Page:A Collection of Esoteric Writings.djvu/202

188 It is because this struggle is slientlysilently [sic] going on that the ancients enjoined solemn silence in the awful presence of death. When the man awakens into the Kama-Loka, he begins his third state of existence. The physical organisation, which alone enables man to produce causes, is not there, and he is, as it were, concerned only with those affinities which he has already engendered. While this struggle in the fifth principle is going on, it is almost impossible for the entity to manifest itself upon earth. And when a dweller on this earth tries to establish a connection with that entity, he only disturbs its peace. Hence it is that the ancients prohibited these practices, to which they gave the name of necromancy, as deadly sin. The nature of the struggle depends upon the tendencies engendered by the individual in his physical life. If he was too material, too gross, too sensual, and if he had hardly any spiritual aspirations, then the downward attraction of the lower affinities causes an assimilation of the lower consciousness with the fourth principle. The man then becomes a sort of astral animal, and continues in that state until, in process of time, the astral entity is disintegrated. The few spiritual aspirations that he might have had are transferred to the monad; but the separate consciousness being dragged into the animal soul, dies with it and his personality is thus annihilated. If a man, on the other hand, is tolerably spiritual, as most of our fellowmen are, then the struggle in Kama-Loka varies according to the nature of his affinities; until the consciousness being linked to the higher ones is entirely separated from the "astral shell," and is ready to go into Devachan. If a person is highly spiritual, his Kama-Loka is of a very short duration, for the consciousness is quickly assimilated to the higher principles and passes into Devachan. It will thus be seen that in any case intercourse with the Kama-Loka entities is detrimental to the progress of those entities and also injurious to the persons indulging in such intercourse. This interruption is just as bad and even far worse than the disturbance in the death-chamber on this physical plane. When it is remembered