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Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism170
parting of the Astral Body from the Physical Body as most interesting. They
describe it as rising from the physical body, like a cloud of thin luminous
vapor, but being connected with the physical body by a slender, silken,
vapory cord, which cord becomes thinner and thinner until it becomes
invisible to even the fine clairvoyant vision, just before it breaks entirely. The
Astral Body exists some time after the physical death of the man, and under
certain circumstances it becomes visible to living persons, and is called a
“ghost.” The Astral Body of a dying person is sometimes projected by an
earnest desire and may become visible to relatives or friends with whom the
dead man is in sympathy.
After a time, differing in various cases, as we will see later on, the Astral
Body is discarded by the Ego, and it in turn begins to disintegrate. This
discarded Astral Body is nothing more than a corpse of finer material, and is
what occultists know as an “astral shell.” It has no life or intelligence, when thus
discarded, and floats around in the lower astral atmosphere, until it is resolved
into its original elements. It seems to have a peculiar attraction toward its
late physical counterpart, and will often return to the neighborhood of
the physical body and disintegrate with it. Persons of psychic sight, either
normal or influenced by fear or similar emotions, frequently see these
astral shells floating around graveyards, over battlefields, etc., and are often
mistaken for the “spirits” of departed people, whereas they are no more the
person than is the physical corpse beneath the ground. These astral shells
may be “galvanized” into a semblance of life by coming into contact with
the vitality of some “medium,” the prana of the latter animating it, and the
sub-conscious mentality of the medium causing it to manifest signs of life
and partial intelligence. At some of the seances of the mediums these astral
shells are materialized by means of the vitality of the medium, and talk in a
stupid, disconnected way with those around, but it is not the person himself
talking, but a mere shell animated by the life principle of the medium and
the “circle,” and acting and talking like an automaton. There are, of course,
other forms of spirit return, which are far different, but those investigating