y of the commonly current stories of churchyard ghosts. A
psychically developed person passing one of our great cemeteries will
see hundreds of these bluish-white, misty forms hovering over the
graves where are laid the physical vestures which they have recently
left; and as they, like their lower counterparts, are in various
stages of disintegration, the sight is by no means a pleasant one.
This also, like the other kind of shell, is entirely devoid of
consciousness and intelligence; and though it may under certain
circumstances be galvanized into a very horrible form of temporary
life, this is possible only by means of some of the most loathsome
rites of one of the worst forms of black magic, about which the less
said the better. It will thus be seen that in the successive stages of
his progress from earth-life to Devachan, man casts off and leaves to
slow disintegration no less than three corpses--the physical body,
the etheric double and the Kamarupa--all of which are by degrees
resolved into their constituent elements and utilized anew on their
respective planes by the wonderful chemistry of nature.

6. _The Vitalized Shell._

This entity ought not, strictly speaking, to be classified under the
head "human" at all, since it is only its outer vesture, the passive,
senseless shell, that was once an appanage of humanity; such life,
intelligence, desire and will as it may possess are those of the
artificial elemental animating it, and that, though in terrible truth
a creation of man's evil thought, is not itself human. It will
therefore perhaps be better to deal with it more fully under its
appropriate class among the artificial entities, as its nature and
genesis will be more readily comprehensible by the time that part of
our subject is reached. Let it suffice here to mention that it is
always a malevolent being--a true tempting demon, whose evil influence
is limited only by the extent of its power. Like the shade, it is
frequently used to further the horrible purposes of the Voodoo and
Obeah forms of magic. Some writers have spoken of it under the name
"elementary," but as that title has at one time or other been used for
almost every variety of _post-mortem_ entity, it has become so vague
and meaningless that it is perhaps better to avoid it.

7. _The Suicide, or victim of sudden death._

It will be readily understood that a man who is torn from physical
life hurriedly while in full health and strength, whether