The etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the gross body of
man. It is the double that is sometimes seen during life in the
neighbourhood of the body, and its absence from the body is generally
marked by the heaviness or semi-lethargy of the latter. Acting as the
reservoir, or vehicle, of the life-principle during earth-life, its
withdrawal from the body is naturally marked by the lowering of all
vital functions, even while the cord which unites the two is still
unbroken. As has been already said, the snapping of the cord means the
death of the body.
When the etheric double finally quits the body, it does not travel to
any distance from it. Normally it remains floating over the body, the
state of consciousness being dreamy and peaceful, unless tumultuous
distress and violent emotion surround the corpse from which it has
just issued. And here it may be well to say that during the slow
process of dying, while the etheric double is withdrawing from the
body, taking with it the higher principles, as after it has withdrawn,
extreme quiet and self-control should be observed in the chamber of
Death. For during this time the whole life passes swiftly in review
before the Ego, the individual, as those have related who have passed
in drowning into this unconscious and pulseless state. A Master has
written:
_At the last moment the whole life is reflected in our
memory, and emerges from all the forgotten nooks and corners,
picture after picture, one event after another.... The man
may often appear dead, yet from the last pulsation, from and
between the last throbbing of his heart and the moment when
the last spark of animal heat leaves the body_, the brain
thinks, _and the Ego lives over in those few brief seconds
his whole life. Speak in whispers, ye who assist at a
deathbed, and find yourselves in the solemn presence of
death. Especially have ye to keep quiet just after death has
laid her clammy hand upon the body. Speak in whispers, I say,
lest ye disturb the quiet ripple of thought, and hinder the
busy work of the past, casting its reflection upon the veil
of the future._[12]
This is the time during which the thought-images of the ended
earth-life, clustering around their maker, group and interweave
themselves into the completed image of that life, and are impressed in
their totality on the Astral Light. The dominant tendencies, the
strongest thought-habits, assert their pre-eminence, and stamp
themselves as the characteristics which will appear as "innate
qualities" in the succeeding incarnation. This balancing-up of the
life-issues, this reading of the kârmic records, is too solemn and
momentous a thing to be disturbed by the ill-timed wailings of
personal relatives and friends.
At the solemn moment of death every man, even when death is
sudden, sees the whole of his past life marshalled before
him, in its minutest details. For one short instant the
_personal_ become one with the _individual_ and all-knowing
Ego. But this instant is enough to show to him the whole
chain of causes which have been at work during his life. He
sees and now understands himself as he is, unadorned by
flattery or self-deception. He reads his life, remaining as a
spectator, looking down into the arena he is quitting.[13]
This vivid sight is succeeded, in the ordinary person, by the dreamy,
peaceful semi-consciousness spoken of above, as the etheric double
floats above the body to which it has belonged, now completely
separated from it.
Sometimes this double is seen by persons in the house, or in the
neighbourhood, when the thought of the dying has been strongly turned
to some one left behind, when some anxiety has been in the mind at the
last, something left undone which needed doing, or when some local
disturbance has shaken the tranquillity of the passing entity. Under
these conditions, or others of a similar nature, the double may be
seen or heard; when seen, it shows the dreamy, hazy consciousness
alluded to, is silent, vague in its aspect, unresponsive.
As the days go on, the five higher principles gradually disengage
themselves from the etheric double, and shake this off as they
previously shook off the grosser body. They pass on, as a fivefold
entity, into a state to be next studied, leaving the etheric double,
with the dense body of which it is the counterpart, thus becoming an
ethereal corpse, as much as the body had become a dense corpse. This
ethereal corpse remains near the dense one, and they disintegrate
together; clairvoyants see these ethereal wraiths in churchyards,
sometimes showing likeness to the dead dense body, sometimes as violet
mists or lights. Such an ethereal corpse has been seen by a friend of
my own, passing through the horribly repulsive stages of
decomposition, a ghastly vision in face of which clairvoyance was
certainly no blessing. The process goes on _pari passu_, until all but
the actual bony skeleton of the dense body is completely
disintegrated, and the particles have gone to form other combinations.
One of the great advantages of cremation--apart from all sanitary
conditions--lies in the swift restoration to Mother Nature of the
physical elements composing the dense and ethereal corpses, brought
about by the burning. Instead of slow and gradual decomposition, swift
dissociation takes place, and no physical remnants are left, working
possible mischief.
The ethereal corpse may to some extent be revivified for a short
period after its death. Dr. Hartmann says:
The fresh corpse of a person who has suddenly been killed may
be galvanised into a semblance of life by the application of
a galvanic battery. Likewise the astral corpse of a person
may be brought back into an artificial life by being infused
with a part of the life principle of the medium. If that
corpse is one of a very intellectual person, it may talk
very intellectually; and if it was that of a fool it will
talk like a fool.[14]
This mischievous procedure can only be carried out in the
neighbourhood of the corpse, and for a very limited time after death,
but there are cases on record of such galvanising of the ethereal
corpse, performed at the grave of the departed person. Needless to say
that such a process belongs distinctly to "Black" Magic, and is wholly
evil. Ethereal corpses, like dense ones, if not swiftly destroyed by
burning, should be left in the silence and the darkness, a silence and
a darkness that it is the worst profanity to break.