What we have said so far in our consideration of the individuals manifesting flashes or glimpses of this phase of consciousness, applies in a much...
(29) What we have said so far in our consideration of the individuals manifesting flashes or glimpses of this phase of consciousness, applies in a much greater degree to those who have penetrated fully into the higher sub-planes of this great Plane of Consciousness. On this planet, and on others, dwell Beings so fully awakened and unfolded in this phase of consciousness that they are as Supernatural Beings to the ordinary human being. Many of such beings are performing important offices in the unfoldment of the race, and the betterment of mankind. Many of these people have been regarded as Angels or Demi-Gods by ordinary people with whom they have come in contact in the past, and many of them are the Invisible Helpers of whose presence many of the race have been made aware by actual experiences.
The Hermetic Teachings regarding the process of Evolution are that, THE ALL, having meditated upon the beginning of the Creation--having thus...
(12) The Hermetic Teachings regarding the process of Evolution are that, THE ALL, having meditated upon the beginning of the Creation--having thus established the material foundations of the Universe--having thought it into existence--then gradually awakens or rouses from its Meditation and in so doing starts into manifestation the process of Evolution, on the material mental and spiritual planes, successively and in order. Thus the upward movement begins--and all begins to move Spiritward. Matter becomes less gross; the Units spring into being; the combinations begin to form; Life appears and manifests in higher and higher forms; and Mind becomes more and more in evidence--the vibrations constantly becoming higher. In short, the entire process of Evolution, in all of its phases, begins, and proceeds according to the established "Laws of the Indrawing" process. All of this occupies aeons upon aeons of Man's time, each aeon containing countless millions of years, but yet the Illumined inform us that the entire creation, including Involution and Evolution, of an Universe, is but "as the twinkle of the eye" to THE ALL. At the end of countless cycles of aeons of time, THE ALL withdraws its Attention--its Contemplation and Meditation--of the Universe, for the Great Work is finished--and All is withdrawn into THE ALL from which it emerged. But Mystery of Mysteries--the Spirit of each soul is not annihilated, but is infinitely expanded--the Created and the Creator are merged. Such is the report of the Illumined!
The highest authorities inform us that the characteristic element of this highest form of all consciousness is the conscious realization of the...
(33) The highest authorities inform us that the characteristic element of this highest form of all consciousness is the conscious realization of the individual that he IS identical with the Infinite, and is only apparently separated therefrom by the most tenuous and subtle veil of illusion.
The Process of Evolution once begun, it proceeded rapidly. Higher and higher in the scale of manifestation rose the Things—in spiralic process, each...
(14) The Process of Evolution once begun, it proceeded rapidly. Higher and higher in the scale of manifestation rose the Things—in spiralic process, each spiral rising above the one beneath it, and yet each proceeding apparently in a circle, as do all proceeding things. In due time the first signs of the mineral kingdom began to show themselves, building upon the basis of the sub-mineral forms of matter. In the mineral kingdom began to manifest higher forms of life and mind—for, as the occultists know well, the minerals possess both life and mind in a certain degree. And then later appeared the first signs of plant life—forms but slightly above those of certain crystals.
This journey of the life forms from world to world has been in progress since the beginning of the present world period, and was made by the lower...
