CHAPTER VI

THE BUDDHIC AND NIRVÂNIC PLANES

We have seen that man is an intelligent self-conscious entity, the Thinker, clad in bodies belonging to the lower mental, astral and physical planes; we have now to study the Spirit which is his innermost Self, the source whence he proceeds.

This Divine spirit, a ray from the LOGOS, partaking of His own essential Being, has the triple nature of the LOGOS Himself, and the evolution of man as man consists in the gradual manifestation of these three aspects, their development from latency into activity, man thus repeating in miniature the evolution of the universe.

Hence he is spoken of as the microcosm, the universe being the macrocosm; he is called the mirror of the universe, the image, or reflection, of God; ( “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” – Gen. I, 26. ) – and hence also the ancient axiom, “As above, so below.” It is this in-folded deity that is the guarantee of man’s final triumph; this is the hidden motive power that makes evolution at once possible and inevitable, the upward-lifting force that slowly overcomes every obstacle and every difficulty. It was this Presence that Matthew Arnold dimly ( Page 164) sensed when he wrote of the “Power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” but he erred in thinking “not ourselves,” for it is the very innermost Self of all – truly not our separated selves, but our Self. (Âtma, the reflection of Paramâtmâ.)

This Self is the One, and hence is spoken of as the Monad – ( It is called the Monad, whether it be the Monad of spirit-matter, Âtma; or the Monad of form or the human Monad, Âtma-Buddhi-Manas. In each it is a unit and acts as a unit, whether the unit be one-faced, two-faced, or three-faced) – and we shall need to remember that this Monad is the outbreathed life of the LOGOS, containing within itself germinally, or in a state of latency, all the divine powers and attributes.

These powers are brought into manifestation by the impacts arising from contact with the objects of the universe into which the Monad is thrown; the friction caused by these gives rise to responsive thrills from the life subjected to their stimuli, and one by one the energies of the life pass from latency into activity. The human Monad – as it is called for the sake of distinction – shows as we have already said, the three aspects of Deity, being the perfect image of God, and in the human cycle these three aspects are developed one after the other.

These aspects are the three great attributes of the Divine Life as manifested in the universe, existence, bliss, and intelligence – ( Satchitânanda is often used in the Hindu Scriptures as the abstract name of Brahman, the Trimûrti being the concrete manifestation of these) –the three LOGOI severally showing these forth with all the (Page 165) perfection possible within the limits of manifestation.

In man, these aspects are developed in the reversed order – intelligence, bliss, existence – “existence” implying the manifestation of the divine powers. In the evolution of man that we have so far studied we have been watching the development of the third aspect of the hidden deity – the development of consciousness as intelligence. Manas, the Thinker, the human Soul, is the image of the Universal Mind, of the Third LOGOS, and all his long pilgrimage on the three lower planes is devoted to the evolution of this third aspect, the intellectual side of the divine nature in man.

While this is proceeding, we may consider the other divine energies as rather brooding over the man, the hidden source of his life, than as actively developing their forces within him. They play within themselves, unmanifest. Still, the preparation of these forces for manifestation is slowly proceeding; they are being roused from that unmanifested life that we speak of as latency by the ever-increasing energy of the vibrations of the intelligence, and the bliss-aspect begins to send outwards its first vibrations – faint pulsings of its manifested life thrill forth.

This bliss-aspect is named in theosophical terminology Buddhi, a name derived from the Sanskrit word for wisdom, and it belongs to the fourth, or buddhic plane of our universe, the plane, in which there is still duality, but were there is no separation. Words fail me to convey the idea, for words belong to the lower planes where duality and separation are ever (Page 166) connected, yet some approach to the idea may be gained.

It is a state in which each is himself, with a clearness and vivid intensity which cannot be approached on lower planes, and yet in which each feels himself to include all others, to be one with them, inseparate and inseparable. (The reader should refer back to the Introduction, p. 36, and reread the description given by Plotinus of this state, commencing: “They likewise see all things.” And he should note the phrases, “Each likewise is everything,” and “In each, however a different quality predominates.)

Its nearest analogy on earth is the condition between two persons who are united by a pure, intense love, which makes them feel as one person, causing them to think, feel, act, live as one, recognising no barrier, no difference, no mine and thine, no separation. (It is for this reason that the bliss of divine love has in many Scriptures been imaged by the profound love of husband and wife, as in the Bhagavad Purâna of the Hindus, the Song of Solomon of the Hebrews and Christians. This is also the love of the Sufi mystics, and indeed of all mystics.)

It is a faint echo from this plane which makes men seek happiness by union between themselves and the object of their desire, no matter what that object may be. Perfect isolation is perfect misery; to be stripped naked of everything, to be hanging in the void of space, in utter solitude, nothing anywhere save the lone individual, shut out from all, shut into the separated self – imagination can conceive no horror more intense. The antithesis to this is union, and perfect union is perfect bliss.

As this bliss-aspect of the Self begins to send (Page 167) outwards its vibrations, these vibrations, as on the planes below, draw round themselves the matter of the plane on which they are functioning, and thus is formed gradually the buddhic body, or bliss-body, as it is appropriately termed. (Ânandamayakosha, or bliss-sheath, of the Vedântins. It is also the body of the sun, the solar body, of which a little is said in the Upanishads and elsewhere.)

The only way in which the man can contribute to the building of this glorious form is by cultivating pure, unselfish, all-embracing, beneficent love, love “that seeketh not its own” – that is, love that is neither partial, nor seeks any return for its outflowing. This spontaneous outpouring of love is the most marked of the divine attributes, the love that gives everything, that asks nothing. Pure love brought the universe into being, pure love maintains it, pure love draws it upwards towards perfection, towards bliss.

