[Kama Rupa oder, die formenschaffende Kraft der Seele.][1]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl
“He who consecrates himself to the Shining Ones,[2] goes to the Shining Ones.
He who consecrates himself to the Ancestors,[3] goes to the Ancestors.
He who devotes himself to the larvae,[4] goes to the larvae.
Whoever loves Me alone goes to Me.”
Bhagavad Gītā, IX, 25.
It is a fact known to every self-reflecting man, that every form corresponds more or less, according to the nature of the material of which it is made, to the character impressed upon it by nature or by the hand of man. The artist who models a statue imprints on it the character of the idea he has in mind, and whether he succeeds perfectly in this depends both on his skill and on the nature of the material he uses. In the living forms in nature, the spirit is the generating force and the soul is the form-forming force, whose character is finally expressed in the visible physical form, insofar as other circumstances do not prevent it. An oak will always appear like an oak tree, because the character in it is existent in that of an oak tree. But whether it is perfect in all parts depends on the condition of the ground and on its location, etc.
According to this, every human being should also represent a plastic reflection of his character in his facial features, his posture, gait, voice, etc., in his entire appearance; a noble character would have to be expressed in a beautiful, well-formed body; a transformed man would have to assume the form, bearing, and habits of the animal species corresponding to his character. This is also to a certain degree the case during ones existence on earth, for we know that a noble character refines the features; that a stingy, lurking gait, assumes the inflated, haughty carriage, etc. But the material from which the human body is formed is not as plastic as the thought material; it changes only slowly under the influences of the soul. Also, the individual has acquired the human type through his human birth, which he cannot fully lose again so long as he inhabits this body. Otherwise, someone who has a great appearance before the world, must appear in his true colors and present himself as an ox, ass, sheep, hyena, tiger, dog, wolf, snake, peacock etc., or as a mixture of different such animal species.
The situation is different when, after the death of the body, the soul has left the physical body and inhabits the astral body, the substance of which is much more impressionable in nature than the physical body, and in which the sum total of the passions which man has mastered, manifesting in bodily form on the astral-level. This body is called in Sanskrit the kāma-rūpa (from kāma — desire and rūpa — form), i.e., the appearance produced by his indwelling desire or character, which is as visible and tangible and corporeal to him and the other inhabitants of the astral world (kāma loka) just as things in this physical world are to their inhabitants. In this the statements of all people endowed with inward vision, beginning with the Indian sages down to Swedenborg and the modern clairvoyants, agree. This also corresponds perfectly to the immutable law of the spirit in nature.
In order to make this easier to understand, let us take a brief look at the process of transition from the physical to the upper physical world.
When man leaves his physical body, and with it also the “odic-magnetic” body (liṅga śarīra), which is also of a material nature, although not visible to everyone, and coheres with the visible physical body, so he, according to the characteristics which mastered him, is found either in the higher or in the lower region of the astral-world, which is both outside our earth as well as interpenetrating through it. If he has overcome his desires, base instincts and passions during his existence on earth, his soul, which has become free, follows the higher attraction and soars up to the light of true knowledge, of pure reason, into the regions of the blessed. But if he is mastered by his personal passions and lust (which indeed need not be exactly “bad,” in the everyday sense of these words), taken in by his self-delusion and thereby bound at the lower and material, thus adhering the lower part of his self in the low which dominates him, his constituent constitution characteristics reveal themselves in the plastic form of his astral body. Consequently, the body (Kāma-rūpa) created by lust is produced.
This does not happen suddenly, because nature does not make leaps. In the beginning the astral man (if we still regard him as “human being” and want to call him that) is still in his external appearance as he was in life, for in his imagination he is still the same after death. But the will works instinctively in him with his animal characteristics dominating him, and this will also gradually changes its shape, much faster than would have been the case in the less plastic body, so that it is even possible for his appearance to become half-brute, entirely animal or monstrous. This may also sound quite incredible for non-initiates, yet it is the case, for it is consecrated in the mysteries of nature as an entirely natural thing and we do not need to believe implicitly in its understanding through clairvoyance, but need only inquire into the law after which the will in nature produces all changes.