(4) This journey of the life forms from world to world has been in progress since the beginning of the present world period, and was made by the lower forms of life as they climbed the spiral stairway of evolution. A writer on the subject has said of this point: "It is the spiral character of the progress accomplished by the life impulses that develop the various kingdoms of Nature which accounts for the gaps now observed in the animated forms which people the earth. The thread of a screw, which is a uniform inclined plane in reality, looks like a succession of steps when examined only along one line parallel to its axis. The spiritual monads, which are coming round the system on the animal level, pass on to other worlds when they have performed their turn of animal incarnation here. By the time they come again, they are ready for human incarnation, and there is no necessity now for the upward development of animal forms into human forms—these are already waiting for their spiritual tenants. But if we go back far enough, we come to a period at which there were no human forms ready developed on the earth. When spiritual monads, travelling on the earliest or lowest human level, were thus beginning to come round, their onward pressure in a world at that time containing none but animal forms provoked the improvement of the highest of these into the required form—the much talked of missing link. * * * The impulse to the new evolution of higher forms is really given by rushes of spiritual monads coming round the cycle in a state fit for the inhabitation of new forms. These superior life impulses burst the chrysalis of the older form on the planet they invade, and throw off an efflorescence of something higher. The forms which have gone on merely repeating themselves for millenniums start afresh into growth; with relative rapidity they rise through the intermediate into the higher forms, and then, as these in turn are multiplied with the vigor and rapidity of all new growths, they supply tenements of flesh for the spiritual entities coming round on that stage or plane of existence, and for the intermediate forms there are no longer any tenants offering. Inevitably they become extinct." The writer above quoted from also points out a very important point in the progress of the life forms from world to world, as follows: "The tide of life—the wave of existence, the spiritual impulse, call it by what name we please—passes on from planet to planet by rushes, or gushes, not by an even continuous flow. For the momentary purpose of illustrating the idea in hand, the process may be compared to the filling of a series of holes or tubs sunk in the ground, such as may sometimes be seen at the mouths of feeble springs, and connected with each other by little surface channels. The stream from the spring, as it flows, is gathered up entirely in the beginning by the first hole, or tub A, and it is only when this is quite full that the continued inpouring of water from the spring causes that which it already contains to overflow into tub B. This in turn fills and overflows along the channel which leads to tub C, and so on. * * * It is manifest from what we have already said, and in order that the progress of organisms on globe A shall be accounted for, that the mineral kingdom will mi more develop the vegetable kingdom on globe A until it receives an impulse from without, than the earth was able to develop man from the ape till it received an impulse from without. * * * The full development of the mineral epoch on globe A prepares the way for the vegetable development, and as soon as this begins the mineral life impulse overflows into globe B. Then when the vegetable development on globe A is complete, and the animal development begins, the vegetable life impulse overflows to globe B, and the mineral impulse passes on to globe C. Then finally, comes the human impulse on globe A. It is necessary at this point to guard against one misconception that might arise. There is a fact to be stated which has such an influence on the course of events, that, when it is realized, it will be seen that the life impulse has passed several times around the whole chain of worlds before the commencement of the human impulse on globe A. This fact is as follows: Each kingdom of evolution, vegetable, animal, and so on, is divided into several spiral layers. The spiritual monads—the individual atoms of that immense life impulse of which so much has been said—do not fully complete their mineral existence on globe A, then complete it on globe B, and so on. They pass several times round the whole circle as minerals, and then again several times round as vegetables, and several times as animals." Now, leaving behind us the consideration of the details of the progress of the lower live forms, let us consider the details of the progress of the human race. It has been seen that the great wave of human life forms flows around the planetary chain in great waves—in successive waves of progress. The successive waves are known by occultists under the name of "rounds." But, according to the rule "As in the great so in the small," we find a corresponding series of spirals in the progress of the human race during each of its several sojourns on the earth. That is to say, an individual soul arriving on earth in one of the rounds does not merely live out its life here, and then pass on to the next planet. On the contrary, it lives a number of lives on this planet, and among several races. There exists a spiral of races in earth life, through which the individual soul must live and work its way. The number of these races is of course seven, for seven is the number manifested in all of the great occult processes of the Cosmos. There are seven great rounds of human progress around the chain of worlds, and in each round there are seven races in which the individual soul must manifest. The present round of the human race is the fourth.
When the lowest point in the scale of Involution was reached, then the Law of Rhythm asserted itself, and the upward climb began—the first movement...
(13) When the lowest point in the scale of Involution was reached, then the Law of Rhythm asserted itself, and the upward climb began—the first movement of Evolution began to manifest itself. And, at this precise point, there was begun the manifestation of what may be termed "individualization," or the forming of centres of activity and consciousness. The World Soul descended into the depth of Involution en masse , and then began to emerge from those depths by an apparent "splitting up" process, in which the active new-born centres of activity began to assert themselves and to move upward toward self-expression. The simpler centres which occultists know to be the centers of activity in the electrons of matter began to form molecules. There was of course manifested the presence of mind within this gross matter—but only the faint glimmerings were manifested, for the gross enveloping sheaths of matter almost smothered the mental principles involved within them.
