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The Tenth Lesson: The Astral World163
early childhood, its awakening being evidenced by the gradual dawning of
intelligence in the child whose brain keeps pace with the demands made
upon it. We will go more into detail regarding this matter, in the succeeding
chapters.
All of these things, your guide has pointed out to you, and he has shown
you examples of all the things we have just mentioned. You have met and
talked with friends and loved ones who have passed out of the body and
occupy some of the planes through which you have passed. You have
noticed with wonder that these souls acted and spoke as if their life was
the only natural one, and in fact seemed to think that you had come to
them from some outside world. You also noticed that while those on each
plane were more or less acquainted with the planes beneath them, they
often seemed in total ignorance of those above them—except in the case
of those on the higher planes who had awakened to a conscious realization
of what it all meant, and knew that they were merely in a class working their
way upward. Those on the lower planes seemed more or less unconscious
of the real meaning of their existence, not having awakened to the conscious
spiritual stage. You also noticed how few changes these souls seemed to
have undergone—how very little more they seemed to know about things
spiritual and occult than when on earth. You also noticed on the lower
planes an old friend, who in earth-life, was a pronounced materialist, who
did not seem to realize that he was “dead” and who believed that, by some
catastrophe of nature, he had been transported to some other planet or
physical world, and who was as keen as ever for his argument that “death
ended all,” and who flew into a rage with the visitors from the higher spheres
who told him whom they were and from whence they came, calling them
rogues and imposters, and demanding that they show him something of their
claimed “higher spheres” if they were realities. He claimed that their sudden
appearances and disappearances were simply the physical phenomena of
the new planet upon which they were living. Passing away from him in the
midst of his railing at you for agreeing with the “imposters” and “visionaries,”