co-ordinates the physical +molecules and holds them together in a definite organism; it is the +life-breath within the organism, the portion of the universal +Life-Breath, appropriated by the organism during the span of existence +that we speak of as "a life". Kâma is the aggregate of appetites, +passions, and emotions, common to man and brute. Manas is the Thinker +in us, the Intelligence. Buddhi is the vehicle wherein Atmâ, the +Spirit, dwells, and in which alone it can manifest. + +Now the link between the Immortal Triad and the Perishable Quaternary +is Manas, which is dual during earth life, or incarnation, and +functions as Higher Manas and Lower Manas. Higher Manas sends out a +Ray, Lower Manas, which works in and through the human brain, +functioning there as brain-consciousness, as the ratiocinating +intelligence. This mingles with Kâma, the passional nature, the +passions and emotions thus becoming a part of Mind, as defined in +Western Psychology. And so we have the link formed between the higher +and lower natures in man, this Kâma-Manas belonging to the higher by +its mânasic, and to the lower by its kâmic, elements. As this forms +the battleground during life, so does it play an important part in +post-mortem existence. We might now classify our seven principles a +little differently, having in view this mingling in Kâma-Manas of +perishable and imperishable elements: + + { Atmâ. + _Immortal_. { Buddhi. + { Higher-Manas. + +_Conditionally Immortal_. Kâma-Manas. + + { Prâna. + _Mortal_. { Etheric Double. + { Dense Body. + +Some Christian writers have adopted a classification similar to this, +declaring Spirit to be inherently immortal, as being Divine; Soul to +be conditionally immortal, _i.e._, capable of winning immortality by +uniting itself with Spirit; Body to be inherently mortal. The majority +of uninstructed Christians chop man into two, the Body that perishes +at Death, and the something--called indifferently Soul or +Spirit--that survives Death. This last classification--if +classification it may be called--is entirely inadequate, if we are to +seek any rational explanation, or even lucid statement, of the +phenomena of post-mortem existence. The tripartite view of man's +nature gives a more reasonable representation of his constitution, but +is inadequate to explain many phenomena. The septenary division alone +gives a reasonable theory consistent with the facts we have to deal +with, and therefore, though it may seem elaborate, the student will do +wisely to make himself familiar with it. If he were studying only the +body, and desired to understand its activities, he would have to +classify its tissues at far greater length and with far more +minuteness than I am using here. He would have to learn the +differences between muscular, nervous, glandular, bony, cartilaginous, +epithelial, connective, tissues, and all their varieties; and if he +rebelled, in his ignorance, against such an elaborate division, 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 understood. One kind of tissue is wanted +for support, another for movement, another for secretion, another for +absorption, and so on; and if each kind does not have its own +distinctive name, dire confusion and misunderstanding must result, and +physical functions remain unintelligible. In the long run time is +gained, as well as clearness, by learning a few necessary technical +terms, and as clearness is above all things needed in trying to +explain and to understand very complicated post-mortem phenomena, I +find myself compelled--contrary to my habit in these elementary +papers--to resort to these technical names at the outset, for the +English language has as yet no equivalents for them, and the use of +long descriptive phrases is extremely cumbersome and inconvenient. + +For myself, I believe that very much of the antagonism between the +adherents of the Esoteric Philosophy and those of Spiritualism has +arisen from confusion of terms, and consequent misunderstanding of +each others meaning. One eminent Spiritualist lately impatiently said +that he did not see the need of exact definition, and that he meant by +Spirit all the part of man's nature that survived Death, and was not +body. One might as well insist on saying that man's body consists of +bone and blood, and asked to define blood, answer: "Oh! I mean +everything that is not bone." A clear definition of terms, and a rigid +adherence to them when once adopted, will at least enable us all to +understand each other, and that is the first step to any fruitful +comparison of experiences. + + +THE FATE OF THE BODY. + +The human body is constantly undergoing a process of decay and of +reconstruction. First builded into the etheric form in the womb of the +mother, it is built up continually by the insetting of fresh +materials. With every moment tiny molecules are passing away from it; +with every moment tiny molecules are streaming into it. The outgoing +stream is scattered over the environment, and helps to rebuild bodies +of all kinds in the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms, +the physical basis of all these being one and the same. + + The idea that the human tabernacle is built by countless + _lives_, just in the same way as the rocky crust of our Earth + was, has nothing repulsive in it for the true mystic.... + 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 kinds; that from without we are threatened + with the invasion of microbes with every breath we draw, and + from within by leucomaines, robes, ærobes, anærobes, and what + not. But Science never yet went so far as to assert with the + Occult Doctrine that our bodies, as well as those of animals, + plants, and stones, are themselves altogether built up of + such beings, which, except larger species, no microscope can + detect. So far as regards the purely animal and material + portion of man, Science is on its way to discoveries that + will go far towards corroborating this theory. Chemistry and + physiology are the two great magicians of the future, who are + destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great physical + truths. With every day, the identity between the animal and + physical man, between the plant and man, and even between the + reptile and its nest, the rock, and man, is more and more + clearly shown. The physical and chemical constituents of all + being found to be identical, chemical Science may well say + that there is no difference between the matter which composes + the ox and that which forms man. But the Occult Doctrine is + far more explicit. It says: Not only the chemical compounds + are the same, but the same infinitesimal _invisible lives_ + compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the + daisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant, and of the tree + which shelters him from the sun. Each particle--whether you + call it organic or inorganic--_is a life_.[6] + +These "lives" which, separate and independent, are the minute vehicles +of Prâna, aggregated together form the molecules and cells of the +physical body, and they stream in and stream out, during all the years +of bodily life, thus forming a continual bridge between man and his +environment. Controlling these are the "Fiery Lives," the Devourers, +which constrain these to their work of building up the cells of the +body, so that they work harmoniously and in order, subordinated to the +higher manifestation of life in the complex organism called Man. These +Fiery Lives on our plane correspond, in this controlling and +organising function, with the One Life of the Universe,[7] and when +they no longer exercise this function in the human body, the lower +lives run rampant, and begin to break down the hitherto definitely +organised body. During bodily life they are marshalled as an army; +marching in regular order under the command of a general, performing +various evolutions, keeping step, moving as a single body. At "Death" +they become a disorganised and tumultuous mob, rushing hither and +thither, jostling each other, tumbling over each other, with no common +object, no generally recognised authority. The body is never more +alive than when it is dead; but it is alive in its units, and dead in +its totality; alive as a congeries, dead as an organism. + + Science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily + united by a mysterious force called the life-principle. To + the Materialist, the only difference between a living and a + dead body is that in the one case that force is active, in + the other latent. When it is extinct or entirely latent, the + molecules obey a superior attraction, which draws them + asunder and scatters them through space. This dispersion must + be Death, if it is possible to conceive such a thing as + Death, where the very molecules of the dead body manifest an + intense vital energy.... Says Eliphas Levi: "Change attests + movement, and movement only reveals life. The corpse would + not decompose if it were dead; all the molecules which + compose it are living and struggle to separate."[8] + +Those who have read _The Seven Principles of Man_,[9] know that the +etheric double is the vehicle of Prâna, the life-principle, or +vitality. Through the etheric double Prâna exercises the controlling +and co-ordinating force spoken of above, 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 snapped. The +process of withdrawal has been watched by clairvoyants, and definitely +described. Thus Andrew Jackson Davis, "the Poughkeepsie Seer", +describes how he himself watched this escape of the ethereal body, and +he states that the magnetic cord did not break for some thirty-six +hours after apparent death. Others have described, in similar terms, +how they saw a faint violet mist rise from the dying body, gradually +condensing into a figure which was the counterpart of the expiring +person, and attached to that person by a glistening thread. The +snapping of the thread means the breaking of the last magnetic link +between the dense body and the remaining principles of the human +constitution; the body has dropped away from the man; he is +excarnated, disembodied; six principles still remain as his +constitution immediately after death, the seventh, or the dense body, +being left as a cast-off garment. + +Death consists, indeed, in a repeated process of unrobing, or +unsheathing. The immortal part of man shakes off from itself, one +after the other, its outer casings, and--as the snake from its skin, +the butterfly from its chrysalis--emerges from one after another, +passing into a higher state of consciousness. Now it is the fact that +this escape from the body, and this dwelling of the conscious entity +either in the vehicle called the body of desire, the kâmic or astral +body, or in a yet more ethereal Thought Body, can be effected during +earth-life; so that man may become familiar with the excarnated +condition, and it may lose for him all the terrors that encircle the +unknown. He can know himself as a conscious entity in either of these +vehicles, and so prove to his own satisfaction that "life" does not +depend on his functioning through the physical body. Why should a man +who has thus repeatedly "shed" his lower bodies, and has found the +process result, not in unconsciousness, but in a vastly extended +freedom and vividness of life--why should he fear the final casting +away of his fetters, and the freeing of his Immortal Self from what he +realises as the prison of the flesh? + +This view of human life is an essential part of the Esoteric +Philosophy. Man is primarily divine, a spark of the Divine Life. This +living flame, passing out from the Central Fire, weaves for itself +coverings within which it dwells, and thus becomes the Triad, the +Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas, the reflection of the Immortal Self. This sends out +its Ray, which becomes encased in grosser matter, in the desire body, +or kâmic elements, the passional nature, and in the etheric double and +the physical body. The once free immortal Intelligence thus entangled, +enswathed, enchained, works heavily and laboriously through the +coatings that enwrap it. In its own nature it remains ever the free +Bird of Heaven, but its wings are bound to its side by the matter into +which it is plunged. When man recognises his own inherent nature, he +learns to open his prison doors occasionally and escapes from his +encircling gaol; first he learns to identify himself with the +Immortal Triad, and rises above the body and its passions into a pure +mental and moral life; then he learns that the conquered body cannot +hold him prisoner, and he unlocks its door and steps out into the +sunshine of his true life. So when Death unlocks the door for him, he +knows the country into which he emerges, having trodden its ways at +his own will. And at last he grows to recognise that fact of supreme +importance, that "Life" has nothing to do with body and with this +material plane; that Life is his conscious existence, unbroken, +unbreakable, and that the brief interludes in that Life, during which +he sojourns on Earth, are but a minute fraction of his conscious +existence, and a fraction, moreover, during which he is less alive, +because of the heavy coverings which weigh him down. For only during +these interludes (save in exceptional cases) may he wholly lose his +consciousness of continued life, being surrounded by these coverings +which delude him and blind him to the truth of things, making that +real which is illusion, and that stable which is transitory. The +sunlight ranges over the universe, and at incarnation we step out of +it into the twilight of the body, and see but dimly during the period +of our incarceration; at Death we step out of the prison again into +the sunlight, and are nearer to the reality. Short are the twilight +periods, and long the periods of the sunlight; but in our blinded +state we call the twilight life, and to us it is the real existence, +while we call the sunlight Death, and shiver at the thought of passing +into it. Well did Giordano Bruno, one of the greatest teachers of our +Philosophy in the Middle Ages, state the truth as to the body and Man. +Of the real Man he says: + + He will be present in the body in such wise that the best + part of himself will be absent from it, and will join himself + by an indissoluble sacrament to divine things, in such a way + that he will not feel either love or hatred of things mortal. + Considering himself as master, and that he ought not to be + servant and slave to his body, which he would regard only as + the prison which holds his liberty in confinement, the glue + which smears his wings, chains which bind fast his hands, + stocks which fix his feet, veil which hides his view. Let him + not be servant, captive, ensnared, chained, idle, stolid, and + blind, for the body which he himself abandons cannot + tyrannise over him, so that thus the spirit in a certain + degree comes before him as the corporeal world, and matter is + subject to the divinity and to nature.[10] + +When once we thus come to regard the body, and by conquering it we +gain our liberty, Death loses for us all his terrors, and at his touch +the body slips from us as a garment, and we stand out from it erect +and free. + +On the same lines of thought Dr. Franz Hartmann writes: + + According to certain views of the West man is a developed + ape. According to the views of Indian Sages, which also + coincide with those of the Philosophers of past ages and with + the teachings of the Christian Mystics, man is a God, who is + united during his earthly life, through his own carnal + tendencies, to an animal (his animal nature). The God who + dwells within him endows man with wisdom. The animal endows + him with force. After death, _the God effects his own release + from the man_ by departing from the animal body. As man + carries within him this divine consciousness, it is his task + to battle with his animal inclinations, and to raise himself + above them, by the help of the divine principle, a task which + the animal cannot achieve, and which therefore is not + demanded of it.