No: if we turn, this turns by the same act. And the Soul of the All- are we to think that when it turns from this sphere its lower phase similarly wit...
(4) But is this lower extremity of our intellective phase fettered to body for ever?
No: if we turn, this turns by the same act.
And the Soul of the All- are we to think that when it turns from this sphere its lower phase similarly withdraws?
No: for it never accompanied that lower phase of itself; it never knew any coming, and therefore never came down; it remains unmoved above, and the material frame of the Universe draws close to it, and, as it were, takes light from it, no hindrance to it, in no way troubling it, simply lying unmoved before it.
But has the Universe, then, no sensation? "It has no Sight," we read, since it has no eyes, and obviously it has not ears, nostrils, or tongue. Then has it perhaps such a consciousness as we have of our own inner conditions?
No: where all is the working out of one nature, there is nothing but still rest; there is not even enjoyment. Sensibility is present as the quality of growth is, unrecognized. But the Nature of the World will be found treated elsewhere; what stands here is all that the question of the moment demands.
The Plane of Elemental Consciousness, like all the great Planes of Consciousness, contains seven sub-planes, and each of these seven minor planes,...
(11) The Plane of Elemental Consciousness, like all the great Planes of Consciousness, contains seven sub-planes, and each of these seven minor planes, and so on until the multiplication has been made seven times. The sub-plane we have just briefly considered is but one of the seven, and the remaining six are equally important. In these unmentioned subplanes there are manifestations utterly unknown to modern science and to the uninformed person, but of which the occult masters have made a careful and thorough study.
This discussion of Nature has shown us how the origin of things is a Contemplation: we may now take the matter up to the higher Soul; we find that...
(5) This discussion of Nature has shown us how the origin of things is a Contemplation: we may now take the matter up to the higher Soul; we find that the Contemplation pursued by this, its instinct towards knowing and enquiring, the birth pangs set up by the knowledge it attains, its teeming fullness, have caused it- in itself, all one object of Vision- to produce another Vision : it is just as a given science, complete in itself, becomes the source and cause of what might be called a minor science in the student who attains to some partial knowledge of all its divisions. But the visible objects and the objects of intellectual contemplation of this later creation are dim and helpless by the side of the content of the Soul.
The primal phase of the Soul- inhabitant of the Supreme and, by its participation in the Supreme, filled and illuminated- remains unchangeably There; but in virtue of that first participation, that of the primal participant, a secondary phase also participates in the Supreme, and this secondary goes forth ceaselessly as Life streaming from Life; for energy runs through the Universe and there is no extremity at which it dwindles out. But, travel as far as it may, it never draws that first part of itself from the place whence the outgoing began: if it did, it would no longer be everywhere it would be present at the end, only, of its course.
None the less that which goes forth cannot be equal to that which remains.
In sum, then:
The Soul is to extend throughout the Universe, no spot void of its energy: but, a prior is always different from its secondary, and energy is a secondary, rising as it must from contemplation or act; act, however, is not at this stage existent since it depends upon contemplation: therefore the Soul, while its phases differ, must, in all of them, remain a contemplation and what seems to be an act done under contemplation must be in reality that weakened contemplation of which we have spoken: the engendered must respect the Kind, but in weaker form, dwindled in the descent.
All goes softly since nothing here demands the parade of thought or act upon external things: it is a Soul in vision and, by this vision, creating its own subsequent- this Principle , itself also contemplative but in the feebler degree since it lies further away and cannot reproduce the quality or experiences of its prior- a Vision creates the Vision.
for no limit exists either to contemplation or to its possible objects, and this explains how the Soul is universal: where can this thing fail to be, which is one identical thing in every Soul; Vision is not cabined within the bournes of magnitude.
This, of course, does not mean that the Soul is present at the same strength in each and every place and thing- any more than that it is at the same strength in each of its own phases.
