Review of Reviews, 1J7J0C. 



The Book of the Month. 



99 



temptation ; but if he is well trained in youth to 

 crucify the body and its lusts, he will outgrow the 

 temptation, and " never again in all his long series 

 of future lives will he repeat that mistake." ' 



OUE PHYSICAL LIFE ONE THIRTIETH OF AN 

 INCAENATIOX. 



The essence of the theosophical teaching about 

 death is that it is only a point in the long history 

 of the life of the soul. Birth is one point, death is 

 another. Each marks a transition from one stage of 

 existence to another. All of us, according to Mr. 

 Leadheater, have already passed many times through 

 the gates of death and through the gates of birth. If 

 we could but remember, we should feel equally at 

 home in our cradle as in our grave. Our physical 

 life, Mr. Leadbeater tells us, averages about one- 

 thirtieth of the period of our existence as one con- 

 scious entity. That is to say, if a man lives fifty 

 years on earth, he will pass about 1500 years on the 

 other side of the grave before he is reincarnated on 

 this earth. Memory subsists and conscious person- 

 ality lasts for 1500 years. Then memory is dimmed, 

 and the soul begins its new pilgrimage of 1500 years 

 with a fresh set of memories and experiences, and 

 so forth, for an indefinite period of successive in- 

 carnations, until it is made perfect. Such is the . 

 theory, or, rather, one theory of reincarnation — for 

 there are several. In some the time between each 

 incarnation is much shorter than r5oo years. But 

 leaving theories on one side, what is it that happens 

 when we die ? 



WHAT HAPPENS AT DEATH. 



When a man dies he dies without pain. The 

 death-rattle and the death-struggle are usually but 

 the convulsions of the body after the soul has quitted 

 its earthly tenement. The dead man simply wakes 

 up as from a sleep to discover that he is free from 

 weariness and pain. He does not at first realise that 

 he is dead. He thinks he is " dreaming." He looks 

 about him and sees the same rooms with which he 

 is familiar, peopled still by those whom he has 

 known and loved ; he still sees and hears, thinks and 

 feels. " I am not dead," he will often say, " I am 

 alive as much as ever and better than I ever was 

 before." Conviction that he is really dead comes to 

 him usually by his finding that his friends cannot 

 hear him or feel his touch. Then he feels uneasy, 

 and does not understand. An English general once 

 said when he woke up from the sleep of death : " If 

 I am dead, where am I? If this is heaven, I don't 

 think much of it ; and if it is hell, it is better than 

 I expected." His desires still persist, and around 

 him are the embodied thought-forms which he has 

 created in his life. 



WHAT FIXES OUE FATE. 



Whether his life is one of happiness or discomfort 

 w-ill depend chiefly upon the nature of these: — 



On the contrary, man remains after death exactly what 

 he was before it— t}ie same in inteUect. the same in liis 



qualities and powers; and the conditions into which the 

 man passes are precisely those tliat he has made tor him- 

 self. The thoughts and desires which he has encouraged 

 within himself during earth-life take form as definite living 

 entities, hovering around him and reacting upon him until 

 the energy which he poured into them is exhausted. When 

 such thoughts and desires have been powerful and persis- 

 tently evil, the companions so created may indeed be ter- 

 rible"; but. happily, such cases form a very small minority 

 among tlie dwellers in the astral world. The worst that the 

 ordinary man of the world usually provides for himself 

 after death is a useless and unutterably wearisome exist- 

 ence, void of all rational interests — the natural sequence 

 of a life wasted in self-indulgence, triviality, and gossip 

 her© on earth. 



There is no reward or punishment from outside, but only 

 the actual result of what the man himself has done and 

 said and thought while here on earth. In faet. the man 

 makes his bed during earth-life,, and afterwards he has 

 to lie on it. 



THE BOKEDOM OF THE WORLDLIXG. 



Mr. Leadbeater then describes in detail the fate 

 of various typical souls when they pass over into 

 the next life. He takes as his first example the 

 oidinary colourless, selfish worldling, neither speci- 

 ally good nor specially bad. He is likely to be 

 bored inexpressibly in the next life. For all the 

 things which filled his mind on earth — his gossip, his 

 business, his sport, his dress, his dinners — have van- 

 ished, and there is nothing to fill the void. He has 

 laid up no treasures in heaven, and he finds himself 

 lonely, miserable, and unoccupied, with nothing to 

 do. nothing to interest him, and a good deal to an- 

 noy him in his inability to satisfy any of his tastes 

 and appetites. Helpers come to his rescue, and 

 sometimes he responds to their teaching and escapes 

 from the dull realm of nothingness into a higher 

 plane. But " sometimes such a man will settle down 

 into a condition of apathetic despair, and surround 

 himself with a heavy black cloud of depression 

 which it is exceedingly difficult to dissipate." Such 

 a man becomes a dweller in the outer darkness. 



THE TOETUEES OF THE DAMNED. 



When Mr. Leadbeater comes to describe the fate 

 of the drunkard and the sensualist, his narrative in- 

 creases in horror. Tantalus and Sisyphus, he says, 

 were accurate representations of the actual fate of 

 the voluptuary whose uncontrolled physical appetites 

 become stronger rather than weaker after death, 

 " since their vibrations have no longer the heavy 

 physical particles to set in motion." Sometimes they 

 suffer from the pangs -of remorse, at other times 

 they make frantic and successful efforts to possess 

 themselves of the bodies of the living through which 

 thev can renew their debaucheries. For this an awful 

 expiation is exacted, and the state of the frenzied 

 but impotent sensualist becomes worse than before. 



Mr. Leadbeater says that the dead miser suffers 

 by seeing his gold squandered by those into whose 

 possession it has come, and the jealous are doomed 

 to watch with unavailing rage the affection they 

 sought to monopolise showered upon others. " Jeal- 

 ousy at all times is utterly selfish and irrational, but 

 after death its surgings often become yet wilder, and 

 its unfortunate victim seems further removed than 

 ever from the faintest gleam of common sense." 



