Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



179 



WHEN A MAN DIES, WHAT HAPPENS? 

 By Mr. C. W. Leadbeater. 



The most minute and detailed description of what 

 happens to man after death that I ever remember to 

 have read appears in the January Thcosophist from 

 the pen of Mr. Leadbeater. It forms the si.\th 

 chapter of the new "Text Book of Theosophy." 

 Whether Mr. Leadbeater knows what he is writing 

 about I cannot say. But he certainly writes as one 

 having authority and not as the scribes. Much that 

 he says I can confirm as having been stated to me by 

 those who have returned from beyond the grave to 

 describe their experiences; but much, very much, lies 

 beyond the range covered by these reports. The 

 distinction between the physical, the astral, the etheric 

 bodies are confusing to non-theosophists, and the 

 account which he gives of the different planes through 

 which men pass in their ascent to the glorious heaven 

 that awaits us is very circumstantial, and those who 

 are interested in these speculations will read Mr. 

 Leadbeater's paper :— 



PROGRESS AFTER DEATH. 



Death is the laying aside of the physical body; but it makes 

 no more ditTerence to the ego than does the laying aside of an 

 overcoat to the physical man. Having put" off his physical 

 body, the ego conlinucs to live in his astral body until the force 

 has become exhausted which has been generated by such 

 emotions and passions as he has allowed hiniself to feel during 

 earth-life. When ih.u has happened the second death takes 

 place ; the astral body also falls away from him, and he finds 

 nimself living in the mental body and in the lower mental world. 

 In that condition lie remains until the thought-forces generated 

 .during his physical an.l astral lives have worn themselves out ; 

 then he drops llie tliird vehicle in its turn and remains once 

 more an ego in his own world, inhabiting his casual body. 



HOW THU ASTRAL BODY IS FORMED. 



At the death of the physical body his vague astral conscious- 

 ness is alarmed. It realises that its existence as a separated 

 mass is menaced, and it lakes instinctive steps to defend itself f 

 and to maintain its position as long as possible. The matter 

 of the astral body is far more fluidic than that of the physical, 

 and this consciousness seizes upon its particles and disposes 

 them so as lo resist encroachment. It puts the grossest and 

 densest upon the oui^lile as a kind of shell, and arranges the 

 others in concentric l.iyers, so that the body as a whole may 

 become as resistant 10 friction as its constitution permits, and 

 may therefore retain its sli.ape as long as possible. 



This, however, is soon sloughed unless the man 

 has lived a life of selfish indulgence, in which case the 

 heavy and gross panicles due to his selfishness last a 

 long time. 



PURGATORY. 



The coarse, .sensual man finds himself unable to 

 perceive any but coarse, sensual people. He finds 

 himself, he thinks, in hell among the damned. He 

 carries with him all his desires, which arc intensified. 

 He is unable to satisfy them : — 



Such a life is a very real hell — the only hell there is j yet no 

 one is punishing him ; he is reaping the perfectly natural result 

 of his own action. Grmlually .is time passes this force of 

 desire wears out, bill only at the cost of terrible siilTcring for 

 the man, because to liiiii every day seems as a thousand years. 

 The astral life, which the man has made for himself cither 

 miserable or comparatively joyous, corresponds lo what Chri«- 



tians call purgatory ; the lower mental life, which is always 

 entirely happy, is what is called heaven. 



AWAKING AFTER DEATH. 



Character is not in the slightest degree changed by death ; 

 the man's thoughts, emotions and desires are exactly the same 

 as before. He is in every way the same man, minus his physical 

 body ; and his happiness or misery depends upon the extent to 

 which this loss of the physical body affects him. The man who 

 finds himself in the astral world after death, if he has not sub- 

 mitted to the rearrangement of the matter of his body, will 

 notice but little difference from physical life. He can float 

 about in any direction at will, but in actual fact he usually stays 

 in the neighbourhood to which he is a survivor. He is still able 

 to perceive his house, his room, his furniture, his relations, his 

 friends. The living, when ignorant of the higher worlds, 

 suppose themselves to have " lost " those who have laid aside 

 their physical bodies ; but the dead are never for a moment 

 under the impression that they have lost the living. 



THE FATE OF THE AVERAGE DECENT MAN. 



For most people the state after death is much happier than 

 life upon earth. The first feeling of which the dead man is 

 usually conscious is one of the most wonderful and delightful 

 freedom. He has absolutely nothing to worry about, and no 

 duties rest upon him, except those which he chooses to impose 

 upon himself. For the first time since early childhood the man 

 is entirely free to spend the whole of his time in doing just 

 exactly what he likes. His capacity for every kind of enjoy- 

 ment is greatly enhanced, if only that enjoyment does not need 

 a physical body for its expression. Men are no longer hungry, 

 cold, or suffering from disease in this astral world ; but there 

 are vast numbers who, being ignorant, desire knowledge. 



THE DWELLERS " IN THE GREY." 



The etheric double which remains in a man wheii- 

 he sleeps leaves the corpse at death. The astral body 

 has at first some difficulty in freeing itself from this 

 etheric double, and until they do they are unable to 

 function either in the physical or in the astral 

 world : — 



There are some men who cling so desperately lo their physical 

 vehicles that they will not relax their hold upon the etheric 

 double, but strive with all their might to retain it. They 

 may be successful in doing so for a considerable time, but 

 only at the cost of great discomfort to themselves. They are 

 shut out from both worlds, and find themselves sur- 

 rounded by a dense grey mist, through which they see very 

 dimly the things of the physical world, but with all the colour 

 gone from them. It is a terrible struggle to them lo maintain 

 their position in this miserable condition, and yet they will 

 not relax their hold upon the etheric double, feeling that that 

 is at least some sort of link with the only world that they know. 

 Thus they drift about in a condition of loneliness and misery 

 until from sheer fatigue their hold fails them, and they slip into 

 the comparative happiness of astral life. 

 HFAVEN. 



Even astral life has possibilities of happiness far greater than 

 anything that we can know in the dense lx>dy ; but the heaven- 

 life in the mental world is out of all proportion more blissful 

 than the astral, f )n each higher plane the same experience is 

 repeated. Merely to live on any one of them seems the utter- 

 most conceivable bliss ; and yet, when the next one is reached, 

 it is seen that this far surp.isscs it. To a largo extent people 

 make their own surroundings in the higher astral plane. This, 

 however, is not the end. Progress is infinite. It is always 

 l)ctler in the summcrland of which we hear in spiritualistic 

 circles — the world in which, by the exercise of their thought, 

 the dt.nl call into temporary existence their houses and schools 

 anil cities. These surroundings, though fanciful from our point 

 of view, are to the dead (l« real as houses, temples or churches 

 built of stone are to us, and many people live very contentedly 

 there for a number of yc irs in the midst of all these thought- 

 creations. 



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