The Charioteer gives the two horses what he has seen and they, taking that gift, showed that they were hungry for what made that vision; there was something lacking to them: if in their desire they acted, their action aimed at what they craved for- and that was vision, and an object of vision.
To those who have experienced the flashes of Illumination, or the glimpse of the Fire of Cosmic Consciousness—both of which classes of phenomena...
(21) To those who have experienced the flashes of Illumination, or the glimpse of the Fire of Cosmic Consciousness—both of which classes of phenomena belong to the Plane of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods—there has come a realization of the actual Oneness of Life in the Universe, and an actual awareness that the Universe is animated by One Life which is diffused among and permeates every portion of its extent and manifestation. To such has come an assurance that there is nothing "dead" in the Universe—that every part and portion, individual and collective, is instinct. with Life. Not only this, but for at least the time of the experience there has come a sense of absolute certainty that the individual is in touch with this One Life, and is an actual centre of activity within its presence.
It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion...
(3) It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion in a human body, and such as the form which it readily exerted; such also is the organical body which it has suspended from itself, and such the consequent corresponding nature, which receives the more perfect life of the soul. But with respect to more excellent natures, and which, as wholes, comprehend the principle [of parts] in these, inferior are produced in superior natures; bodies, in incorporeal essences; things fabricated, in the fabricators; and, being circularly comprehended in, are directed and governed by, them. Hence, the circulations of the celestial bodies, being primarily inserted in the celestial circulations of the etherial soul, are perpetually inherent in them; and the souls of the worlds [ i. e. of the spheres], being extended to their intellect, are perfectly comprehended by it, and are primarily generated in it. Intellect, also, both that which is partial and that which is universal, is in a similar manner comprehended in the genera that are more excellent than intellect. Since, therefore, second are always converted to first natures, and superior are the leaders of inferior essences, as being the paradigms of them, hence essence and form accede to subordinate from superior natures, and things posterior are primarily produced in such as are more excellent; so that order and measure are derived from primary to secondary beings, and the latter possess that which they are from the former. But the contrary must not be admitted, viz. that peculiarities emanate from things less excellent to the natures which precede them.
In concluding our consideration of this high plane, let us glance at the following words from the pen of Sir Oliver Lodge, the great English...
(26) In concluding our consideration of this high plane, let us glance at the following words from the pen of Sir Oliver Lodge, the great English scientist, who has given the world startling corroboration of some important ancient truths known to the occultists and esoteric teachers; he says: "Let us imagine, then, as a working hypothesis, that our subliminal self—the other and greater part of us—is in touch with another order of existence, and that it is occasionally able to communicate, or somehow, perhaps unconsciously, transmit to the fragment in the body something of the information accessible to it. We should then be like icebergs floating in an ocean, with only a fraction exposed to the sun and air and observation; the rest, by far the greater bulk, eleven-twelfths—submerged in a connecting medium, submerged and occasionally in subliminal or sub-aqueous contact with others, while still the peaks, the visible bergs, are far separate. Such an iceberg, glorying in its crisp solidity and sparkling pinnacles, might resent attention paid to its submerged subliminal supporting region, or to the saline liquid out of which it arose, and to which in due course it will some day return. 'We feel that we are greater than we know.' Or, reversing the metaphor, we might liken our present state to that of the hulls of ships submerged in a dim ocean among strange beasts, propelled in a blind manner through space; proud, perhaps, of accumulating many barnacles of decoration: only recognizing our destination by bumping against the dock wall; and with no cognizance of the deck, and the cabins, and spars, and sails, no thought of the sextant and the compass and the captain, no perception of the lookout on the mast, of the distant horizon, no vision of objects far ahead, dangers to be avoided, destinations to be reached, other ships to be spoken with by means other than by bodily contact—a region of sunshine and cloud, of space, of perception, and of intelligence, utterly inaccessible to those parts below the water line." VII. The Soul of the Gods It must be apparent to every careful student that it is practically impossible to speak in ordinary terms of the expression and manifestation of the Self which is known to the Rosicrucians as "The Soul of the Gods." It is sufficient for the purpose to merely indicate its existence as a phase of the Ego—existing in a latent state in most individuals, but affording occasional flashes of its presence to a few, and destined to become the normal plane of conscious functioning to the whole race in the course of spiritual evolution. Moreover, on certain planes of life and being, even today, there exist beings to whom this phase of consciousness is habitual and normal, even as is the plane of human consciousness normal and habitual to the majority of our race today.
