The most reasonable and obvious answer, then, to the question, What becomes of the animal life and its satellite passions when the body dies? seems to be that under normal conditions they die too—in the sense that they cease to be manifest. They die, like the body, only with this difference, that being psychical—i.e. having a consciousness and a self underlying, while the body dies back into earth and air, they die back into the psychic roots from which they originally sprang—that is, into that form of the Self or World-soul of which they are the manifestation—as, for instance, in the case of the animals, into the self or soul of the race; in the case of undeveloped man, partly into the soul of the race and partly into the human soul which is affiliated to the soul of the race; and in the case of perfected man, entirely into the human soul or inner personality which, having now found and established its union with the supreme and eternal Self, is no longer dependent on the soul of the race, but has entered into a divine and immortal life of its own.
Thus in entirely normal cases, both of animals and man, we should conclude that the animal soul at the time of bodily death may return perfectly calmly and naturally into its own roots (as fern-fronds die back in winter), and the whole process may fulfil itself quite simply and graciously and with a minimum of suffering. But this can only be expected to happen in instances where instinctively (as in healthy animals and primitive men) or intentionally (as among a few of mankind) the perfect unity, physical and mental, of the organism has been preserved. In such cases each desire and passion, standing in a close and direct relationship to the spirit or self of the whole organism, is easily and willingly indrawn again at the appointed time; and there is little or no struggle or agony. But in the great masses of mankind—especially in the domains of civilization—where this unity has been lost, it is easily seen that many of the passional elements, loosed from the true service of the informing spirit, carry on a mad and violent career of their own; and to curb these or reduce them to orderly acquiescence and subordination is almost impossible. On the contrary, with the general weakening of the total organism they often break out into greater activity. The ruling passions, “strong in death,” push themselves to the fore and tyrannize over the failing or ageing man, and render his actual dissolution stormy and painful; and not only so, but they sometimes generate phantasmal embodiments of themselves which haunt the dying man, or even become visible to outsiders.
Frederick Myers, dealing with this subject,[[44]] invents the term psychorrhagy for this tendency of portions of the psyche under certain conditions to break loose from the whole man; and thinks that this process takes place not only at death, but that there are some folk born with what he calls a psychorrhagic diathesis, who are consequently peculiarly apt for throwing off phantasms of one kind or another. He says:[[45]]—“That which ‘breaks loose’ on my hypothesis is not the whole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some psychical element probably of very varying character, and definable mainly by its power of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more persons, in some portion or other of space. I hold that this phantasmogenetic effect may be produced either on the mind, and consequently on the brain of another person—in which case he may discern the phantasm somewhere in his vicinity, according to his own mental habit or prepossession—or else directly on a portion of space, ‘out in the open,’ in which case several persons may simultaneously discern the phantasm in that actual spot.”
Myers then proceeds to give a great number of very interesting and extremely well-attested cases of such phantasms, ranging from merely momentary apparitions of persons during their life or at the hour of their death to the persistent haunting of houses over a long period. And I mention this in order to show that there is good authority now for believing it possible not only that phantasms may be generated by the disintegration of the diseased or dying organism, which will haunt the patient himself; but that in cases the psychic elements generating these phantasms may be powerful enough to create a ghostly body which may endure, surviving the earth-body, and manifesting itself to outside observers on occasions for a considerable time.[[46]]
So much for the fate of the outer personality or animal part. Now with regard to (2), the inner personality or human soul, we may ask, What becomes of that? And the answer particularly interests us, because it is with this section that we—or at least the more thoughtful of mankind generally—identify “ourselves.” It is probable that almost any reader of these pages would credit his “I” or “self,” not to the one universal Being (to union with whom he may nevertheless distantly aspire), nor to the group of terrestrial desires and interests which we have termed the animal being, but rather to that constellation of nobler character which we have called the human soul. This, he will say, is the self that truly interests, that most deeply represents, me. Tell me, what becomes of that?
I think it is obvious that in the hour of death there are only two directions in which that human soul can turn, in which “we” can turn. We can turn for help either outwards toward the region of the animal self, or inwards toward the central universal self. And I think it equally obvious that the latter direction can alone really supply our need. At first no doubt it may be natural to seek outwards; but now alas! in the hour of dissolution the man discovers that all that region of his nature, in which indeed he has often found comfort before, is becoming involved in the ruin above described. Large portions of his animal faculties are already being torn away—or are sinking into lethargy and sleep. His bodily organs are losing their vitality; some of them have already become useless. His mental faculties—especially the more concrete and external faculties, like the memory of events and names—are becoming disintegrated. True, his general outlook may in cases seem to become wider and more serene as death approaches, and his inner character and personality to become more luminous and gracious; but it is a perilous passage on which he is embarked and in general threatening clouds gather round. The consciousness is painfully invaded by the lesser mentalities which surround it; the ruling passions domineer; silly little habits and tricks, of mind and body, obsess the man; phantoms and delirium overpower, or seek to overpower, him; he is astonished and perturbed to find himself on the fringe of a world in which figures, half-strange, half-familiar, come and go, and force themselves upon him with an odd persistence and a rather terrible kind of intelligence. It requires all his presence of mind to gather himself together, to hold his own, to suppress the rebel rout, and to find amid all the flux something indomitable and sure to which to cling.
There is clearly only one thing to cling to—and this must be insisted on—only that one great redeeming universal Self of which we have spoken: only that superb omnipresent Life which we find in the very central depth of our souls. (And fortunate he who has already so far taken refuge in this, that the wreck and ruin of the visible world and the mortal onset of Death cannot dislodge him!) That alone is fixed and sure; and to that the personal man must turn.
And I think we may say that it is not merely the personal soul’s highest duty and best welfare to turn in this direction; but that in a sense and by the law of its nature it must do so. For even in those cases where the man does not recognize this universal Being within, nor consciously believe in and hold on to the same, still is it not true that unconsciously he is very near and very closely related? For all the great qualities which we have already described as characterizing the most intimate human soul, are they not just those which must relate it to the universal Self? I mean such things as Equality—the sense of inner equality with all human and other creatures; Freedom—the sense of freedom from local and material bonds; Indifference—indifference as to fate and destiny; Magnanimity; abounding Charity and Love; dignity; courage; power—all these things, are they not obviously the qualities which dawn upon the personal soul and color it when it is coming into touch with the universal? Are they not the natural ‘sign and symbol’ of union or partial union with that Self? And more: are there not other things belonging more distinctly to the unconscious and subliminal region (which we shall deal with presently)—I mean such things as deep memory, intuition, clairvoyance, telepathy, prophetic faculty, and so forth—which point to the same conclusion?
The inner personal soul of man is surely already conjoined to the universal, and must cling to it by its very nature. And though the man may not exactly be conscious of this union; though he may hardly really know the depth of his own nature; though, notwithstanding his own splendid qualities of character, some thin film may yet divide him from awareness of the all-redeeming Presence; yet none the less that Presence is there; and is the core and centre of his being.
That being granted, it seems clear that in the disintegration of death the inner personality (whether consciously or unconsciously) will cling to the eternal self within it. And this seems to be the explanation of the part played by Religion in the history of the world, and its close connection with death. The different religions being lame attempts to represent under various guises this one root-fact of the central universal Life, men have at all times clung to the religious creeds and rituals and ceremonials as symbolizing in some rude way the redemption and fulfilment of their own most intimate natures—and this whether consciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as most often) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way.