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The method adopted was to take some ordinary person after dea!h, arouse him thoroughly upon the astral plane, instruct him to a certain extent in the powers and possibilities belonging to it, and tjien put him in charge of a spiritualistic circle. He in his turn"developed” other departed personalities along the same line, they all acted upon those who sat at their seattas , and" developed ” them as mediums; and so spiritualism grew and flourished. No doubt living members of the original lodge occasionally manifested themselves in astral form at some of the circles —perhaps they may do so even new; but in most cases they simply gatfe such direction and guidance as they considered necessary to the pefjons they had put in charge. There is littl$ doubt that the movement increased so much more rapidly than they had expected that it soon got quite beyond their control, so,that, as has been said, for many of the later developments they can only be held indirectly responsible.
Of course the intensification of the astral-plane life in thosepersonswhowere thusputin charge of circles distinctly delayed their natural progress; and though the idea had been that anything lost in this way would be fully atoned for by the good karma gained by helping to lead others to the truth, it was soon found that it was impossible to make use of a « spirit-guide ” for any length of time without doing him serious