There arose a strange storm—­darkness fell over the place—­weird electrical disturbances manifested themselves.  The winds abated and a strange quiet fell over all the scene, which was lighted by a ghastly glow.  And then came the earthquake, with strange groanings and moanings of the earth; with frightful stenches of sulphur and gas.  And the very foundations of Jerusalem quaked and shivered.  The rocks before the tombs flew off, and the dead bodies were exposed to view.  In the Temple, the veil before the Holy of Holies was rent in twain.

The cries of the people as they rushed to and fro in mortal terror took the attention of all from the cross.  Then the Roman officer in charge of the execution, glancing upward, saw that all was over, and, falling before the cross, he cried out, “Verily, this man was a god!”

Jesus the Master had passed out from the body which had served as His tenement for thirty-three years.  His body was borne away for burial, in a secret place.  Embalmed by loving friends, it was carried to a place of last earthly rest.

* * * * *

And now we come to a portion of the narrative in which the occult traditions and teachings diverge from the account stated in the Gospels.  We should have said apparently diverge, for the two accounts vary only because of the varying points of view and different degrees of understanding of the teachers.

We allude to the events of the Resurrection.

It must be remembered that Jesus had informed His disciples that in three days He would “rise from the dead” and appear once more among them.  To the ordinary understanding these events seem to indicate that the Master would once more occupy His physical body, and that His reappearance was to be so understood.  And the Gospel narrative certainly seems to verify this idea, and was undoubtedly so stated that it might be more readily understood by the popular mind.

But the occult traditions hold otherwise.  They hold that Jesus really appeared to His disciples three days after His death, and abode with them for a time teaching and instructing them in the deeper mysteries and secret doctrines.  But the mystics have always held and taught that His reappearance was in the Astral Body, and not in the discarded physical form.

To the popular mind the physical body was almost everything, as we have shown in one of the earlier lessons of this series.  So much was this so that the mass of the people expected that all mankind would arise from the dead at the Last Day clad in their former physical forms.  And so, any other teaching would have been unintelligible to them.

But to the occultists and mystics who understood the truth about the more ethereal vehicles of the soul, such an idea appeared crude and unscientific, and they readily grasped the Inner Teachings regarding the Resurrection, and understood the reason why Jesus would use the Astral Body as the vehicle of His reappearance.