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Chapter XVI: Earth Bound Souls2255
the unborn child to remain in the womb, or the unfolding butterfly to
remain in the chrysallis stage. No good comes from encouraging a violation
of Nature’s laws, on any plane of existence, including the Astral.
The lower class of earth-bound souls belong to an entirely different
category from those just mentioned. This lower class is composed of souls
of a very low degree of spiritual development—those in which animality is
predominant, and brutish materiality the characteristic emotional attribute.
These souls are considered as “earth-bound” by reason of the fact that
the attraction of the material earth-plane so overbalances the urge of the
upward attraction that the latter is more than neutralized, and the soul lives
on a plane as near the material plane as is possible to it. In fact, the lower
planes of the Astral inhabited by this class of souls is so little removed from
the material plane that it may be spoken of as almost a transition stage
between the material and the astral plane—a blending of the two. It is as if
a very thin veil were placed between this plane and the scenes of material
life—a tantalizingly thin veil it is to these low souls—so that while these souls
may not actually participate in the earthly affairs, they may yet be dimly
conscious of them.
These low earth-bound souls, as a rule confine their earth visitations and
brooding to the actual scenes which have attracted them in earth-life. And
these souls take a fiendish delight in trying to influence those of their own
kind still in the flesh, when in a muddled condition, urging them to fresh
infamies and often to actual crimes. In some extreme cases these low souls
have been known actually to seek their own discarded Astral shell, or even
that of another of their kind, and by a great effort cause it to materialize
for a short time in objective form as a “ghost.” The nature of these entities
changes but little by their transition to the Astral, and they take the same
delight in “rough-house” performances, practical jokes, etc., as in their days
in the flesh. Many instances of ghostly appearances, the throwing about of
physical objects, etc., have been due to this class of disembodied earthbound
souls. They always may be dismissed and caused to disappear by the