The aerial is that in which the great majority of mankind
find themselves at the dissolution of the terrestrial body, and in which
the incomplete process of purification has to be undergone during long
ages of preparation for the soul's return to its primitive, ethereal
state. For it must be remembered that the preexistence of souls is a
distinguishing tenet of this philosophy as of the Kabala. The soul has
"sunk into matter." From its highest original state the revolt of its
irrational nature has awakened and developed successively its "vital
congruities" with the regions below, passing, by means of its "Plastic,"
first into the aerial and afterwards into the terrestrial condition.
Each of these regions teems also with an appropriate population which
never passes, like the human soul, from one to the other--"gods,"
"demons," and animals.* As to duration, "the shortest of all is that of
the terrestrial vehicle. In the aerial, the soul may inhabit, as they
define, many ages, and in the ethereal, for ever."
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* The allusion here is to those beings of the several kingdoms of the
elements which we Theosophists, following after the Kabalists, have
called the "Elementals.
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