It remains a problem why Christianity, which vigorously and joyously re-affirmed it, should have growing in its midst the unique terror of Death that has played so large a part in its social life, its literature, and its art.  It is not simply the belief in hell that has surrounded the grave with horror, for other Religions have had their hells, and yet their followers have not been harassed by this shadowy Fear.  The Chinese, for instance, who take Death as such a light and trivial thing, have a collection of hells quite unique in their varied unpleasantness.  Maybe the difference is a question of race rather than of creed; that the vigorous life of the West shrinks from its antithesis, and that its unimaginative common-sense finds a bodiless condition too lacking in solidity of comfort; whereas the more dreamy, mystical East, prone to meditation, and ever seeking to escape from the thraldom of the senses during earthly life, looks on the disembodied state as eminently desirable, and as most conducive to unfettered thought.

Ere passing to the consideration of the history of man in the post-mortem state, it is necessary, however briefly, to state the constitution of man, as viewed by the Esoteric Philosophy, for we must have in mind the constituents of his being ere we can understand their disintegration.  Man then consists of

The Immortal Triad: 

Atma. 
Buddhi. 
Manas.

The Perishable Quaternary: 

Kama. 
Prana. 
Etheric Double. 
Dense Body.

The dense body is the physical body, the visible, tangible outer form, composed of various tissues.  The etheric double is the ethereal counterpart of the body, composed of the physical ethers.  Prana is vitality, the integrating energy that co-ordinates the physical molecules and holds them together in a definite organism; it is the life-breath within the organism, the portion of the universal Life-Breath, appropriated by the organism during the span of existence that we speak of as “a life”.  Kama is the aggregate of appetites, passions, and emotions, common to man and brute.  Manas is the Thinker in us, the Intelligence.  Buddhi is the vehicle wherein Atma, the Spirit, dwells, and in which alone it can manifest.

Now the link between the Immortal Triad and the Perishable Quaternary is Manas, which is dual during earth life, or incarnation, and functions as Higher Manas and Lower Manas.  Higher Manas sends out a Ray, Lower Manas, which works in and through the human brain, functioning there as brain-consciousness, as the ratiocinating intelligence.  This mingles with Kama, the passional nature, the passions and emotions thus becoming a part of Mind, as defined in Western Psychology.  And so we have the link formed between the higher and lower natures in man, this Kama-Manas belonging to the higher by its manasic, and to the lower by its kamic, elements.  As this forms the battleground during life, so does it play an important part in post-mortem existence.  We might now classify our seven principles a little differently, having in view this mingling in Kama-Manas of perishable and imperishable elements: