may be of very long duration in proportion to the Ego's spiritual stamina, and Devachan accounts for the remainder of the period between death and the next physical re-birth. The whole period is, of course, of very varying length in the case of different persons, but re-birth in less than fifteen hundred years is spoken of as almost impossible, while the stay in Devachan which rewards a very rich Karma, is sometimes said to extend to enormous periods.

CHAPTER VI.

KAMA LOCA.

THE statements already made in reference to the destiny of the higher human principles at death, will pave the way for a comprehension of the circumstances in which the inferior remnant of these principles finds itself, after the real Ego has passed either into the Devachanic state, or that unconscious intervening period of preparation therefor which corresponds to physical gestation. The sphere in which such remnants remain for a time is known to occult science as Kama loca, the region of desire, not the region in which desire is developed to any abnormal degree of intensity as compared with desire as it attaches to earth-life, but the sphere in which that sensation of desire, which is a part of the earth-life, is capable of surviving.

It will be obvious, from what has been said about Devachan, that a large part of the recollections which accumulate round the human Ego during life are incompatible in their nature with the pure subjective existence to which the real, durable, spiritual Ego passes; but they are not necessarily on that account extinguished or annihilated out of existence. They inhere in certain molecules of those finer (but not finest) principles,

which escape from the body at death; and just as dissolution separates what is loosely called the soul from the body, so also it provokes a further separation between the constituent elements of the soul. So much of the fifth principle, or human soul, which is in its nature assimilable with, or has gravitated upwards toward, the sixth principle, the spiritual soul, passes with the germ of that divine soul into the superior region, or state of Devachan, in which it separates itself almost completely, from the attractions of the earth; quite completely, as far as its own spiritual course is concerned, though it still has certain affinities with the spiritual aspirations emanating from the earth, and may sometimes draw these towards itself. But the animal soul, or fourth principle (the element of will and desire as associated with objective existence), has no upward attraction, and no more passes away from the earth than the particles of the body consigned to the grave. It is not in the grave, however, that this fourth principle can be put away. It is not spiritual in its nature or affinities, but it is not physical in its nature. In its affinities it is physical, and hence the result. It remains within the actual physical local attraction of the earthin the earth's atmosphere-or, since it is not the gases of the atmosphere that are specially to be considered in connection with the problem in hand, let us say, in Kama loca.

And with the fourth principle a large part (as regards most of mankind unfortunately, though a part very variable in its relative magnitude) inevitably remains. There are plenty of attributes

which the ordinary composite human being exhibits, many ardent feelings, desires, and acts, floods of recollections, which even if not concerned with a life as ardent perhaps as those which have to do with the higher aspirations, are nevertheless essentially belonging to the physical life, which take time to die. They remain behind in association with the fourth principle, which is altogether of the earthly perishable nature, and disperse or fade out, or are absorbed into the respective universal principles to which they belong, just as the body is absorbed into the earth, in progress of time, and rapidly or slowly in proportion to the tenacity of their substance. And where meanwhile, is the consciousness of the individual who has died or dissolved? Assuredly in Devachan; but a difficulty presents itself to the mind untrained in occult science, from the fact that a semblance of consciousness inheres in the astral portion—the fourth principle with a portion of the fifth-which remains behind in Kama loca. The individual consciousness, it is argued, cannot be in two places at once. first of all, to a certain extent, it can. be perceived presently, it is a mistake to speak of consciousness, as we understand the feeling in life, attaching to the astral shell or remnant; but nevertheless a certain spurious semblance may be reawakened in that shell, without having any connection with the real consciousness all the while growing in strength and vitality in the spiritual sphere. There is no power on the part of the shell of taking in and assimilating new ideas and initiating courses of action on the basis of those new ideas. But

But

As may

there is in the shell a survival of volitional impulses imparted to it during life. The fourth principle is the instrument of volition though not volition itself, and impulses imparted to it during life by the higher principles may run their course and produce results almost indistinguishable for careless observers from those which would ensue were the four higher principles really all united as in life.

It, the fourth principle, is the receptacle or vehicle during life of that essentially mortal consciousness which cannot suit itself to conditions of permanent existence; but the consciousness even of the lower principles during life is a very different thing from the vaporous fleeting and uncertain consciousness, which continues to inhere in them when that which really is the life, the overshadowing of them, or vitalization of them by the infusion of the spirit, has ceased as far as they are concerned. Language cannot render all the facets of a manysided idea intelligible at once, any more than a plain drawing can show all sides of a solid object at once. And at the first glance different drawings of the same object from different points of view may seem so unlike as to be unrecognizable as the same, but none the less, by the time they are put together in the mind, will their diversities be seen to harmonize. So with these subtle attributes of the invisible principles of man-no treatise can do more than discuss their different aspects separately. The various views suggested must mingle in the reader's mind before the complete conception corresponds to the realities of Nature.

In life the fourth principle is the seat of will and