is happily uncommon, it is a
thing that has happened more than once; and in very many cases where
the evil has fallen short of this ultimate possibility, the individual
has nevertheless lost much more of his lower Manas by this additional
entanglement with Kama than he would have done if left to withdraw
into himself quietly as nature intended. It is not denied that a
certain amount of good may occasionally be done to very degraded
entities at spiritualistic circles; but the intention of nature
obviously is that such assistance should be given, as it frequently
is, by occult students who are able to visit the astral plane during
earth-life, and have been trained by competent teachers to deal by
whatever methods may be most helpful with the various cases which they
encounter. It will be readily seen that such a scheme of help,
carrying with it as it does the possibility of instant reference to
higher authorities in any doubtful case, is infinitely safer than any
casual assistance obtained through a medium who may be (and indeed
generally is) entirely ignorant of the laws governing spiritual
evolution, and who is as liable to the domination of evil or
mischievous influences as of good ones.

Apart altogether from any question of development through a medium,
there is another and much more frequently exercised influence which
may seriously retard a disembodied entity on his way to Devachan, and
that is the intense and uncontrolled grief of his surviving friends or
relatives. It is one among many melancholy results of the terribly
inaccurate and even irreligious view that we in the West have for
centuries been taking of death, that we not only cause ourselves an
immense amount of wholly unnecessary pain over this temporary parting
from our loved ones, but we often also do serious injury to those for
whom we bear so deep an affection by means of this very regret which
we feel so acutely. As one of our ablest writers has recently told us,
when our departed brother is sinking peacefully and naturally into
pre-devachanic unconsciousness "an awakening may be caused by the
passionate sorrow and desires of friends left on earth, and these,
violently vibrating the kamic elements in the embodied persons, may
set up vibrations in the Kamarupa of the disembodied, and so reach and
rouse the lower Manas not yet withdrawn to and reunited with its
parent, the spiritual intelligence. Thus it may be roused from its
dreamy state to vivid re