pel narrative
certainly seems to verify this idea, and was undoubtedly so stated
that it might be more readily understood by the popular mind.

But the occult traditions hold otherwise. They hold that Jesus really
appeared to His disciples three days after His death, and abode with
them for a time teaching and instructing them in the deeper mysteries
and secret doctrines. But the mystics have always held and taught that
His reappearance _was in the Astral Body_, and not in the discarded
physical form.

To the popular mind the physical body was almost everything, as we
have shown in one of the earlier lessons of this series. So much was
this so that the mass of the people expected that all mankind would
arise from the dead at the Last Day clad in their former physical
forms. And so, any other teaching would have been unintelligible to
them.

But to the occultists and mystics who understood the truth about the
more ethereal vehicles of the soul, such an idea appeared crude and
unscientific, and they readily grasped the Inner Teachings regarding
the Resurrection, and understood the reason why Jesus would use the
Astral Body as the vehicle of His reappearance.

The Gospel narrative informs us that a guard was placed around the
tomb to prevent the body being stolen and a consequent assertion of
the Resurrection which the priests well knew to be expected. It
further states that the tomb was sealed and guarded by a squad of
Roman soldiers, but that notwithstanding these precautions the body of
the Master actually came to life and emerged from the tomb, and that
His followers were disturbed by the evidences that His body had been
stolen.

The occult traditions, however, state that the close friends of Jesus,
aided by a prominent Jew who was a secret believer, obtained from the
willing Pilate a secret order which enabled them to deposit the body
in a safe and secret resting place where it gradually resolved itself
into the dust to which all that is mortal must return. These men knew
that the Resurrection of the Master had naught to do with mortal
fleshly form or body. They knew that the immaterial soul of the Master
still lived and would reappear to them clad in the more ethereal body
made manifest to their mortal senses. Every occultist will understand
this without further comment. To others we advise that they read the
occult teachings concerning the Astral Body and its characteristics.
This is no place in which to agai