[11] + +The "man", using the word in the sense of personality, as it is used +in the latter half of this sentence, is only conditionally immortal; +the true man, the evolving God, releases himself, and so much of the +personality goes with him as has raised itself into union with the +divine. + +The body thus left to the rioting of the countless lives--previously +held in constraint by Prâna, acting through its vehicle the etheric +double--begins to decay, that is to break up, and with the +disintegration of its cells and molecules, its particles pass away +into other combinations. + +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 dwelling; but all that we are just now concerned with is the +breaking up of the body whose life-span is over, and its fate is +complete disintegration. To the dense body, then, Death means +dissolution as an organism, the loosing of the bonds that united the +many into one. + + +THE FATE OF THE ETHERIC DOUBLE. + +The etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of +man. It is the double that is sometimes seen during life in the +neighbourhood of the body, and its absence from the body is generally +marked by the heaviness or semi-lethargy of the latter. Acting as the +reservoir, or vehicle, of the life-principle during earth-life, its +withdrawal from the body is naturally marked by the lowering of all +vital functions, even while the cord which unites the two is still +unbroken. As has been already said, the snapping of the cord means the +death of the body. + +When the etheric double finally quits the body, it does not travel to +any distance from it. Normally it remains floating over the body, the +state of consciousness being dreamy and peaceful, unless tumultuous +distress and violent emotion surround the corpse from which it has +just issued. And here it may be well to say that during the slow +process of dying, while the etheric double is withdrawing from the +body, taking with it the higher principles, as after it has withdrawn, +extreme quiet and self-control should be observed in the chamber of +Death. For during this time the whole life passes swiftly in review +before the Ego, the individual, as those have related who have passed +in drowning into this unconscious and pulseless state. A Master has +written: + + _At the last moment the whole life is reflected in our + memory, and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners, + picture after picture, one event after another.... The man + may often appear dead, yet from the last pulsation, from and + between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when + the last spark of animal heat leaves the body_, the brain + thinks, _and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds + his whole life. Speak in whispers, ye who assist at a + deathbed, and find yourselves in the solemn presence of + death. Especially have ye to keep quiet just after death has + laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say, + lest ye disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the + busy work of the past, casting its reflection upon the veil + of the future._[12] + +This is the time during which the thought-images of the ended +earth-life, clustering around their maker, group and interweave +themselves into the completed image of that life, and are impressed in +their totality on the Astral Light. The dominant tendencies, the +strongest thought-habits, assert their pre-eminence, and stamp +themselves as the characteristics which will appear as "innate +qualities" in the succeeding incarnation. This balancing-up of the +life-issues, this reading of the kârmic records, is too solemn and +momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of +personal relatives and friends. + + At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is + sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before + him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the + _personal_ become one with the _individual_ and all-knowing + Ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole + chain of causes which have been at work during his life. He + sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by + flattery or self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a + spectator, looking down into the arena he is quitting.[13] + +This vivid sight is succeeded, in the ordinary person, by the dreamy, +peaceful semi-consciousness spoken of above, as the etheric double +floats above the body to which it has belonged, now completely +separated from it. + +Sometimes this double is seen by persons in the house, or in the +neighbourhood, when the thought of the dying has been strongly turned +to some one left behind, when some anxiety has been in the mind at the +last, something left undone which needed doing, or when some local +disturbance has shaken the tranquillity of the passing entity. Under +these conditions, or others of a similar nature, the double may be +seen or heard; when seen, it shows the dreamy, hazy consciousness +alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, unresponsive. + +As the days go on, the five higher principles gradually disengage +themselves from the etheric double, and shake this off as they +previously shook off the grosser body. They pass on, as a fivefold +entity, into a state to be next studied, leaving the etheric double, +with the dense body of which it is the counterpart, thus becoming an +ethereal corpse, as much as the body had become a dense corpse. This +ethereal corpse remains near the dense one, and they disintegrate +together; clairvoyants see these ethereal wraiths in churchyards, +sometimes showing likeness to the dead dense body, sometimes as violet +mists or lights. Such an ethereal corpse has been seen by a friend of +my own, passing through the horribly repulsive stages of +decomposition, a ghastly vision in face of which clairvoyance was +certainly no blessing. The process goes on _pari passu_, until all but +the actual bony skeleton of the dense body is completely +disintegrated, and the particles have gone to form other combinations. + +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 corpses, brought +about by the burning. Instead of slow and gradual decomposition, swift +dissociation takes place, and no physical remnants are left, working +possible mischief. + +The ethereal corpse may to some extent be revivified for a short +period after its death. Dr. Hartmann says: + + 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 battery. 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 medium. If that + corpse is one of a very intellectual person, it may talk + very intellectually; and if it was that of a fool it will + talk like a fool.[14] + +This mischievous procedure can only be carried out in the +neighbourhood of the corpse, and for a very limited time after death, +but there are cases on record of such galvanising of the ethereal +corpse, performed at the grave of the departed person. Needless to say +that such a process belongs distinctly to "Black" Magic, and is wholly +evil. Ethereal corpses, like dense ones, if not swiftly destroyed by +burning, should be left in the silence and the darkness, a silence and +a darkness that it is the worst profanity to break. + + +KÂMALOKA, AND THE FATE OF PRÂNA AND KÂMA. + +Loka is a Sanskrit word that may be translated as place, world, land, +so that Kâmaloka is literally the place or the world of Kâma, Kâma +being the name of that part of the human organism that includes all +the passions, desires, and emotions which man has in common with the +lower animals.[15] In this division of the universe, the Kâmaloka, +dwell all the human entities that have shaken off the dense body and +its ethereal double, but have not yet disentangled themselves from the +passional and emotional nature. Kâmaloka has many other tenants, but +we are concerned only with the human beings who have lately passed +through the gateway of Death, and it is on these that we must +concentrate our study. + +A momentary digression may be pardoned on the question of the +existence of regions in the universe, other than the physical, +peopled with intelligent beings. The existence of such regions is +postulated by the Esoteric Philosophy, and is known to the Adepts and +to very many less highly evolved men and women by personal experience; +all that is needed for the study of these regions is the evolution of +the faculties latent in every man; a "living" man, in ordinary +parlance, can leave his dense and ethereal bodies behind him, and +explore these regions without going through Death's gateway. 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 Spirit. + + As in the case, say, of an initiated Adept, who brings back + upon earth with him the clear and distinct + recollection--correct to a detail--of facts gathered, and the + information obtained, in the invisible sphere of + _Realities_.[16] + +In this way those regions become to him matters of knowledge as +definite, as certain, as familiar, as if he should travel to Africa in +ordinary fashion, explore its deserts, and return to his own land the +richer for the knowledge and experience gained. A seasoned African +explorer would care but little for the criticisms passed on his report +by persons who had never been thither; he might tell what he saw, +describe the animals whose habits he had studied, sketch the country +he had traversed, sum up its products and its characteristics. If he +was contradicted, laughed at, set right, by untravelled critics, he +would be neither ruffled nor distressed, but would merely leave them +alone. Ignorance cannot convince knowledge by repeated asseveration +of its nescience. 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 person. Evidence is strengthened by many consenting +witnesses, testifying each to his knowledge of a fact, but nothing +multiplied a thousand times remains nothing. Strange, indeed, would it +be if all the Space around us be empty, mere waste void, and the +inhabitants of earth the only forms in which intelligence could clothe +itself. As Dr. Huxley said: + + Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is known, + it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending + scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable + from omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience.[17] + +If these entities did not have organs of sense like our own, if their +senses responded to vibrations different from those which affect ours, +they and we might walk side by side, pass each other, meet each other, +pass through each other, and yet be never the wiser as to each other's +existence. Mr. Crookes gives us a glimpse of the possibility of such +unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings, and but a very slight +effort of imagination is needed to realise the conception. + + 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 sensitive, but are able to appreciate + other vibrations to which we are blind. Such beings would + practically be living in a different world to our own. + Imagine, for instance, what idea we should form of + surrounding objects were we endowed with eyes not sensitive + to the ordinary rays of light, but sensitive to the + vibrations concerned in electric and magnetic phenomena. + Glass and crystal would be among the most opaque of bodies. + Metals would be more or less transparent, and a telegraph + wire through the air would look like a long narrow hole + drilled through an impervious solid body. A dynamo in active + work would resemble a conflagration, whilst a permanent + magnet would realise the dream of mediæval mystics, and + become an everlasting lamp with no expenditure of energy or + consumption of fuel.[18] + +Kâmaloka is a region peopled by intelligent and semi-intelligent +entities, just as our own is thus peopled; it is crowded, like our +world, with many types and forms of living things, as diverse from +each other as a blade of grass is different from a tiger, a tiger from +a man. It interpenetrates our own world and is interpenetrated by it, +but, as the states of matter in the two worlds differ, they co-exist +without the knowledge of the intelligent beings in either. Only under +abnormal circumstances can consciousness of each other's presence +arise among the inhabitants of the two worlds; by certain peculiar +training a living human being can come into conscious contact with and +control many of the sub-human denizens of Kâmaloka; human beings, who +have quitted earth and in whom the kâmic elements were strong, may +very readily be attracted by the kâmic elements in embodied men, and +by their help become conscious again of the presence of the scenes +they had left; and human beings still embodied may set up methods of +communication with the disembodied, and may, as said, leave their own +bodies for awhile, and become conscious in Kâmaloka by the use of +faculties through which they have accustomed their consciousness to +act. The point which is here to be clearly grasped is the existence +of Kâmaloka as a definite region, inhabited by a large diversity of +entities, among whom are disembodied human beings. + +From this necessary digression we return to the particular human being +whose fate, as a type, we may be said to be tracing, and of whose +dense body and etheric double we have already disposed. Let us +contemplate him in the state of very brief duration that follows the +shaking off of these two casings. Says H.P. Blavatsky, after quoting +from Plutarch a description of the man after death: + + Here you have our doctrine, which shows man a _septenary_ + during life; a _quintile_ just after death, in Kâmaloka.[19] + +Prâna, the portion of the life-energy appropriated by the man in his +embodied state, having lost its vehicle, the ethereal double, which, +with the physical body, has slipped away from its controlling energy, +must pass back into the great life-reservoir of the universe. As water +enclosed in a glass vessel and plunged into a tank mingles with the +surrounding water if the vessel be broken, so Prâna, as the bodies +drop from it, mingles again with the Life Universal. It is only "just +after death" that man is a quintile, or fivefold in his constitution, +for Prâna, as a distinctively human principle, cannot remain +appropriated when its vehicle disintegrates. + +The man now is clothed, but with the Kâma Rûpa, or body of Kâma, the +desire body, a body of astral matter, often termed "fluidic," so +easily does it, during earth-life, take any form impressed upon it +from without or moulded from within. The living man is there, the +immortal Triad, still clad in the last of its terrestrial garments, in +the subtle, sensitive, responsive form which lent it during embodiment +the power to feel, to desire, to enjoy, to suffer, in the physical +world. + + When the man dies, his three lower principles leave him for + ever; _i.e._, body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the + etheric body, or the double of the living man. And then his + four principles--the central or middle principle (the animal + soul or Kâma Rûpa, with what it has assimilated from the + lower Manas) and the higher Triad--find themselves in + Kâmaloka.