"WHY DID EVERYTHING look so vague?" I asked, "and feel so ... wet; that's the only word I can think of to describe it."

I'd been in the densest part of the earth's aura he told me, an aqueous region which was the source of myths about the waters of Lethe, the River Styx.

Why hadn't I been able to see anything beyond ten feet after I died? Because I'd seen no further than that when I was dying and carried that last impression with me.

Why did I feel sluggish and stupid, unable to think clearly? Because two-thirds of my consciousness had been inoperative, my mind still enveloped by etheric matter which had been part of my physical brain. Accordingly, my responses had been confined to the instinctive and repetitive reactions of that matter. I'd felt dull-witted, miserable, lonely, fearful.

"And exhausted," I said. "I kept wanting to sleep but I couldn't."

"You were trying to reach your second death," Albert told me.

Once more, I was startled. "Second death?" Achieved by sleeping and permitting the mind to re-experience its life on earth, he told me. I'd been kept from that sleep by Ann's extreme grief and my desire to comfort her. Instead of purging myself in that "approximately three days" I'd been held captive in a "sleepwalking" state.

The fact is, Robert, that a person newly deceased is in exactly the frame of mind he was at the moment of death, accessible to influences from the earth plane. This condition fades in sleep but, in my case, memories were renewed and kept vivid by my twilight state. This was complicated further by Perry's influence.

"I know Richard only meant to help," I said.

"Of course he did," Albert agreed. "He wanted to convince your wife that you'd survived; an act of love on his part. But, in doing so, he was, without knowing it, instrumental in delaying further your second death."

"I still don't know what you mean by my second death," I told him.

"The shedding of your etheric double," he said. "Leaving the shell of it behind so your spirit--or astral--body could move on."

"Is that what I saw at the seance?" I asked in surprise, "my etheric double?"

"Yes, you'd discarded it by then."

"It was like a corpse," I said, with disgust.

"It was a corpse," he told me. "The corpse of your etheric double."

"But it spoke," I said. "It answered questions." "Only as a zombie might," he explained. "Its essence was gone. The astral shell, as it's called, is no more than an aggregate of dying molecules. It has no genuine life or intelligence. The young man didn't know it but it was his own psychic power which animated the shell, his own mind which fed it answers."

"Like a puppet,'' I said, recalling what I'd thought at the time.

"Exactly," Albert nodded.

"That's why Perry couldn't see me at the seance then." "You were beyond his psychic sight."

"Poor Ann," I said. The memory was painful. "It was horrible for her."

"And could have done her harm if she'd pursued it," Albert added. "Contact with nonphysical states of being can have a peculiar effect on the living."

"If only she knew all this," I said, unhappily.

"If only everyone on earth knew it," he replied.

The attitudes of people toward those who've died is vital, you see, Robert. Since the consciousness of the deceased is so vulnerable to impressions, the emotions of those left behind can have a powerful effect on it. Intense sorrow creates a vibration which actually causes pain to the departed, holding them back from progression. Actually, it's unfortunate that people mourn the dead, prolonging the adjustment to the hereafter. The deceased need time to reach their second death. The funeral ceremony was meant to be a medium of peaceful release, not a ritual of grief.

Did you know, Robert, that, in extreme unction, the seven centers of the body--covering the vital organs--are anointed to assist the dying person to withdraw vitality from those organs in preparation for complete withdrawal through the silver cord? And absolution of the dead was established to make certain that the silver cord is severed and all etheric matter withdrawn from the body.

There are so many things which can be done to make the death process easier. Pressures on certain nerve centers. Certain tones sounded. Certain lights utilized. Certain mantras chanted softly, certain incenses burned. All designed to help the dying person concentrate his senses for departure.

Most importantly, remains should always be cremated three days following death.

I told Albert about my body in the cemetery; of that hideous moment in which I'd seen it.

"She didn't want your body burned," he said, "she loves you so, she wants you down mere so she can visit and talk to you. It's understandable--but regrettable since it isn't you at all."

"What does cremation do that burial doesn't?"

Frees the departed from a tie which has a tendency to keep it near the physical body, he answered. Also, in extreme cases, where there's difficulty in breaking the cord even after death, the fire severs it immediately. And, after the astral shell has been discarded rather than it decaying slowly along with the body above which it hovers, cremation disposes of it quickly.

"This tie you mention," I said. "Is that what made me feel compelled to see my body?"

He nodded. "People can't forget their bodies easily. They keep wanting to see the thing they once believed to be themselves. That desire can become an obsession. That's why cremation is important."

I wondered, as he spoke, why I was feeling more and more upset. Why I kept associating everything he said with my troubled thoughts about Ann. What was I afraid of? Albert had reassured me constantly that we would be together again. Why couldn't I accept that?

I thought again about my frightening dream. Albert had called it a "symbolic left-over." That made sense but still it disturbed me. Every thought regarding Ann disturbed me now, even the happy memories, somehow, shadowed.