of nature work. A writer on the subject should also
be careful that, in pointing out the fact that to certain classes of
offenders against nature's laws severe penalties accrue, the reader does
not get the impression that suffering is the common lot in the astral
life. The truth of the matter is that people who live clean, moderate
lives, and refrain from generating forces that are injurious to others,
will know nothing whatever of the unfortunate side of astral existence.
In the limitations, the vexations, the physical aches and ills, the
poverty, sorrow and suffering of the material plane, most of us are as
near to hell-conditions of existence as we ever will be. The ordinary
man of average morality has so little of the matter of the lowest level
of the astral plane lingering in him that as a rule he would begin his
postmortem existence on the next higher subdivision, which is the
counterpart of the earth's surface. He would therefore have no knowledge
of the hell that exists on the lower level. But that is not at all true
of those who live grossly and freely indulge the emotions of anger,
jealousy, hatred, revenge, and their kindred impulses, that often lead
to violent crimes. It is possible to live the physical life so sanely,
usefully, harmoniously and unselfishly that at the death of the physical
body one will pass almost immediately to a joyous and useful career in
the astral world. But while that is quite possible the unfortunate fact
is that a great many people so color all their emotions with selfishness
that the astral sojourn is unpleasantly affected by it. It is the
emotions that determine the astral life and it is said that if they are
directly selfish they bring the man into conditions on the astral plane
that are very unpleasant.

It must be expected that any idea we may form of the astral life will be
incomplete, and inadequate to give a true conception what it is really
like. Perhaps the most comprehensible of the subplanes is that which
reproduces the physical landscape in astral matter. There the average
man will begin his conscious astral career. If we think of the world as
we know it here and then imagine all that is material to have vanished
from it we shall gain some comprehension of the situation. Eliminate the
necessity of providing food, clothing and shelter and nearly all of the
labor of the race would cease. The tilling of the soil, the mining, the
building, the manufacturing, and the transp