in Mr Sinnett’s book.  The attraction of this feminine sphere became at last so overpowering, that I determined to visit it in my astral body; and now occurred the first of many most remarkable experiences which were to follow.  It is well known to the initiated, though difficult to explain to those who are not, that in a sense space ceases to exist for the astral body.  When you get out of your rupa, you are out of space as ordinary persons understand it, though it continues to have a certain subjective existence.

I was in this condition, and travelling rapidly in the desired direction, when I became conscious of the presence of the most exquisitely lovely female astral body which the imagination of man could conceive; and here I may incidentally remark, that no conception can be formed of the beauty to which woman can attain by those who have only seen her in her rupa—­or, in other words, in the flesh.  Woman’s real charm consists in her linga sharira—­that ethereal duplicate of the physical body which guides jiva, or the second principle, in its work on the physical particles, and causes it to build up the shape which these assume in the material.  Sometimes it makes rather a failure of it, so far as the rupa is concerned, but it always retains its own fascinating contour and deliciously diaphanous composition undisturbed.  When my gaze fell upon this most enchanting object, or rather subject—­for I was in a subjective condition at the time—­I felt all the senses appertaining to my third principle thrill with emotion; but it seemed impossible—­which will readily be understood by the initiated—­to convey to her any clear idea of the admiration she excited, from the fact that we were neither of us in natural space.  Still the sympathy between our linga shariras was so intense, that I perceived that I had only to go back for my rupa, and travel in it to the region of the sisterhood, to recognise her in her rupa at once.

Every chela even knows how impossible it is to make love satisfactorily in nothing but your linga sharira.  It is quite different after you are dead, and have gone in your fourth principle, or kama rupa, which is often translated “body of desire,” into devachan; for, as Mr Sinnett most correctly remarks, “The purely sensual feelings and tastes of the late personality will drop off from it in devachan; but it does not follow that nothing is preservable in that state, except feelings and thoughts having a direct reference to religion or spiritual philosophy.  On the contrary, all the superior phases, even of sensuous emotion, find their appropriate sphere of development in devachan.”  Until you are obliged to go to devachan—­which, in ordinary parlance, is the place good men go to when they die—­my advice is, stick to your rupa; and indeed it is the instinct of everybody who is not a mahatma to do this.  I admit—­though