Let us take an arbitrary example: A greedy, bossy, vain human being has himself attained, through the upward-swinging doggish wag of his tail and toadyism, one of the places of supreme honor. He plays a role in court and in society. He appears in perfect coat-tails and his chest is covered over with medals. Upstairs he is full of devotion, a perfect hypocrite. Downstairs he is tyrannical, cruel and bruising, and treats his subordinates with the same scorn from within him which secretly whispers his conscience (so long as he still has one), secretly whispers to him that he richly deserves it himself. He dies and finds himself in the other world as he was in this one. With his life, however, most of his willpower and reason have also disappeared, since these did not belong to him, but to the spirit (the Higher Self) which overshadowed him. He is only ruled by his instincts. Little by little his limbs are shrinking, he is no longer able to walk upright; he has lost the consciousness of his human dignity. His body is getting closer and closer to the shape of a dog, his head takes on the features and finally the skull formation of a hyena and his creeping character finds its expression in a snake-like extension of his lower body. His greed is expressed by the gluttonous, all-devouring throat, his self-importance is squeezed out through the informal paunch.
Countless similar examples could be cited; for there are innumerable such awful creatures who were formerly human on the plane called the Kāma loka (region of lust). They are, for the most part, the ones who attend spiritualistic séances, are mistaken by inexperienced spiritualists for the “spirits of our dearly departed,” and can play the role because within them still are contained their earlier original and earthly memories which are roused again by the medium’s receptivity, such that they can extract out the life-power from the medium, vampirizing them. But that such a transformation back into animal forms is possible is indicated by nature by the fact that in this life too we often see people who through their habits have acquired a certain resemblance to animals, even though it may not manifest, for the above led reasons, to its full expression.
Do these creatures have reason? — To answer this question, we must consider the difference between spirit and matter. The Divine Spirit is the light which enlightens man; the human being with his earthly feeling and thinking is the vessel. After death the Divine in man strives towards divinity, the earthly towards the material; for every being finds rest in the source from which it flowed and longs to return back to its origin. Reason and true knowledge obey the Divine Spirit, while the earth-bound soul can only obey the realm of deceit and imagination.
However, the separation of the spirit from the earthbound soul does not take place all at once and suddenly; but like the wick of a candle which has been blown out, smolders on for a while; or as the twilight persists when the sun has already set, so too such creatures may have a twilight of reason for a long time. Yes, there are those who are possessed during their life with a high degree of intelligence and a great part of this intelligence, in so far as it dwells on lower things, remembers still a long time after death, similar to a shining diamond lit by the sun still continues to shine a long time. Such beings are called “devils.” They are likewise the non-intelligences capable of no high perception and no altruistic thought, because the divine portion has departed from them; leaving only the evil volition. They are attracted to that type of human being in which they find a home and they can use them as their tools. Their intelligence and cleverness makes them even doubly dangerous for all who are accessible to their influences.
So long as “the second death” has not yet occurred, i.e. the entire separation of the reasoning component from the animal or devilish, deliverance for such a being is possible; however if it has occurred, what remains is only a senseless being, an “astral-body.” If this separation has not yet taken place, then nothing more disadvantageous can happen to such a creature than that the door to the sensual is opened for him again on the path of spiritism, and the desire for material enjoyment of life is awakened or strengthened in him again; for the soul, divorced from the earthly life should feel no other effort than to ascend to those heavenly regions which are its true home, to enjoy there the quiet and cure which it needs in order to again take on its next re-embodiment and the battle concerned with its further refinement.
Spiritism, as it is pursued nowadays, is founded on an entire lack of judgment of the purest realm of nature’s laws and likewise it is equal to vivisection. It is the contrast to spiritualism, i.e., to that science, which has the knowledge of the spirit as its basis. What would you think of a person who went into a chemical laboratory and mixed chemicals and did experiments without any knowledge of chemistry? Wouldn’t there be a risk that he would get his hands on an explosive which would kill him and others? — It is similar with the spiritistic experiments, when they are undertaken without knowledge of the laws of the spirit in nature, and the danger to which one exposes oneself by surrendering oneself to demonic and other influences of which one does not know is the moral and physical depravity and eventual loss of the highest good man possesses, the loss of his divine character, self-control and individuality.
A chemist can safely make experiments in his laboratory, just as an Adept cannot be possessed by an elemental-being, because he has learned to know and master them; but for the bungler in every subject the old rule applies: “Before you proceed to practice, first of all learn the right theory.”
Notes:
[1] Kāma Rūpa or, the Form-creating Power of the Soul [Kama Rupa oder, die formenschaffende Kraft der Seele. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Lotusblüten 10, no. 63 (December 1897), 841-852] {This was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}
[2] {R.H.—The devas.}
[3] {R.H.—The Fathers or Pitṛs.}
[4] {R.H.—or elementals, or demons.}