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2. The Astral Bodies of Animals. This is an extremely large class, yet it does not occupy a particularly«important position on the astral plane, since its members usually stay there but a very short time. The vast majority of animals have not as yet acquired permanent individualization, and ' when one of them dies the monadic essence which has been manifesting.through it flows back again into the particular stratum, whence it came, bearing with it such advancement or experience as has been attained cjuring that life. It is not, however, able to do this quite immediately ; the astral * body of the animal rearranges itself just as in man’s case, and the animal has a real existence on the astral plane, the length of which, though never great, varies according to the • intelligence which it has developed. 'In most cases it does not seem to be more than dreamily conscious, but appears perfectly happy.
The comparatively few domestic animals who have already attained individuality, and will therefore be reborn no more as animals in this world, have a much longer and' much more vivid life on the astral plane than their less < advanced fellows, and at the end of it sink gradually into a subjective condition, which is likely to last fbr a very considerable period. One interesting subdivision of this class * consists of the astral bodies of those anthropoid apes mentioned in The Secret Doctrine (vol. i.,p. 184) who are already individualized, and