32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



known that the mold on which the physical body is made up is held in 

 perpetuity by the agents of the Lords of Karma. Thus, however com- 

 plicated and unusual a man's Karma may be, these agents, or Lipika, 

 are able to give a mold in accordance with which a body exactly suiting 

 it can be formed. 



The inhabitants of the etheric plane are as varied as those of the 

 astral and physical planes, with this distinction, that certain types and 

 races of men never rise above the last-mentioned level. For example, 

 English is scarcely spoken on the astral plane and never on the etheric, 

 where for most part is heard only some form or derivation of the 

 Sanscrit. Those who aim to make of the bluntly practical English a 

 universal tongue must soon see the futility of such efforts. For a 

 language which barely reaches the astral plane can never be universal, 

 while at the upper limit of Devachan, as is well known, all language 

 disappears. Only the Voice of the Silences, the vibrations of the per- 

 fect Om, the one word which closes the lips whenever it is spoken, is 

 heard in the Crystal Vaults Superior. 



The learned Swami proceeded to divide the inhabitants of the etherie 

 plane into seven great classes, for the sacred number seven is involved in 

 all these investigations. These are (using our inadequate English 

 words) : (1) The embodied, (2) the bodiless, (3) the shells, (4) the 

 incubi, (5) the extra-planetary visitors, (6) the essences, (7) the 

 artificials. 



Those of the first class, or embodied entities, have bodies on earth, 

 still engaged in operations on the physical plane. These may be 

 adepts or Chilas, or they may be canny yogis, or Initiates, possessed 

 of second sight, or again ordinary men fast asleep at home, whose etheric 

 doubles are drifting about involuntarily, swayed through esoteric cur- 

 rents, or the so-called ' winds of dreamland ' of your western mythology, 

 or finally they may be magicians, white or black, seeking their own 

 ends, some of them unfortunately evil. The investigator may meet 

 also on this plane students of the invisible, quite unconnected with 

 the great master and knowing nothing of the mahatmas. These men, 

 Slavs, Lapps or Malays, are often most earnest and self-renouncing 

 seekers after truth, and the wise wanderer on the etheric plane will 

 greet them with the omnic kiss of esoteric brotherhood. 



Of the bodiless class are likewise man} r , some of whom have wan- 

 dered from afar. Even from Nirvana, perfect souls have descended, 

 creating for themselves a perfect ethereal body for the purpose, since the 

 more refined vesture of Nirvana would be invisible to ethereal sight. 

 These souls never attempt anything in these lower planes, for in Nirvana 

 is the final quenching of desire. Here too, the ego of adepts may await 

 reincarnation, an unusual mode of procedure, it is true, but some- 

 times to the self-renounced such favor is granted by the great master of 

 reincarnation, Gautama-Buddha himself. But here the greatest care is 



