astral entities. Therefore it emerges that a man in this condition can see
only the undesirable inhabitants of the astral world, and can feel only its
most unpleasant and vulgar influences.

He is surrounded by other men, whose astral bodies are probably of quite
ordinary character; but since he can see and feel only that which is lowest
and coarsest in them, they appear to him to be monsters of vice with no
redeeming features. Even his friends seem not at all what they used to be,
because he is now incapable of appreciating any of their better qualities.
Under these circumstances it is little wonder that he considers the astral
world a hell; yet the fault is in no way with the astral world, but with
himself--first, for allowing within himself so much of that cruder type of
matter, and, secondly, for letting that vague astral consciousness dominate
him and dispose it in that particular way.

The man who has studied these matters declines absolutely to yield to the
pressure during life or to permit the rearrangement after death, and
consequently he retains his power of seeing the astral world as a whole,
and not merely the cruder and baser part of it.

The astral world has many points in common with the physical; just like the
physical, it presents different appearances to different people, and even
to the same person at different periods of his career. It is the home of
emotions and of lower thoughts; and emotions are much stronger in that
world than in this. When a person is awake we cannot see that larger part
of his emotion at all; its strength goes in setting in motion the gross
physical matter of the brain. So if we see a man show affection here, what
we can see is not the whole of his affection, but only such part of it as
is left after all this other work has been done. Emotions therefore bulk
far more largely in the astral life than in the physical. They in no way