[20] + +This desire body undergoes a marked change soon after death. The +different densities of the astral matter of which it is composed +arrange themselves in a series of shells or envelopes, the densest +being outside, shutting the consciousness away from all but very +limited contact and expression. The consciousness turns in on itself, +if left undisturbed, and prepares itself for the next step onwards, +while the desire body gradually disintegrates, shell after shell. + +Up to the point of this re-arrangement of the matter of the desire +body, the post-mortem experience of all is much the same; it is a +"dreamy, peaceful semi-consciousness," as before said, and this, in +the happiest cases, passes without vivid awakening into the deeper +"pre-devachanic unconsciousness" which ends with the blissful wakening +in Devachan, for the period of repose that intervenes between two +incarnations. But as, at this point, different possibilities arise, +let us trace a normal uninterrupted progression in Kâmaloka, up to the +threshold of Devachan, and then we can return to consider other +classes of circumstances. + +If a person has led a pure life, and has steadfastly striven to rise +and to identify himself with the higher rather than the lower parts of +his nature, after shaking off the dense body and the etheric double, +and after Prâna has re-mingled with the ocean of Life, and he is +clothed only with the Kâma Rûpa, the passional elements in him, being +but weak and accustomed to comparatively little activity, will not be +able to assert themselves strongly in Kâmaloka. Now during earth-life +Kâma and the Lower Manas are strongly united and interwoven with each +other; in the case we are considering Kâma is weak, and the Lower +Manas has purified Kâma to a great extent. The mind, woven with the +passions, emotions, and desires, has purified them, and has +assimilated their pure part, absorbed it into itself, so that all that +is left of Kâma is a mere residue, easily to be gotten rid of, from +which the Immortal Triad can readily free itself. Slowly this Immortal +Triad, the true Man, draws in all his forces; he draws into himself +the memories of the earth-life just ended, its loves, its hopes, its +aspirations, and prepares to pass out of Kâmaloka into the blissful +rest of Devachan, the "abode of the Gods", or as some say, "the land +of bliss". Kâmaloka + + Is an astral locality, the Limbus of scholastic theology, the + Hades of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a _locality_ + only in a relative sense. It has neither a definite area, nor + boundary, but exists _within_ subjective space, _i.e._, is + beyond our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists, and it is + there that the astral _eidolons_ of all the beings that have + lived, animals included, await their _second death_. For the + animals it comes with the disintegration and the entire + fading out of their astral particles to the last. For the + human _eidolon_ it begins when the Atmâ-Buddhi-Mânasic Triad + is said to "separate" itself from its lower principles or the + reflection of the ex-personality, by falling into the + Devachanic state.[21] + +This second death is the passage, then, of the Immortal Triad from the +kâmalokic sphere, so closely related to the earth sphere, into the +higher state of Devachan, of which we must speak later. The type of +man we are considering passes through this, in the peaceful dreamy +state already described, and, if left undisturbed, will not regain +full consciousness until these stages are passed through, and peace +gives way to bliss. + +But during the whole period that the four principles--the Immortal +Triad and Kâma--remain in Kâmaloka, whether the period be long or +short, days or centuries, they are within the reach of the +earth-influences. In the case of such a person as we have been +describing, an awakening may be caused by the passionate sorrow and +desires of friends left on earth, and these violently vibrating kâmic +elements in the embodied persons may set up vibrations in the desire +body of the disembodied, and so reach and rouse the lower Manas, not +yet withdrawn to and reunited with its parent, the Spiritual +Intelligence. Thus it may be roused from its dreamy state to vivid +remembrance of the earth-life so lately left, and may--if any +sensitive or medium is concerned, either directly, 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 behind. This awakening is often accompanied with acute +suffering, and even if this be avoided, the natural process of the +Triad freeing itself is rudely disturbed, and the completion of its +freedom is delayed. In speaking of this possibility of communication +during the period immediately succeeding death and before the freed +Man passes on into Devachan, H.P. Blavatsky says: + + Whether any living mortal, 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 + awake_, and, therefore, it was really the _individuality_, + the "Spirit", that communicated--has derived much benefit + from the return of the Spirit into the _objective_ plane is + another question. The Spirit is dazed after death, and falls + very soon into what we call "pre-devachanic + unconsciousness."[22] + +Intense desire may move the disembodied entity to spontaneously return +to the sorrowing ones left behind, but this spontaneous return is rare +in the case of persons of the type we are just now considering. If +they are left at peace, they will generally sleep themselves quietly +into Devachan, and so avoid any struggle or suffering in connection +with the second death. On the final escape of the Immortal Triad there +is left behind in Kâmaloka only the desire body, the "shell" or mere +empty phantom, which gradually disintegrates; but it will be better to +deal with this in considering the next type, the average man or woman, +without marked spirituality of an elevated kind, but also without +marked evil tendencies. + +When an average man or woman reaches Kâmaloka, the spiritual +Intelligence is clothed with a desire body, which possesses +considerable vigour and vitality; the lower Manas, closely interwoven +with Kâma during the earth-life just ended, having lived much in the +enjoyment of objects of sense and in the pleasures of the emotions, +cannot quickly disentangle itself from the web of its own weaving, and +return to its Parent Mind, the source of its own being. Hence a +considerable delay in the world of transition, in Kâmaloka, while the +desires wear out and fade away to a point at which they can no longer +detain the Soul with their clinging arms. + +As said, during the period that the Immortal Triad and Kâma remain +together in Kâmaloka, communication between the disembodied entity and +the embodied entities on earth is possible. Such communication will +generally be welcomed by these disembodied ones, because their desires +and emotions still cling to the earth they have left, and the mind has +not sufficiently lived on its own plane to find therein full +satisfaction and contentment. The lower Manas still yearns towards +kâmic gratifications and the vivid highly coloured sensations of +earth-life, and can by these yearnings be drawn back to the scenes it +has regretfully quitted. Speaking of the possibility of communication +between the Ego of the deceased person and a medium, H.P. Blavatsky +says in the _Theosophist_,[23] as from the teachings received by her +from the Adept Brothers, that such communication may occur during two +intervals: + + 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-do. We have + translated this as the "gestation" period [pre-devachanic]. + +Some of the communications made through mediums are from this source, +from the disembodied entity, thus drawn back to the earth-sphere--a +cruel kindness, delaying its forward evolution and introducing an +element of disharmony into what should be an orderly progression. The +period in Kâmaloka is thus lengthened, the desire body is fed and its +hold on the Ego is maintained, and thus is the freedom of the Soul +deferred, the immortal Swallow being still held down by the bird-lime +of earth. + +Persons who have led an evil life, who have gratified and stimulated +their animal passions, and have full fed the desire body while they +have starved even the lower mind--these remain for long, denizens of +Kâmaloka, and are filled with yearnings for the earth-life they have +left, and for the animal delights that they can no longer--in the +absence of the physical body--directly taste. These gather round the +medium and the sensitive, endeavouring to utilise them for their own +gratification, and these are among the more dangerous of the forces so +rashly confronted in their ignorance by the thoughtless and the +curious. + +Another class of disembodied entities includes those whose lives on +earth have been prematurely cut short, by their own act, the act of +others, or by accident. Their fate in Kâmaloka depends on the +conditions which surrounded their outgoings from earthly life, for not +all suicides are guilty of _felo de se_, and the measure of +responsibility may vary within very wide limits. The condition of such +has been thus described: + + _Suicides, although not wholly dissevered from their sixth + and seventh principles, and quite potent in the séance room, + nevertheless to the day when they would have died a natural + death, are separated from their higher principles by a gulf. + The sixth and seventh principles remain passive and negative, + whereas in cases of_ accidental death _the higher and the + lower groups actually attract each other. In cases of good + and innocent Egos, moreover, the latter gravitates + irresistibly toward the sixth and seventh, and thus either + slumbers surrounded by happy dreams, or sleeps a dreamless + profound sleep until the hour strikes. With a little + reflection and an eye to the eternal justice and fitness of + things, you will see why. The victim, whether good or bad, is + irresponsible for his death. Even if his death were due to + some action in a previous life or an antecedent birth, was an + act, in short, of the Law of Retribution, 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 + killed. Had he been allowed to live longer he might have + atoned for his antecedent sins still more effectually, and + even now, the Ego having been made to pay off the debt of his + maker, the personal Ego is free from the blows of retributive + justice. The Dhyân Chohans, who have no hand in the guidance + of the living human Ego, protect the helpless victim when it + is violently thrust out of its element into a new one, before + it is matured and made fit and ready for it._ + +These, whether suicides or killed by accident, can communicate with +those in earth-life, but much to their own injury. As said above, the +good and innocent sleep happily till the life-period is over. But +where the victim of an accident is depraved and gross, his fate is a +sad one. + + _Unhappy shades, if sinful and sensual, they wander about + (not shells, for their connection with their two higher + principles is not quite broken) until their_ death-_hour + comes. Cut off in the full flush of earthly passions which + bind them to familiar scenes, they are enticed by the + opportunities which mediums afford to gratify them + vicariously. They are the Pishâchas, the Incubi and Succubæ + of mediæval times; the demons of thirst, gluttony, lust, and + avarice--Elementaries of intensified craft, wickedness, and + cruelty; provoking their victims to horrid crimes, and + revelling in their commission! They not only ruin their + victims, but these psychic vampires, borne along by the + torrent of their hellish impulses, 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 destruction. + + * * * * * + + Now the causes producing the "new being" and determining the + nature of Karma are Trishnâ (Tanhâ)--thirst, desire for + sentient existence--and Upâdâna, which is the realisation or + consummation of Trishnâ, or that desire. And both of these + the medium helps to develop_ ne plus ultra _in an Elementary, + be he a suicide or a victim. 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--_i.e._, the + Kâmaloka. But exceptions are the cases of suicides and those + who die a violent death in general. Hence, one of such Egos + who was destined to live, say, eighty or ninety years--but + who either killed himself or was killed by some accident, let + us suppose at the age of twenty--would have to pass in the + Kâmaloka not "a few years," but in his case sixty or seventy + years, as an Elementary, or rather an "earth-walker," since + he is not, unfortunately for him, even a "Shell." Happy, + thrice happy, in comparison, are those disembodied entities + who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom + of Space! And woe to those whose Trishnâ will attract them to + mediums, and woe to the latter who tempt them with such an + easy Upâdâna. For, in grasping them and satisfying their + thirst for life, the medium helps to develop in them--is, in + fact, the cause of--a new set of Skandhas, a new body with + far worse tendencies and passions than the one they lost. All + the future of this new body will be determined thus, not only + by the Karma of demerit of the previous set or group, but + also by that of the new set of the future being. Were the + mediums and spiritualists but to know, as I said, that with + every new "angel-guide" they welcome with rapture, they + entice the latter into a Upâdâna, which will be productive of + untold evils for the new Ego that will be reborn under its + nefarious shadow, and that with every séance, especially for + materialization, they multiply the causes for misery, causes + that will make the unfortunate Ego fail in his spiritual + birth, or be reborn into a far worse existence than + ever--they would, perhaps, be less lavish in their + hospitality._ + +Premature death brought on by vicious courses, by over-study, or by +voluntary sacrifice for some great cause, will bring about delay in +Kâmaloka, but the state of the disembodied entity will depend on the +motive that cut short the life. + + _There are very few, if any, of the men who indulge in these + vices, who feel perfectly sure that such a course of action + will lead them eventually to premature death. Such is the + penalty of Mâyâ. The "vices" will not escape their + punishment; but it is the_ cause, _not the effect, that will + be punished, especially an unforeseen, though probable + effect. As well call a man a "suicide" who meets his death in + a storm at sea, as one who kills himself with "over-study". + Water is liable to drown a man, and too much brain work to + produce a softening of the brain matter which may carry him + away. In such a case no one ought to cross the_ Kâlapâni, + _nor even to take a bath for fear of getting faint in it and + drowned (for we all know of such cases), nor should a man do + his duty, least of all sacrifice himself for even a laudable + and highly beneficial cause as many of us do. Motive is + everything, and man is punished in a case of direct + responsibility, never otherwise. In the victim's case the + natural hour of death was anticipated_ accidentally, _while + in that of the suicide death is brought on voluntarily and + with a full and deliberate knowledge of its immediate + consequences. Thus a man who causes his death in a fit of + temporary insanity is_ not _a_ felo de se, _to the great + grief and often trouble of the Life Insurance Companies. Nor + is he left a prey to the temptations of the Kâmaloka, but + falls_ asleep _like any other victim._ + +The population of Kâmaloka is thus recruited with a peculiarly +dangerous element by all the acts of violence, legal and illegal, +which wrench the physical body from the soul and send the latter into +Kâmaloka clad in the desire body, throbbing with pulses of hatred, +passion, emotion, palpitating with longings for revenge, with +unsatiated lusts. A murderer in the body is not a pleasant member of +society, but a murderer suddenly expelled from the body is a far more +dangerous entity; society may protect itself against the first, but in +its present state of ignorance it is defenceless as against the +second. + +Finally, the Immortal Triad sets itself free from the desire body, and +passes out of Kâmaloka; the Higher Manas draws back its Ray, coloured +with the life-scenes it has passed through, and carrying with it the +experiences gained through the personality it has informed. The +labourer is called in from the field, and he returns home bearing his +sheaves with him, rich or poor, according to the fruitage of the life. +When the Triad has quitted Kâmaloka, it passes wholly out of the +sphere of earth attractions: + + _As soon as it has stepped outside the Kâmaloka--crossed the + "Golden Bridge" leading to the "Seven Golden Mountains"--the + Ego can confabulate no more with easy-going mediums._ + +There are some exceptional possibilities of reaching such an Ego, that +will be explained later, but the Ego is out of the reach of the +ordinary medium and cannot be recalled into the earth-sphere. But ere +we follow the further course of the Triad, we must consider the fate +of the now deserted desire body, left as a mere _reliquum_ in +Kâmaloka. + + +KÂMALOKA. THE SHELLS. + +The Shell is the desire body, emptied of the Triad, which has now +passed onwards; it is the third of the transitory garments of Soul, +cast aside and left in Kâmaloka to disintegrate. + +When the past earth-life has been noble, or even when it has been of +average purity and utility, this Shell retains but little vitality +after the passing onwards of the Triad, and rapidly dissolves. Its +molecules, however, retain, during this process of disintegration, the +impressions made upon them during the earth-life, the tendency to +vibrate in response to stimuli constantly experienced during that +period. Every student of physiology is familiar with what is termed +automatic action, with the tendency of cells to repeat vibrations +originally set up by purposive action; thus are formed what we term +habits, and we unconsciously repeat motions which at first were done +with thought. So strong is this automatism of the body, that, as +everyone knows by experience, it is difficult to break off the use of +a phrase or of a gesture that has become "habitual." + +Now the desire body is during earth-life the recipient of and the +respondent to all stimuli from without, and it also continually +receives and responds to stimuli from the lower Manas. In it are set +up habits, tendencies to repeat automatically familiar vibrations, +vibrations of love and desire, vibrations imaging past experiences of +all kinds. Just as the hand may repeat a familiar gesture, so may the +desire body repeat a familiar feeling or thought. And when the Triad +has left it, this automatism remains, and the Shell may thus simulate +feelings and thoughts which are empty of all true intelligence and +will. Many of the responses to eager enquiries at _séances_ come from +such Shells, drawn to the neighbourhood of friends and relatives by +the magnetic attractions so long familiar and dear, and automatically +responding to the waves of emotion and remembrance, to the impulse of +which they had so often answered during the lately closed earth-life. +Phrases of affection, moral platitudes, memories of past events, will +be all the communications such Shells can make, but these may be +literally poured out under favourable conditions under the magnetic +stimuli freely applied by the embodied friends and relatives. + +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 motive, the desire body may have acquired a very +considerable automatism of an intellectual character, and may give +forth responses of considerable intellectual merit. But still the mark +of non-originality will be present: the apparent intellectuality will +only give out reproductions, 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 surroundings. +Intellectual sterility brands the great majority of communications +from the "spirit world"; reflections of earthly scenes, earthly +conditions, earthly arrangements, are plentiful, but we usually seek +in vain for strong, new thought, worthy of Intelligences freed from +the prison of the flesh. The communications of a loftier kind +occasionally granted are, for the most part, from non-human +Intelligences, attracted by the pure atmosphere of the medium or +sitters. + +And there is an ever-present danger in this commerce with the Shells. +Just because they are Shells, and nothing more, they answer to the +impulses that strike on them from without, and easily become malicious +and mischievous, automatically responding to evil vibrations. Thus a +medium, or sitters of poor moral character, will impress the Shells +that flock around them with impulses of a low order, and any animal +desires, petty and foolish thoughts, will set up similar vibrations in +the blindly responsive Shells. + +Again, the Shell is very easily taken possession of by Elementals, the +semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of Nature, and may be +used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. The +etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their +immortal Tenants, give the material basis by which Elementals can work +many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of _séances_ may +be confidently appealed to, and asked whether many of the childish +freaks with which they are familiar--pullings of hair, pinchings, +slaps, throwing about of objects, piling up of furniture, playing on +accordions, &c.--are not more rationally accounted for as the tricky +vagaries of sub-human forces, than as the actions of "spirits" who, +while in the body, were certainly incapable of such vulgarities. + +Let us leave the Shells alone to peacefully dissolve into their +elements, and mingle once again in the crucible of Nature. The authors +of the _Perfect Way_ put very well the real character of the Shell. + + The true "ghost" consists of the exterior and earthly portion + of the Soul, that portion which, being weighted with cares, + attachments, and memories merely mundane, is detached by the + Soul and remains in the astral sphere, an existence more or + less definite and personal, and capable of holding, through a + sensitive, converse with the living. It is, however, but as a + cast-off vestment of the Soul, and is incapable of endurance + _as ghost_. The true Soul and real person, the _anima + divina_, parts at death with all those lower affections + which would have retained it near its earthly haunts.[24] + +If we would find our beloved, it is not among the decaying remnants in +Kâmaloka that we should seek them. "Why seek ye the living among the +dead?" + + +KÂMALOKA. THE ELEMENTARIES. + +The word "Elementary" has been so loosely used that it has given rise +to a good deal of confusion. It is thus defined by H.P. Blavatsky: + + Properly, the disembodied _souls_ of the depraved; these + souls having, at some time prior to death, separated from + themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for + immortality. But at the present stage of learning it has been + thought best to apply the term to the spooks or phantoms of + disembodied persons, in general to those whose temporary + habitation is the Kâmaloka.... Once divorced from their + higher Triads and their bodies, these souls remain in their + Kâma Rûpic envelopes, and are irresistibly drawn to the earth + amid elements congenial to their gross natures. Their stay in + the Kâmaloka varies as to its duration; but ends invariably + in disintegration, dissolving like a column of mist, atom by + atom, in the surrounding elements.[25] + +Students of this series of Manuals know that it is possible for the +lower Manas to so entangle itself with Kâma as to wrench itself away +from its source, and this is spoken of in Occultism as "the loss of +the Soul."[26] It is, in other words, the loss of the personal self, +which has separated itself from its Parent, the Higher Ego, and has +thus doomed itself to perish. Such a Soul, having thus separated +itself from the Immortal Triad during its earth-life, becomes a true +Elementary, after it has quitted the dense and etheric bodies. Then, +clad in its desire body, it lives for awhile, for a longer or shorter +time according to the vigour of its vitality, a wholly evil thing, +dangerous and malignant, seeking to renew its fading vitality by any +means laid open to it by the folly or ignorance of still embodied +souls. Its ultimate fate is, indeed, destruction, but it may work much +evil on its way to its self-chosen doom. + +The word Elementary is, however, very often used to describe the lower +Manas in its garment the desire body, not broken away from the higher +Principles, but not yet absorbed into its Parent, the Higher Manas. +Such Elementaries may be in any stage of progress, harmless or +mischievous. + +Some writers, again, use Elementary as a synonym for Shell, and so +cause increased confusion. The word should at least be restricted to +the desire body _plus_ lower Manas, whether that lower Manas be +disentangling itself from the kâmic elements, in order that it may be +re-absorbed into its source, or separated from the Higher Ego, and +therefore on the road to destruction. + + +DEVACHAN. + +Among the various conceptions presented by the Esoteric Philosophy, +there are few, perhaps, which the Western mind has found more +difficulty in grasping than that of Devachan, or Devasthân, the +Devaland, or land of the Gods.[27] And one of the chief difficulties +has arisen from the free use of the words illusion, dream-state, and +other similar terms, as denoting the devachanic consciousness--a +general sense of unreality having thus come to pervade the whole +conception of Devachan. When the Eastern thinker speaks of the present +earthly life as Mâyâ, illusion, dream, the solid Western at once puts +down the phrases as allegorical and fanciful, for what can be less +illusory, he thinks, than this world of buying and selling, of +beefsteaks and bottled stout. But when similar terms are applied to a +state beyond Death--a state which to him is misty and unreal in his +own religion, and which, as he sadly feels, is lacking in all the +substantial comforts dear to the family man--then he accepts the words +in their most literal and prosaic meaning, and speaks of Devachan as a +delusion in his own sense of the word. It may be well, therefore, on +the threshold of Devachan to put this question of "illusion" in its +true light. + +In a deep metaphysical sense all that is conditioned is illusory. All +phenomena are literally "appearances", the outer masks in which the +One Reality shows itself forth in our changing universe. The more +"material" and solid the appearance, the further is it from Reality, +and therefore the more illusory it is. What can be a greater fraud +than our body, so apparently solid, stable, visible and tangible? It +is a constantly changing congeries of minute living particles, an +attractive centre into which stream continually myriads of tiny +invisibles, that become visible by their aggregation at this centre, +and then stream away again, becoming invisible by reason of their +minuteness as they separate off from this aggregation. In comparison +with this ever-shifting but apparently stable body how much less +illusory is the mind, which is able to expose the pretensions of the +body and put it in its true light. The mind is constantly imposed on +by the senses, and Consciousness, the most real thing in us, is apt to +regard itself as the unreal. In truth, it is the thought-world that is +the nearest to reality, and things become more and more illusory as +they take on more and more of a phenomenal character. + +Again, the mind is permanent as compared with the transitory physical +world. For the "mind" is only a clumsy name for the living Thinker in +us, the true and conscious Entity, the inner Man, "that was, that is, +and will be, for whom the hour shall never strike". The less deeply +this inner Man is plunged into matter, the less unreal is his life; +and when he has shaken off the garments he donned at incarnation, his +physical, ethereal, and passional bodies, then he is nearer to the +Soul of Things than he was before, 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 flesh. His freer and less +illusory life is that which is without the body, and the disembodied +is, comparatively speaking, his normal state. Out of this normal state +he plunges into physical life for brief periods in order that he may +gain experiences otherwise unattainable, and bring them back to enrich +his more abiding condition. As a diver may plunge into the depths of +the ocean to seek a pearl, so the Thinker plunges into the depths of +the ocean of life to seek the pearl of experience; but he does not +stay there long; it is not his own element; he rises up again into his +own atmosphere and shakes off from him the heavier element he leaves. +And therefore it is truly said of the Soul that has escaped from earth +that it has returned to its own place, for its home is the "land of +the Gods", and here on earth it is an exile and a prisoner. This view +was very clearly put by a Master of Wisdom in a conversation reported +by H.P. Blavatsky, and printed under the title "Life and Death."