ee beyond the real. Mrs. Besant
does not say she has seen it herself; indeed, she is always relying on
someone else. She refers us to Andrew Jackson Davis, the "Poughkeepsie
Seer" (and a Spiritist, though she does not say so), who "watched this
escape of the ethereal body" and states that "the magnetic cord did
not break for some thirty-six hours." "Others," says Mrs. Besant, "have
described, in similar terms, how they saw a faint violet mist rise
from the dying body, gradually condensing into a figure which was the
counterpart of the expiring person, and attached to that person by a
glittering thread." Thus the attachment is "delicate," "magnetic," and
"glittering." In the course of time, we dare say, it will be decorated
with a much larger variety of adjectives. Meanwhile we may observe that
if Mrs. Besant were to preach this sort of "higher wisdom" to savages
she would find an attentive and sympathetic audience. The violet mist,
the Astral Double, and the delicate, magnetic, glittering cord, are
things that they are to some extent already familiar with; and if
she could only get them to accept her terminology, and talk of Sthula
Sharira and Linga Sharira, they would be extremely promising candidates
for the Theosophical kingdom of heaven.

Mrs. Besant tells us that the Linga Sharira, or Astral Double, rots away
(disintegrates) in time. It is "the ethereal counterpart of the gross
body of man," and takes a longer time in dropping into nothingness.

"Sometimes this Double is seen by persons in the house, or in the
neighborhood... the Double may be seen or heard; when seen it shows the
dreamy hazy consciousness alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect,
and unresponsive.... This astral corpse remains near the physical one,
and they disintegrate together; clairvoyants see these astral wraiths in
churchyards, sometimes showing likeness of the dead body, sometimes as
violet mists or lights. Such an astral corpse has been seen by a friend
of my own."

At this point we think it well to part company with Mrs. Besant. Who
would have imagined, ten years ago, that the colleague of Charles
Bradlaugh would ever descend so far into superstition as to write and
talk seriously about churchyard spooks? What she may have to say about
Theosophy after this can hardly be of interest to any thoroughly sane
person. We therefore close with an expression of profound regret that
an earnest, eloquent lady who once did such service in the cau