of Boulac.

The Scarabeus, or beetle,[115] symbolised the "personality," the
expansion of the mental substance, projected, so to speak, by the
higher mental body, at each incarnation, into the new kamic (astral)
body; a certain number of them were always deposited with the mummies,
and the beetle was represented standing on an ear of corn, a symbol of
the attainments acquired during the past earth life. Indeed, the
development of the Ego is effected by that of the personality it sends
on to the earth each incarnation; it is the new mental body which
controls the new astral and physical bodies of each incarnation, and
which is, in very truth, the flower and the fruit of the labour of
life.

Sacred Egyptology tells us that the scarabeus requires to be
"osirified," united to its "living soul," or Ego, which sent it forth.
I will now give the reason for this emanation.

When, after disincarnation, the purgatorial life begins, the Ego
endeavours to throw off the kamic (astral) body, to pass into the
higher world--the mental plane--which is its home, there to enjoy the
delights of heaven. Thereupon a veritable battle begins. On the one
hand, the Ego endeavours to withdraw the mental body, which, at the
beginning of the incarnation, it sent into the kamic body, and to take
it to itself; on the other hand, the passional body[116]--which
instinctively feels its life bound to that of the mental element,
which gives it its strength, vital activity, and personal
characteristics--tries to keep back this centre of individual life,
and generally succeeds in doing so up to a certain point. When desire,
during incarnation, has regularly gained the victory over the will,
the passional body, or Kama, maintains the supremacy beyond the grave,
and the Ego, in endeavouring to rescue its mental projection from the
kamic bonds, yields up a more or less considerable fragment thereof,
and this fragment is restored to liberty only when the passional body
of the deceased has become disintegrated by the forces of the astral
world. This has been called the _fire_ of purgatory.

On the other hand, when the Ego, during life, has always refused the
appeals of the lower nature, it easily withdraws, after death, from
the net of passion, the substance it has infused therein, and passes
with this substance into that part of the mental plane which is called
"heaven."

Such is the struggle that Egypt committed to her annals when she
inscribed upon p