And wherever man pours out love on all who need it, making no difference, seeking no return, from pure spontaneous joy in the outpouring, there that man is developing the bliss-aspect of the Deity within him, and is preparing that body of beauty and joy ineffable into which the Thinker will rise, casting away the limits of separateness, to find himself, and yet one with all that lives.

This “the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” whereof wrote St. Paul, the great Christian Initiate; and he raised charity, pure love, above all other virtues, because by that alone can man on earth contribute to that glorious dwelling. For a similar reason is (Page 168) separateness called “the great heresy” by the Buddhist, and “union” is the goal of the Hindu; liberation is the escape from the limitations that keep us apart, and selfishness is the root-evil, the destruction whereof is the destruction of all pain.

The fifth plane, the Nirvânic, is the plane of the highest human aspect of the God within us, and this aspect is named by theosophists Âtmâ, or the Self. It is the plane of pure existence, of divine powers in their fullest manifestation in our fivefold universe – what lies beyond on the sixth and seventh planes is hidden in the unimaginable light of God.

This âtmic, or nirvânic, consciousness, the consciousness belonging to life on the fifth plane, is the consciousness attained by those lofty Ones, the first fruits of humanity, who have already completed the cycle of human evolution, and who are called Masters. (Known as Mahâtmâs, great Spirits, and Jivanmuktas, liberated souls, who remain connected with physical bodies for the helping of humanity. Many other great Beings also live on the nirvânic plane.) They have solved in Themselves the problem of uniting the essence of individuality with non-separateness, and live, immortal Intelligences, perfect in wisdom, in bliss, in power.

When the human Monad comes forth from the LOGOS, it is as though from the luminous ocean of Âtmâ a tiny thread of light was separated off from the rest by a film of buddhic matter, and from this hung a spark which becomes enclosed in an egg-like casing of matter belonging to the formless levels of (Page 169) the mental plane.

“The spark hangs from the flame by the finest thread of Fohat.” ( Book of Dzyan, Stanza vii, 5,; Secret Doctrine, vol. I, p. 66, 1893 ed.; p. 98 Adyar Edition) As evolution proceeds, this luminous egg grows larger and more opalescent, and the tiny thread becomes a wider and wider channel through which more and more of the âtmic life pours down. Finally, they merge – the third with the second, and the twain with the first, as flame merges with flame and no separation can be seen.

The evolution of the fourth and fifth planes belongs to a future period of our race, but those who choose the harder path of swifter progress may tread it even now, as will be explained later. (see Chapter XI, on “Man’s Ascent.”) On that path the bliss body is quickly evolved, and a man begins to enjoy the consciousness of that loftier region, and knows the bliss which comes from the absence of separative barriers, the wisdom which flows in when the limits of the intellect are transcended. Then is the wheel escaped from which binds the soul in the lower worlds, and then is the first foretaste of the liberty which is found perfected on the nirvânic plane.

The nirvânic consciousness is the antithesis of annihilation; it is existence raised to a vividness and intensity inconceivable to those who know only the life of the senses and the mind. As the farthing rush-light to the splendour of the sun at noon, so is the nirvânic to the earth-bound consciousness, and to regard it as an annihilation because the limits of the earthly consciousness have vanished, is as though a man, knowing only the rush-light, should say that (Page 170) light could not exist without a wick immersed in tallow. That Nirvâna is, has been born witness to in the past in the Scriptures of the world by Those who enjoy it and live its glorious life, and is still borne witness to by others of our race who have climbed that lofty ladder of perfected humanity, and who remain in touch with earth that the feet of our ascending race may mount its rungs unfalteringly.

In Nirvâna dwell the mighty Beings who accomplished Their own human evolution in past universes, and who came forth with the LOGOS when He manifested Himself to bring this universe into existence. They are His ministers in the administration of the worlds, the perfect agents of His will. The Lords of all the hierarchies of the Gods and lower ministrants that we have seen working on the lower planes have here Their abiding-place, for Nirvâna is the heart of the universe, whence all its life-currents proceed. Hence the Great Breath comes forth, the life of all, and thither it is indrawn when the universe has reached its term. There is the Beatific Vision for which mystics long, there the unveiled Glory, the Supreme Goal.

The Brotherhood of Humanity – nay, the Brotherhood of all things – has its sure foundation on the spiritual planes, the âtmic and buddhic, for here alone is unity, and here alone perfect sympathy is found. The intellect is the separative principle in man, that marks off the “ I “ from the “ not I,” that is conscious (Page 171) of itself, and sees all else as outside itself and alien. It is the combative, struggling, self-assertive principle, and from the plane of the intellect downwards the world presents a scene of conflict, bitter in proportion as the intellect mingles in it. Even the passion-nature is only spontaneously combative when it is stirred by the feeling of desire and finds anything standing between itself and the object of its desires; it becomes more and more aggressive as the mind inspires its activity, for then it seeks to provide for the gratification of future desires, and tries to appropriate more and more from the stores of Nature.

But the intellect is spontaneously combative, its very nature being to assert itself as different from others, and here we find the root of separateness, the ever-springing source of divisions among men. But unity is at once felt when the buddhic plane is reached, as though we stepped from a separate ray, diverging from all other rays, into the sun itself, from which radiate all the rays alike.

A being standing in the sun, suffused with its light, and pouring it forth, would feel no difference between ray and ray, but would pour forth along one as readily and easily as along another. And so with the man who has once consciously attained the buddhic plane; he feels the brotherhood that others speak of as an ideal, and pours himself out into any one who wants assistance, giving mental, moral, (Page 172) astral, physical help exactly as it is needed.

