Theos-Talk Archives (April 2005 Message tt00067)

"There is practically no difference between the condition of the 
ordinary person and the psychic after death, except that the psychic, 
being somewhat more familiar with astral matters, would feel more at 
home in his new environment. To be psychic means to be able to bring 
through into the physical consciousness something of the wider life; 
it is therefore in the condition of the physical vehicle that there 
is an inequality between the psychic and the ordinary person, but 
when the physical is dropped that inequality no longer exists. 

A dead man is often 
aware of the feelings of the family that he has left. If you try to 
think exactly what it is that can be manifested through the astral 
body, you may easily see how much he is likely to know. He does not 
necessarily follow in detail all the events of the physical life; he 
does not necessarily know what his friends are eating, or in what 
occupations they are engaged. But he knows whether they are glad or 
sorry, and he is at once aware of such feelings as love or hate, 
jealousy or envy. 

7. 
When a drunkard hovers about a gin-shop it is only by partial 
materialisation (that is, by drawing round himself a veil of etheric 
matter) that he can draw in the odour of the alcohol. He does not 
smell it in at all the same sense as we do; and that is why he is 
always anxious to force others into the condition of drunkenness, so 
that he may be able partially to enter their physical bodies and 
obsess them, so that through those bodies he can once more directly 
experience the taste and the other sensations which he so ardently 
desires."
http://www.anandgholap.net/Inner_Life_Vol_II-CWL.htm