“1. That there is a life coincident with, and independent of the physical life of the body.” “2. That, as a necessary corollary, this life extends beyond the life of the body” (we say it extends throughout Devachan). “3. That there is communication between the denizens of that state of existence and those of the world in which we now live.” All depend, you see, on the minor and secondary aspects of these fundamental propositions. Everything depends on the views we take of Spirit and Soul, or _Individuality_ and _Personality_. Spiritualists confuse the two “into one”; we separate them, and say that, with the exceptions above enumerated, no _Spirit_ will revisit the earth, though the animal Soul may. But let us return once more to our direct subject, the Skandhas. ENQ. I begin to understand better now. It is the Spirit, so to say, of those Skandhas which are the most ennobling, which, attaching themselves to the incarnating Ego, survive, and are added to the stock of its angelic experiences. And it is the attributes connected with the material Skandhas, with selfish and personal motives, which, disappearing from the field of action between two incarnations, reappear at the subsequent incarnation as Karmic results to be atoned for; and therefore the Spirit will not leave Devachan. Is it so? THEO. Very nearly so. If you add to this that the law of retribution, or Karma, rewarding the highest and most spiritual in Devachan, never fails to reward them again on earth by giving them a further development, and furnishing the Ego with a body fitted for it, then you will be quite correct. A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SKANDHAS. ENQ. What becomes of the other, the lower Skandhas of the personality, after the death of the body? Are they quite destroyed? THEO. They are and yet they are not—a fresh metaphysical and occult mystery for you. They are destroyed as the working stock in hand of the personality; they remain as _Karmic effects_, as germs, hanging in the atmosphere of the terrestrial plane, ready to come to life, as so many avenging fiends, to attach themselves to the new personality of the Ego when it reincarnates. ENQ. This really passes my comprehension, and is very difficult to understand.