134
that, sometimes, a severe mental shock can cause death when the physical body itself remains apparently unhurt. And every practical occultist knows that in several instances when death is caused by recourse to "black magic," the victim's physical body bears no sign of injury. In these cases the blow given, as it were, in the first instance, to the 4th and 5th principles of man which constitute his astral body, is immediately communicated to his Sthoola-sariram. And hence there is no absurdity in saying that a wound which proves mortal to the victim's Sthoolasariram can be inflicted on his astral body. The Swami, however, seems to think that the astral body itself is the victim in the Editor's opinion. There is no room whatever for any such misapprehension in the article regarding the subject in question; and I am very sorry that the hermit has thought it fit to abuse the Editor under the plea of outspokenness, having himself carelessly misunderstood the correct meaning. The Swami is at full liberty to call Sthoolasariram the treble if he is pleased to do so; but as the Upadhis are generally named Samharakrama,*[1] the treble would ordinarily be taken to mean Karanasariram†[2] and when the Swami was pleased to name them in a different order, he ought to have expressed himself in less ambiguous manner. Our correspondent seems to be very fond of stale remarks. There seems hardly any necessity for all his wise flings about modes of investigation in general, when he is not fully prepared to show that our method of investigation is unscientific.
The Swami now comes forward with another question: Whether matter is indentical with spirit? Our learned hermit is always ready to raise fresh issues without any cause for it. The real question is, whether Mulaprakriti is eternal, and I fail to see the necessity for examining the nature of its relationship to what is ordinarily called spirit in deciding whether it
