The Shell is the desire body, emptied of the Triad, which has now
passed onwards; it is the third of the transitory garments of Soul,
cast aside and left in Kâmaloka to disintegrate.
When the past earth-life has been noble, or even when it has been of
average purity and utility, this Shell retains but little vitality
after the passing onwards of the Triad, and rapidly dissolves. Its
molecules, however, retain, during this process of disintegration, the
impressions made upon them during the earth-life, the tendency to
vibrate in response to stimuli constantly experienced during that
period. Every student of physiology is familiar with what is termed
automatic action, with the tendency of cells to repeat vibrations
originally set up by purposive action; thus are formed what we term
habits, and we unconsciously repeat motions which at first were done
with thought. So strong is this automatism of the body, that, as
everyone knows by experience, it is difficult to break off the use of
a phrase or of a gesture that has become "habitual."
Now the desire body is during earth-life the recipient of and the
respondent to all stimuli from without, and it also continually
receives and responds to stimuli from the lower Manas. In it are set
up habits, tendencies to repeat automatically familiar vibrations,
vibrations of love and desire, vibrations imaging past experiences of
all kinds. Just as the hand may repeat a familiar gesture, so may the
desire body repeat a familiar feeling or thought. And when the Triad
has left it, this automatism remains, and the Shell may thus simulate
feelings and thoughts which are empty of all true intelligence and
will. Many of the responses to eager enquiries at _séances_ come from
such Shells, drawn to the neighbourhood of friends and relatives by
the magnetic attractions so long familiar and dear, and automatically
responding to the waves of emotion and remembrance, to the impulse of
which they had so often answered during the lately closed earth-life.
Phrases of affection, moral platitudes, memories of past events, will
be all the communications such Shells can make, but these may be
literally poured out under favourable conditions under the magnetic
stimuli freely applied by the embodied friends and relatives.
In cases where the lower Manas during earth-life has been strongly
attached to material objects and to intellectual pursuits directed by
a self-seeking motive, the desire body may have acquired a very
considerable automatism of an intellectual character, and may give
forth responses of considerable intellectual merit. But still the mark
of non-originality will be present: the apparent intellectuality will
only give out reproductions, and there will be no sign of the new and
independent thought which would be the inevitable outcome of a strong
intelligence working with originality amid new surroundings.
Intellectual sterility brands the great majority of communications
from the "spirit world"; reflections of earthly scenes, earthly
conditions, earthly arrangements, are plentiful, but we usually seek
in vain for strong, new thought, worthy of Intelligences freed from
the prison of the flesh. The communications of a loftier kind
occasionally granted are, for the most part, from non-human
Intelligences, attracted by the pure atmosphere of the medium or
sitters.
And there is an ever-present danger in this commerce with the Shells.
Just because they are Shells, and nothing more, they answer to the
impulses that strike on them from without, and easily become malicious
and mischievous, automatically responding to evil vibrations. Thus a
medium, or sitters of poor moral character, will impress the Shells
that flock around them with impulses of a low order, and any animal
desires, petty and foolish thoughts, will set up similar vibrations in
the blindly responsive Shells.
Again, the Shell is very easily taken possession of by Elementals, the
semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of Nature, and may be
used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. The
etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their
immortal Tenants, give the material basis by which Elementals can work
many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of _séances_ may
be confidently appealed to, and asked whether many of the childish
freaks with which they are familiar--pullings of hair, pinchings,
slaps, throwing about of objects, piling up of furniture, playing on
accordions, &c.--are not more rationally accounted for as the tricky
vagaries of sub-human forces, than as the actions of "spirits" who,
while in the body, were certainly incapable of such vulgarities.
Let us leave the Shells alone to peacefully dissolve into their
elements, and mingle once again in the crucible of Nature. The authors
of the _Perfect Way_ put very well the real character of the Shell.
The true "ghost" consists of the exterior and earthly portion
of the Soul, that portion which, being weighted with cares,
attachments, and memories merely mundane, is detached by the
Soul and remains in the astral sphere, an existence more or
less definite and personal, and capable of holding, through a
sensitive, converse with the living. It is, however, but as a
cast-off vestment of the Soul, and is incapable of endurance
_as ghost_. The true Soul and real person, the _anima
divina_, parts at death with all those lower affections
which would have retained it near its earthly haunts.[24]
If we would find our beloved, it is not among the decaying remnants in
Kâmaloka that we should seek them. "Why seek ye the living among the
dead?"