(17) III. The Plane of the Plants On this plane of Consciousness are manifested the actions and reactions of the protoplasmic cells of which the plants are composed. And on this plane, as all the other planes of Consciousness, there are to be found high and low sub-planes and subdivisions of the latter.

(17) The chief distinction between the intelligence and consciousness of Plants and Animals is that the former manifest almost entirely along the lines of instinctive or unconscious mentation, while the latter manifest in a steadily increasing degree purpositive and deliberate conscious activity. In the processes of the human body we find a large proportion of those performed clearly along the lines of the instinctive, unconscious vegetable kingdom. These processes come under the control and direction of the Plant Soul. They are performed on the Plane of Plant Consciousness just as truly as are the processes of the ordinary types of plant life. Some of these processes are very complex—but so are the processes involved in the life of the ordinary plant.

(24) Still higher in the scale we find certain species of plants manifesting true Psychoses, or acts pertaining to thought processes , although the latter are of a comparatively low order as compared to those manifested by the higher forms of animal life. With this class of manifestation the average student is not so well informed, and, therefore, it has been thought well to direct your attention in the following pages to these fascinating phenomena of plant-life. We think that a careful consideration of the facts now about to be presented to the student will bring to him a clear realization of the presence of actual conscious activity in the kingdom of the plants, and will cause him to accept the statement of that eminent authority, Professor Bieser, who has said: "While we believe that the intelligence of man, animals and plants is essentially the same in kind, we know that it differs enormously in degree and form. Even among men this degree of intelligence varies, but this is because some individuals by nature see but a little more clearly their needs than others, and live under more favorable circumstances—that is all!" Dr. J. E. Taylor, an authority on the subject of plant-psychology says: "Perhaps one reason why plants are usually denied consciousness and intelligence is because in the structure of even the highest developed species we find no specialized nervous track along which sensations may travel, or where they can be registered as in the case of the ganglia and brains of the higher animals. But it should be remembered that none of the creatures sub-kingdom of the Protozoa (the lowest of the grand divisions of the animal kingdom) possess nervous structures, whilst many of the next more highly organized animal sub-kingdom, the Coelenterata, have no trace, and the rest but a feeble development. Yet we do not deny these lowly organized animals a dim and diffused consciousness, or even the possibility of their structures being so modified that they can profit by experience, and thus develop that accumulated experience of their kind that we call 'instinct.'" Darwin, speaking of the wonderful sensitiveness of the root-tip of plants says: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals ; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense organs, and directing the general movements." Professor Cope says: "We can understand how by parasitism, or other means of getting a livelihood without exertion, the adoption of new and skillful movements would become unnecessary, and consciousness itself would be seldom aroused. Continued repose would be followed by subconsciousness, and later by unconsciousness.

(32) IV. The Plane of the Animals Here, once more, we discover that there is no fixed dividing line between the adjoining Planes of Consciousness. Just as the Mineral Consciousness is closely blended into the Plant Consciousness, as we have seen, so is the Plant Consciousness closely blended into the Animal Consciousness. In fact, in the lowly forms of animal life it is almost impossible, at times, to state positively whether the particular form under consideration is a plant or an animal. Forms which science formerly considered "animal" are not placed in the category of "plant-life;" and other forms which science once held to belong to the plant-kingdom are now placed in the category of animal-life. The occultist recognized that these disputed forms dwell in the region in which the two respective planes blend and intermingle as has been stated before in these pages.

(31) Professor Bieser says: "Another plant showing irritability when touched, and possessing the faculty of finding and raising water by means of a long, slender, flat stem or tube, is a variety of orchid discovered by E. A. Suverkrop, of Philadelphia, several years ago. This plant grows upon the trunks of trees hanging over swampy places along the bank of the Rio de la Plata and streams of the neighborhood. When this orchid is in want of water, the slender stem gradually unwinds until it dips into the water. Then the stem slowly coils around and winds up to discharge upon the part of the plant from which the roots spring the water which it has sucked up into its hollow space or tube within its interior. Sometimes when water is absent from directly under this plant, the stem moves first in this direction and then in another, in its search for water, and finally finding the water it performs the process above described. If this plant is touched while the stem is extended it acts much like the sensitive plant (mimosa), and the stem coils up into a spiral more rapidly than when it is lifting water." The experiments of that wizard of plant-life, Luther Burbank, give us many illustrations of the manner in which the "mind" in the plant will respond to changed environment, and to take advantage of improved conditions thereof in the direction of adapting itself thereto. No one can study the works of modern botanists, or work long among plants, without discovering for himself many facts serving to prove that there is not only Life among the plants, but also sufficient mind to serve the purposes and needs of the existence of the plant. Some scientists have thought it possible that by changing the environment of the plant sufficiently, in the direction of calling out latent possibilities of mental action, it is probable that plants may be evolved which would approach in their mental activity that of the lower forms of animal life, if not indeed exceed the latter.

