(31) VII. The Plane of the Consciousness of the Gods If, as we have seen, it is most difficult to speak in understandable terms concerning the phases of life and activity on the last mentioned Plane of Consciousness, what must be the difficulty of even hinting at the life and activities of the highest plane of all—the Plane of the Consciousness of the Gods On this highest of all Planes of Consciousness, however, dwell beings so high in the scale of knowledge, power, life, and bliss that even the imagination of the advanced student or teacher can scarcely grasp the idea. This is the Plane of the Gods, in verity—of being so far advanced that they are practically akin to the conception of the Gods created by man to account for the Universe, and to serve as objects of worship.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(15) In the contemplation of the Plane of Mineral Consciousness, the student must remember that there are forms of minerals far more gross than those visible to us on this earth; and also, that there are forms and phases of mineral life far finer and higher than those with which we are familiar here. The occult teachings contain some very interesting info ration concerning (these to us) unknown mineral forms and manifestation.

(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 .

(18) The teaching is that the race as a whole is slowly evolving on to the said higher Plane of Consciousness, and long ages from now will "conscious" normally on it. In the meantime, however, certain advanced souls have transcended the Human Plane, and have passed on to the higher plane, where they aid and assist the rest of the race. Moreover, to the individual whose unfoldment is rapid, from one or more of many well-known causes, there come at times "flashes of consciousness" from the higher plane aforesaid, which at least for the time being bring the individual into conscious contact with that plane. The pages of the mystic records are filled with statements of experiences of this kind. In certain forms of poetic fervor, religious exaltation, and mystic experience, these flashes come and are then recorded by the individual experiencing them—the record, however, usually being given in the terms of the philosophy, religion, or general belief of the person experiencing the contact or "illumination," the person not fully realizing from just what source the flash of Truth has come.

(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.

(15) The following quotations from a celebrated occultist may prove of interest to the student in connection with the particular subjects considered in the present chapter: "At the half-way point of the fourth round here the polar point of the whole seven-world period is passed. From this point outwards the spiritual ego begins its real struggle with body and mind to manifest its transcendental powers. In the fifth round the struggle continues, but the transcendental faculties are largely developed, though the struggle between these on the one hand with physical intellect and propensity is fiercer than ever, for the intellect of the fifth round as well as its spirituality is an advance on that of the fourth. In the sixth round humanity attains a degree of perfection both of body and soul, of intellect and spirituality, which ordinary mortals of the present epoch will not readily realize in their imaginations. The most supreme combinations of wisdom, goodness, and transcendental enlightenment which the world has ever seen or thought of will represent the ordinary type of manhood. Those faculties which now, in the rare efflorescence of a generation, enable some extraordinarily gifted persons to explore the mysteries of Nature and gather the knowledge of which some crumbs are now being offered to the ordinary world, will then be the common appanage of all. As to what the seventh round will be like, the most communicative occult teachers are solemnly silent. Mankind in the seventh round will be something altogether too Godlike for mankind in the fourth round to forecast its attributes." "The earth, while at present inhabited by fourth-round humanity—by the wave of human life on its fourth journey round the circle of the worlds—nevertheless contains some few persons, few in relation to the total number, who properly speaking belong to the fifth round. Now, in the sense of the term at present employed, it must not be supposed that by any miraculous process any individual unit has actually travelled round the whole chain of worlds once more often than his compeers. Under the law by which the tide-wave of humanity progresses, it will be seen that this is impossible. Humanity has not yet paid its fifth visit even to the planet next in advance of our own. But individual monads may outstrip their companions as regards their individual development, and so become exactly as mankind generally will be when the fifth round has been fully evolved. A man born as an ordinary fourth round man may, by processes of occult training, convert himself into a man having all the attributes of a fifth-round man, and so become what we may call an artificial fifth rounder."

(12) Plunging at once, with terrific speed and force, into the abyss of Manifestation, the World Soul created for itself material garments of the densest and grossest elemental matter. This extreme form of elemental matter is not known to us today, for it has been discarded in the course of evolution on this particular planet. It, however, still exists on other planets of our solar system. This form, or forms, of elemental matter is below the scale of the minerals, and is as much lower than the grossest mineral known to science as that mineral is lower than the highest plant. In texture, structure, and density the extreme form of elemental matter is as much grosser than the lowest form of mineral known to us, as the latter is grosser than the highest form of ethereal vapor or radiant matter known to modern science. It is useless to try to describe this form of matter, for the ordinary mind cannot grasp it in the absence of concrete illustration.

(16) Even without calling upon the two still higher Planes of Consciousness, the enlightened race may reach heights of mental achievement which are so far above those dreamed of by the average person of the race as to appear like the wildest fiction.

(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.