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'''Kāmaloka''' is a compound [[Sanskrit]] word from ''kāma'' (काम), "desire" and ''loka'' (लोक), "place". [[H. P. Blavatsky]] defined it as follows:
#REDIRECT [[Kama-Loka]]
 
<blockquote>'''Kamaloka''' (Sk.). The semi-material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where the disembodied “personalities”, the astral forms, called Kamarupa remain, until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires; (See “Kamarupa”.) It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows; a division of the first group of the Trailôkya. (See “Kamadhâtu”.)<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Theosophical Glossary'' (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 171-172.</ref></blockquote>
 
Kāmaloka is the stage that precedes the one of [[devachan]] (or [[avitchi]] in the case of a wicked personality):
 
<blockquote>From Kama-Loka, then, in the great Chiliocosm, once awakened from their post-mortem torpor the newly translated “Souls” go all (but the shells) according to their attractions, either to Devachan or Avitchi.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 104 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 361.</ref></blockquote>
 
== General description ==
 
<blockquote>Every just disembodied four-fold entity - whether it died a natural or violent death, from suicide or accident, mentally sane or insane, young or old, good, bad, or indifferent - loses at the instant of death all recollection, it is mentally annihilated; it sleeps its akasic sleep in the Kama-loka.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 85B (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 263.</ref></blockquote>
 
<blockquote>During life the Lower Manas acts through this Kama-Rupa, and so comes into contact with the Sthula-Sarira; this is why the Lower Manas is said to be "enthroned in Kama-Rupa". After death it ensouls the Kama-Rupa for a time, until the Higher Triad, having reabsorbed the Lower Manas, or such portion of it as it can reabsorb, passes into Devachan. . . The Kama-Rupa eventually breaks up, and leaving in Kama-Loka the Tanhic Elementals, its remaining portions go into animals.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 708.</ref></blockquote>
 
=== Duration ===
 
In [[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (book)|''The Mahatma Letters'']] the period of stay in the Kāmaloka is not very long:
 
<blockquote>This state lasts from a few hours (rarely less), days, weeks, months - sometimes several years. All this according to the entity, to its mental status at the moment of death, to the character of its death, etc.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 85B (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 263.</ref></blockquote>
 
But Mme. Blavatsky stated that the normal duration is much longer:
 
<blockquote>The normal period during which any part of the consciousness remains in Kama-Loka, i.e., is connected with the Kama-Rupa, is one hundred and fifty years. The Kama-Rupa eventually breaks up, and leaving in Kama-Loka the Tanhic Elementals, its remaining portions go into animals.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. XII (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980), 708.</ref></blockquote>
 
== Suicides and accidents ==
 
<blockquote>The rule is, that a person who dies a natural death, will remain from "a few hours to several short years," within the earth's attraction, i.e., in the Kama-Loka. But exceptions are, in the case of [[suicides]] and those who die a violent death in general. Hence, one of such [[Ego]]s, for instance, who was destined to live — say 80 or 90 years, but who either killed himself or was killed by some accident, let us suppose at the age of 20 — would have to pass in the Kama Loka not "a few years," but in his case 60 or 70 years, as an [[Elementary]], or rather an "earth-walker"; since he is not, unfortunately for him, even a "shell." Happy, thrice happy, in comparison, are those disembodied entities,who sleep their long slumber and live in dream in the bosom of Space!<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 68 (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 200.</ref></blockquote>
 
== Shells ==
 
Shell is a technical term used in [[Theosophy]] to refer to the psychic remnants left behind by an [[Ego]] when entering into [[Devachan]], consisting the [[kama|fourth principle]] and the personal aspect of the [[manas|fifth principle]]. [[H. P. Blavatsky]] defined it as follows:
 
<blockquote>Shells. A Kabbalistic name for the phantoms of the dead, the “spirits” of the Spiritualists, figuring in physical phenomena; so named on account of their being simply illusive forms, empty of their higher principles.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''The Theosophical Glossary'' (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 297.</ref></blockquote>
 
Once the [[Life after Death#Period of gestation|period of gestation]] is over, the lower duad is left behind in the Kāmaloka:
 
<blockquote>The lower principles are like wild beasts, and the higher Manas is the rational man who tames or subdues them more or less successfully. But once the animal gets free from the master who held it in subjection; no sooner has it ceased to hear his voice and see him than it starts off again to the jungle and its ancient den. It takes, however, some time for an animal to return to its original and natural state, but these lower principles or "spook" return instantly, and no sooner has the higher Triad entered the Devachanic state than the lower Duad rebecomes that which it was from the beginning, a principle endued with purely animal instinct, made happier still by the great change.<ref>Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, ''Collected Writings'' vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 260.</ref></blockquote>
 
Although the higher [[Principles]] are missing, these shells may show a resemblance of self-consciousness:
 
<blockquote>And even the shells of those good men whose page will not be found missing in the great Book of Lives at the threshold of the Great Nirvana, even they will regain their remembrance and an appearance of Self-consciousness, only after the sixth and seventh principles with the essence of the 5th (the latter having to furnish the material for even that partial recollection of personality which is necessary for the object in Devachan) — have gone to their gestation period, not before.<ref>Vicente Hao Chin, Jr., ''The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in chronological sequence'' No. 70-C (Quezon City: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 210.</ref></blockquote>
 
== Notes ==
 
<references/>
 
==Further reading==
 
*[http://www.theosophy.ph/encyclo/index.php?title=K%C4%81ma-Loka# Kāma-Loka] at Theosopedia
*[http://www.theosophy.ph/encyclo/index.php?title=Shell(s)# Shell(s)] at Theosopedia
 
[[Category:Sanskrit terms]]
[[Category:Theosophical concepts]]
[[Category:Concepts in The Secret Doctrine]]
[[Category:Hindu concepts]]

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