He sees all beings as himself, and feels that all he has is theirs as much as his; nay, in many cases, as more theirs than his, because their need is greater, their strength being less. So do the elder brothers in a family bear the family burdens, and shield the little ones from suffering and privation; to the spirit of brotherhood weakness is a claim for help and loving protection, not an opportunity for oppression.

Because They had reached this level and mounted even higher, the great Founders of religions have ever been marked by Their overwelling compassion and tenderness, ministering to the physical as well as to the inner wants of men, to every man according to his need. The consciousness of this inner unity, the recognition of the One Self dwelling equally in all, is the one sure foundation of Brotherhood; all else save this is frangible.

This recognition, moreover, is accompanied by the knowledge that the stage in evolution reached by different human and non-human beings depends chiefly on what we may call their age. Some began their journey in time very much later than others, and, though the powers in each be the same, some have unfolded far more of those powers than others, simply because they have had a longer time for the process than their younger brethren. As well blame and despise the seed because it is not yet a flower, the bud because it is not yet the fruit, the babe because it is not yet the man, and blame and despise the germinal and baby souls around us because they have not (Page 173) yet developed to the stage we ourselves occupy. We do not blame ourselves because we are not yet as Gods; in time we shall stand where our elder Brothers are standing.

Why should we blame the still younger souls who are not yet as we? The very word brotherhood connotes identity of blood and inequality of development; and it therefore represents exactly the link between all creatures in the universe – identity of the essential life, and difference in the stages reached in the manifestation of that life.

We are one in our origin, one in the method of our evolution, one in our goal, and the differences of age and stature but give opportunity for the growth of the tenderest and closest ties. All that a man would do for his brother of the flesh, dearer to him than himself, is the measure of what he owes to each who shares with him the one Life. Men are shut out from their brothers’ hearts by differences of race, of class, of country; the man who is wise by love rises above all these petty differences, and sees all drawing their life from the one source, all as part of his family.

The recognition of this Brotherhood intellectually, and the endeavour to live it practically, are so stimulative of the higher nature of man, that it was made the one obligatory object of the Theosophical Society, the single “article of belief” that all who would enter its fellowship must accept. To live it, even to a small extent, cleanses the heart and purifies the vision; to live it perfectly would be to eradicate all stain of separateness, and to let the pure (Page 174) shining of the Self irradiate us, as a light through flawless glass.

Never let it be forgotten that this Brotherhood is, whether men ignore it or deny it. Man’s ignorance does not change the laws of nature, nor vary by one hair’s breadth her changeless, irresistible march. Her laws crush those who oppose them, and break into pieces everything which is not in harmony with them. Therefore can no nation endure that outrages Brotherhood, no civilisation can last that is built on its antithesis. We have not to make brotherhood; it exists. We have to attune our lives into harmony with it, if we desire that we and our works shall not perish.

It may seem strange to some that the buddhic plane – a thing to them misty and unreal – should thus influence all planes below it, and that its forces should ever break into pieces all that cannot harmonise itself with them in the lower worlds. Yet so it is, for this universe is an expression of spiritual forces, and they are the guiding, moulding energies pervading all things, and slowly, surely, subduing all things to themselves.

Hence this Brotherhood, which is a spiritual unity, is a far more real thing than any outward organisation; it is a life and not a form, “wisely and sweetly ordering all things.” It may take innumerable forms, suitable to the times, but the life is one; happy they who see its presence, and make themselves the channels of its living force. The student has now before him the constituents (Page 175) of the human constitution, and the regions to which these constituents respectively belong; so a brief summary should enable him to have a clear idea of this complicated whole.

The human Monad is Âtma-Buddhi-Manas, or, as sometimes translated, the Spirit, the Spiritual Soul, and Soul, of man. The fact that these three are but aspects of the Self makes possible man’s immortal existence, and though these three aspects are manifested separately and successively, their substantial unity renders it possible for the Soul to merge itself in the spiritual Soul, giving to the latter the precious essence of individuality, and for this individualised Spiritual Soul to merge itself in the Spirit, colouring it – if the phrase may be permitted with the hues due to individuality, while leaving uninjured its essential unity with all other rays of the LOGOS and with the LOGOS Himself.

These three form the seventh, sixth and fifth principles of man, and the materials which limit and encase them, i.e., which make their manifestation and activity possible, are drawn respectively from the fifth (nirvânic), the fourth (buddhic), and the third (mental), planes of our universe. The fifth principle further takes to itself a lower body on the mental plane, in order to come into contact with the phenomenal worlds, and thus intertwines itself with the fourth principle, the desire-nature, or Kâma, belonging to the second or astral plane.

Descending to the first, the physical plane, we have the third, second and first principles – the specialised life, or Prâna; the (Page 176) etheric double, its vehicle; the dense body, which contacts the coarser materials of the physical world. We have already seen that sometimes Prâna is not regarded as a “principle,” and then the interwoven desire and mental bodies take rank together as Kâma Manas; the pure intellect is called the Higher Manas, and the mind apart from desire Lower Manas.

The most convenient conception of man is perhaps that which most closely represents the facts as to the one permanent life and the various forms in which it works and which condition its energies, causing the variety in manifestation. Then we see the Self as the one Life, the source of all energies, and the forms as the buddhic, causal, mental, astral, and physical (etheric and dense) bodies. ( Linga Sharira was the name originally given to the etheric body, and must not be confused with the Linga Sharira of Hindu philosophy. Sthūla Sharira is the Sanskrit name for the dense body.)

