Page:The Invisible World About Us - Rogers.pdf/8

 some place. There is no movement in space necessary. It merely attracts to itself the matter of a very rare grade, called "mental"; then, by a considerably different process in a coarser grade of matter, the astral body is secured. Finally, by a still different process, but still one of slow building, the physical body is constructed of physical matter. The three vehicles, or organisms, through which the soul is to function in the three regions are now ready to enable it to contact the various grades of matter and obtain the experience it seeks.

Now, having followed in thought the way in which, starting on the home plane of the soul, we successively clothe ourselves in the matter of the three regions, thus acquiring a body in which it is possible to function in each region, we are in a position to understand that this physical body is very far from being the real man; and that we are, each of us, far more than we appear to be, far more than we are able to express through this physical mechanism. Somebody has somewhere given the excellent illustration of likening the soul on its home plane to the bare hand. The hand is capable of much. In music, in art, in many lines of commercial dexterity, it can do wonders. But when the soul clothes itself in the mental matter it is more like a hand that has put on a very thin glove. It is a limitation. The fingers are not so nimble. When, in addition, the soul takes on the astral body, it is as though the thinly gloved hand drew on a heavy glove. Now the limitation is sorely felt. The fingers can scarcely move. The delicate touch has vanished, and the enrapturing music becomes broken and uncertain. The wonderful painting is but a hideous distortion. Then the soul reaches the physical plane and begins to express itself through the physical body. This is as though over the thin and the heavy glove is drawn 7