7rcTIX1xP

Chapter XVII: Astral Shells2261
abnormal conditions, may even be temporarily visible to the external sight
of still living persons. Under such conditions it is taken of course for the
ghost of the departed persons. Spectral apparitions may sometimes be
occasioned in other ways, but the third principle (the Astral Body) when
that results in a visible phenomenon, is a mere aggregation of molecules
in a peculiar state, having no life or consciousness of any kind whatever. It
is no more than a cloud-wreath in the sky which happens to settle into the
semblance of some animal form. Broadly speaking, the linga sharira never
leaves the body except at death, case. When seen at all, and this can but nor
migrates far from the body even in that rarely occur, it can only be seen near
where the physical body lies.
“…It is a mistake to speak of consciousness, as we understand the feeling
in life, attaching to the ‘Astral shell’ or remnant; but, nevertheless, a certain
spurious resemblance may be awakened in that shell, and without having
any connection with the real consciousness all the while growing in strength
and vitality in the spiritual sphere. There is no power on the part of the shell
of taking on and assimilating new ideas and initiating courses of action on
the basis of those new ideas. But there is in the shell a survival of volitional
impulses imparted to it during life…. It is liable to be galvanized for a time
in the mediumistic current into a state of consciousness and life which may
be suggested by the first condition of a person who, carried into a strange
room in a state of insensibility during illness, wakes up feeble, confused
in mind, gazing about with a blank feeling of bewilderment, taking in
impressions, hearing words addressed to him and answering vaguely. Such
a state of consciousness is unassociated with the notions of past and future.
It is an automatic consciousness, derived from the medium.”
Another writer on the subject says of these “Astral shells:” “These remnants
of the Astral bodies so discarded and disintegrating are not in any way
related to the souls which formerly inhabited them. They are mere shells,
without soul or mind, and yet preserving a slight degree of vitality. They
are Astral corpses, just as much a corpse as is the discarded physical body.