Putting together the two ways of looking at the same thing, we may construct a table: (Page 177)

It will be seen that the difference is merely a question of names, and that the sixth, fifth, fourth, and third “principles” are merely Âtmâ working in the Buddhic, causal, mental and astral bodies, while the second and first “principles “ are the two lowest bodies themselves. This sudden change in the method of naming is apt to cause confusion in the mind of the student, and as H.P. Blavatsky, our revered teacher, expressed much dissatisfaction with the then current nomenclature as confused and misleading, and desired others and myself to try and improve it, the above names, as descriptive, simple, and representing the facts, are here adopted. The various subtle bodies of man that we have now studied form in their aggregate what is usually called the “aura” of the human being. This aura has the appearance of an egg-shaped luminous cloud, in the midst of which is the dense physical body, and from its appearance it has often been spoken of as though it were nothing more than such a cloud. What is usually called the aura is merely such parts of the subtle bodies as extend beyond the periphery of the dense physical body; each body is complete (Page 178) in itself, and interpenetrates those that are coarser than itself; it is larger or smaller according to its development, and all that part of it that overlaps the surface of the dense body is termed the aura. The aura is thus composed of the overlapping portions of the etheric double, the desire body, the mental body, the causal body, and in rare cases the buddhic body, illuminated by the Âtmic radiance.

It is sometimes dull, coarse and dingy; sometimes magnificently radiant in size, light, and colour; it depends entirely on the stage of evolution reached by the man, on the development of his different bodies, on the moral and mental character he has evolved. All his varying passions, desires, and thoughts are herein written in form, in colour, in light, so that “he that runs may read “ if he has eyes for such script. Character is stamped thereon as well as fleeting changes, and no deception is there possible as in the mask we call the physical body. The increase in size and beauty of the aura is the unmistakable mark of the man’s progress, and tells of the growth and purification of the Thinker and his vehicles. (Page 179) CHAPTER VII REINCARNATION We are now in a position to study one of the pivotal doctrines of the Ancient Wisdom, the doctrine of reincarnation. Our view of it will be clearer and more in congruity with natural order, if we look at it as universal in principle, and then consider the special case of the reincarnation of the human soul.

In studying it, this special case is generally wrenched from its place in natural order, and is considered as a dislocated fragment, greatly to its detriment. For all evolution consists of an evolving life, passing from form to form as it evolves, and storing up in itself the experiences gained through the forms; the reincarnation of the human soul is not the introduction of a new principle into evolution, but the adaptation of the universal principle to meet the conditions rendered necessary by the individualisation of the continuously evolving life.

Mr. Lafcadio Hearn ( “Mr. Hearn has lost his way in expressing – but not, I think, in his inner view – in part of his exposition of the Buddhist statement of this doctrine, and his use of the word “Ego” will mislead the reader of his very interesting chapter on this subject, if the distinction between real and illusory ego is not readily kept in mind.”) has put this point well in considering the bearing of the idea of the pre-existence on the scientific thought of the West. He says: - (Page 180)

“With the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, old forms of thought crumbled; new ideas everywhere arose to take the place of worn-out dogmas; and we now have the spectacle of a general intellectual movement in directions strangely parallel with Oriental philosophy. The unprecedented rapidity and multiformity of scientific progress during the last fifty years could not have failed to provoke an equally unprecedented intellectual quickening among the non-scientific. “

“That the highest and most complex organisms have been developed from the lowest and simplest; that a single physical basis of life is the substance of the whole living world; that no line of separation can be drawn between the animal and vegetable; that the difference between life and non-life is only a difference of degree, not of kind; that matter is not less incomprehensible than mind, while both are but varying manifestations of one and the same unknown reality – these have already become the commonplaces of the new philosophy.”

“After the first recognition even by theology of physical evolution, it was easy to predict that the recognition of psychical evolution could not be indefinitely delayed; for the barrier erected by old dogma to keep men from looking backward had been broken down. And today for the student of scientific psychology the idea of pre-existence passes out of the realm of theory into the realm of fact, proving the Buddhist explanation of the universal mystery quite as plausible as any other.”

“None but very hasty thinkers,’ wrote the late Professor Huxley, ‘will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality; and it may claim such support as the great argument from analogy is capable of supplying.” (Evolution and Ethics, p. 61, ed. 1894 – Kokoro, Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, by Lafcadio Hearn, pp. 237-39 london, 1896).” (Page 181)

Let us consider the Monad of form, Âtma-Buddhi. In this Monad, the outbreathed life of the LOGOS, lie hidden all the divine powers, but, as we have seen, they are latent, not manifest and functioning. They are to be gradually aroused by external impacts, it being of the very nature of life to vibrate in answer to vibrations that play upon it.

As all possibilities of vibrations exist in the Monad, any vibration touching it will arouse its corresponding vibratory powers, and in this way one force after another will pass from the latent to the active state. (From the static to the kinetic condition, the physicist would say.) Herein lies the secret of evolution; the environment acts on the form of the living creature – and all things, be it remembered, live – and this action, transmitted through the enveloping form to the life, the Monad, within it, arouses responsive vibrations which thrill outwards from the Monad through the form, throwing its particles, in turn, into vibrations, and rearranging them into a shape corresponding, or adapted, to the initial impact.

This is the action and reaction between the environment and the organism, which have been recognised by all biologists, and which are considered by some as giving a sufficient mechanical explanation of evolution. Their patient and careful observation of these actions and reactions yields, however, no explanation why the organism should thus react to stimuli, and the Ancient Wisdom is needed to unveil the secret of evolution, by pointing to the Self in the heart of all (Page 182) forms, the hidden mainspring of all the movements of nature.

Having grasped this fundamental idea of a life containing the possibility of responding to every vibration that can reach it from the external universe, the actual response being gradually drawn forth by the play upon it of external forces, the next fundamental idea to be grasped is that of the continuity of life and forms.

