Vol 4 Page 448

COMMENT ON “ANOTHER ‘SPIRITUAL’ PUZZLE”

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 8, May, 1883, pp. 203-204.]

[Under the above title is published a letter in which the writer relates a curious experience, and asks for an explanation. He had been subject to “most unpleasant sensations” for a week subsequent to the sudden death of his neighbour whom he “knew little,” finally receiving “through impressions” a communication from him. The deceased neighbour appeared to be seeking sympathy and help. At the same time the widow of the deceased called upon the

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writer, saying that she had seen her husband, and he had tried to speak with her.
The letter ends with the query: “What is the explanation, presuming, of course, that the two manifestations were from the same source?”
H.P.B. appends the following note:]

This letter has been neglected for some time by reason of more pressing claims on our attention. The case described is an illustration of spiritual communications of a class which very naturally render empirical observers of such phenomena reluctant to accept what is nevertheless their true explanation: The “communicating intelligence” is not really an intelligence at all; it is partly a reflection of ideas in the mind of the living medium, partly a survival of impulses imparted to the kama-rupa, or fourth principle of the deceased person, before the separation therefrom of the intelligence which really belonged to it in life. The long message imparted by impression to our correspondent takes its form from his own mind. His friend must have died thinking of him, however slight their acquaintance was during life. The true soul of the dead man went its own way having the fourth principle, the agent and instrument of its volitions during life, impressed with an unfulfilled impulse to communicate with our correspondent. The kama-rupa then blindly and unconsciously awaited its opportunity and pressed in the direction of its fulfilment. The vision seen by the widow was provoked by another of the dead man’s latter impulses—perhaps the very last and strongest. The kama-rupa had, so to speak, received its orders which it could not help fulfilling.