Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00249)

" But the amount of consciousness that a person will have upon a 
given sub-plane does not invariably follow precisely the same law. 
Let us consider an extreme example of possible variation, in order 
that we may grasp its method. Suppose a man has brought over from his 
past incarnation tendencies requiring for their manifestation a large 
amount of the matter of the lowest sub-plane, and has in his present 
life been fortunate enough to learn in his earliest years the 
possibility and the necessity of controlling these tendencies. It is 
improbable that such a man' s efforts at control would be uniformly 
and entirely successful; but if they were, the substitution of finer 
for grosser particles would progress steadily though slowly. 
20. This 
process is at best a gradual one, and it might well happen that the 
man died before it was half completed. In that case there would 
undoubtedly be enough matter of the lowest sub-plane left in his 
astral body to ensure him no inconsiderable residence there; but it 
would be matter through which in this incarnation his consciousness 
had never been in the habit of functioning, and, as it could not 
suddenly acquire this habit, the result would be that the man would 
rest upon that sub-plane until his share of its matter was 
disintegrated, but would be all the while in a condition of 
unconsciousness-- that is, he would practically sleep through the 
period of his sojourn there, and so would be entirely unaffected by 
its many disagreeables. 

21. It 
will be seen that both these factors of post-mortem existence-- the 
sub-plane to which the man is carried and the degree of his 
consciousness there-- depend not in the least on the nature of his 
death, but upon the nature of his life, so that any accident, however 
sudden or terrible, can scarcely affect them. Nevertheless, there is 
reason behind the familiar old prayer of the Church: "From sudden 
death, good Lord, deliver us;" for though a sudden death does not 
necessarily affect the man's position upon the astral plane in any 
way for the worse, at least it does nothing to improve it, whereas 
the slow wasting away of the aged or the ravages of any kind of long-
continued disease are almost invariably accompanied by a considerable 
loosening and breaking up of the astral particles, so that when the 
man recovers consciousness upon the astral plane, he finds some at 
any rate of his chief work there already done for him. "

Complete book can be read at
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