m the medium, and the eventual
effect on the latter is invariably evil, as is evinced by the large
number of such sensitives who have gone either morally or psychically
to the bad--some becoming epileptic, some taking to drink, others
falling under influences which induced them to stoop to fraud and
trickery of all kinds.

4. _The Shade._

When the separation of the principles is complete, the Kamaloka life
of the person is over, and, as before stated, he passes into the
devachanic condition. But just as when he dies to this plane he leaves
his physical body behind him, so when he dies to the astral plane he
leaves his Kamarupa behind him. If he has purged himself from all
earthly desires during life, and directed all his energies into the
channels of unselfish spiritual aspiration, his higher Ego will be
able to draw back into itself the whole of the lower Manas which it
put forth into incarnation; in that case the Kamarupa left behind on
the astral plane will be a mere corpse like the abandoned physical
body, and it will then come not into this class but into the next.
Even in the case of a man of somewhat less perfect life almost the
same result may be attained if the forces of lower desire are allowed
to work themselves out undisturbed in Kamaloka but the majority of
mankind make but very trifling and perfunctory efforts while on earth
to rid themselves of the less elevated impulses of their nature, and
consequently doom themselves not only to a greatly prolonged sojourn
on the astral plane, but also to what cannot be described otherwise
than as a loss of a portion of the lower Manas. This is, no doubt, a
very material method of expressing the great mystery of the reflection
of the higher Manas in the lower, but since only those who have passed
the portals of initiation can fully comprehend this, we must content
ourselves with the nearest approximation to exactitude which is
possible to us; and as a matter of fact, a very fairly accurate idea
of what actually takes place will be obtained by adopting the
hypothesis that the manasic principle sends down a portion of itself
into the lower world of physical life at each incarnation, and expects
to be able to withdraw it again at the end of the life, enriched by
all its varied experiences. The ordinary man, however, usually allows
himself to be so pitiably enslaved by all sorts of base desires that a
certain portion of this lower Manas becomes very closely interwoven