[28] +The following extracts state the case: + + _The Vedântins, acknowledging two kinds of conscious + existence, the terrestrial and the spiritual, point only to + the latter as an undoubted actuality. As to the terrestrial + life, owing to its changeability and shortness, it is nothing + but an illusion of our senses. Our life in the spiritual + spheres must be thought an actuality because it is there that + lives our endless, never-changing immortal I, the Sûtrâtmâ. + Whereas in every new incarnation it clothes itself in a + perfectly different personality, a temporary and short-lived + one.... The very essence of all this, that is to say, spirit, + force, and matter, has neither end nor beginning, but the + shape acquired by this triple unity during its incarnations, + their exterior, so to speak, is nothing but a mere illusion + of personal conceptions. This is why we call the posthumous + life the only reality, and the terrestrial one, including the + personality itself, only imaginary._ + + Why in this case should we call the reality sleep, and the + phantasm waking? + + _This comparison was made by me to facilitate your + comprehension. From the standpoint of your terrestrial + notions it is perfectly accurate._ + +Note the words: "From the standpoint of your terrestrial notions," for +they are the key to all the phrases used about Devachan as an +"illusion." Our gross physical matter is not there; the limitations +imposed by it are not there; the mind is in its own realm, where to +will is to create, where to think is to see. And so, when the Master +was asked: "Would it not be better to say that death is nothing but a +birth for a new life, or still better, a going back to eternity?" he +answered: + + _This is how it really is, and I have nothing to say against + such a way of putting it. Only with our accepted views of + material life the words "live" and "exist" are not applicable + to the purely subjective condition after death; and were they + employed in our Philosophy without a rigid definition of + their meanings, the Vedântins would soon arrive at the ideas + which are common in our times among the American + Spiritualists, who preach about spirits marrying among + themselves and with mortals. As amongst the true, not + nominal, Christians so amongst the Vedântins--the life on the + other side of the grave is the land where there are no_ + _tears, no sighs, where there is neither marrying nor giving + in marriage, and where the just realise their full + perfection._ + +The dread of materialising mental and spiritual conceptions has always +been very strong among the Philosophers and oral Teachers of the far +East. Their constant effort has been to free the Thinker as far as +possible from the bonds of matter even while he is embodied, to open +the cage for the Divine Swallow, even though he must return to it for +awhile. They are ever seeking "to spiritualise the material", while in +the West the continual tendency has been "to materialise the +spiritual". So the Indian describes the life of the freed Soul in all +the terms that make it least material--illusion, dream, and so +on--whereas the Hebrew endeavours to delineate it in terms descriptive +of the material luxury and splendour of earth--marriage feast, streets +of gold, thrones and crowns of solid metal and precious stones; the +Western has followed the materialising conceptions of the Hebrew, and +pictures a heaven which is merely a double of earth with earth's +sorrows extracted, until we reach the grossest of all, the modern +Summerland, with its "spirit-husbands", "spirit-wives", and +"spirit-infants" that go to school and college, and grow up into +spirit-adults. + +In "Notes on Devachan",[29] someone who evidently writes with knowledge +remarks of the Devachanî: + + _The_ à priori _ideas of space and time do not control his + perceptions; for he absolutely creates and annihilates them + at the same time. Physical existence has its cumulative + intensity from infancy to prime, and its diminishing energy + from dotage to death; so the dream-life of Devachan is lived + correspondentially. Nature cheats no more the Devachanî than + she does the living physical man. Nature provides for him far + more_ real _bliss and happiness_ there _than she does_ here, + _where all the conditions of evil and chance are against him. + To call the Devachan existence a "dream" in any other sense + than that of a conventional term, is to renounce for ever the + knowledge of the Esoteric Doctrine, the sole custodian of + truth._ + +"Dream" only in the sense that it is not of this plane of gross +matter, that it belongs not to the physical world. + +Let us try and take a general view of the life of the Eternal Pilgrim, +the inner Man, the human Soul, during a cycle of incarnation. Before he +commences his new pilgrimage--for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the +past, during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the +present one--he is a spiritual Being, but one who has already passed out +of the passive condition of pure Spirit, and who by previous experience +of matter in past ages has evolved intellect, the self-conscious mind. +But this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far +as to make him master of matter; his ignorance leaves him a prey to all +the illusions of gross matter, so soon as he comes into contact with it, +and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe, being subject to the +deceptive visions caused by gross matter--as a child, looking through a +piece of blue glass, imagines all the outside world to be blue. The +object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions, so +that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter he may retain +clear vision and not be blinded by illusion. Now the cycle of +incarnation is made up of two alternating states: a short one called +life on earth, during which the Pilgrim-God is plunged into gross +matter, and a comparatively long one, called life in Devachan, during +which he is encircled by subtle matter, illusive still, but far less +illusive than that of earth. The second state may fairly be called his +normal one, as it is of enormous extent as compared with the breaks in +it that he spends upon earth; it is comparatively normal also, as being +less removed from his essential Divine life; he is less encased in +matter, less deluded by its swiftly-changing appearances. Slowly and +gradually, by reiterated experiences, gross matter loses its power over +him and becomes his servant instead of his tyrant. In the partial +freedom of Devachan he assimilates his experiences on earth, still +partly dominated by them--at first, indeed, 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 external, until he can move through +any region of our universe with unbroken self-consciousness, a true Lord +of Mind, the free and triumphant God. Such is the triumph of the Divine +Nature manifested in the flesh, the subduing of every form of matter to +be the obedient instrument of Spirit. Thus the Master said: + + _The spiritual Ego of the man moves in eternity like a + pendulum between the hours of life and death, but if these_ + _hours, the periods of life terrestrial and life posthumous, + are limited in their continuation, and even the very number + of such breaks in eternity between sleep and waking, between + illusion and reality, have their beginning as well as their + end, the spiritual Pilgrim himself is eternal. Therefore the_ + hours of his posthumous life, _when unveiled he stands face + to face with truth, and the short-lived mirages of his + terrestrial existence are far from him,_ compose _or make up, + in our ideas,_ the only reality. _Such breaks, in spite of + the fact that they are finite, do double service to the + Sûtrâtmâ, which, perfecting itself constantly, follows + without vacillation, though very slowly, the road leading to + its last transformation, when, reaching its aim at last, it + becomes a Divine Being. They not only contribute to the + reaching of this goal, but without these finite breaks + Sûtrâtmâ-Buddhi could never reach it. Sûtrâtmâ is the actor, + and its numerous and different incarnations are the actor's + parts. I suppose you would not apply to these parts, and so + much the less to their costumes, the term of personality. + Like an actor the soul is bound to play, during the cycle of + births up to the very threshold of Parinirvâna, many such + parts, which often are disagreeable to it, but like a bee, + collecting its honey from every flower, and leaving the rest + to feed the worms of the earth, our spiritual individuality, + the Sûtrâtmâ, collecting only the nectar of moral qualities + and consciousness from every terrestrial personality in which + it has to clothe itself, forced by Karma, unites at last all + these qualities in one, having then become a perfect being, a + Dhyân Chohan._[30] + +It is very significant, in this connection, that every devachanic +stage is conditioned by the earth-stage that precedes it, and the Man +can only assimilate in Devachan the kinds of experience he has been +gathering on earth. + + _A colourless, flavourless personality has a colourless, + feeble Devachanic state._[31] + +Husband, father, student, patriot, artist, Christian, Buddhist--he +must work out the effects of his earth-life in his devachanic life; he +cannot eat and assimilate more food than he has gathered; he cannot +reap more harvest than he has sown seed. It takes but a moment to cast +a seed into a furrow; it takes many a month for that seed to grow into +the ripened ear; but according to the kind of the seed is the ear that +grows from it, and according to the nature of the brief earth-life is +the grain reaped in the field of Aanroo. + + _There is a change of occupation, a continual change in + Devachan, 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 occupation, whatever it may be, with this + difference, that to the Devachanî this spiritual occupation + is always pleasant and fills his life with rapture. Life in + Devachan is the function of the aspirations of earth-life; + not the indefinite prolongation of that "single instant," but + its infinite developments, the various incidents and events + based upon and outflowing from that one "single moment" or + moments. The dreams of the objective become the realities of + the subjective existence.... The reward provided by Nature + for men who are benevolent in a large systematic way, and who + have not focussed their affections on an individual or + speciality, is that, if pure, they pass the quicker for + that through the Kâma and Rûpa Lokas into the higher sphere + of Tribhuvana, since it is one where the formulation of + abstract ideas and the consideration of general principles + fill the thought of its occupant._[32] + +Into Devachan enters nothing that defileth, for gross matter has been +left behind with all its attributes on earth and in Kâmaloka. But if +the sower has sowed but little seed, the devachanic harvest will be +meagre, and the growth of the Soul will be delayed by the paucity of +the nutriment on which it has to feed. Hence the enormous importance +of the earth-life, _the field of sowing, the place where experience is +to be gathered_. It conditions, regulates, limits, the growth of the +Soul; it yields the rough ore which the Soul then takes in hand, and +works upon during the devachanic stage, smelting it, forging it, +tempering it, into the weapons it will take back with it for its next +earth-life. The experienced Soul in Devachan will make for itself a +splendid instrument for its next earth-life; the inexperienced one +will forge a poor blade enough; but in each case the only material +available is that brought from earth. In Devachan the Soul, as it +were, sifts and sorts out its experiences; it lives a comparatively +free life, and gradually gains the power to estimate the earthly +experiences at their real value; it works out thoroughly and +completely as objective realities all the ideas of which it only +conceived the germ on earth. Thus, noble aspiration is a germ which +the Soul would work out into a splendid realisation in Devachan, and +it would bring back with it to earth for its next incarnation that +mental image, to be materialised on earth when opportunity offers and +suitable environment presents itself. For the mind sphere is the +sphere of creation, and earth only the place for materialising the +pre-existent thought. And the soul is as an architect that works out +his plans in silence and deep meditation, and then brings them forth +into the outer world where his edifice is to be builded; out of the +knowledge gained in his past life, the Soul draws his plans for the +next, and he returns to earth to put into objective material form the +edifices he has planned. This is the description of a Logos in +creative activity: + + Whilst Brahmâ formerly, in the beginning of the Kalpas, was + meditating on creation, there appeared a creation beginning + with ignorance and consisting of darkness.... Brahmâ, + beholding that it was defective, designed another; and whilst + he thus meditated, the animal creation was manifested.... + Beholding this creation also imperfect, Brahmâ again + meditated, and a third creation appeared, abounding with the + quality of goodness.[33] + +The objective manifestation follows the mental meditation; first idea, +then form. Hence it will be seen that the notion current among many +Theosophists that Devachan is waste time, is but one of the illusions +due to the gross matter that blinds them, and that their impatience of +the idea of Devachan arises from the delusion that fussing about in +gross matter is the only real activity. Whereas, in truth, all +effective action has its source in deep meditation, and out of the +Silence comes ever the creative Word. Action on this plane would be +less feeble and inefficient if it were the mere blossom of the +profound root of meditation, and if the Soul embodied passed oftener +out of the body into Devachan during earth-life, there would be less +foolish action and consequent waste of time. For Devachan is a state +of consciousness, the consciousness of the Soul escaped for awhile +from the net of gross matter, 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 shell. And then, coming forth once more, +action is prompt, direct, purposeful, and the time "wasted" in +meditation is more than saved by the directness and strength of the +mind-engendered act. + +Devachan is the sphere of the mind, as said, it is the land of the +Gods, or the Souls. In the before quoted "Notes on Devachan" we read: + + _There are two fields of causal manifestations: the objective + and the subjective. The grosser energies find their outcome + in the new personality of each birth in the cycle of + evoluting individuality. The moral and spiritual activities + find their sphere of effects in Devachan._ + +As the moral and spiritual activities are the most important, and as +on the development of these depends the growth of the true Man, and +therefore the accomplishing of "the object of creation, the liberation +of Soul", we may begin to understand something of the vast importance +of the devachanic state. + + +THE DEVACHANÎ. + +When the Triad has shaken off its last garment, it crosses the +threshold of Devachan, and becomes "a Devachanî". We have seen that +it is in a peaceful dreamy state before this passage out of the earth +sphere, the "second death", or "pre-devachanic unconsciousness". This +condition is otherwise spoken of as the "gestation" period, because it +precedes the birth of the Ego into the devachanic life. Regarded from +the earth-sphere the passage is death, while regarded from that of +Devachan it is birth. Thus we find in "Notes on Devachan": + + _As in actual earth-life, so there is for the Ego in Devachan + the first flutter of psychic life, the attainment of prime, + the gradual exhaustion of force passing into + semi-consciousness and lethargy, total oblivion, and--not + death but birth, birth into another personality, and the + resumption of action which daily begets new congeries of + causes that must be worked out in another term of Devachan, + and still another physical birth as a new personality. What + the lives in Devachan and upon earth shall be respectively in + each instance is determined by Karma, and this weary round of + birth must be ever and ever run through until the being + reaches the end of the seventh Round, or attains in the + interim the wisdom of an Arhat, then that of a Buddha, and + thus gets relieved for a Round or two._ + +When the devachanic entity is born into this new sphere it has passed +beyond recall to earth. The embodied Soul may rise to it, but it +cannot be drawn back to our world. On this a Master has spoken +decisively: + + _From Sukhâvatî down to the "Territory of Doubt," there is a + variety of spiritual states, but ... as soon as it has + stepped outside the Kâmaloka, crossed the "Golden Bridge" + leading to the "Seven Golden Mountains," the Ego can + confabulate no more with easy-going mediums. No Ernest or + Joey has ever returned from the Rûpa Loka, let alone the + Arupa Loka, to hold sweet intercourse with men._ + +In the "Notes on Devachan," again, we read: + + _Certainly the new Ego, once that it is reborn (in Devachan), + retains for a certain time--proportionate to its + earth-life--a complete recollection "of his life on earth"; + but it can never revisit the Earth from Devachan except in + Re-incarnation._ + +The Devachanî is generally spoken of as the Immortal Triad, +Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas, but it is well always to bear in mind that + + Atman is no individual property of any man, but is the Divine + Essence which has no body, no form, which is imponderable, + invisible, and indivisible, that which does not _exist_ and + yet _is_, as the Buddhists say of Nirvâna. It only + overshadows the mortal; that which enters into him and + pervades the whole body being only it's omni-present rays or + light, radiated through Buddhi, its vehicle and direct + emanation.