(28) In the case of seeds, the presence of consciousness and mental operations are manifested. Not only in the process of sprouting, but also in other processes, does the seed show signs of life and mind. Certain seeds are carried to their future abode by means of running streams along which they work their way to congenial soil by means of tiny projecting filaments which they move as legs, and thus propel themselves to shore. A botanist has said regarding a certain species of these "swimming seeds:" "So curiously lifelike are their movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these tiny objects, make good progress through the water, are really seeds and not insects." Certain plants prey upon other plants, twining bands around another plant or tree, which bands work their way through the outer covering of the bark and thus act as suckers through which the parasitic plant draws nourishment from the larger plant, the latter succumbing in time and being literally killed for food by the clinging plant. In South America there are varieties of these climbers which will mount to the top of a tall tree in this way, and after killing their support they will wave long tendrils in the breeze until they fasten hold of another tree which in turn is depleted of its vitality and nourishment, and so on until the parasite is surrounded by a large circle of ruined victims. Other parasites content themselves with boring into a tree trunk and then absorbing enough of the sap of the latter to enable them to live without other work on their own part. In some species, the habit of parasitism is known to have been acquired during the history of the plant, just as some animals (and human beings) have acquired similar habits.

(15) III. The Plant Soul By the term "The Plant Soul," the Rosicrucians seek to indicate the Soul embodied in the Vegetable Cellular Substance of which a very large proportion of the human physical body is composed. Apart from advanced scientists and advanced occultists, few realize how great proportion of the processes of the human and animal body is really vegetable in nature. The growth of bodily tissue, of parts and organs, is distinctively vegetable in character.

(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.

(18) The distinction between the plane of the Plant Soul and that of the Animal Soul will become more apparent and clear as we proceed to consider the phenomena of the latter.

(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.

(18) At the lower pole of this plane we find plant-life which is scarcely distinguishable from the higher forms of mineral life—in fact, as we have seen previously, it is almost impossible to draw a fixed line separating the two great plane-divisions, for all planes blend into each other and are linked one with the other on the lower and higher poles of their activity. We have mentioned the Diatoms, or "living crystals" which the best authorities regard as the "missing link" between the two great kingdoms of Life and Consciousness, but which really are plants rather than minerals. The Diatoms belong to an order of flowerless plants, a genus of the Algols. They are covered by a siliceous covering which gives them a crystalline appearance. They present the appearance of crystalline fragmentary particles, generally bounded by right lines, flat, stiff and brittle, usually nestling in slime in which they unite into various forms and combinations, and from which they often again separate. They multiply and reproduce themselves by division and conjugation.

(47) In this ascending scale of animal life the student will perceive countless varieties and species, subspecies and variations among species. And in each there will be perceived some slight difference in the degree and quality of the intelligence manifested by the creature. Even among the individuals of the same species there is found a great variation in such manifestations. But throughout it all, there is perceived to be a certain general plane of consciousness which may be called "The Animal Plane" as distinguished from "The Mineral Plane" on the one hand, and "The Human Plane" on the other hand.

(1) In the Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians, we find the following Sixth Aphorism: The Sixth Aphorism VI. As Life is the Essence of Spirit, so is Consciousness the Essence of Life. Spirit is One, yet it manifests in many forms of Life. Life is One, yet it manifests in many forms of Consciousness. While the forms of manifested Consciousness are innumerable, yet the wise know Consciousness to manifest on Seven Planes: and these Planes of Consciousness are known to the wise as (1) The Plane of the Elements; (2) The Plane of the Minerals; (3) The Plane of the Plants; (4) The Plane of the Animals; (5) The Plane of the Human; (6) The Plane of the Demi-Gods; (7) The Plane of the Gods .

