The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants and PhenomenaLeadbeater, C. W. (Charles Webster)
Religion
The Astral Plane: Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena
Leadbeater, C. W. (Charles Webster)
Astral body; Theosophy
This entity ought not, strictly speaking, to be classified under the
head "human" at all, since it is only its outer vesture, the passive,
senseless shell, that was once an appanage of humanity; such life,
intelligence, desire and will as it may possess are those of the
artificial elemental animating it, and that, though in terrible truth
a creation of man's evil thought, is not itself human. It will
therefore perhaps be better to deal with it more fully under its
appropriate class among the artificial entities, as its nature and
genesis will be more readily comprehensible by the time that part of
our subject is reached. Let it suffice here to mention that it is
always a malevolent being--a true tempting demon, whose evil influence
is limited only by the extent of its power. Like the shade, it is
frequently used to further the horrible purposes of the Voodoo and
Obeah forms of magic. Some writers have spoken of it under the name
"elementary," but as that title has at one time or other been used for
almost every variety of _post-mortem_ entity, it has become so vague
and meaningless that it is perhaps better to avoid it.
7. _The Suicide, or victim of sudden death._
It will be readily understood that a man who is torn from physical
life hurriedly while in full health and strength, whether by accident
or suicide, finds himself upon the astral plane under conditions
differing considerably from those which surround one who dies either
from old age or from disease. In the latter case the hold of earthly
desires upon the entity is more or less weakened, and probably the
very grossest particles are already got rid of, so that the Kamarupa
will most likely form itself on the sixth or fifth subdivision of the
Kamaloka, or perhaps even higher; the principles have been gradually
prepared for separation, and the shock is therefore not so great. In
the case of the accidental death or suicide none of these preparations
have taken place, and the withdrawal of the principles from their
physical encasement has been very aptly compared to the tearing of the
stone out of an unripe fruit; a great deal of the grossest kind of
astral matter still clings around the personality, which is
consequently held in the seventh or lowest subdivision of the
Kamaloka. This has already been described as anything but a pleasant
abiding-place, yet it is by no means the same for all those who are
compelled for a time to inhabit it. Those victims of sudden death
whose earth-lives have been pure and noble have no affinity for this
plane, and the time of their sojourn upon it is passed, to quote from
an early Letter on this subject, either "in happy ignorance and full
oblivion, or in a state of quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams
". But on the other hand, if their earth-lives have been low and
brutal, selfish and sensual, they will, like the suicides, be
conscious to the fullest extent in this undesirable region; and they
are liable to develop into terribly evil entities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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