/> and below the feet so that our dense body sits in the center of this

egg-shaped cloud as the yolk is in the center of an egg.



The reason for the rudimentary state of this vehicle is, that it has been

added to the human constitution more recently than the bodies previously

mentioned. Evolution of form may be likened to the manner in which the

juices in the snail first condense into flesh and later become a hard

shell. When our present visible body first germinated in the spirit, it

was a thought-form, but gradually it has become denser and more concrete

until it is now a chemical crystallization. The vital body was next

emanated by the spirit as a thought-form and is in the third stage of

concretion which is etheric. The desire body is a still later acquisition.

That also was a thought form at its inception, but has now condensed to

desire stuff, and the mind, which we have only recently received, is still

but a mere cloudy thought form.



Arms and limbs, ears and eyes are not necessary to use the desire body,

for it can glide through space more swiftly than wind without such means

of locomotion as we require in this visible world.



When viewed by spiritual sight, it appears that there are in this desire

body a number of whirling vortices. We have already explained that it is a

characteristic of desire stuff to be in constant motion, and from the main

vortex in the region of the liver there is a constant outwelling flow

which radiates towards the periphery of this egg-shaped body and returns

to the center through a number of other vortices. The desire body exhibits

all the colors and shades which we know and a vast number of others which

are indescribable in earthly language. Those colors vary in every person

according to his characteristics and temperament and they also vary from

moment to moment as passing moods, fancies or emotions are experienced by

him. There is however in each one a certain basic color dependent upon the

ruling star at the moment of his birth. The man in whose horoscope Mars is

peculiarly strong usually has a crimson tint in his aura, where Jupiter is

the strongest planet the prevailing tint seems to be a bluish tone, and so

on with the other planets.



There was a time in the earth's past history when incrustation was not yet

complete, and human beings of that time lived upon islands here and there,

amid boiling seas. They had not yet evolved eyes or ears, but a little

organ: the pineal gland, which anatomists have called the third eye,

protruded through the back of the head and was a localised organ of

feeling, which warned the man when he came too near a volcanic crater and

thus enabled him to escape destruction. Since then the cerebral

hemispheres have covered the pineal gland, and instead of a single organ

of feeling, the whole body inside and out is sensitive to impacts, which

of course is a much higher state of development.



In the desire body every particle is sensitive to vibrations similar to

those which we call sight, sounds and feelings and every particle is in

incessant motion rapidly swirling about so that in the same instant it may

be at the top and bottom of the desire body and impart at all points to

all the other particles a sensation of that which it has experienced thus

every particle of desire stuff in this vehicle of ours will instantly feel

any sensation experienced by any single particle. Therefore the desire

body is of an exceedingly sensitive nature, capable of most intense

feelings and emotions.