[34] + +Buddhi and Manas united, with this overshadowing of Atmâ, form the +Devachanî; now, as we have seen in studying the Seven Principles, +Manas is dual during earth-life, and the Lower Manas is redrawn into +the Higher during the kâmalokic interlude. By this reuniting of the +Ray and its Source, Manas re-becomes one, and carries the pure and +noble experiences of the earth-life into Devachan with it, thus +maintaining the past personality as the marked characteristic of the +Devachanî, and it is in this prolongation of the "personal Ego", so +to speak, that the "illusion" of the Devachanî consists. Were the +mânasic entity free from all illusion, it would see all Egos as its +brother-Souls, and looking back over its past would recognise all the +varied relationships it had borne to others in many lives, as the +actor would remember the many parts he had played with other actors, +and would think of each brother actor as a man, and not in the parts +he had played as his father, his son, his judge, his murderer, his +master, his friend. The deeper human relationship would prevent the +brother actors from identifying each other with their parts, and so +the perfected spiritual Egos, recognising their deep unity and full +brotherhood, would no longer be deluded by the trappings of earthly +relationships. But the Devachanî, at least in the lower stages, is +still within the personal boundaries of his past earth-life; he is +shut into the relationships of the one incarnation; his paradise is +peopled with those he "_loved best with an undying love, that holy +feeling that alone survives_," and thus the purified personal Ego is +the salient feature, as above said, in the Devachanî. Again quoting +from the "Notes on Devachan": + + "_Who goes to Devachan?" The personal Ego, of course; but + beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego--the combination of the + sixth and seventh principles[35]--which after the period of + unconscious gestation is reborn into the Devachan, is of + necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact + of his being reborn at all shows the preponderance of good + over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma [of + Evil] steps aside for the time being to follow him in his + future earth re-incarnation, he brings along with him but the + Karma of his good deeds, words and thoughts into this + Devachan. "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 errs. Hence all those who have not slipped + down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality go to + the Devachan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary + and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile they are rewarded; + receive the effects of the causes produced by them._ + +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 +eternity. But let us look at the question calmly for a moment. When a +mother first clasps her baby-son in her arms, that one relationship +seems perfect, and if the child should die, her longing would be to +re-possess him as her babe; but as he lives on through youth to +manhood the tie changes, and the protective love of the mother and the +clinging obedience of the child merge into a different love of friends +and comrades, richer than ordinary friendship from the old +recollections; yet later, when the mother is aged and the son in the +prime of middle life, their positions are reversed and the son +protects while the mother depends on him for guidance. Would the +relation have been more perfect had it ceased in infancy with only the +one tie, or is it not the richer and the sweeter from the different +strands of which the tie is woven? And so with Egos; in many lives +they may hold to each other many relationships, and finally, standing +as Brothers of the Lodge closely knit together, may look back over +past lives and see themselves in earth-life related in the many ways +possible to human beings, till the cord is woven of every strand of +love and duty; would not the final unity be the richer not the poorer +for the many-stranded tie? "Finally", I say; but the word is only of +this cycle, for what lies beyond, of wider life and less separateness, +no mind of man may know. To me it seems that this very variety of +experiences makes the tie stronger, not weaker, 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 years; a +thousand or so years of one person in one character would, to me, be +ample, and I should prefer to know him or her in some new aspect of +his nature. But those who object to this view need not feel +distressed, 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 remains_. +Only let them not desire to impose their own form of bliss on +everybody else, nor insist that the kind of happiness which seems to +them at this stage the only one desirable and satisfying, must be +stereotyped to all eternity, through all the millions of years that +lie before us. Nature gives to each in Devachan the satisfaction of +all pure desires, and Manas there exercises that faculty of his innate +divinity, that he "never wills in vain". Will not this suffice? + +But leaving aside disputes as to what may be to us "happiness" in a +future separated from our present by millions of years, so that we are +no more fitted now to formulate its conditions than is a child, +playing with its dolls, to formulate the deeper joys and interests of +its maturity, let us understand that, according to the teachings of +the Esoteric Philosophy, the Devachanî is surrounded by all he loved +on earth, with pure affection, and the union being on the plane of the +Ego, not on the physical plane, it is free from all the sufferings +which would be inevitable were the Devachanî present in consciousness +on the physical plane with all its illusory and transitory joys and +sorrows. It is surrounded by its beloved in the higher consciousness, +but is not agonised by the knowledge of what they are suffering in the +lower consciousness, held in the bonds of the flesh. According to the +orthodox Christian view, Death is a separation, and the "spirits of +the dead" wait for reunion until those they love also pass through +Death's gateway, or--according to some--until after the judgment-day +is over. As against this the Esoteric Philosophy teaches that Death +cannot touch the higher consciousness of man, and that it can only +separate those who love each other so far as their lower vehicles are +concerned; the man living on earth, blinded by matter, feels separated +from those who have passed onwards, but the Devachanî, says H.P. +Blavatsky, has a complete conviction "that there is no such thing as +Death at all", having left behind it all those vehicles over which +Death has power. Therefore, to its less blinded eyes, its beloved are +still with it; for it, the veil of matter that separates has been torn +away. + + A mother dies, leaving behind her little helpless children, + whom she adores, perhaps a beloved husband also. We say that + her "Spirit" or Ego--that individuality which is now wholly + impregnated, for the entire Devachanic period, with the + noblest feelings held by its late _personality, i.e._, love + for her children, pity for those who suffer, and so on--is + now entirely separated from the "vale of tears," that its + future bliss consists in that blessed ignorance of all the + woes it left behind ... 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 + loved; that no gap, no link will be missing to make her + disembodied state the most perfect and absolute + happiness.[36] + +And so again: + + As to the ordinary mortal his bliss in Devachan is complete. + It is an absolute oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow + in the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that + such things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The Devachanî + lives its intermediate cycle between two incarnations + surrounded by everything it had aspired to in vain, and in + the companionship of everything it loved on earth. It has + reached the fulfilment of all its soul-yearnings. And thus it + lives throughout long centuries an existence of _unalloyed_ + happiness, which is the reward for its sufferings in + earth-life. In short, it bathes in a sea of uninterrupted + felicity spanned only by events of still greater felicity in + degree.[37] + +When we take the wider sweep in thought demanded by the Esoteric +Philosophy, 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 Christendom. +"Mothers love their children with an immortal love," says H.P. +Blavatsky, 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 life, that the experience of each part is +recorded in the memory of the Soul, and that between the Souls there +is no separation, though during incarnation they may not realise the +fact in its fulness and beauty. + + We are with those whom we have lost in material form, and + far, far nearer to them now than when they were alive. And it + is not only in the fancy of the Devachanî, as some may + imagine, but in reality. For pure divine love is not merely + the blossom of a human heart, but has its roots in eternity. + Spiritual holy love is immortal, 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 + group.[38] + +Love "has its roots in eternity", and those to whom on earth we are +strongly drawn are the Egos we have loved in past earth-lives and +dwelt with in Devachan; coming back to earth these enduring bonds of +love draw us together yet again, and add to the strength and beauty of +the tie, and so on and on till all illusions are lived down, and the +strong and perfected Egos stand side by side, sharing the experience +of their well-nigh illimitable past. + + +THE RETURN TO EARTH. + +At length the causes that carried the Ego into Devachan are exhausted, +the experiences gathered have been wholly assimilated, and the Soul +begins to feel again the thirst for sentient material life that can be +gratified only on the physical plane. The greater the degree of +spirituality reached, the purer and loftier the preceding earth-life, +the longer the stay in Devachan, the world of spiritual, pure, and +lofty effects. [I am here ignoring the special conditions surrounding +one who is forcing his own evolution, and has entered on the Path +that leads to Adeptship within a very limited number of lives.] The +"average time [in Devachan] is from ten to fifteen centuries", H.P. +Blavatsky tells us, and the fifteen centuries cycle is the one most +plainly marked in history.[39] But in modern life this period has much +shortened, in consequence of the greater attraction exercised by +physical objects over the heart of man. Further, it must be remembered +that the "average time" is not the time spent in Devachan by any +person. If one person spends there 1000 years, and another fifty, the +"average" is 525. The devachanic period is longer or shorter according +to the type of life which preceded it; the more there was of +spiritual, intellectual, and emotional activity of a lofty kind, the +longer will be the gathering in of the harvest; the more there was of +activity directed to selfish gain on earth, the shorter will be the +devachanic period. + +When the experiences are assimilated, be the time long or short, the +Ego is ready to return, and he brings back with him his now increased +experience, and any further gains he may have made in Devachan along +the lines of abstract thought; for, while in Devachan, + + In one sense we can acquire more knowledge; that is, we can + develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after + during life, provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal + things, such as music, painting, poetry, &c.[40] + +But the Ego meets, 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 plane", the seeds of evil sown in his +preceding life on earth. During the devachanic rest he has been free +from all pain, all sorrow, but the evil he did in his past has been in +a state of suspended animation, not of death. As seeds sown in the +autumn for the spring-time lie dormant beneath the surface of the +soil, but touched by the soft rain and penetrating warmth of sun begin +to swell and the embryo expands and grows, so do the seeds of evil we +have sown lie dormant while the Soul takes its rest in Devachan, but +shoot out their roots into the new personality which begins +to form itself for the incarnation of the returning man. The Ego has +to take up the burden of his past, and these germs or seeds, coming +over as the harvest of the past life, are the Skandhas, to borrow a +convenient word from our Buddhist brethren. They consist of material +qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, tendencies of mind, mental +powers, and while the pure aroma of these attached itself to the Ego +and passed with it into Devachan, all that was gross, base and evil +remained in the state of suspended animation spoken of above. These +are taken up by the Ego as he passes outwards towards terrestrial +life, and are built into the new "man of flesh" which the true man is +to inhabit. And so the round of births and deaths goes on, the turning +of the Wheel of Life; the treading of the Cycle of Necessity, until +the work is done and the building of the Perfect Man is completed. + + +NIRVÂNA. + +What Devachan is to each earth-life, Nirvâna is to the finished cycle +of Re-incarnation, but any effective discussion of that glorious +state would here be out of place. It is mentioned only to round off +the "After" of Death, for no word of man, strictly limited within the +narrow bounds of his lower consciousness, may avail to explain what +Nirvâna is, can do aught save disfigure it in striving to describe. +What it is not may be roughly, baldly stated--it is not +"annihilation", it is not destruction of consciousness. Mr. A.P. +Sinnett has put effectively and briefly the absurdity of many of the +ideas current in the West about Nirvâna. He has been speaking of +absolute consciousness, and proceeds: + + We may use such phrases as intellectual counters, but for no + ordinary mind--dominated by its physical brain and brain-born + intellect--can they have a living signification. All that + words can convey is that Nirvâna is a sublime state of + conscious rest in omniscience. It would be ludicrous, after + all that has gone before, to turn to the various discussions + which have been carried on by students of exoteric Buddhism + as to whether Nirvâna does or does not mean annihilation. + Worldly similes fall short of indicating the feeling with + which the graduates of Esoteric Science regard such a + question. Does the last penalty of the law mean the highest + honour of the peerage? Is a wooden spoon the emblem of the + most illustrious pre-eminence in learning? Such questions as + these but faintly symbolise the extravagance of the question + whether Nirvâna is held by Buddhism to be equivalent to + annihilation.