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The Life Beyond Death2212
dramatization of their desire-ideals of their past life. In short, the Indian
really finds his “happy hunting grounds,” and the other primitive peoples
their particular paradise as pictured in their creeds and faiths. This at first,
seems somewhat shocking to the person whose ideals of “heaven” are
modeled upon the realm of golden streets, where milk and honey flows.
But a little thought will show that the conception of the “golden streets” is
but a little higher in the scale than that of the “happy hunting-ground,” for
it is purely material and reflects the ideals of a race whose desires are for
glittering and costly things.
If one will but consider the emotional and intellectual nature of
the primitive person, he will see that to surround such a soul with the
environment of the cultured civilized person would be to render him very
unhappy. In fact, such a heaven would to him seem like a hell. One has but
to imagine a savage in earth life placed in a palace with the surroundings
fitted to the ideals of a person of high culture and refinement, to realize just
how miserable the savage would really be. The same thing holds true on the
Astral Plane. Nature is kind to the savage, as well as to the cultured person,
and furnishes him with the environment in which he will feel the most at
home, and in which he will find the greatest opportunity for self-expression.
This does not mean that on the Astral Plane there are elaborately arranged
series of scenery and surroundings fitted for the tastes of each and every
kind of soul. On the contrary, there is no such stage-setting whatsoever. Here
is the secret: There is no scenery on the Astral Plane except that furnished
by the thought-forms of the souls inhabiting it. Each soul carries his own set
of scenery with it, in his imaginative faculties of mind. It follows, of course,
that many souls of the same general ideals and tastes inhabiting the same
sub-plane, will carry the same mental scenery with them. And, as the power
of thought-transference is manifested strongly on the Astral Plane, each
soul affects the general scenery of the others. In fact, the scenery of each
sub-plane, or division thereof, represents the composite ideals and mental
images of those inhabiting it. In earth-life, environment largely makes the