f the fiends who drive it on. In this case, as so often with the
ordinary astral body, any wound inflicted upon the animal
materialization will be reproduced upon the human physical body by the
extraordinary phenomenon of repercussion; though after the death of
that physical body the Kamarupa, which will probably continue to
appear in the same form, will be less vulnerable. It will then,
however, he also less dangerous, as unless it can find a suitable
medium it will be unable to materialize fully.

It has been the fashion of this century to scoff at what are called
the foolish superstitions of the ignorant peasantry; but, as in the
above cases, so in many others the occult student finds on careful
examination that obscure or forgotten truths of nature lie behind what
at first sight appears mere nonsense, and he learns to be cautious in
rejecting as well as cautious in accepting. Intending explorers of the
astral plane need have little fear of encountering the very unpleasant
creatures described under this head, for, as before stated, they are
even now extremely rare, and as time goes on their number will happily
steadily diminish. In any case their manifestations are usually
restricted to the immediate neighbourhood of their physical bodies, as
might be supposed from their extremely material nature.

9. _The Black Magician or his pupil._

This person corresponds at the other extremity of the scale to our
second class of departed entities, the chela awaiting reincarnation,
but in this case, instead of obtaining permission to adopt an unusual
method of progress, the man is defying the natural process of
evolution by maintaining himself in Kamaloka by magical
arts--sometimes of the most horrible nature. It would be easy to make
various subdivisions of this class, according to their objects, their
methods, and the possible duration of their existence on this plane,
but as they are by no means fascinating objects of study, and all that
an occult student wishes to know about them is how to avoid them, it
will probably be more interesting to pass on to the examination of
another part of our subject. It may, however, be just mentioned that
every such human entity which prolongs its life thus on the astral
plane beyond its natural limit invariably does so at the expense of
others, and by the absorption of their life in some form or another.

II. NON-HUMAN.

Though it might have been thought fairly obvious even to the mos