Next above the Plane of Ethereal Substance comes the Plane of Energy (A), which comprises the ordinary forms of Energy known to science, its seven...
(12) Next above the Plane of Ethereal Substance comes the Plane of Energy (A), which comprises the ordinary forms of Energy known to science, its seven sub-planes being, respectively, Heat; Light; Magnetism; Electricity, and Attraction (including Gravitation, Cohesion, Chemical Affinity, etc.) and several other forms of energy indicated by scientific experiments but not as yet named or classified. The Plane of Energy (B) comprises seven subplanes of higher forms of energy not as yet discovered by science, but which have been called "Nature's Finer Forces" and which are called into operation in manifestations of certain forms of mental phenomena, and by which such phenomena becomes possible. The Plane of Energy (C) comprises seven sub-planes of energy so highly organized that it bears many of the characteristics of "life," but which is not recognized by the minds of men on the ordinary plane of development, being available for the use on beings of the Spiritual Plane alone--such energy is unthinkable to ordinary man, and may be considered almost as "the divine power." The beings employing the same are as "gods" compared even to the highest human types known to us.
How the Multiplicity of the Ideal-forms Came Into Being: and Upon the Good (6)
It is the perception of what falls under perception There, sensation in the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's perception of the sense...
(6) But how can that higher soul have sense-perception?
It is the perception of what falls under perception There, sensation in the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's perception of the sense-realm in its correspondence with the Intellectual. Man as sense-percipient becomes aware of that correspondence and accommodates the sense-realm to the lowest extremity of its counterpart There, proceeding from the fire Intellectual to the fire here which becomes perceptible by its analogy with that of the higher sphere. If material things existed There, the soul would perceive them; Man in the Intellectual, Man as Intellectual soul, would be aware of the terrestrial. This is how the secondary Man, copy of Man in the Intellectual, contains the Reason-Principles in copy; and Man in the Intellectual-Principle contained the Man that existed before any man. The diviner shines out upon the secondary and the secondary upon the tertiary; and even the latest possesses them all- not in the sense of actually living by them all but as standing in under-parallel to them. Some of us act by this lowest; in another rank there is a double activity, a trace of the higher being included; in yet another there is a blending of the third grade with the others: each is that Man by which he acts while each too contains all the grades, though in some sense not so. On the separation of the third life and third Man from the body, then if the second also departs- of course not losing hold on the Above- the two, as we are told, will occupy the same place. No doubt it seems strange that a soul which has been the Reason-Principle of a man should come to occupy the body of an animal: but the soul has always been all, and will at different times be this and that.
Pure, not yet fallen to evil, the soul chooses man and is man, for this is the higher, and it produces the higher. It produces also the still loftier beings, the Celestials , who are of one Form with the soul that makes Man: higher still stands that Man more entirely of the Celestial rank, almost a god, reproducing God, a Celestial closely bound to God as a man is to Man. For that Being into which man develops is not to be called a god; there remains the difference which distinguishes souls, all of the same race though they be. This is taking "Celestial" in the sense of Plato.
When a soul which in the human state has been thus attached chooses animal nature and descends to that, it is giving forth the Reason-Principle- necessarily in it- of that particular animal: this lower it contained and the activity has been to the lower.
Modern Science has proven that all that we call Matter and Energy are but "modes of vibratory motion," and some of the more advanced scientists are...
(3) Modern Science has proven that all that we call Matter and Energy are but "modes of vibratory motion," and some of the more advanced scientists are rapidly moving toward the positions of the occultists who hold that the phenomena of Mind are likewise modes of vibration or motion. Let us see what science has to say regarding the question of vibrations in matter and energy.
Again, there is movement: all bodily movement is uniform; failing an incorporeal soul, how account for diversity of movement? Predilections, reasons,...
