ly become malicious
and mischievous, automatically responding to evil vibrations. Thus a
medium, or sitters of poor moral character, will impress the Shells
that flock around them with impulses of a low order, and any animal
desires, petty and foolish thoughts, will set up similar vibrations in
the blindly responsive Shells.

Again, the Shell is very easily taken possession of by Elementals, the
semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of Nature, and may be
used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. The
etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their
immortal Tenants, give the material basis by which Elementals can work
many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of _seances_ may
be confidently appealed to, and asked whether many of the childish
freaks with which they are familiar--pullings of hair, pinchings,
slaps, throwing about of objects, piling up of furniture, playing on
accordions, &c.--are not more rationally accounted for as the tricky
vagaries of sub-human forces, than as the actions of "spirits" who,
while in the body, were certainly incapable of such vulgarities.

Let us leave the Shells alone to peacefully dissolve into their
elements, and mingle once again in the crucible of Nature. The authors
of the _Perfect Way_ put very well the real character of the Shell.

The true "ghost" consists of the exterior and earthly portion
of the Soul, that portion which, being weighted with cares,
attachments, and memories merely mundane, is detached by the
Soul and remains in the astral sphere, an existence more or
less definite and personal, and capable of holding, through a
sensitive, converse with the living. It is, however, but as a
cast-off vestment of the Soul, and is incapable of endurance
_as ghost_. The true Soul and real person, the _anima
divina_, parts at death with all those lower affections
which would have retained it near its earthly haunts.[24]

If we would find our beloved, it is not among the decaying remnants in
Kamaloka that we should seek them. "Why seek ye the living among the
dead?"

KAMALOKA. THE ELEMENTARIES.

The word "Elementary" has been so loosely used that it has given rise
to a good deal of confusion. It is thus defined by H.P. Blavatsky:

Properly, the disembodied _souls_ of the depraved; these
souls having, at some time prior to death, separated from
themselves their d