Concerning The ''Four Atmospheres''

No. XXXIX

CONCERNING THE "FOUR ATMOSPHERES" ¹

THE earthly mind (anima bruta) is that part of man which contains his material memory, abilities, affections, cares, acquirements, and the images bred of his associations in each particular incarnation. This mind is shed with the body and shade, and is--as it were--an individual in itself. It inhabits the astral sphere and cannot get beyond it; nor does it ever return to earth (embodied), but dwells, perhaps for many centuries, in the magnetic light, which it takes for heaven, seeking its own affinities and frequenting the places and persons familiar to it. But the soul--or anima divina, which is the true man--has another destiny than this. It leaves its body on earth, its shade and its earthly mind in the astral sphere, and mounts to its own proper higher region, until the time comes for it either to pass into Nirvâna, or to become again incarnate. The soul retains the celestial memory;--that memory only in which lives such of its past as is worthy to live, and is not of an ephemeral nature,--its knowledges, virtues, and true loves. The only affections, therefore, which live eternally are those of the soul,--whose which have struck deep into the man and made part of his inmost being. The loves of the mere body or earthly mind die with these, and form no part of the permanent man. True it is that some souls are retained in their phantoms for a time more or less long, not being pure--or, rather, not strong--enough to mount higher. But being in the astral sphere they cannot see beyond it, and--like the astral phantom--believe they are at their journey's end. The larva, or shade,

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is not the same as the phantom seen by the ordinary lucid. For the two are separable, and the shade occupies a yet lower atmosphere. After a little while, moreover, the shade consumes away and disappears; but the phantom with which the lucid converses, remains as strong and individual as ever, it may be for centuries. For not only the recently dead, but some who lived and died before the Christian era, have been evoked and conversed with, and these are not mere reflects (like the purely astral entities which are emanations from the living), since they reason and remember, and give proofs of their identity. The ordinary lucid obtains access to them only because he is himself in the astral when in the lucid condition, and sees, therefore, only what is there. To enter the heavenly sphere, and to come into communion with souls, a regenerated state is necessary. Now, the sphere entered depends, not alone on the lucid, but also on the magnetiser ¹ and the circle present at the experience. There are four atmospheres surrounding us, and only in the highest of these do we find the freed soul. Each sphere is the counterpart of each portion of man, and each has its system and its sun. Interior knowledge, earnest aspiration, and purity of thought and life, are the keys by which alone can be opened the gates of the inmost and highest sphere. The lowest is enlightened by the material sun. It is that of the present life of the body. The next is enlightened by the astral or magnetic light; and it is that of the sideral body or perisoul. The next is that of the soul, and it is enlightened by the spiritual sun. And the highest is the immediate presence of the Lord God, where is the "great white throne" and the company of the "virgins." Now, the "virgins" are souls which, being perfectly spiritualised, retain no taint of materiality. ²

Footnotes

94:1 London, August 22, 1881. Written under Illumination (Life of Anna Kingsford, vol. ii, p. 37).

95:1 This is not necessarily a corporeal, or even an extraneous, being, but may be the spirit of the lucid himself.    E. M.

95:2 See Apoc. xiv, 4, where they are called virgins in virtue of their having overcome the need of sexual relations prior to their final incarnations, as in No. XXIV, par. 4. The term "women" was sometimes used as a general term for things material. See also Dreams and Dream-Stories, No. IX.    E. M.