[41] + +So we learn from the _Secret Doctrine_ that the Nirvânî returns to +cosmic activity in a new cycle of manifestation, and that + + _The thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves + only in Nirvâna, re-emerges from it in its integrity on the + day when the Great Law calls all things back into + action._[42] + + +COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE EARTH AND OTHER SPHERES. + +We are now in position to discriminate between the various kinds of +communication possible between those whom we foolishly divide into +"dead" and "living," as though the body were the man, or the man could +die. "Communications between the embodied and the disembodied" would +be a more satisfactory phrase. + +First, let us put aside as unsuitable the word Spirit: Spirit does not +communicate with Spirit in any way conceivable by us. That highest +principle is not yet manifest in the flesh; it remains the hidden +fount of all, the eternal Energy, one of the poles of Being in +manifestation. The word is loosely used to denote lofty Intelligences, +who live and move beyond all conditions of matter imaginable by us, +but pure Spirit is at present as inconceivable by us as pure matter. +And as in dealing with possible "communications" we have average human +beings as recipients, we may as well exclude the word Spirit as much +as possible, and so get rid of ambiguity. But in quotations the word +often occurs, in deference to the habit of the day, and it then +denotes the Ego. + +Taking the stages through which the living man passes after "Death", +or the shaking off of the body, we can readily classify the +communications that may be received, or the appearances that may be +seen: + +I. While the Soul has shaken off only the dense body, and remains +still clothed in the etheric double. This is a brief period only, but +during it the disembodied Soul may show itself, clad in this ethereal +garment. + + For a very short period after death, while the incorporeal + principles remain within the sphere of our earth's + attraction, it is _possible_ for spirit, under _peculiar_ and + _favourable_ conditions, to appear.[43] + +It makes no communications during this brief interval, nor while +dwelling in this form. Such "ghosts" are silent, dreamy, like +sleep-walkers, and indeed they are nothing more than astral +sleep-walkers. Equally irresponsive, but capable of expressing a +single thought, as of sorrow, anxiety, accident, murder, &c., are +apparitions which are merely a thought of the dying, taking shape in +the astral world, and carried by the dying person's will to some +particular person, with whom the dying intensely longs to communicate. +Such a thought, sometimes called a Mayâvi Rûpa, or illusory form + + _May be often thrown into objectivity, as in the case of + apparitions after death; but, unless it is projected with the + knowledge of (whether latent or potential), or owing to the + intensity of the desire to see or appear to some one shooting + through, the dying brain, the apparition will be simply + automatical; it will not be due to any sympathetic + attraction, or to any act of volition, any more than the + reflection of a person passing unconsciously near a mirror is + due to the desire of the latter._ + +When the Soul has left the etheric double, shaking it off as it +shook off the dense body, the double thus left as a mere empty corpse +may be galvanised into an "artificial life"; but fortunately the +method of such galvanisation is known to few. + +II. While the Soul is in Kâmaloka. This period is of very variable +duration. The Soul is clad in an astral body, the last but one of its +perishable garments, and while thus clad it can utilise the physical +bodies of a medium, thus consciously procuring for itself an +instrument whereby it can act on the world it has left, and +communicate with those living in the body. In this way it may give +information as to facts known to itself only, or to itself and another +person, in the earth-life just closed; and for as long as it remains +within the terrestrial atmosphere such communication is possible. The +harm and the peril of such communication has been previously +explained, whether the Lower Manas be united with the Divine Triad and +so on its way to Devachan, or wrenched from it and on its way to +destruction. + +III. While the Soul is in Devachan, if an embodied Soul is capable of +rising to its sphere, or of coming into _rapport_ with it. To the +Devachanî, as we have seen, the beloved are present in consciousness +and full communication, the Egos being in touch with each other, +though one is embodied and one is disembodied, but the higher +consciousness of the embodied rarely affects the brain. As a matter of +fact, all that we know on the physical plane of our friend, while we +both are embodied, is the mental image caused by the impression he +makes on us. This is, to our consciousness, our friend, and lacks +nothing in objectivity. A similar image is present to the +consciousness of the Devachanî, and to him lacks nothing in +objectivity. As the physical plane friend is visible to an observer on +earth, so is the mental plane friend visible to an observer on that +plane. The amount of the friend that ensouls the image is dependent on +his own evolution, a highly evolved person being capable of far more +communication with a Devachanî than one who is unevolved. +Communication when the body is sleeping is easier than when it is +awake, and many a vivid "dream" of one on the other side of death is a +real interview with him in Kâmaloka or in Devachan. + + Love beyond the grave, illusion though you may call it,[44] + has a magic and divine potency that re-acts on the living. A + mother's Ego, filled with love for the imaginary children it + sees near itself, living a life of happiness, as real to it + as when on earth--that love will always be felt by the + children in flesh. It will manifest in their dreams and often + in various events--in providential protections and escapes, + for love is a strong shield, and is not limited by space or + time. As with this Devachanic "mother", so with the rest of + human relationships and attachments, save the purely selfish + or material.[45] + +Remembering that a thought becomes an active entity, capable of +working good or evil, we easily see that as embodied Souls can send to +those they love helping and protecting forces, so the Devachanî, +thinking of those dear to him, may send out such helpful and +protective thoughts, to act as veritable guardian angels round his +beloved on earth. 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 woes. + +The Soul embodied may sometimes escape from its prison of flesh, and +come into relations with the Devachanî. H.P. Blavatsky writes: + + Whenever years after the death of a person his spirit is + claimed to have "wandered back to earth" to give advice to + those it loved, it is always in a subjective vision, in dream + or in trance, and in that case it is the Soul of the living + seer that is drawn to the _disembodied_ spirit, and not the + latter which wanders back to our spheres.[46] + +Where the sensitive, or medium, is of a pure and lofty nature, this +rising of the freed Ego to the Devachanî is practicable, and naturally +gives the impression to the sensitive that the departed Ego has come +back to him. The Devachanî is wrapped in its happy "illusion", and + + _The Souls, or astral Egos, of pure loving sensitives, + labouring under the same delusion, think their loved ones + come down to them on earth, while it is their own spirits + that are raised towards those in the Devachan._[47] + +This attraction can be exercised by the departed Soul from Kâmaloka or +from Devachan: + + A "spirit" or the spiritual Ego, cannot _descend_ to the + medium, but it can _attract_ the spirit of the latter to + itself, and it can do this only during the two + intervals--before and after its "gestation period". 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-do". We have + translated this as the "gestation period", and it lasts from + a few days to several years, according to the evidence of the + Adepts. 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 Egoship. It occurs after + the gestation period is over, and the new spiritual Ego is + reborn--like the fabled Phoenix from its ashes--from the + old one. The locality which the former inhabits is called by + the northern Buddhist Occultists "Devachan."[48] + +So also may the incorporeal principles of pure sensitives be placed +_en rapport_ with disembodied Souls, although information thus +obtained is not reliable, partly in consequence of the difficulty of +transferring to the physical brain the impressions received, and +partly from the difficulty of observing accurately, when the seer is +untrained.[49] + + A pure medium's Ego can be drawn to and made, for an instant, + to unite in a magnetic(?) relation with a real disembodied + spirit, whereas the soul of an impure medium can only + confabulate with the _Astral Soul_, or Shell, of the + deceased. The former possibility explains those extremely + rare cases of direct writing in recognised autographs, and of + messages from the higher class of disembodied intelligences. + +But the confusion in messages thus obtained is considerable, not only +from the causes above-named, but also because + + Even the best and purest sensitive can at most only be placed + at any time _en rapport_ with a particular spiritual entity, + and can only know, see, and feel what that particular entity + knows, sees, and feels. + +Hence much possibility of error if generalisations are indulged in, +since each Devachanî lives in his own paradise, and there is no +"peeping down to earth," + + Nor is there any _conscious_ communication with the flying + Souls that come as it were to learn where the Spirits are, + what they are doing, and what they think, feel, and see. + + What then is being _en rapport_? It is simply an identity of + molecular vibration between the astral part of the + incarnated sensitive and the astral part of the + dis-incarnated personality. The spirit of the sensitive gets + "odylised", so to speak, by the aura of the spirit, whether + this be hybernating in the earthly region or dreaming in the + Devachan; identity of molecular vibration is established, and + for a brief space the sensitive becomes the departed + personality, and writes in its handwriting, uses its + language, and thinks its thoughts. At such times sensitives + may believe that those with whom they are for the moment _en + rapport_ descend to earth and communicate with them, whereas, + in reality, it is merely their own spirits which, being + correctly attuned to those others, are for the time blended + with them.[50] + +In a special case under examination, H.P. Blavatsky said that the +communication might have come from an Elementary, but that it was + + Far more likely that the medium's spirit really became _en + rapport_ with some spiritual entity in Devachan, the + thoughts, knowledge, and sentiments of which formed the + substance, while the medium's own personality and + pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the + communication.[51] + +While these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions +stated, + + We would remark that it may _possibly_ be that there really + is a distinct spiritual entity impressing our correspondent's + mind. In other words, there may, for all we know, be some + spirit, with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually, + for the time, thoroughly harmonised, and whose thoughts, + language, &c., become his for the time, the result being that + this spirit seems to communicate with him.... It is possible + (though by no means probable) that he habitually passes into + a state of _rapport_ with a genuine spirit, and, for the + time, is assimilated therewith, thinking (to a great extent + if not entirely) the thoughts that spirit would think, + writing in its handwriting, &c. But even so, Mr. Terry must + not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with + him, or knows in any way anything of him, or any other + person or thing on earth. It is simply that, the _rapport_ + established, he, Mr. Terry, becomes for the nonce assimilated + with that other personality, and thinks, speaks, and writes + as it would have done on earth.... The molecules of his + astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison + with those of some spirit of such a person, now in Devachan, + and the result may be that he appears to be in communication + with that spirit, and to be advised, &c., by him, and + clairvoyants may see in the Astral Light a picture of the + earth-life form of that spirit. + +IV. Communications other than those from disembodied Souls, passing +through normal _post mortem_ states. + +(a) _From Shells._ These, while but the cast-off garment of the +liberated Soul, retain for some time the impress of their late +inhabitant, and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and +expression, just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual +gestures. Reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the +physical, but all reflex action is marked by its character of +repetition, and absence of all power to initiate movement. It answers +to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action, but it initiates +nothing. When people "sit for development", or when at a _séance_ they +anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends, they +supply just the stimulus needed, and obtain the signs of recognition +for which they expectantly watch. + +(b) _From Elementaries._ These, possessing the lower capacities of the +mind, _i.e._, all the intellectual faculties that found their +expression through the physical brain during life, may produce +communications of a highly intellectual character. These, however, are +rare, as may be seen from a survey of the messages published as +received from "departed Spirits". + +(c) _From Elementals._ These semi-conscious centres of force play a +great part at _séances_, and are mostly the agents who are active in +producing physical phenomena. They throw about or carry objects, make +noises, ring bells, etc., etc. Sometimes they play pranks with Shells, +animating them and representing them to be the spirits of great +personalities who have lived on earth, but who have sadly degenerated +in the "spirit-world", judging by their effusions. Sometimes, in +materialising _séances_, they busy themselves in throwing pictures +from the Astral Light on the fluidic forms produced, so causing them +to assume likenesses of various persons. There are also Elementals of +a high type who occasionally communicate with very gifted mediums, +"Shining Ones" from other spheres. + +(d) _From Nirmânakâyas._ For these communications, as for the two +classes next mentioned, the medium must be of a very pure and lofty +nature. The Nirmânakâya is a perfected man, who has cast aside his +physical body but retains his other lower principles, and remains in +the earth-sphere for the sake of helping forward the evolution of +mankind. Nirmânakâyas + + Have, out of pity for mankind and those they left on earth, + renounced the Nirvânic state. Such an Adept, or Saint, or + whatever you may call him, believing it a selfish act to rest + in bliss while mankind groans under the burden of misery + produced by ignorance, renounces Nirvâna and determines to + remain invisible _in spirit_ on this earth. They have no + material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise + they remain with all their principles even _in astral life_ + in our sphere. And such can and do communicate with a few + elect ones, only surely not with _ordinary_ mediums.[52] + +(e) _From Adepts now living on earth._ These often communicate with +Their disciples, without using the ordinary methods of communication, +and when any tie exists, perchance from some past incarnation, between +an Adept and a medium, constituting that medium a disciple, a message +from the Adept might readily be mistaken for a message from a +"Spirit". The receipt of such messages by precipitated writing or +spoken words is within the knowledge of some. + +(f) _From the medium's Higher Ego._ Where a pure and earnest man or +woman is striving after the light, this upward striving is met by a +downward reaching of the higher nature, and light from the higher +streams downward, illuminating the lower consciousness. Then the lower +mind is, for the time, united with its parent, and transmits as much +of its knowledge as it is able to retain. + +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 received. As said by H.P. Blavatsky: + + The variety of the causes of phenomena is great, and one need + be an Adept, and actually look into and examine what + transpires, in order to be able to explain in each case what + really underlies it.