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The Life Beyond Death2260
In a previous work, we have spoken as follows of the “Astral shell,” after it
has been discarded by the soul: “The Astral body exists for some time after
the death of the person to whom it belongs, and under certain circumstances,
it is visible to living persons, and is by them called a ‘ghost.’ The “Astral shell,”
which is sometimes seen after it has been sloughed off by the soul which has
passed on, is in such cases nothing more than a corpse of finer matter than
its physical counterpart. In such cases it is possessed of no life or intelligence,
and is nothing more than a cloud seen in the sky bearing a resemblance
to the human form. It is a shell, nothing more…. When discarded by the
soul it begins to slowly disintegrate…. It floats around in the lower Astral
atmosphere, until finally it is dissolved 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 discarded 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 battle-fields, etc., and mistake them for the ‘spirits’ of
departed persons, whereas they are no more the real souls of the persons
than are the physical bodies beneath the ground.”
“These ‘Astral shells’ may be ‘galvanized’ into a semblance of life by
coming in 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 are made to 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,’ but
investigators of spiritualistic phenomena should beware of confounding
these ‘Astral shells’ with the real soul of their departed friends.”
A leading authority on the subject has written of the “Astral shell,” as
follows: “At death it is disembodied for a brief period, and, under some