Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/177

 principle of general absorption, and would cease to be as an individual being. But when you understand that that which constitutes you a spiritual selfhood pertains to your thoughts, your understandings, and affections, and that nothing outside of your understanding enters into that selfhood, in which you live, and by which you know yourself, you will perceive that if you do not take that with you to the Spiritual world, you will take nothing with you that is yours. If you leave that behind you, or so change it as to make it represent another and not yourself, as a matter of course, when you go to the Spiritual world, you do not go there.

The idea has obtained to a considerable extent, that this material body is the cause of our lusts, passions, and appetites, and that these will die with it. It is my opinion, however, that the body, so far as the matter itself is concerned, does no more to degrade us or injure us in any wise, morally, than does the matter composing any other material substance. It has only become an instrument receptive of certain conditions, as the horse-shoe magnet has become receptive of certain magnetic conditions. We talk about the attraction of the magnet as though the attraction were in the iron. But the attraction is between the positive and negative conditions, which are present in the iron; and when your bring the different parts of the iron together, you bring the conditions which they contain into proximity, between which the attraction exists. So it is with this material body; it is made receptive of conditions. The matter entering into this body needs to go through a certain process, after it is taken