English
To make the whole situation intelligible it will be best to take a survey, first of all, of the various sub- divisions from the point of view of the normal entity after death. And here, at the outset, we have to face one embarrassment which often presents itself to the student’s mind, the question namely, how far the various sub-divisions may be thought of as actual regions of space, and how far they interpenetrate one another, representing in that way varying aspects of consciousness rather than differences of locality. The more we study spiritual science the less will this notion, involving the interpenetration, so to speak, of one world by another, present difficulties to the mind. The phenomenon is obviously going on all around us before we get entirely quit even of the physical plane. The ether itself, the medium of the vibrations of light and electricity, interpenetrates solid bodies as well as 184 THE CROWTH OF THE SOUL. the atmosphere, and carries on its own functions with- out being in the least degree impeded by the surround- ing molecules, so it is quite certain that the matter of the astral plane, together with all the vehicles of consciousness that belong to it, may co-exist as regards the space they occupy, with the physical phenomena of the earth’s surface. They certainly do so co-exist, and can be observed by a qualified occultist in intimate juxtaposition with our houses and landscapes. At the same time it is also true that the astral plane, thought of as a sphere or world, has a larger volume or at any rate a greater external diameter than the solid earth, so that we are not thinking incorrectly in imagining some regions of the astral plane as distinctly exalted above the earth’s surface. Indeed, if we take care not to hold on to the thought too rigorously, we may not incorrectly work with the rough hypothesis, that the sub-divisions of the astral plane consist of a series of concentric shells, certainly interpenetrating one another wherever they are in contact, as the colours of the spectrum interpenetrate each other, but nevertheless presenting conditions in which the highest need not be thought of as interpenetrating the lowest. Going back then to the lowest and examining it from the point of view of its relations with humanity after death, we find this to be the sphere in which are entangled the souls of the lowest and most degraded of our race, those whose thoughts and desires during life have been all but wholly concentrated on the selfish gratification of the senses, in whom emotions of the highest kind have played scarcely any part, and by THE ASTRAL PLANE. 185 whom, therefore, during life, the astral matter they have attracted around them has been of the lowest order. ‘The comprehension of what I have to say will, perhaps, be best facilitated by an explanation which belongs properly to a very recondite region of occultism, but will here help to dispel the notion that a person after death is arbitrarily assigned, by some superior power, to a specific realm of Nature, in which he will meet with either reward or punishment. Occultism would be ridiculously misunderstood if it were supposed to ignore the existence of Divine Will operating through Nature to determine just results in connection with the progress of humanity. What we are studying now, however, are the methods and laws through which that will operates, and when we only approach the comprehension of these we see cause and effect operating on the mental plane with the same regularity that is observable in the relations of the chemical elements. And just in the same way that we think it unnecessary to treat every union between molecules of hydrogen and oxgyen as a separate act of the Divine Will, so, in occultism, we learn to recognise the working of good and evil as bound up in a concatenation of laws that can be comprehended up to a certain point, and can thus be dealt with far more reverently in the language of science than in that of a court of justice. To go on with the explanation I am aiming at, we find that the sub-divisions of the astral plane represent distinctly defined orders of matter, though all falling in with some particular category of astral matter, just as matter_of this plane is all physical, even though it 186 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. may sometimes assume a solid, sometimes a liquid, and at others a gaseous ethereal state. Every human being during life gathers from matter as he grows, not merely the physical particles which constitute the niatter of his physical body, but other particles belong- ing to higher regions of Nature which permeate the grosser vehicle and are ready in turn, when that is cast off, to become the vehicles of his consciousness on astral and ultimately on spiritual planes of Nature. But these do not flow in spontaneously; they are attracted, however little the person setting up attrac- tions is conscious of the process, by the character and colour of his daily thoughts and life. The material of the higher astral sub-divisions is drawn into the corres- ponding vehicle of consciousness in the case of people whose predominant mental condition is of an elevated type; the lower kinds of matter assimilating themselves with more degraded states of consciousness, and the ultimate progress after death of the soul which is then launched on an existence in the astral body it has itself been unconsciously forming during life, is deter- mined entirely (keeping our attention on the immediate scientific working of natural law), by the quality of the matter his astral envelope contains. In truth the astral vehicle of every human being must contain astral matter belonging to each of the seven sub-divisions of the astral plane, but here a beautiful complication comes into play, the charm of which will be readily appreciated by any scientifically minded thinker. The matter of each sub-division is itself capable of existing in different states, roughly corresponding to the solid, liquid, THE ASTRAL PLANE. 187 gaseous, and so on. Now, if the matter of the lowest plane which is attracted to the astral body of any given person is of the high ethereal kind, that person is no sooner launched upon the astral plane after death, coming in contact first with the lowest sub-division as a matter of inevitable necessity,—than such ethereal particles fly asunder almost instantaneously. The dis- persion of such particles or atoms is a process of which the person concerned is unconscious, and the soul thus liberated from the body would in such a case pass through the lowest sub-division of the astral plane, to use the old familiar illustration, as an arrow passes through a cloud. So again, in reference to the second. If the matter of that plane drawn into the composition of the astral envelope is altogether of the higher kind, it disintegrates no less spontaneously as soon as the soul is on that plane, so that by an automatic working of natural law each soul finds itself immediately after death on precisely that sub-division of the astral plane to which its affinities naturally belong. Going back now to the lowest plane, we realise the way in which the soul, whose astral body is largely composed of the lower orders of matter belonging to that sub-division, would be entangled there for appreci- able periods of tinie, sometimes for very long periods. Existence on that level is, of course, of an eminently undesirable kind. We need not stop to discuss fantastic superstitions concerning physically painful states attaching to the after-life, but we may easily see that where the whole body of consciousness represented by a soul has been absorbed in desires entirely connected 188 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. with the physical plane of existence, a state of craving thus set up to which the after-life, even on the lowest sub-division of the astral plane, can make no response, must give rise to an unsatisfied wretchedness, which can only be thought of as morally painful in a very high degree. There is, of course, a gloomy fitness of things in the spectacle that region of Nature presents to our observation, but I am more concerned at present with describing the conditions of the superphysical world than in moralising in reference to their propriety. In the second, third, and fourth divisions of the astral plane, counting from the bottom upwards, we have to recognise a greater relaxation of all the disagreeable characteristics attaching to existence on the lowest, without, up to that point, coming into contact with anything of a distinctly different character. Up to the fourth sub-division consciousness would always be revolving round the experiences of the life just quitted, but in the second, third and fourth sub-divisions, it would not be exclusively bent upon the lowest aspects of earth life. Characteristics of the consciousness destined at a later period to a beautiful fruition on regions of Nature more exalted than any part of the astral plane, the emotions, that is to say, which have to do with love and affection, may begin to permeate the consciousness of the astral being, although for the moment he may be kept back from the realm of Nature in which these feelings would blossom forth most freely, by the continued operation of petty attractions. Of course, it must always be kept in mind that from the strictly scientific point of view, the question in every THE ASTRAL PLANE.