tter which can
express them. The difference between the causal bodies of the savage and
the saint is that the first is empty and colourless, while the second is
full of brilliant, coruscating tints. As the man passes beyond even
saint-hood and becomes a great spiritual power, his causal body increases
in size, because it has so much more to express, and it also begins to pour
out from itself in all directions powerful rays of living light. In one who
has attained Adeptship this body is of enormous dimensions.
The mental body is built of matter of the four lower subdivisions of the
mental world, and expresses the concrete thoughts of the man. Here also we
find the same colour-scheme as in the causal body. The hues are somewhat
less delicate, and we notice one or two additions. For example, a thought
of pride shows itself as orange, while irritability is manifested by a
brilliant scarlet. We may see here sometimes the bright brown of avarice,
the grey-brown of selfishness, and the grey-green of deceit. Here also we
perceive the possibility of a mixture of colours; the affection, the
intellect, the devotion may be tinged by selfishness, and in that case
their distinctive colours are mingled with the brown of selfishness, and so
we have an impure and muddy appearance. Although its particles are always
in intensely rapid motion among themselves, this body has at the same time
a kind of loose organization.
The size and shape of the mental body are determined by those of the causal
vehicle. There are in it certain striations which divide it more or less
irregularly into segments, each of these corresponding to a certain
department of the physical brain, so that every type of thought should
function through its duly assigned portion. The mental body is as yet so
imperfectly developed in ordinary men that there are many in whom a great
number of special departments are not yet in activity, and any attempt at
thought belonging to those departments has to travel round through some
inappropriate channel which happens to be fully open. The result is that
thought on those subjects is for those people clumsy and uncomprehending.
This is why some people have a head for mathematics and others are unable
to add correctly--why some people instinctively understand, appreciate and
enjoy music, while others do not know one tune from another.
All the matter of the mental body should be circulating freely, but
sometimes a man allows his th
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