Forms transmit their peculiarities to other forms that proceed from them, these other forms being part of their own substance, separated off to lead an independent existence. By fission, by budding, by extrusion of germs, by development of the offspring within the maternal womb, a physical continuity is preserved, every new form being derived from a preceding form and reproducing its characteristics. ( The student might wisely familiarise himself with the researches of Weissman on the continuity of germ-plasm.)

Science groups these facts under the name of the law of heredity, and its observations on the transmission of form are worthy of attention, and are illuminative of the workings of Nature in the phenomenal world. But it must be remembered that it applies only to the building of the physical body, into which enter the materials provided by the parents.

Her more hidden workings, those workings of life without which form could not be, have received no attention, not being susceptible of physical observation, and this gap can only be filled by the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, given by Those who of old (Page 183) used superphysical powers of observation, and verifiable gradually by every pupil who studies patiently in Their schools.

There is continuity of life as well as continuity of form, and it is the continuing life – with ever more and more of its latent energies rendered active by the stimuli received through successive forms – which resumes into itself the experiences obtained by its incasings in form; for when the form perishes, the life has the record of those experiences in the increased energies aroused by them, and is ready to pour itself into the new forms derived from the old, carrying with it this accumulated store.

While it was in the previous form, it played through it, adapting it to express each newly awakened energy; the form hands on these adaptations, inwrought into its substance, to the separated part of itself that we speak of as its offspring, which, beings of its substance, must needs have the peculiarities of that substance; the life pours itself into that offspring with all its awakened powers, and moulds it yet further; and so on and on.

Modern science is proving more and more clearly that heredity plays an ever-decreasing part in the evolution of the higher creatures, that mental and moral qualities are not transmitted from parents to offspring, and that the higher qualities the more patent is this fact ‘ the child of the genius is oft-times a dolt; commonplace parents give birth to a genius.

A continuing substratum there must be, in which mental and moral qualities inhere, in order that they may increase, else would Nature, in (Page 184) this most important department of her work, show erratic uncaused production instead of orderly continuity. On this science is dumb, but the Ancient Wisdom teaches that this continuing substratum is the Monad, which is the receptacle of all results, the storehouse in which all experiences are garnered as increasingly active powers.

These two principles firmly grasped – of the Monad with potentialities becoming powers, and of the continuity of the life form – we can proceed to the continuity of life and form – we can proceed to study their working out in detail, and we shall find that they solve many of the perplexing problems of modern science, as well as the yet more heart-searching problems confronted by the philanthropist and the sage.

Let us start by considering the monad as it is first subjected to the impacts from the formless levels of the mental plane, the very beginning of the evolution of form. Its first faint responsive thrillings draw round it some of the matter of that plane, and we have the gradual evolution of the first elemental kingdom, already mentioned. (See chapter IV, on “The Mental Plane”).

The great fundamental types of the Monad are seven in number, sometimes imaged as like the seven colours of the solar spectrum, derived from the three primary. (“As above, so below.” We instinctively remember the three LOGOI and the seven primeval Sons of the Fire; in Christian Symbolism, the Trinity and the “Seven Spirits that are before the throne”; or in Zoroastrian, Ahuramazda and the seven Ameshaspentas.) (Page 185)

Each of these types has its own colouring of characteristics, and this colouring persists throughout the aeonian cycle of its evolution, affecting all the series of living things that are animated by it. Now begins the process of subdivision in each of these types, that will be carried on, subdividing and ever subdividing, until the individual is reached.

The currents set up by the commencing outward-going energies of the Monad – to follow one line of evolution will suffice; the other six are like unto it in principle – have but brief form-life, yet whatever experience can be gained through them is represented by an increasedly responsive life in the Monad who is their source and cause; as this responsive life consists of vibrations that are often incongruous with each other, a tendency towards separation is set up within the Monad, the harmoniously vibrating forces grouping themselves together for, as it were, concerted action, until various sub-Monads, if the epithet may for a moment be allowed, are formed, alike in their main characteristics, but differing in details, like shades of the same colour.

These become, by impacts from the lower levels of the mental plane, the Monads of the second elemental kingdom, belonging to the form region of that plane, and the process continues, the Monad ever adding to its power to respond, each Monad being the inspiring life of countless forms, through which it receives vibrations, and, as the forms disintegrate, constantly vivifying new forms; the process of subdivision also continues from the cause already described. (Page 186)

Each Monad thus continually incarnates itself in forms, and garners within itself as awakened powers all the results obtained through the forms it animates. We may well regard these Monads as the souls of groups of forms; and as evolution proceeds, these forms show more and more attributes, the attributes being the powers of the monadic group-soul manifested through the forms in which it is incarnated.

The innumerable sub-Monads of this second elemental kingdom presently reach a stage of evolution at which they begin to respond to the vibrations of astral matter, and they begin to act on the astral plane, becoming the Monads of the third elemental kingdom, and repeating in this grosser world all the processes already accomplished on the mental plane.

They become more and more numerous as monadic group-souls, showing more and more diversity in detail, the number of forms animated by each becoming less as the specialised characteristics become more and more marked. Meanwhile, it may be said in passing, the ever-flowing stream of life from the LOGOS supplies new Monads of form on the higher levels, so that the evolution proceeds continuously, and as the more-evolved Monads incarnate in the lower worlds their place is taken by the newly emerged Monads in the higher.

