by accident
or suicide, finds himself upon the astral plane under conditions
differing considerably from those which surround one who dies either
from old age or from disease. In the latter case the hold of earthly
desires upon the entity is more or less weakened, and probably the
very grossest particles are already got rid of, so that the Kamarupa
will most likely form itself on the sixth or fifth subdivision of the
Kamaloka, or perhaps even higher; the principles have been gradually
prepared for separation, and the shock is therefore not so great. In
the case of the accidental death or suicide none of these preparations
have taken place, and the withdrawal of the principles from their
physical encasement has been very aptly compared to the tearing of the
stone out of an unripe fruit; a great deal of the grossest kind of
astral matter still clings around the personality, which is
consequently held in the seventh or lowest subdivision of the
Kamaloka. This has already been described as anything but a pleasant
abiding-place, yet it is by no means the same for all those who are
compelled for a time to inhabit it. Those victims of sudden death
whose earth-lives have been pure and noble have no affinity for this
plane, and the time of their sojourn upon it is passed, to quote from
an early Letter on this subject, either "in happy ignorance and full
oblivion, or in a state of quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams
". But on the other hand, if their earth-lives have been low and
brutal, selfish and sensual, they will, like the suicides, be
conscious to the fullest extent in this undesirable region; and they
are liable to develop into terribly evil entities. Inflamed with all
kinds of horrible appetites which they can no longer satisfy directly
now they are without a physical body, they gratify their loathsome
passions vicariously through a medium or any sensitive person whom
they can obsess; and they take a devilish delight in using all the
arts of delusion which the astral plane puts in their power in order
to lead others into the same excesses which have proved so fatal to
themselves. Quoting again from the same letter:--"These are the
Pisachas the _incubi_ and _succubae_ of mediaeval writers--demons of
thirst and gluttony, of lust and avarice, of intensified craft,
wickedness and cruelty, provoking their victims to horrible crimes,
and revelling in their commission". From this class and the last are
drawn the tempters