le. I
was much troubled by this vacuous sensation, which I felt to be in the
highest degree derogatory to my fifth principle, and the secret of which
I discovered, during a trance-condition which lasted for several months,
to arise from a subtle magnetism, to which, owing to my peculiar organic
condition, I was especially sensitive, and which penetrated the _mahatma_
region from a tract of country almost immediately contiguous to it in the
Karakorum Mountains, which was as jealously guarded from foreign
intrusion as our own, and which was occupied by the "Thibetan Sisters," a
body of female occultists of whom the Brothers never spoke except in
terms of loathing and contempt. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at
that no mention is made either of them, or the lovely highland district
they occupy, in Mr Sinnett's book. The attraction of this feminine
sphere became at last so overpowering, that I determined to visit it in
my astral body; and now occurred the first of many most remarkable
experiences which were to follow. It is well known to the initiated,
though difficult to explain to those who are not, that in a sense space
ceases to exist for the astral body. When you get out of your _rupa_,
you are out of space as ordinary persons understand it, though it
continues to have a certain subjective existence.

I was in this condition, and travelling rapidly in the desired direction,
when I became conscious of the presence of the most exquisitely lovely
female astral body which the imagination of man could conceive; and here
I may incidentally remark, that no conception can be formed of the beauty
to which woman can attain by those who have only seen her in her
_rupa_--or, in other words, in the flesh. Woman's real charm consists in
her _linga sharira_--that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which
guides _jiva_, or the second principle, in its work on the physical
particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the
material. Sometimes it makes rather a failure of it, so far as the
_rupa_ is concerned, but it always retains its own fascinating contour
and deliciously diaphanous composition undisturbed. When my gaze fell
upon this most enchanting object, or rather subject--for I was in a
subjective condition at the time--I felt all the senses appertaining to
my third principle thrill with emotion; but it seemed impossible--which
will readily be understood by the initiated--to convey to her a