(20) That Life is present in plant-life scarcely anyone is disposed to question, though there seems to be a desire to deny Consciousness and intelligent activity in the case on the part of the orthodox scientist. But the more advanced of the workers in the ranks of modern science do not hesitate to positively assert the presence of conscious intelligent activity in plant-life, and vigorously support their contention by logical argument backed up by incontrovertible facts gleaned in their laboratory experiments. These scientists hold that the presence of the phenomena of nutrition, reproduction, and of physical and chemical change due to adaptation is proof positive of the presence of vital intelligence within the organism in which the former are manifested.

(25) Such appears to be the history of the entire vegetable kingdom." Dr. J. C. Arthur, in his interesting work entitled "The Sagacity and Morality of Plants," says: "I have tried to show that all organisms, even to the very simplest, whether plant or animal, from the very nature of life and the struggle for its maintenance, must be endowed with conscious feeling, pleasure and pain being its simplest expression. I have been told in Java, as one walks through a tangle of sensitive plants, they will drop down in their deprecating way for yards on either side, as if suddenly aroused into life, only to be again transformed into lifeless sticks by some unseen power. * * * The physical basis of life, Protoplasm, is the same for plants as for animals. The first differentiated or modified form of this we meet is the curious animalcule called Amoeba. As we watch its movements we cannot refrain from ascribing to it some dim consciousness of the life it leads. But amoeboid structure is common even in the lowest kinds of plants, and amoeboid movements can be seen in some of its tissues. Witness also the habits and intelligent movements of the zoospores of sea-weed and many other Algae, and the locomotion of the antherozoa of mosses, ferns, etc. Not many years ago these objects were classed as animals, and nobody doubted these so-called animals behaved consciously and intelligently. * * * Nothing can be more marked than the likes and dislikes of plants. Human beings can hardly express the same feelings more decidedly. There is perhaps even a 'messmateship' among plants, which inclines species to prefer to grow in company. Hosts of common plants perform actions which, if they were done by human beings, would at once be brought into the category of right and wrong. There is hardly a virtue or a vice which has not its counterpart in the actions of the vegetable kingdom . As regards conduct in this respect, there is small difference between the lower animals and plants." One of the most elementary manifestations of consciousness , and conscious action, in plant life is what has been called "the gravity sense," or the sense by which the plant recognizes the "up and down" direction of growth. The germinating seed always sends its roots downward, no matter how the seed may be placed in the ground. This cannot be held to result merely from the action of gravitation, for the sprouts move upward and away from the centre of gravity just as truly as the roots move downward and toward it. Experiments have proven that this "sense of direction" is as much a true sense as that of any of the special senses of the lowly animal life-forms. The experiment has been tried of turning around a sprouting seed, the result being that in a day or so the roots will be again found to be turning downward and the sprouts turning upward. A French botanist, named Duhamel, once placed some beans in a cylinder filled with moist earth. After they had begun to sprout, he turned the cylinder a little to one side. The next day he turned it a little further in the same direction. Each day he would turn it a little more, until finally it had described several full circles. Then he took out the plant, and shaking off the clinging earth, he found that the beans’ roots and sprouts had described circles—two perfectly formed spirals being shown, one of the tiny roots and the other of the tiny sprouts. The roots in their constant endeavor to move downward had formed one perfect spiral, while the sprouts in the constant effort to rise upward had described another perfect spiral. No amount of effort will cause the roots of a plant to grow upward, or its sprouts to grow downward. Each, root and sprout, has its own "sense of direction" to which it faithfully and invariably responds. In the same way, and from a similar cause, the tendrils of climbing plants will faithfully move toward the nearby support, and if they are untwined they will return during the next night to the old support, if possible. Moving pictures, carefully prepared, and taken over a long period, show that the movements of these tendrils to be akin to the movements of the limbs of an animal—the feelers and graspers of the octopus for example.

(23) Other plants, however, have a comparatively highly developed nervous system, or something corresponding to it, and manifest Neuroses, or acts pertaining to the nervous system, of a comparatively high degree. This is true of the "sensitive plants," and certain other plants of a high development in this direction. Some of the orchids, and a few other plants, manifest Neuroses indicating clearly the presence of consciousness and a degree of intelligent activity.