[53] + +To complete the statement it may be added that what the average Soul +can do when it has passed through the gateway of Death, it can do on +this side, and communications may be as readily obtained by writing, +in trance, and by the other means of receiving messages, from embodied +as from disembodied Souls. If each developed within himself the +powers of his own Soul, instead of drifting about aimlessly, or +ignorantly plunging into dangerous experiments, knowledge might be +safely accumulated and the evolution of the Soul might be accelerated. +This one thing is sure: Man is to-day a living Soul, over whom Death +has no power, and the key of the prison-house of the body is in his +own hands, so that he may learn its use if he will. It is because his +true Self, while blinded by the body, has lost touch with other +Selves, that Death has been a gulf instead of a gateway between +embodied and disembodied Souls. + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDIX. + + + The following passage on the fate of suicides is taken from the + _Theosophist_, September, 1882. + +We do not pretend--we are not permitted--to deal exhaustively with the +question at present, but we may refer to one of the most important +classes of entities, who can participate in objective phenomena, other +than Elementaries and Elementals. + +This class comprises the Spirits of conscious sane suicides. They are +_Spirits_, and not _Shells_, because there is not in their cases, at +any rate until later, a total and permanent divorce between the fourth +and fifth principles on the one hand, and the sixth and seventh on the +other. The two duads are divided, they exist apart, but a line of +connection still unites them, they may yet reunite, and the sorely +threatened personality avert its doom; the fifth principle still holds +in its hands the clue by which, traversing the labyrinth of earthly +sins and passions, it may regain the sacred penetralia. But for the +time, though really a Spirit, and therefore so designated, it is +practically not far removed from a Shell. + +This class of Spirit can undoubtedly communicate with men, but, as a +rule, its members have to pay dearly for exercising the privilege, +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 +communication. It is merely, broadly speaking, a question of degree; +of much or little injury resulting from such communication; the cases +in which real, permanent good can arise are too absolutely exceptional +to require consideration. + +Understand how the case stands. The unhappy being revolting against +the trials of life--trials, the results of its own former actions, +trials, heaven's merciful medicine for the mentally and spiritually +diseased--determines, instead of manfully taking arms against a sea of +troubles, to let the curtain drop, and, as it fancies, end them. It +destroys the body, but finds itself precisely as much alive mentally +as before. It had an appointed life-term determined by an intricate +web of prior causes, which its own wilful sudden act cannot shorten. +That term must run out its appointed sands. You may smash the lower +half of the hand hour-glass, so that the impalpable sand shooting from +the upper bell is dissipated by the passing aerial currents as it +issues; but that stream will run on, unnoticed though it remain, until +the whole store in that upper receptacle is exhausted. + +So you may destroy the body, but not the appointed period of sentient +existence, foredoomed (because simply the effect of a plexus of +causes) to intervene before the dissolution of the personality; this +must run on for its appointed period. + +This is so in other cases, _e.g._, those of the victims of accident or +violence; they, too, have to complete their life-term, and of these, +too, we may speak on another occasion--but here it is sufficient to +notice that, whether good or bad, their mental attitude at the time of +death alters wholly their subsequent position. They, too, have to wait +on within the "Region of Desires" until their wave of life runs on to +and reaches its appointed shore, but they wait on, wrapped in dreams +soothing and blissful, or the reverse, according to their mental and +moral state at, and prior to the fatal hour, but nearly exempt from +further material temptations, and, broadly speaking, incapable (except +just at the moment of real death) of communicating _scio motu_ with +mankind, though not wholly beyond the possible reach of the higher +forms of the "Accursed Science," Necromancy. The question is a +profoundly abstruse one; it would be impossible to explain within the +brief space still remaining to us, how the conditions immediately +after death differ so entirely as they do in the case (1) of the man +who deliberately _lays down_ (not merely _risks_) his life from +altruistic motives in the hope of saving those of others; and (2) of +him who deliberately sacrifices his life from selfish motives, in the +hope of escaping trials and troubles which loom before him. Nature or +Providence, Fate, or God, being merely a self-adjusting machine, it +would at first sight seem as if the results must be identical in both +cases. But, machine though it be, we must remember that it is a +machine _sui generis_-- + + Out of himself he span + The eternal web of right and wrong; + And ever feels the subtlest thrill, + The slenderest thread along. + +A machine compared with whose perfect sensitiveness and adjustment the +highest human intellect is but a coarse clumsy replica, _in petto_. + +And we must remember that thoughts and motives are material, and at +times marvellously potent material, forces, and we may then begin to +comprehend why the hero, sacrificing his life on pure altruistic +grounds, sinks as his life-blood ebbs away into a sweet dream, wherein + + All that he wishes and all that he loves, + Come smiling round his sunny way, + +only to wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the +Region of Happiness, while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who, +seeking to elude fate, selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks +the golden bowl, finds himself terribly alive and awake, instinct with +all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life, +without a body in which to gratify these, and capable of only such +partial alleviation as is possible by more or less vicarious +gratification, and this only at the cost of the ultimate complete +rupture with his sixth and seventh principles, and consequent ultimate +annihilation after, alas! prolonged periods of suffering. + +Let it not be supposed that there is no hope for this class--the sane +deliberate suicide. If, bearing steadfastly his cross, he suffers +patiently his punishment, striving against carnal appetites still +alive in him, in all their intensity, though, of course, each in +proportion to the degree to which it had been indulged in earth-life. +If, we say, he bears this humbly, never allowing himself to be tempted +here or there into unlawful gratifications of unholy desires, then +when his fated death-hour strikes, his four higher principles reunite, +and, in the final separation that then ensues, it may well be that all +may be well with him, and that he passes on to the gestation period +and its subsequent developments. + + * * * * * + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Book ii., from lines 666-789. The whole passage bristles +with horrors.] + +[Footnote 2: xii. 85. Trans., of Burnell and Hopkins.] + +[Footnote 3: From the translation of Dhunjeebhoy Jamsetjee Medhora, +_Zoroastrian and some other Ancient Systems_, xxvii.] + +[Footnote 4: Trans., by Mirza Mohamed Hadi. _The Platonist_, 306.] + +[Footnote 5: _The Sacred Books of the East_, iii, 109, 110.] + +[Footnote 6: _Secret Doctrine_, vol. i. p. 281.] + +[Footnote 7: See _ibid._, p. 283.] + +[Footnote 8: _Isis Unveiled_, vol. i. p. 480.] + +[Footnote 9: Theosophical Manuals, No. 1.] + +[Footnote 10: _The Heroic Enthusiasts_, Trans., by L. Williams. part ii. +pp. 22, 23.] + +[Footnote 11: _Cremation_, Theosophical Siftings, vol. iii.] + +[Footnote 12: _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_, pp. 119, 120.] + +[Footnote 13: _Key to Theosophy_, H.P. Blavatsky, p. 109. Third +Edition.] + +[Footnote 14: _Magic, White and Black_, Dr. Franz Hartmann, pp. 109, +110. Third Edition.] + +[Footnote 15: See _The Seven Principles of Man_, pp. 17-21.] + +[Footnote 16: _Theosophist_, March, 1882, p. 158, note.] + +[Footnote 17: _Essays upon some Controverted Questions_, p. 36.] + +[Footnote 18: _Fortnightly Review_, 1892, p. 176.] + +[Footnote 19: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 67.] + +[Footnote 20: _Ibid._, p. 97.] + +[Footnote 21: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 97] + +[Footnote 22: _Ibid._, p. 102.] + +[Footnote 23: June, 1882, art. "Seeming Discrepancies."] + +[Footnote 24: Pp. 73, 74. Ed. 1887.] + +[Footnote 25: _Theosophical Glossary_, Elementaries.] + +[Footnote 26: See _The Seven Principles of Man_, p.p. 44-46.] + +[Footnote 27: The name Sukhâvatî, borrowed from Tibetan Buddhism, is +sometimes used instead of that of Devachan. Sukhâvatî, according to +Schlagintweit, is "the abode of the blessed, into which ascend those +who have accumulated much merit by the practice of virtues", and +"involves the deliverance from metempsychosis" (_Buddhism in Tibet_, +p. 99). According to the Prasanga school, the higher Path leads to +Nirvâna, the lower to Sukhâvatî. But Eitel calls Sukhâvatî "the +Nirvâna of the common people, where the saints revel in physical bliss +for æons, until they reënter the circle of transmigration" +(_Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary_). Eitel, however, under "Amitâbha" +states that the "popular mind" regards the "paradise of the West" as +"the haven of final redemption from the eddies of transmigration". +When used by one of the Teachers of the Esoteric Philosophy it covers +the higher Devachanic states, but from all of these the Soul comes +back to earth.] + +[Footnote 28: See _Lucifer_, Oct, 1892, Vol. XI. No. 62.] + +[Footnote 29: _The Path_, May, 1890.] + +[Footnote 30: _Ibid._] + +[Footnote 31: "Notes on Devachan," as cited.] + +[Footnote 32: "Notes on Devachan," as before. There are a variety of +stages in Devachan; the Rûpa Loka is an inferior stage, where the Soul +is still surrounded by forms. It has escaped from these personalities +in the Tribhuvana.] + +[Footnote 33: _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I. ch. v.] + +[Footnote 34: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 69. Third Edition.] + +[Footnote 35: Sixth and seventh in the older nomenclature, fifth and +sixth in the later--_i.e._, Manas and Buddhi.] + +[Footnote 36: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 99. Third Edition.] + +[Footnote 37: _Ibid._, p. 100.] + +[Footnote 38: _Ibid._, p. 101.] + +[Footnote 39: See Manual No. 2 _Re-incarnation_, pp. 60, 61. Third +Edition.] + +[Footnote 40: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 105. Third Edition.] + +[Footnote 41: _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 197. Eighth +Edition.] + +[Footnote 42: Quoted in the _Secret Doctrine_, vol. ii. p. 83. The +student will do well to read, for a fair presentation of the subject, +G.R.S. Mead's "Note on Nirvâna" in _Lucifer_, for March, April, and +May, 1893. (Re-printed in _Theosophical Siftings_).] + +[Footnote 43: _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882, p. 310.] + +[Footnote 44: See on "illusion" what was said under the heading +"Devachan".] + +[Footnote 45: _Key to Theosophy_, p. 102. Third Edition.] + +[Footnote 46: _Theosophist_, Sept. 1881.] + +[Footnote 47: "Notes on Devachan", _Path_, June, 1890, p. 80.] + +[Footnote 48: _Theosophist_, June, 1882, p. 226.] + +[Footnote 49: Summarised from article in _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882.] + +[Footnote 50: _Ibid._, p. 309.] + +[Footnote 51: _Ibid._, p. 310.] + +[Footnote 52: _Key to Theosophy,_ p. 151.] + +[Footnote 53: _Theosophist_, Sept., 1882, p. 310.] + + * * * * * + + + + +INDEX. + + +Accident, Death by, 37. + +Appendix, 81. + +Astral Body, 19, + Fate of, 31. + +Astral Shell or Soul, 75. + +_Avesta_, quoted, 9. + + +Blavatsky, H.P., quoted, 16, 17, 24, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 45, 49, 60, + 65, 66, 67, 73, 74, 78. + +_Book of the Dead_, quoted, 8. + +Bruno, Giordano, quoted, 21. + +_Buddhism in Tibet_, quoted, 47, (note). + + +Communications between Earth and other Spheres, 70. + " between Earth and Soul in Etheric Body, 71. + " between Earth, and soul in Devachan, 72, + " between Earth and soul in Kâmaloka, 72. + " from Adepts now living, 79. + " from Elementals, 78. + " from Elementaries, 77. + " from Medium's Higher Ego, 79. + " from Nirmânakâyas, 78. + " from Shells, 43, 77. + +_Controverted Questions, Essays upon some_, quoted, 28. + +_Cremation_, quoted, 21. + +Cycle of Incarnation, 52 et seq. + + +Death, a Gateway, 79. + " Chinese Ideas of, 11. + " Christian Ideas of, 6. + " Egyptian Ideas of, 8. + " Theosophic Ideas of, 18. + +_Desatir_, quoted, 9. + +Devachan, 33, 46. et seq. + +Devachan, Passing into, of the average-living, 33. + +Devachan, The Soul in, 72. + +Devachanî, The, 58 et seq. + + +Earth, The return to, 66. + +Egos, Many lives of, 63 et seq. + +Elementals, 44, 78. + +Elementaries, 45, 77. + +_Esoteric Buddhism_, quoted, 69. + +Etheric Double, 12, 22 et seq., 24, 25, 71 et seq. + + +Fiery Lives, 17. + +_Fortnightly Review_, quoted, 29. + + +_Heroic Enthusiasts, The_, quoted, 21. + + +Immortal Triad, The, 12, 13, 31, 33, 58, 60. + +_Isis Unveiled_, quoted, 17. + + +Kâmaloka, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 41. + +Kâmaloka, The Soul in, 72. + +Kâma Rûpa, 30. + +_Key to Theosophy_, quoted, 24, 30, 31, 33, 60, 65, 67, 73, 78. + + +_Lucifer_, quoted, 49, 70. + + +_Magic, White and Black_, quoted, 26. + +_Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_, quoted, 23. + +Man: How Made, 12 et seq. + +Mâyâ, 47. + +Medium, Communications from Higher Egos of, 79. + + +Nirvâna, 69. + + +_Ordinances of Manu_, quoted, 9. + + +_Paradise Lost_, quoted, 7. + +_Path_, quoted, 51, 54, 55, 56, 59 et seq. + +_Perfect Way_, quoted, 44. + +Perishable Quaternary, 12. + +Pishâchas, 38. + +Prâna, 26, 30. + +Premature Death, 36, 39. + + +Re-incarnation, 8, 67. + + +_Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary_, quoted, 47 (Footnote: 27). + +_Seven principles of Man_, quoted, 26, 45. + +Shell, Astral Soul, or, 75. + +Shells, The, 41. + +_Shû King_, quoted, 10. + +Soul, Growth of, in Devachan, 56, + + " Powers of the, 80. + + " Relations of, with Devachanî, 74 et seq. + + " The Disembodied, 71 et seq. + +Spiritualism and Esoteric Philosophy, 15. + +Suicides, 36, et seq., 81. + + +_Theosophical Glossary_, quoted, 45. + +_Theosophical Siftings_, quoted, 21. + +_Theosophist, The_, quoted, 27, 35, 71, 74, 75 et seq. + +_Theosophist. The_, summarised, 75, 79, 81. + + +Unconscious co-existence of intelligent beings, 28 et seq. + + +_Vishnu Purâna_, quoted, 57. + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Death--and After?, by Annie Besant + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEATH--AND AFTER? *** + +***** This file should be named 18266-8.txt or 18266-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/6/18266/ + +Produced by Bryan Ness, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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