Prana, 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 pa.s.s back into the great life-reservoir of the universe. As water enclosed in a gla.s.s vessel and plunged into a tank mingles with the surrounding water if the vessel be broken, so Prana, 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 const.i.tution, for Prana, as a distinctively human principle, cannot remain appropriated when its vehicle disintegrates.
The man now is clothed, but with the Kama Rupa, or body of Kama, 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 Kama Rupa, with what it has a.s.similated from the lower Manas) and the higher Triad--find themselves in Kamaloka.[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 sh.e.l.ls 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, sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l.
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, pa.s.ses 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 Kamaloka, up to the threshold of Devachan, and then we can return to consider other cla.s.ses of circ.u.mstances.
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 Prana has re-mingled with the ocean of Life, and he is clothed only with the Kama Rupa, the pa.s.sional elements in him, being but weak and accustomed to comparatively little activity, will not be able to a.s.sert themselves strongly in Kamaloka. Now during earth-life Kama and the Lower Manas are strongly united and interwoven with each other; in the case we are considering Kama is weak, and the Lower Manas has purified Kama to a great extent. The mind, woven with the pa.s.sions, emotions, and desires, has purified them, and has a.s.similated their pure part, absorbed it into itself, so that all that is left of Kama 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 pa.s.s out of Kamaloka into the blissful rest of Devachan, the "abode of the G.o.ds", or as some say, "the land of bliss". Kamaloka
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 s.p.a.ce, _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 Atma-Buddhi-Manasic 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 pa.s.sage, then, of the Immortal Triad from the kamalokic 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 pa.s.ses through this, in the peaceful dreamy state already described, and, if left undisturbed, will not regain full consciousness until these stages are pa.s.sed through, and peace gives way to bliss.
But during the whole period that the four principles--the Immortal Triad and Kama--remain in Kamaloka, 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 pa.s.sionate sorrow and desires of friends left on earth, and these violently vibrating kamic 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 pa.s.ses 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 ent.i.ty 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 Kamaloka only the desire body, the "sh.e.l.l" 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 Kamaloka, the spiritual Intelligence is clothed with a desire body, which possesses considerable vigour and vitality; the lower Manas, closely interwoven with Kama 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 Kamaloka, 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 Kama remain together in Kamaloka, communication between the disembodied ent.i.ty and the embodied ent.i.ties 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 kamic 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 ent.i.ty, 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 Kamaloka 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 pa.s.sions, and have full fed the desire body while they have starved even the lower mind--these remain for long, denizens of Kamaloka, 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 cla.s.s of disembodied ent.i.ties 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 Kamaloka 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 seance 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 pa.s.sive 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 Dhyan 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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 pa.s.sions which bind them to familiar scenes, they are enticed by the opportunities which mediums afford to gratify them vicariously. They are the Pishachas, the Incubi and Succubae of mediaeval times; the demons of thirst, gluttony, l.u.s.t, 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 h.e.l.lish 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 Trishna (Tanha)--thirst, desire for sentient existence--and Upadana, which is the realisation or consummation of Trishna, 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 Kamaloka. 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 pa.s.s in the Kamaloka 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 "Sh.e.l.l." Happy, thrice happy, in comparison, are those disembodied ent.i.ties who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom of s.p.a.ce! And woe to those whose Trishna will attract them to mediums, and woe to the latter who tempt them with such an easy Upadana. 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 pa.s.sions 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 Upadana, which will be productive of untold evils for the new Ego that will be reborn under its nefarious shadow, and that with every seance, 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 Kamaloka, but the state of the disembodied ent.i.ty 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 Maya. 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_ Kalapani, _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 antic.i.p.ated_ 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 Kamaloka, but falls_ asleep _like any other victim._
The population of Kamaloka 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 Kamaloka clad in the desire body, throbbing with pulses of hatred, pa.s.sion, emotion, palpitating with longings for revenge, with unsatiated l.u.s.ts. 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 ent.i.ty; 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 pa.s.ses out of Kamaloka; the Higher Manas draws back its Ray, coloured with the life-scenes it has pa.s.sed 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 Kamaloka, it pa.s.ses wholly out of the sphere of earth attractions:
_As soon as it has stepped outside the Kamaloka--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 Kamaloka.
KaMALOKA. THE Sh.e.l.lS.
The Sh.e.l.l is the desire body, emptied of the Triad, which has now pa.s.sed onwards; it is the third of the transitory garments of Soul, cast aside and left in Kamaloka to disintegrate.
When the past earth-life has been n.o.ble, or even when it has been of average purity and utility, this Sh.e.l.l retains but little vitality after the pa.s.sing 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 Sh.e.l.l may thus simulate feelings and thoughts which are empty of all true intelligence and will. Many of the responses to eager enquiries at _seances_ come from such Sh.e.l.ls, 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 plat.i.tudes, memories of past events, will be all the communications such Sh.e.l.ls 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 Sh.e.l.ls.
Just because they are Sh.e.l.ls, 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 Sh.e.l.ls 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 Sh.e.l.ls.
Again, the Sh.e.l.l 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 _seances_ 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 Sh.e.l.ls 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 Sh.e.l.l.
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 Kamaloka that we should seek them. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"
KaMALOKA. 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 Kamaloka.... Once divorced from their higher Triads and their bodies, these souls remain in their Kama Rupic envelopes, and are irresistibly drawn to the earth amid elements congenial to their gross natures. Their stay in the Kamaloka 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 Kama 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 Sh.e.l.l, 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 kamic 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.