(5) Again, there is movement: all bodily movement is uniform; failing an incorporeal soul, how account for diversity of movement? Predilections, reasons, they will say; that is all very well, but these already contain that variety and therefore cannot belong to body which is one and simplex, and, besides, is not participant in reason- that is, not in the sense here meant, but only as it is influenced by some principle which confers upon it the qualities of, for instance, being warm or cold.
Then there is growth under a time-law, and within a definite limit: how can this belong strictly to body? Body can indeed be brought to growth, but does not itself grow except in the sense that in the material mass a capacity for growing is included as an accessory to some principle whose action upon the body causes growth.
Supposing the soul to be at once a body and the cause of growth, then, if it is to keep pace with the substance it augments, it too must grow; that means it must add to itself a similar bodily material. For the added material must be either soul or soulless body: if soul, whence and how does it enter, and by what process is it adjoined ; if soulless, how does such an addition become soul, falling into accord with its precedent, making one thing with it, sharing the stored impressions and notions of that initial soul instead, rather, of remaining an alien ignoring all the knowledge laid up before?
Would not such a soulless addition be subject to just such loss and gain of substance, in fact to the non-identity, which marks the rest of our material mass?
And, if this were so, how explain our memories or our recognition of familiar things when we have no stably identical soul?
Assume soul to be a body: now in the nature of body, characteristically divisible, no one of the parts can be identical with the entire being; soul, then, is a thing of defined size, and if curtailed must cease to be what it is; in the nature of a quantitative entity this must be so, for, if a thing of magnitude on diminution retains its identity in virtue of its quality, this is only saying that bodily and quantitatively it is different even if its identity consists in a quality quite independent of quantity.
What answer can be made by those declaring soul to be corporeal? Is every part of the soul, in any one body, soul entire, soul perfectly true to its essential being? and may the same be said of every part of the part? If so, the magnitude makes no contribution to the soul's essential nature, as it must if soul were a definite magnitude: it is, as body cannot be, an "all-everywhere," a complete identity present at each and every point, the part all that the whole is.
To deny that every part is soul is to make soul a compound from soulless elements. Further, if a definite magnitude, the double limit of larger or smaller, is to be imposed upon each separate soul, then anything outside those limits is no soul.
Now, a single coition and a single sperm suffice to a twin birth or in the animal order to a litter; there is a splitting and diverging of the seed, every diverging part being obviously a whole: surely no honest mind can fail to gather that a thing in which part is identical with whole has a nature which transcends quantity, and must of necessity be without quantity: only so could it remain identical when quantity is filched from it, only by being indifferent to amount or extension, by being in essence something apart. Thus the Soul and the Reason-Principles are without quantity.
We are thus brought back to the nature of that underlying matter and the things believed to be based upon it; investigation will show us that Matter...
(7) We are thus brought back to the nature of that underlying matter and the things believed to be based upon it; investigation will show us that Matter has no reality and is not capable of being affected.
Matter must be bodiless- for body is a later production, a compound made by Matter in conjunction with some other entity. Thus it is included among incorporeal things in the sense that body is something that is neither Real-Being nor Matter.
Matter is no Soul; it is not Intellect, is not Life, is no Ideal-Principle, no Reason-Principle; it is no limit or bound, for it is mere indetermination; it is not a power, for what does it produce?
It lives on the farther side of all these categories and so has no tide to the name of Being. It will be more plausibly called a non-being, and this in the sense not of movement or station (in Not-Being) but of veritable Not-Being, so that it is no more than the image and phantasm of Mass, a bare aspiration towards substantial existence; it is stationary but not in the sense of having position, it is in itself invisible, eluding all effort to observe it, present where no one can look, unseen for all our gazing, ceaselessly presenting contraries in the things based upon it; it is large and small, more and less, deficient and excessive; a phantasm unabiding and yet unable to withdraw- not even strong enough to withdraw, so utterly has it failed to accept strength from the Intellectual Principle, so absolute its lack of all Being.
