Lehal Library

"I have felt," he says later, "that something should be said here on a problem which has, generally speaking, been left in a very nebulous state. I have judged this course all the more incumbent upon me as in the present volume the expressions 'astral' and 'etheric' have been employed as synonymous, and it might well be asked whether or in what manner I differentiated one from the other." Mr. Shirley is quite right about the difficulties to be faced, but I think facing them will assist a clearer understanding of etheric achievement. My own objection to the term "astral" in describing the evolution and adventure of the subtle body, is that it is thus inferentially connected with the astral plane. But such connection is in practice extraordinarily rare. The purposeful users of the Double only on exceptional occasions quit their terrestrial surroundings, or make any contact with astral inhabitants; their reports of astral conditions are not always convincing. Yram, that ingenious French projectionist, is an exception; but there is a suspicion of trance interference in the records of some of his flights. For the most part the Doubles meet the people they know, traverse familiar scenes, or others with which they are mentally acquainted. They are, so far as we can define such things, fourth dimensional creatures, who are able to disregard the apparent solidity of matter; indeed, they can confirm, in this particular, the latest discoveries of science, being able to treat that deceiver as it deserves, by passing through it. But, so near are they to earth, that some slight difference in their make-up, of which they are themselves unaware, may force them to halt at obstacles through which, previously, they have passed unhindered.