what rigid. Responding to a somewhat stronger will, the yet denser Lemurian physical bodies became much like ours; but in sleep and other passive periods, they seemed almost boneless.

The physical globe still contains a goodly portion of the matter of the first, second, and third rounds, and their correspondents are still in the material bodies of the present race. If wholly normal, the physical body retains at all times the matter proper to the first, second, and third races, but from certain organisms this plasm can be extracted by the will and desire of one who is in or out of incarnation.

Among incarnate beings, the means to that end are known only to those whose developed spirituality forbids their employment of such a black art. As for discarnate beings, in the majority of instances their procedure is not that of the vampire, for they are required to return to the medium every plasm taken for specific ends. However, it must be said as a caution, that evil and degraded spirits often disregard this obligation.

The plasm inherited from the first race is the first material covering bequeathed by the mother to the child in the womb, and, because of its agelong association with the material body, this plasm almost automatically attempts in a crude way to reproduce that body. This initial effort is improved upon by the second plasm from the mother, and the foetal form is perfected by the

third plasm. Hence the notion that the growing fœtus reproduces certain animal forms from which the race has evolved.

Because of their semi-materiality, and their tendency to reproduce the human form, the first, second, and third plasms are the only existing substances with which the discarnate can contact the incarnate. A materializing medium is one who relinquishes the three plasms. Such mediums are necessarily rare, for their abundant giving proves their bodies pronouncedly abnormal in this respect. When not in use, the plasms on the surface of the body automatically group themselves, and then reproduce in miniature, the head, the arms, and other members from which they were extracted.

Trumpet-speaking requires that the vocal organs of the discarnate speaker be clothed with the first and second plasms. For cabinet work, and for moving weighty objects, the first two plasms are essential, but the third usually reinforces them. Even these would be inadequate, were they not made very rigid by the combined will and desire of the operating group of spirits. The ability of the plasms to become somewhat tense in the normal body, still inheres as an inheritance from the ancient races. Hence the energy imparted to that body by a determined attitude of mind is not wholly due to nerve and muscle. The office of the plasms is no inconsiderable one.

Clairvoyance and clariaudience requires more than the eye and the ear of the sensitive. Without the thin covering afforded by the first plasm— one given unconsciously by the sensitive-the departed would be seen and heard only by the highly-developed of this class; one rarely met in a seance, or in private. Even in automatic writing, the guiding intelligence must employ the first plasm.

Some contend that, despite every safeguard, this borrowing of plasms by discarnate beings harms the medium. However, these objectors are confronted by the fact that knowing the origin, nature, and effect of ectoplasm, in fact its every mystery, the Master nevertheless drew it from the Twelve, and demonstrated to Thomas, and through him to every subsequent doubter, the nothingness of death, the futility of the grave, and the continuing of life from this dark sphere even to the light beyond.

When one is well past middle life, and often before that time, his joints begin to stiffen, and his arteries to harden, and the three plasms gradually lose their mobility. Hence only in everlessening quantities these three are available for mediumistic manifestations, especially those that are largely physical. Because of these changes, the medium's powers are waning, and may eventually cease. Exceptions to this rule exist even as they do to the rule that advancing years bring

arterial degeneration, and other results of lime deposits in the body.

Finally: beside three coats of skin like those possessed by the Lemurians, the middle Atlanteans had two denser ones. The outer of these is now wholly discarded, and the race experience gained therein is preserved, and we are beginning the slow process of refining the fourth coat which, after its purpose is served, will share the fate of the fifth. Then the human form becomes the evolved correspondent of the Lemurian body, and the racewith the exception of certain derelicts—is in touch with the lower planes of the spiritual world.

The Lemurian body discarded, and the race experience preserved, the remaining two coats will be the evolved correspondent of the body proper to the second race. Hence that remainder will be in touch with the middle regions of the spiritual world. The outer of the two vehicles discarded, and its experience preserved, humanity then functions in that evolved inheritance from the first race, the perfected and deathless Adamic or Christ body, not only the similitude of that in which he rose, but also the one yet to become the common possession of those who, through ages of progression, shall have risen from the negative condition of primitive man to the positive one proper to the perfected sons of God.

H. and H. P. B.

THE WEIGHT OF THE SOUL

CAN the human soul be weighed, and, if so, can

it turn the most delicate balance as does a hair, or a pencil mark? We reply that the human soul has absolutely no weight determinable by physical means. When, by some ingenious method, the soul of the dying seems to have been weighed, because the dead body has lost several ounces, then appearences are misleading; they mean only that certain physical atoms adhere to the departing astral body.

In demonstrating our contention we should say first, that this world is no mere accumulation of earth, water, and air, but, like man himself, it is seven-fold. The astral globe permeates its physical counterpart, and extends far beyond it, while, according to their tenuity, the other five components of the globe-chain outspread their larger and larger girth almost to the outlying regions of the planet Mars.

Since the weight of an object is but the measure of its gravity, and since the physical globe exerts no pull on astral substance, it follows that a discarnate being is not held in the grave until some mythical trumpet-sounding. Moreover, the weight of his astral body can be determined only by balances composed of astral substance. During earth life, the preponderance of the physical body