By this ever-repeated process of the reincarnation of the Monads, or Monadic group-soul, in the astral world, their evolution proceeds, until they are ready to respond to the impacts upon them from physical matter. When we remember that the ultimate atoms of each plane have their sphere-walls composed of the coarsest matter of the plane immediately above it, it is easy to see how the Monads become responsive to impacts from one plane after another. (Page 187)

When, in the first elemental kingdom, the Monad had become accustomed to thrill responsively to the impacts of matter of that plane, it would soon begin to answer to vibrations received through the coarsest forms of that matter from the matter of the plane next below. So, in its coatings of matter that were the forms composed of the coarsest materials of the material plane, it would become susceptible to vibrations of astral atomic matter; and, when incarnated in forms of the coarsest astral matter, it would similarly become responsive to atomic physical ether, the sphere-walls of which are constituted of the grossest astral materials.

Thus the Monad may be regarded as reaching the physical plane; and there it begins, or, more accurately, all these monadic group-souls begin, to incarnate themselves in filmy physical forms, the etheric doubles of the future dense minerals of the physical world. Into these filmy forms the nature-spirits build the denser physical materials, and thus minerals of all kinds are formed, the most rigid vehicles in which the evolving life in-closes itself, and through which the least of its powers can express themselves. Each monadic group-soul has its own mineral expressions, the mineral forms in which it is incarnated, and the specialisation has now reached a high degree. These Monadic group-souls are sometimes called in their (Page 188) totality the mineral Monad or the Monad incarnating in the mineral kingdom.

From this time forward the awakened energies of the Monad play a less passive part in evolution. They begin to seek expression actively to some extent when once aroused into functioning, and to exercise a distinctly moulding influence over the forms in which they are imprisoned. As they become too active for their mineral embodiment, the beginnings of the more plastic forms of the vegetable kingdom manifest themselves, the nature-spirits aiding this evolution throughout the physical kingdoms. In the mineral kingdom there had already been shown a tendency towards the definite organisation of form, the laying down of certain lines ( The axes of growth which determine form. They appear definitely in crystals ) along which the growth proceeded. This tendency governs henceforth all the building of forms, and is the cause of the exquisite symmetry of natural objects, with which every observer is familiar.

The monadic group-souls in the vegetable kingdom undergo division and subdivision with increasing rapidity, in consequence of the still greater variety of impacts to which they are subjected, the evolution of families, genera, and species being due to this invisible subdivision.

When any genus, with its generic monadic group-soul, is subjected to very varying conditions, i.e., when the forms connected with it receive very different impacts, a fresh tendency to subdivide is set up in the Monad, and various species are evolved, (Page 189) each having its own specific group-soul.

When Nature is left to her own working the process is slow, although the nature-spirits do much towards the differentiation of species; but when man has been evolved, and when he begins his artificial systems of cultivation, encouraging the play of one set of forces, warding off another, then this differentiation can be brought about with considerable rapidity, and specific differences are readily evolved. So long as actual division has not taken place in the monadic group-soul, the subjection of the forms to similar influences may again eradicate the separative tendency, but when that division is completed the new species are definitely and firmly established, and are ready to send out offshoots of their own. In some of the longer-lived members of the vegetable kingdom the element of personality begins to manifest itself, the stability of the organism rendering possible this foreshadowing of individuality. With a tree, living for scores of years, the recurrence of similar conditions causing similar impacts, the seasons ever returning year after year, the consecutive motions caused by them, the rising of the sap, the putting forth of leaves, the touches of the wind, of the sunbeams, of the rain – all these outer influences with their rhythmical progression – set up responsive thrillings in the monadic group-soul, and, as the sequence impresses itself by continual repetition, the recurrence of one leads to the dim expectation of its oft-repeated successor. Nature evolves no quality suddenly, and these are the first faint (Page 190) adumbrations of what will later be memory and anticipation.

In the vegetable kingdom also appear the foreshadowings of sensation, evolving in its higher members to what the Western psychologist would term “massive” sensations of pleasure and discomfort. (The “massive” sensation is one that pervades the organism and is not felt especially in any one part more than in others. It is the antithesis of the “acute.”) It must be remembered that the Monad has drawn round itself materials of the planes through which it has descended, and hence is able to contact impacts, from those planes, the strongest and those most nearly allied to the grossest forms of matter being the first to make themselves felt.

Sunshine and the chill of its absence at last impress themselves on the monadic consciousness; and its astral coating, thrown into faint vibrations, gives rise to the slight massive kind of sensation spoken of. Rain and drought affecting the mechanical constitution of the form, and its power to convey vibrations to the ensouling Monad – are another of the “pairs of opposites,” the play of which arouses the recognition of difference, which is the root alike of all sensation, and later of all thought. Thus by their repeated plant-reincarnations the monadic group-souls in the vegetable kingdom evolve, until those that ensoul the highest members of the kingdom are ready for the next step. This step carries them into the animal kingdom, and here they slowly evolve in their physical and astral vehicles a very distinct personality. The animal, (Page 191) being free to move about, subjects itself to a greater variety of conditions than can be experienced by the plant, rooted to a single spot, and this variety, as ever, promotes differentiation.

The monadic group-soul, however, which animates a number of wild animals of the same species or subspecies, while it receives a great variety of impacts, since they are for the most part repeated continually and are shared by all the members of the group, differentiates but slowly.

These impacts aid in the development of the physical and astral bodies, and through them the monadic group-soul gathers much experience. When the form of a member of the group perishes, the experience gathered through that form is accumulated in the monadic group-soul, and may be said to colour it; the slightly increased life of the monadic group-soul, poured into all the forms which compose its group, shares among all the experiences of the perished form, and in this way continually repeated experiences, stored up in the monadic group-soul, appear as instincts, “accumulated hereditary experiences” in the new forms.

