(4) Which what it finds there active doth attract Into its substance, and becomes one soul, Which lives, and feels, and on itself revolves. And that thou less may wonder at my word, Behold the sun's heat, which becometh wine, Joined to the juice that from the vine distils. Whenever Lachesis has no more thread, It separates from the flesh, and virtually Bears with itself the human and divine; The other faculties are voiceless all; The memory, the intelligence, and the will In action far more vigorous than before. Without a pause it falleth of itself In marvellous way on one shore or the other; There of its roads it first is cognizant. Soon as the place there circumscribeth it, The virtue informative rays round about, As, and as much as, in the living members. And even as the air, when full of rain, By alien rays that are therein reflected, With divers colours shows itself adorned, So there the neighbouring air doth shape itself Into that form which doth impress upon it Virtually the soul that has stood still.

(10) This Elementary Soul survives the dissolution of the physical body of the individual to which it belonged, and under certain conditions and circumstances it may become visible to living persons as the "ghost" of the deceased person. When the Elementary Soul has been "sloughed off" by the higher vehicles of the Soul (after the physical "death"), and has also been released by the partial or complete disintegration of the physical body, it is really but a "shell" having for form and shape of the latter, and is almost lifeless, although held together by the cohesive forces of the fast-dying vibrations. In such cases it possesses neither intelligence nor consciousness beyond that concerned in holding its substance together and to all intents and purposes can be regarded as nothing more than a mass of cloudy vapor assuming the form of a human being , and destined to become speedily disintegrated on its own plane.

(16) It is the same for them who go out from the body. For when the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself within the blood, and the soul within the spirit. And then the mind, stripped of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgement and whatever chastisement it hath deserved. Tat: What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is parted from soul and soul from spirit? Whereas thou said'st the soul was the mind's vesture, and the soul's the spirit.

(13) The moment of "death" arriving for the person, the soul sloughs off the ordinary physical body, and clad in the garments of the Elemental Soul it leaves the scene of the physical body. At first, however, the separation is not complete, for the Elemental Soul is still attached to the physical body by a thin slender thread or cord, which finally breaks and allows the soul to proceed on its way. The garments of the Elemental Soul are of course, in a sense, "physical" just as truly as were the garments of the visible body which were just cast off by the soul. In these new garments, however, the person is invisible to the ordinary sight of men, and except in the case of clairvoyants its presence cannot be detected.

(1) Jesus continued again in the discourse and said: "If on the contrary it is a soul which hath not hearkened unto the counterfeiting spirit in all its works, but hath become good and hath received the mysteries of the Light which are in the second space or even those which are in the third space which is within, when the time [of the coming-forth] of that soul out of the body is completed, then the counterfeiting spirit followeth that soul, it and the destiny; and it followeth it on the way on which it will go above. "And before it removeth itself above, it uttereth the mystery of the undoing of the seals and all the bonds of the counterfeiting spirit with which the rulers have bound it to the soul; and when it is uttered, the bonds of the counterfeiting spirit undo themselves, and it ceaseth to come into that soul and releaseth the soul according to the commandments which the rulers of the great Fate have commanded it, saying: 'Release not this soul until it tell thee the mystery of the undoing of all the seals with which we have bound thee to the soul.' "If then the soul shall have uttered the mystery of the undoing of the seals and of all the bonds of the counterfeiting spirit, and if it ceaseth to come into the soul and ceaseth to be bound to it, then it uttereth in that moment a mystery and releaseth the destiny to its region to the rulers who are on the way of the midst. And it uttereth the mystery and releaseth the counterfeiting spirit to the rulers of the Fate to the region in which it was bound to it. "And in that moment it becometh a great light-stream, shining exceedingly, and the retributive receivers who have led it forth out of the body, are afraid of the light of that soul and fall on their faces. And in that moment that soul becometh a great light-stream, it becometh entirely wings of light, and penetrateth all the regions of the rulers and all the orders of the Light, until it reacheth the region of its kingdom up to which it hath received mysteries. "If on the other hand it is a soul which hath