Vol 5 Page 108

EDITOR’S NOTE TO “EFFICACY OF FUNERAL CEREMONIES”

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 11(47), August, 1883, p. 286.]

[The writer discusses the subject of Devachan and the dissolution of the personality in the kâma-loka. He is wondering whether any ceremony or rite can protect the personality during its period of disintegration, and make it impenetrable to mediumistic and other evil influences, until it has had time to dissolve. The question is asked as to the maximum number of years during which such ceremony should be performed. To this H.P.B. appends the following note:]

A ceremony to furnish the shell “with an armour” against terrestrial attraction need not be repeated “a number of years” to become efficacious, could it but be performed by a person versed in the knowledge of the Magi of old. One such ceremony on the night of death would suffice. But where is the Mobed or priest capable of performing it now? It requires a true occultist—and these are not found at every street corner. Hence it becomes useless to add ruin to the living, since the dead cannot be helped.