Countless birds having fallen a prey to hawks, chicks just out of the egg will cower at the approach of one of the hereditary enemies, for the life that is incarnated in them knows the danger, and the innate instinct is the expression of its knowledge. In this way are formed the wonderful instincts that guard animals from innumerable habitual perils, while a new danger finds them unprepared and only bewilders them. (Page 192)

As animals come under the influence of man, the monadic group-souls evolves with greatly increased rapidity, and, from causes similar to those which affect plants under domestication, subdivision of the incarnating life is more readily brought about. Personality evolves and becomes more and more strongly marked; in the earlier stages it may almost be said to be compound – a whole flock of wild creatures will act as though moved by a single personality, so completely are the forms dominated by the common soul, it, in turn, being affected by the impulse from the external world.

Domesticated animals of the higher types, the elephants, the horse, the cat, the dog, show a more individualised personality – two dogs, for instance, may act very differently under the impact of the same circumstances. The monadic group-soul incarnates in a decreasing number of forms as it gradually approaches the point at which complete individualisation will be reached. The desire-body, or Kâmic vehicle, becomes considerably developed, and persists for some time after the death of the physical body, leading an independent existence in Kâmaloka. At last the decreasing number of forms animated by a monadic group-soul comes down to unity, and it animates a succession of single forms – a condition differing from human reincarnation only by the absence of Manas, with its causal and mental bodies.

The mental matter brought down by the monadic group-souls begins to be susceptible to impacts from the mental plane, and the animal is then ready to receive the third great (Page 193) outpouring of the life of the LOGOS – the tabernacle is ready for the reception of the human Monad.

The human Monad is, as we have seen, triple in its nature, its three aspects being denominated, respectively, the Spirit, the spiritual Soul, and the human Soul, Âtma-Buddhi-Manas. Doubtless, in the course of eons of evolution, the upwardly evolving Monad of form might have unfolded Manas by progressive growth, but both in the human race in the past, and in the animals of the present, such has not been the course of Nature.

When the house was ready the tenant was sent down; from the higher planes of being the âtmic life descended, veiling itself in Buddhi, as a golden thread; and its third aspect, Manas, showing itself in the higher levels of the formless world of the mental plane, germinal Manas within the form was fructified, and the embryonic causal body was formed by the union. This is the individualisation of the spirit, the incasing of it in form, and this spirit incased in the causal body is the soul, the individual, the real man. This is his birth hour; for though his essence be eternal, unborn and undying, his birth in time as an individual is definite. Further, this outpoured life reaches the evolving forms not directly, but by intermediaries. The human race having attained the point of receptivity, certain great Ones, called Sons of Mind – (Manasaputra is the technical name, being merely the Sanskrit for Sons of Mind.) – cast into men the monadic spark of Âtma-Buddhi-Manas, needed (Page 194) for the formation of the embryonic soul.

And some of these great Ones actually incarnated in human forms, in order to become the guides and teachers of infant humanity. These Sons of Mind had completed Their own intellectual evolution in other worlds, and came to this younger world, our earth, for the purpose of thus aiding in the evolution of the human race. They are in truth, the spiritual fathers of the bulk of our humanity. Other intelligences of much lower grade, men who had evolved in preceding cycles in another world, incarnated among the descendants of the race that received its infant souls in the way just described. As this race evolved, the human tabernacles improved, and myriads of souls that were awaiting the opportunity of incarnation, that they might continue their evolution, took birth among its children.

These partially evolved souls are also spoken of in the ancient records as Sons of Mind, for they were possessed of mind, although comparatively it was but little developed – childish souls we may call them, in distinguishment from the embryonic souls of the bulk of humanity, and the mature souls of the great Teachers.

These child-souls, by reason of their more evolved intelligence, formed the leading types of the ancient world, the classes higher in mentality, and therefore in the power of acquiring knowledge, that dominated the masses of less developed men in antiquity. And thus arose, in our world, the enormous differences in mental and moral capacity which separate the most highly evolved from the least (Page 195) evolved races, and which, even within the limits of single race, separate the lofty philosophic thinker from the well-nigh animal type of the most depraved of his own nation. These differences are but differences of the stage of evolution, of the age of the soul, and they have been found to exist throughout the whole of history of humanity on this globe. Go back as far as we may in historic records, and we may find lofty intelligence and debased ignorance side by side, and the occult records, carrying us backwards, tell a similar story of the early millennia of humanity.

Nor should this distress us, as though some had been unduly favoured and others unduly burdened for the struggle of life. The loftiest soul had its childhood and its infancy, albeit in previous worlds, where other souls were as high above it as others are below it now; the lowest soul shall climb to where our highest are standing, and souls yet unborn shall occupy its present place in evolution. Things seem unjust because we wrench our world out of its place in evolution, and set it apart in isolation, with no forerunners and no successors. It is our ignorance that sees the injustice; the ways of Nature are equal, and she brings to all her children infancy, childhood, and manhood. Nor hers the fault if our folly demands that all souls shall occupy the same stage of evolution at the same time, and cries “Unjust!” if the demand be not fulfilled.

We shall best understand the evolution of the soul, if we take it up at the point where we left it, when animal-man was ready to receive, and did (Page 196) receive, the embryonic soul. To avoid a possible misapprehension, it may be well to say that there were not henceforth two Monads in man – the one that had built the human tabernacle, and the one that descended into that tabernacle, and whose lowest aspect was the human soul.

To borrow a simile again from H. P. Blavatsky, as two rays of the sun may pass through a hole in a shutter, and mingling together form but one ray though they had been twain, so is it with these rays from the Supreme Sun, the divine Lord of our universe. The second ray, as it entered into the human tabernacle, blended with the first, merely adding to it fresh energy and brilliance, and the human Monad, as a unit, began its mighty task of unfolding the higher powers in man of that divine Life whence it came.

