So, then, we have arrived at the point where we have determined—­ literally, not metaphorically—­to crack the outer shell known as the mortal coil or body, and hatch out of it, clothed in our next.  This “next” is not spiritual, but only a more ethereal form.  Having by a long training and preparation adapted it for a life in this atmosphere, during which time we have gradually made the outward shell to die off through a certain process (hints of which will be found further on) we have to prepare for this physiological transformation.

How are we to do it?  In the first place we have the actual, visible, material body—­Man, so called; though, in fact, but his outer shell—­to deal with.  Let us bear in mind that science teaches us that in about every seven years we change skin as effectually as any serpent; and this so gradually and imperceptibly that, had not science after years of unremitting study and observation assured us of it, no one would have had the slightest suspicion of the fact.

We see, moreover, that in process of time any cut or lesion upon the body, however deep, has a tendency to repair the loss and reunite; a piece of lost skin is very soon replaced by another.  Hence, if a man, partially flayed alive, may sometimes survive and be covered with a new skin, so our astral, vital body—­the fourth of the seven (having attracted and assimilated to itself the second) and which is so much more ethereal than the physical one—­may be made to harden its particles to the atmospheric changes.  The whole secret is to succeed in evolving it out, and separating it from the visible; and while its generally invisible atoms proceed to concrete themselves into a compact mass, to gradually get rid of the old particles of our visible frame so as to make them die and disappear before the new set has had time to evolve and replace them.  We can say no more.  The Magdalene is not the only one who could be accused of having “seven spirits” in her, though men who have a lesser number of spirits (what a misnomer that word!) in them, are not few or exceptional; they are the frequent failures of nature—­the incomplete men and women.*

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* This is not to be taken as meaning that such persons are thoroughly
destitute of some one or several of the seven principles—­a man born
without an arm has still its ethereal counterpart;  but that they are so
latent that they cannot be developed, and consequently are to be
considered as non-existing.—­Ed. Theos.
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Each of these has in turn to survive the preceding and more dense one, and then die.  The exception is the sixth when absorbed into and blended with the seventh.  The “Phatu” * of the old Hindu physiologist had a dual meaning, the esoteric side of which corresponds with the Tibetan “Zung” (seven principles of the body).