ysical body out of the coarser
combinations of matter on the physical, and have finer combinations on
the astral and mental. The bodies have to match each other. They have
to correspond with each other; and as you find all sorts of
combinations related the one to the other on every plane, you must
choose your combinations on the physical if you desire to choose them
also on the astral and mental. You cannot make your physical body
coarse, and organise the astral and mental bodies for the finer
purposes of the man; and you must settle that in your minds if you
wish to try to develop these higher powers of consciousness. Not only
because if you gather together the coarser materials of the astral
world, you will find yourself hampered by them in the higher
expression of consciousness, but also because the presence of these
combinations in you exposes you to a number of dangers on the astral
plane. The purer the elements of your astral body, the safer you are
in your earlier wanderings on that plane. It is important to mention
this, because in some of the schools of thought which are trying only
to develop astral powers, you will find that they deliberately use
other methods in order to make their astral body active. Many schools
of the "left hand path" in India will use spirits, wines, meats of all
sorts, in order to bring about a certain astral condition, and they
succeed, because by these means they attract to themselves, and for a
time govern, the elemental powers of those lower planes--the
elementals of the lower astral worlds. So that you may find that an
Indian, who knows a little of this and wants to use it for his own
purposes, will deliberately use these things which are attractive to
the elementals of those lower worlds, and gather them around him and
use them. But he does it knowing what he does, and aiming at that
which he desires to conquer. But amongst those who practise black
magic of the higher kinds--of the mental kinds--you have an asceticism
as stern and rigid as has ever been used by those who are trying to
develop their higher bodies for nobler ends. It is a mistake to think
that the brothers of the dark side are, as a rule, licentious and
indifferent to what you call morality. On the contrary, they are
exceedingly strict. Their faults are the faults of the mind, not the
faults of the lower desires, of the organs of the different bodies
which may gratify them. Their faults are the more dangerous faults