Its every utterance, therefore, is a lie; it pretends to be great and it is little, to be more and it is less; and the Existence with which it masks itself is no Existence, but a passing trick making trickery of all that seems to be present in it, phantasms within a phantasm; it is like a mirror showing things as in itself when they are really elsewhere, filled in appearance but actually empty, containing nothing, pretending everything. Into it and out of it move mimicries of the Authentic Existents, images playing upon an image devoid of Form, visible against it by its very formlessness; they seem to modify it but in reality effect nothing, for they are ghostly and feeble, have no thrust and meet none in Matter either; they pass through it leaving no cleavage, as through water; or they might be compared to shapes projected so as to make some appearance upon what we can know only as the Void.
Further: if visible objects were of the rank of the originals from which they have entered into Matter we might believe Matter to be really affected by them, for we might credit them with some share of the power inherent in their Senders: but the objects of our experiences are of very different virtue than the realities they represent, and we deduce that the seeming modification of matter by visible things is unreal since the visible thing itself is unreal, having at no point any similarity with its source and cause. Feeble, in itself, a false thing and projected upon a falsity, like an image in dream or against water or on a mirror, it can but leave Matter unaffected; and even this is saying too little, for water and mirror do give back a faithful image of what presents itself before them.
Imagine that beyond the heavenly system there existed some solid mass, and that from this sphere there was directed to it a vision utterly unimpeded...
(8) Imagine that beyond the heavenly system there existed some solid mass, and that from this sphere there was directed to it a vision utterly unimpeded and unrestricted: it is a question whether that solid form could be perceived by what has no sympathetic relation with it, since we have held that sympathetic relation comes about in virtue of the nature inherent in some one living being.
Obviously, if the sympathetic relationship depends upon the fact that percipients and things perceived are all members of one living being, no acts of perception could take place: that far body could be known only if it were a member of this living universe of ours- which condition being met, it certainly would be. But what if, without being thus in membership, it were a corporeal entity, exhibiting light and colour and the qualities by which we perceive things, and belonging to the same ideal category as the organ of vision?
If our supposition is true, there would still be no perception- though we may be told that the hypothesis is clearly untenable since there is absurdity in supposing that sight can fail in grasping an illuminated object lying before it, and that the other senses in the presence of their particular objects remain unresponsive.
This absurdity shows that the hypothesis contains a contradiction which naturally leads to untenable results. In fact, under one and the same heading, it presents mind and no mind, it makes things kin and no kin, it confuses similar and dissimilar: containing these irreconcilable elements, it amounts to no hypothesis at all. At one and the same moment it postulates and denies a soul, it tells of an All that is partial, of a something which is at once distinct and not distinct, of a nothingness which is no nothingness, of a complete thing that is incomplete: the hypothesis therefore must be dismissed; no deduction is possible where a thesis cancels its own propositions.
The Plane of Human Consciousness, as its name indicates, is that plane of conscious activity which is manifested by human beings, high and low, in...
(3) The Plane of Human Consciousness, as its name indicates, is that plane of conscious activity which is manifested by human beings, high and low, in varying degrees. This Plane of Consciousness, like all the others of the Seven Planes of Consciousness, is divided into seven sub-planes, and each of these into seven, and so on, as explained in preceding chapters of this book. Moreover, at one pole this plane is linked with, and blends into the highest sub-planes of the Plane of Animal Consciousness; while at its other pole it blends into the lower subplanes of the next highest plane, i.e., the Plane of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods. Again, following the symbol of the Three Linked Circles, the same individual who manifests on the Plane of Human Consciousness is (in a measure) in touch with the two higher planes, known, respectively, as the Plane of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods, and the Plane of Consciousness of the Gods.
As almost incredible as it may seem, however, there are among us on earth today certain advanced souls in whom this consciousness has already begun...
(28) As almost incredible as it may seem, however, there are among us on earth today certain advanced souls in whom this consciousness has already begun to manifest itself; and their number is growing. Such souls have experienced an actual conscious realization of the truth that the One is All, and that other than the One there is nothing—the entire array of the Cosmic Phantasmagoria being perceived as Illusion, Mirage, Maya, Glamour, Unreality. Into such, the Soul of the Gods is beginning to manifest itself.