body that
surrounds and permeates it.

Under these circumstances it is not strange that the new arrival in the
astral world is seized with a feeling of baffling mystery. He is in full
possession of his reasoning faculties, and will power, but there is a
puzzling limitation to his efforts to produce expected results. A
partial analogy may be found in the case of a person suddenly stricken
with aphasia over night. He rises in the morning, dresses, and goes
about his accustomed duties without the slightest suspicion that any
change has come to him until he takes up the morning paper and
discovers that he can not read--that the familiar print simply means
nothing to him!

Of course, in time the living dead man gets adjusted to the new life. He
soon meets others in the astral world who have been there longer and
they, sooner or later, succeed in convincing him that he is not having
an exceptionally vivid dream.

The astral world, as explained in a previous chapter, has seven
subdivisions and the astral body contains matter belonging to each of
them. While we have the physical body the matter of the astral body is
in rapid circulation, every grade of it being constantly represented at
the surface. But when the connection with the material plane is broken,
a rearrangement of the matter of the astral body automatically takes
place (unless it is prevented by an exercise of will power) and the
grossest grade of matter thereafter occupies its surface. Consequently
the consciousness of the man is limited to that subdivision of the
astral world represented by the lowest grade of matter which his astral
body contains at the time of his death. This is a fact the importance of
which it would be difficult to over emphasize, because his after-death
state of consciousness, his joy or sorrow--in short, his temporary
heaven or hell, depends upon his location in the astral world.

There are three, and only three modes of death, or release from the
physical body--by old age, by disease, or by violence. Old age is the
natural and desirable close of the chapter of physical plane experience.
It is most desirable to live to ripe old age and accumulate a large
harvest of experience. To live long and actively is excellent fortune.
It is not well to pass into the astral world with strong physical
desires. As old age comes on the desire forces subside. Most of that
grade of astral matter that is capable of expressing them has slowly
disappeared