rst of these bodies, the astral--a very inappropriate name,
though here used because it is so well known--is a copy, more or less,
of the physical form in its general aspect; the resemblance and
clearness of the features are pronounced in proportion to the
intellectual development of the person, for thought-vibration has
great influence over the building up of the centres of force and of
sensation in this body.[62]

The second is an even finer aggregate, composed of mental substance
and assuming, during incarnation, the form of a smaller or larger
ovoid--the causal body--surrounding the physical form.[63] At its
centre, and plunged in the astral body during incarnation, is another
kind of ovoid not so large and composed of denser substance--the
mental body.[64]

Above these states of matter, at the present stage there appears no
form to the consciousness of human beings, though perfect seers can
perceive, within the causal body, still higher grades of matter, which
will only subsequently become centres of self-consciousness.

During incarnation, the soul, in the majority of men, is clearly
conscious of itself and of its surroundings only when it is
functioning through the nervous system (the brain); when it leaves the
denser body, during sleep, its consciousness is in the astral body,
and there it thinks,[65] but without being conscious of what is taking
place around it. After disincarnation, it generally becomes highly
conscious in its astral body, where it passes its purgatorial life;
and this latter endures until the soul leaves the astral body. As soon
as the latter is thrown off, consciousness centres in the mental body;
this is the period of _Devachan_ or Heaven. When the mental body is
put off, paradise is at an end, and the soul, sheathed only in the
causal body, finds itself on a very lofty plane, but here,
consciousness is vague, when we are dealing with a man of average
development. Instead of laying aside this garment, as so far it has
done with the rest, it recommences, after the lapse of a certain
time, another descent into the matter of the lower planes and a new
incarnation begins.

To the centre of the causal body are drawn atoms from the inner mental
plane; these represent a new mental body.[66] When this latter has
been formed, there are attracted to it atoms of the astral plane, and
these form a new astral body; the soul, clothed in these two sheaths,
if one may so express it, is brought into co