(1) We have now reached that stage of our presentation of the subject of the Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians, and particularly of that phase known as the Seven Planes of Consciousness, in which we ask the student to consider those phases of Consciousness above the Plane of Animal Consciousness. Accordingly our present consideration is with those three great Planes of Consciousness which begin with the Plane of Human Consciousness, and include the Planes of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods, and which find their highest manifestation on the Plane of the Consciousness of the Gods.

(7) I. The Plane of the Elements On this Plane of Consciousness is manifested the actions and reactions between the subtle elements of which all material forms are composed. Here occurs the play between the atoms, the electrons, the ions, the corpuscles, and the still more tenuous particles of substance of which science has as yet no knowledge. And, going still further back, it may be said that on this plane occurs the play of phases of substance as much more tenuous and subtle than the electrons as the latter are more tenuous than the atoms. Little can be said concerning these practically unknown forms and phases of matter, although the occult teachings are quite full of them.

(17) VI. The Plane of the Consciousness of the Demi-Gods. There is a Plane of Consciousness so much higher than even the Plane of Human Consciousness—of even the highest sub-planes of that great plane—that the Rosicrucians have applied to it the somewhat fanciful term of "The Plane of Consciousness of the Demi-Gods." This, because the individual who attains these heights, and is able to "conscious" on this plane is so much higher than mere Man that he seems to be "almost as the gods." The Rosicrucians teach that on this high plane of being dwell certain very advanced souls—once men, but now almost as gods when compared to men—who aid in the great work of the advancement of the race of men in the general course of spiritual evolution.

(22) And as regards vegetal forms? Are we to imagine beneath the leading principle some sort of corporeal echo of it, something that would be tendency or desire in us and is growth in them? Or are we to think that, while the earth contains the principle of desire by virtue of containing soul, the vegetal realm possesses only this latter reflection of desire?

The first point to be decided is what soul is present in the earth.

Is it one coming from the sphere of the All, a radiation upon earth from that which Plato seems to represent as the only thing possessing soul primarily? Or are we to go by that other passage where he describes earth as the first and oldest of all the gods within the scope of the heavens, and assigns to it, as to the other stars, a soul peculiar to itself?

It is difficult to see how earth could be a god if it did not possess a soul thus distinct: but the whole matter is obscure since Plato's statements increase or at least do not lessen the perplexity. It is best to begin by facing the question as a matter of reasoned investigation.

That earth possesses the vegetal soul may be taken as certain from the vegetation upon it. But we see also that it produces animals; why then should we not argue that it is itself animated? And, animated, no small part of the All, must it not be plausible to assert that it possesses an Intellectual-Principle by which it holds its rank as a god? If this is true of every one of the stars, why should it not be so of the earth, a living part of the living All? We cannot think of it as sustained from without by an alien soul and incapable of containing one appropriate to itself.

Why should those fiery globes be receptive of soul, and the earthly globe not? The stars are equally corporeal, and they lack the flesh, blood, muscle, and pliant material of earth, which, besides, is of more varied content and includes every form of body. If the earth's immobility is urged in objection, the answer is that this refers only to spatial movement.

But how can perception and sensation be supposed to occur in the earth?

How do they occur in the stars? Feeling does not belong to fleshy matter: soul to have perception does not require body; body, on the contrary, requires soul to maintain its being and its efficiency, judgement belongs to the soul which overlooks the body, and, from what is experienced there, forms its decisions.

But, we will be asked to say what are the experiences, within the earth, upon which the earth-soul is thus to form its decisions: certainly vegetal forms, in so far as they belong to earth have no sensation or perception: in what then, and through what, does such sensation take place, for sensation without organs is too rash a notion. Besides, what would this sense-perception profit the soul? It could not be necessary to knowledge: surely the consciousness of wisdom suffices to beings which have nothing to gain from sensation?

This argument is not to be accepted: it ignores the consideration that, apart from all question of practical utility, objects of sense provide occasion for a knowing which brings pleasure: thus we ourselves take delight in looking upon sun, stars, sky, landscape, for their own sake. But we will deal with this point later: for the present we ask whether the earth has perceptions and sensations, and if so through what vital members these would take place and by what method: this requires us to examine certain difficulties, and above all to decide whether earth could have sensation without organs, and whether this would be directed to some necessary purpose even when incidentally it might bring other results as well.