But given a Linga Sharira, having within it centers of sensation for the reception and transmutation of molecular vibrations, which centers respond and yield to the will, then a stronger will can interpose between the soul and such centers of sensation, with the results brought out by hypnotism, the phenomena of which is thus satisfactorily explained. This will be more fully seen in the chapter devoted to the bearing of hypnotism and Mesmerism upon the phenomena of consciousness.

The Linga Sharira is formed of "matter" immediately above or "within" that of the physical earth. It disintegrates with the body, of which it is, as stated, an ethereal counterpart, whose office is to furnish a connecting link between man's inner Ego and the coarser physical molecules.

The third human Principle is Prana; vaguely recognized by science as "vitality," because of the constant occurrence within the human organism of phenomena exceeding the possibility of being explained by any "natural" - i. e., materialistic - law. It is the phenomenal aspect of the universal Life Principle in the Universe; or of that which Eastern philosophers call Jiva. Jiva is but one of many terms for the Force-Aspect of the Causeless Cause; the latter being objectivized as the "Light," the "Life," or the creative power of the Logoi. There is no point in space where this Jiva, or "Light," is not potentially present; when it becomes a potency, it is transmuted into Prana. Thus Prana is not the life principle in man alone, but also that of every entity in the material universe, whether that entity be ensouled in the mineral kingdom as a stone, in the vegetable as a plant, or in the animal or human kingdoms as individual members of these natural divisions. Jiva and Prana are one; Jiva becomes Prana when apparently refracted and differentiated by matter or substance.

The fourth human Principle is Kama, or desire. Like all the others, this is also an universal principle in nature. It finds its point of grossest and most material expression upon the fourth plane of the Cosmos, and upon the seventh subplane, or the human-animal plane. In its highest aspect, Kama is that pure, untainted spiritual Compassion-Desire which brings the objective universe into activity, that it may again permit subconscious entities to take up their evolution towards freedom from limitation. In its lowest aspect, it is reflected in the "loves of the atoms" by which molecular association becomes possible. In animals and animal-man, it is a raging, irrationalized, insatiable selfishness; the cause of that apparently cruel "struggle for existence," which we observe in the kingdoms below us; and which, alas! is also but too evident in that of man.

All entities in the Cosmos, at some stage in their becoming, reach and pass through this intensely kamic plane - a plane only in the sense that, being a real "property" of matter, entities having reached it exhibit in the matter with which they clothe themselves this quality of Rajas, or passion. As we can not believe in any deliberate cruelty in nature, the kamic stage must therefore be a necessary and beneficent one. It may be the means of so concentrating and individualizing centers of consciousness and nascent souls as to permit of their being lifted as individualities to higher planes. It certainly affords an efficient school of instruction in the Pairs of Opposites of Eastern Philosophers, and thus permits and enforces the widening of man's conscious area. As it will be further dealt with in connection with the Reincarnating Ego, it is passed by for the present.

The four principles enumerated, and which are commonly classed as the Lower Quaternary, are thus seen to belong equally to man and to the kingdoms below him. In them alone there is nothing to distinguish man from the animals; nor does this Quaternary reincarnate in the specific sense in which we speak of the reincarnation of the human soul. Upon the death of a man, as the microcosm of the Macrocosm, he of necessity goes into a pralaya, or subjective existence, corresponding accurately to that of the Cosmos. For when the Great Cycle is completed, when the hour of universal dissolution strikes, the "body" of the Cosmos, or matter upon this molecular plane, first disintegrates. The consciousness ensouled by it becomes subjective, or "latent" - a bare potentiality of again manifesting, when similar conditions again present an opportunity. Next, plane after plane of entities ensouled with higher conscious centers is reached by the touch of Brahma - Siva, and each in turn becomes also a bare potentiality during the eons of Non-Being which constitutes the Great Pralaya. At last those are reached which have evolved to the point of eternal self-consciousness. The latter, therefore, pass consciously into these eternally subjective planes.

An analogy might be thought of thus: Suppose a cold wave were to gradually pass from the poles to the equator, freezing every plant, animal, and man into a stony rigidity, but not desroying their potentiality of again manifesting all their former activities should the cold wave pass away and permit the old climatic conditions to be restored. Let us suppose this frigid condition to last for ages, after which it does pass away and again permits of the resumption of active life by the inhabitants of each successive zone as the wave of cold recedes northward. If we further conceive of this process of successive suspension and regaining of consciousness as eternally repeated, and that entities overtaken below the plane of subjective self-consciousness have no conception of the interval passed in the frozen condition, we may dimly imagine that which takes place upon all the planes below self-consciousness at the out- breathing and in-breathing of the "Great Breath," or the great Cycles of Being and Non-Being - only that in this pralaya it is consciousness which must be thought of as frozen or latent, if below the plane of subjective self-consciousness; and not form, as in the illustration given, for all form disappears under the power of the In-Breathing of Brahm.