(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.

(3) The Symbol is interpreted as follows: (1) The Infinite Unmanifest manifests itself in the Elemental Soul; (2) the Elemental Soul takes upon itself the outward form of Mineral Substance; (3) The Mineral Soul evolves from itself the Plant Soul; (4) the Plant Soul evolves from itself the Animal Soul; (5) the Animal Soul evolves from itself the Human Soul; (6) the Human Soul unfolds into the Soul of the Demi-Gods; (7) the Soul of the Demi-Gods unfolds into the Soul of the Gods; and finally, the Soul of the Gods once more is resolved into Pure Spirit, which is represented by the blank space at the centre of the symbol. This statement will be more clearly apprehended by those who have carefully studied the preceding chapters conveying instruction concerning the Seven Planes of Consciousness, and much of the information contained in those chapters is to be taken into consideration in the study of the present chapter.

(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.

(13) The Great Mental Plane comprises those forms of "living things" known to us in ordinary life, as well as certain other forms not so well known except to the occultist. The classification of the Seven Minor Mental Planes is more or less satisfactory and arbitrary (unless accompanied by elaborate explanations which are foreign to the purpose of this particular work), but we may as well mention them. They are as follows: 1. The Plane of Mineral Mind 2. The Plane of Elemental Mind (A) 3. The Plane of Plant Mind 4. The Plane of Elemental Mind (B) 5. The Plane of Animal Mind 6. The Plane of Elemental Mind (C) 7. The Plane of Human Mind

(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 .

(9) Now these two Gates are in one another; the nethermost goes into the Abyss, and the uppermost goes into Paradise; and a third Gate comes to these two, out of the Element with its four Productions, and presses in together with the Fire, Air, Water, and Earth; and their Kingdom is the Sun and Stars, which qualify with the first Will; and their Desire is to be filled, to swell, and to be great. These draw into them, and fill the Chamber of the Deep, [viz.] the free and naked Will in the Mind; they bring the Glimpse [or Glance] of the Stars into the Gate of the Mind, and qualify with the Sharpness of the Glimpse [or Flash;] they fill the broken Gates of the Darkness with Flesh, and wrestle continually with the first Will (from whence they are gone forth) for the Kingdom [or Dominion,] and yield themselves up to the first Will, as to their Father, which willingly receives their Region [or Dominion.] For he is obscure and dark, and they are rough and sour, also bitter and cold; and their Life is a seething Source of Fire, wherewith they govern in the Mind, in the Gall, Heart, Lungs, and Liver, and in all Members [or Parts] of the whole Body, and Man is their own; the Spirit which stands in the Flash brings the Constellation into the Tincture of its Property, and infects the Thoughts, according to the Dominion of the Stars; they take the Body and tame it, and bring their bitter Roughness into it.

(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.

(38) Moses writes, Let there come forth all Manner of Beasts, every one according to its Kind. Now then the question is, Out of what should they come forth? Answer, Out of the Matrix. What is the Matrix out of which they should come forth? It is the four Elements, which are together in the Earth. The Fiat brought forth the Beasts [or living Creatures] very indigestedly, as they are in the Essence, not from Heaven, but out of the Matrix of the Earth; and the Matrix of the earth is one [and the same] Thing with the Matrix in the Deep above the Earth, and [has] one [and the same] a Dominion. The Constellation rules in all [Things,] and it is the Limbus, or the Masculine, wherein the Tincture consists, and in the Matrix of the Earth, is the aquastrish [or watery] Spirit; they come forth only out of the Matrix of the Earth, that they might be of the Essence of the Earth, and so they might eat of the Fruits that grow out of the Earth. For every Spirit lusts after its Mother from whence it came.

(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.

(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.

(2) To resume: there is from the first principle to ultimate an outgoing in which unfailingly each principle retains its own seat while its offshoot takes another rank, a lower, though on the other hand every being is in identity with its prior as long as it holds that contact.

In the case of soul entering some vegetal form, what is there is one phase, the more rebellious and less intellectual, outgone to that extreme; in a soul entering an animal, the faculty of sensation has been dominant and brought it there; in soul entering man, the movement outward has either been wholly of its reasoning part or has come from the Intellectual-Principle in the sense that the soul, possessing that principle as immanent to its being, has an inborn desire of intellectual activity and of movement in general.

But, looking more minutely into the matter, when shoots or topmost boughs are lopped from some growing thing, where goes the soul that was present in them? Simply, whence it came: soul never knew spatial separation and therefore is always within the source. If you cut the root to pieces, or burn it, where is the life that was present there? In the soul, which never went outside of itself.

No doubt, despite this permanence, the soul must have been in something if it reascends; and if it does not, it is still somewhere; it is in some other vegetal soul: but all this means merely that it is not crushed into some one spot; if a Soul-power reascends, it is within the Soul-power preceding it; that in turn can be only in the soul-power prior again, the phase reaching upwards to the Intellectual-Principle. Of course nothing here must be understood spatially: Soul never was in space; and the Divine Intellect, again, is distinguished from soul as being still more free.

Soul thus is nowhere but in the Principle which has that characteristic existence at once nowhere and everywhere.

If the soul on its upward path has halted midway before wholly achieving the supreme heights, it has a mid-rank life and has centred itself upon the mid-phase of its being. All in that mid-region is Intellectual-Principle not wholly itself- nothing else because deriving thence , yet not that because the Intellectual-Principle in giving it forth is not merged into it.

There exists, thus, a life, as it were, of huge extension, a total in which each several part differs from its next, all making a self-continuous whole under a law of discrimination by which the various forms of things arise with no effacement of any prior in its secondary.

But does this Soul-phase in the vegetal order, produce nothing?

It engenders precisely the Kind in which it is thus present: how, is a question to be handled from another starting-point.

(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.

(78) Now these three distinct dominions or regimens are generated in the seed, which taketh its original in the flesh, as I have mentioned before, within three leaves from this. Now observe this hidden secret hidden Mystery. Ye Naturalists, observe. The Gate of the great Mystery.

(18) Now then, out of these Forms, out of the Matrix of the Earth, by the Fiat, in the Word, went forth all the Creatures of this World; also Trees, Herbs, and Grass, every one according to its Kind; as also Worms, evil and good, as every Form in the Matrix of the Genetrix had its Original. And thus it was also with the Fruits in the Paradise of this World in the Garden of Eden; when the Word was spoken, Let there come forth all Sorts of Trees and Herbs, then out of all Forms, [or the Genetrix or Womb,] Trees and Herbs came forth and grew, which were altogether good and pleasant; for the Word in the Fiat had imprinted itself in all the Forms.

(15) When the temperature of the earth was at a point at which life is commonly believed to be impossible, there were present certain strange forms of life, which may be described as half mineral—half plant. These crystals reproduced themselves by a splitting up process, and grew from the inside as do plants. These life forms were composed of the same materials as the crystals from which they evolved—but they possessed a greater degree of life and mind, and while from one point of view they may be said to have been minerals, yet from another they may truly be said to have been plants. These strange creatures have disappeared as have all other "intermediate forms" which have played the parts of bridges in the evolutionary process. But they have left their traces in the material bodies of both plants and animals. For it must be remembered that even the bodies of the highest forms of plant or animal life are composed of certain chemical elements which were derived from the mineral kingdom, as for instance, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, etc.

(21) In our consideration of the Seven Minor Mental Planes, we have merely referred to the Three Elementary Planes in a general way. We do not wish to go into this subject in detail in this work, for it does not belong to this part of the general philosophy and teachings. But we may say this much, in order to give you a little clearer idea, of the relations of these planes to the more familiar ones--the Elementary Planes bear the same relation to the Planes of Mineral, Plant, Animal and Human Mentality and Life, that the black keys on the piano do to the white keys. The white keys are sufficient to produce music, but there are certain scales, melodies, and harmonies, in which the black keys play their part, and in which their presence is necessary. They are also necessary as "connecting links" of soul-condition; entity states, etc., between the several other planes, certain forms of development being attained therein--this last fact giving to the reader who can "read between the lines" a new light upon the processes of Evolution, and a new key to the secret door of the "leaps of life" between kingdom and kingdom. The great kingdoms of Elementals are fully recognized by all occultists, and the esoteric writings are full of mention of them. The readers of Bulwer's "Sanoni" and similar tales will recognize the entities inhabiting these planes of life.

(17) For out of the earth there sprang up grass and herbs and trees, and now also it stands written thus: [Gen. i. 12] Each according to its kind. In these words lies hidden or concealed the kernel of the eternal birth or geniture, and it cannot be comprehended or apprehended by or with flesh and blood, but the Holy Ghost, through the animated or soulish birth, must kindle the astral man, otherwise he is blind herein, and understands nothing but concerning earth and stones, also grass, herbs and wooden trees.

(2) Indeed it had moved on the first day, and had begun the birth or geniture in the body of the corrupt nature; for on the first day the life separated itself from the death, and on the second day a firmament was created between, and on the third day the life brake forth through death. For there the light brake forth through the darkness, and made the dead body of nature to spring, to flourish, and to be stirring and agile.

(14) The Plane of Mineral Mind comprises the "states or conditions" of the units or entities, or groups and combinations of the same, which animate the forms known to us as "minerals, chemicals, etc." These entities must not be confounded with the molecules, atoms and corpuscles themselves, the latter being merely the material bodies or forms of these entities, just as a man's body is but his material form and not "himself." These entities may be called "souls" in one sense, and are living beings of a low degree of development, life, and mind--just a little more than the units of "living energy" which comprise the higher sub-divisions of the highest Physical Plane. The average mind does not generally attribute the possession of mind, soul, or life, to the mineral kingdom, but all occultists recognize the existence of the same, and modern science is rapidly moving forward to the point-of-view of the Hermetic, in this respect. The molecules, atoms and corpuscles have their "loves and hates"; "likes and dislikes"; "attractions and repulsions". "affinities and non-affinities," etc., and some of the more daring of modern scientific minds have expressed the opinion that the desire and will, emotions and feelings, of the atoms differ only in degree from those of men. We have no time or space to argue this matter here. All occultists know it to be a fact, and others are referred to some of the more recent scientific works for outside corroboration. There are the usual seven sub-divisions to this plane.

(18) The Plane of Animal Mind, in its seven sub-divisions, comprises the states and conditions of the entities, beings, or souls, animating the animal forms of life, familiar to us all. It is not necessary to go into details regarding this kingdom or plane of life, for the animal world is as familiar to us as is our own.