The embryonic soul, the Thinker, had at the beginning for its embryonic mental body the mind-stuff envelope that the Monad of form had brought with it, but had not yet organised into any possibility of functioning. It was the mere germ of a mental body, attached to a mere germ of a causal body, and for many a life the strong desire-nature had its will with the soul, whirling it along the road of its own passions and appetites, and dashing up against it all the furious waves of its own uncontrolled animality.

Repulsive as this early life of the soul may at first seem to some when looked at from the higher stage that we have now attained, it was a necessary one for the germination of the seeds of mind. Recognition of difference, the perception that one thing is different (Page 197) from another, is a preliminary essential to thinking at all. And, in order to awaken this perception in the as yet unthinking soul, strong and violent contrasts had to strike upon it, so as to force differences upon it – blow after blow of riotous pleasure, blow after blow of crushing pain.

The external world hammered on the soul through the desire nature, till perceptions began to be slowly made, and, after countless repetitions, to be registered. The little gains made in each life were stored up by the Thinker, as we have already seen, and thus slow progress was made.

Slow progress, indeed, for scarcely anything was thought, and hence scarcely anything was done in the way of organising the mental body. Not until many perceptions had been registered in it as mental images was there any material on which mental action, initiated from within, could be based; this would begin when two or more of these mental images were drawn together, and some inference, however elementary, was made from them. That inference was the beginning of reasoning, the germ of all the systems of logic which the intellect of man has since evolved or assimilated. These inferences would at first all be made in the service of the desire-nature, for the increasing of pleasure, the lessening of pain; but each one would increase the activity of the mental body, and would stimulate it into more ready functioning.

It will readily be seen that at this period of his infancy man had no knowledge of good or of evil; (Page 198) right and wrong for him had no existence. The right is that which is in accordance with the divine will, which helps forward the progress of the soul, which tends to the strengthening of the higher nature of man and to the training and subjugation of the lower, the wrong is that which retards evolution, which retains the soul in the lower stages after he has learned the lessons they have to teach, which tends to the mastery of the lower nature over the higher, and assimilates man to the brute he should be outgrowing instead of to the God he should be evolving.

Ere man could know what was right, he had to learn the existence of the law, and this he could only learn by following all that attracted him in the outer world, by grasping every desirable object, and then by learning from experience, sweet or bitter, whether his delight was in harmony or in conflict with the law. Let us take an obvious example, the taking of pleasant food, and see how infant man might learn therefrom the presence of a natural law. At the first taking, his hunger was appeased, his taste was gratified, and only pleasure resulted from the experience, for his action was in harmony with law. On another occasion, desiring to increase pleasure, he ate overmuch and suffered in consequence, for he transgressed against the law. A confusing experience to the dawning intelligence, how the pleasurable became painful by excess.

Over and over again he would be led by desire into excess, and each time he would experience the painful consequences, until at last he learned moderation, (Page 199) i.e., he learned to conform his bodily acts in this respect to physical law; for he found that there were conditions which affected him and which he could not control, and that only by observing them could physical happiness be insured. Similar experiences flowed in upon him through all the bodily organs, with undeviating regularity; his outrushing desires brought him pleasure or pain just as they worked with the laws of Nature or against them, and, as experience increased, it began to guide his steps, to influence his choice, It was not as though he had to begin his experience anew with every life, for on each new birth he brought with him mental faculties a little increased, and ever-accumulating store.

I have said that the growth in these early days was very slow, for there was but the dawning of mental action, and when the man left his physical body at death he passed most of his time in Kâmaloka, sleeping through a brief devachanic period of unconscious assimilation of any minute mental experience not yet sufficiently developed for the active heavenly life that lay before him after many days.

Still, the enduring causal body was there, to be the receptacle of his qualities, and to carry them on for further development into his next life on earth. The part played by the monadic group-soul in the earlier stages of evolution is played in man by the causal body, and it is this continuing entity who, in all cases, makes evolution possible. Without him, the accumulation of mental and moral experiences, shown as (Page 200) faculties, would be as impossible as would be the accumulation of physical experiences, shown as racial and family characteristics without the continuity of physical plasm.

Souls without a past behind them, springing suddenly into existence, out of nothing, with marked mental and moral peculiarities, are a conception as monstrous as would be the corresponding conception of babies suddenly appearing from nowhere, unrelated to anybody, but showing marked racial and family types.

Neither man nor his physical vehicle is uncaused, or caused by the direct power of the LOGOS; here, as in so many other cases, the invisible things are clearly seen by their analogy with the visible, the visible being, in very truth, nothing more than the images, the reflections, of things unseen. Without a continuity in the physical plasm, there would be no means for the evolution of physical peculiarities; without the continuity of the intelligence, there would be no means for the evolution of mental and moral qualities. In both cases, without continuity, evolution would be stopped at its first stage, and the world would be a chaos of infinite and isolated beginnings instead of a cosmos continually becoming.

We must not omit to notice that in these early days much variety is caused in the type and in the nature of individual progress by the environment which surrounds the individual. Ultimately all the souls have to develop all their powers, but the order in which these powers are developed depends (Page 201) on the circumstances amid which the soul is placed. Climate, the fertility or sterility of nature, the life of the mountain or of the plain, of the inland forest or the ocean shore – these things and countless others will call into activity one set or another of the awakening mental energies.

A life of extreme hardship, of ceaseless struggle with nature, will develop very different powers from those evolved amid the luxuriant plenty of a tropical island; both sets of powers are needed, for the soul is to conquer every region of nature, but striking differences may thus be evolved even in souls of the same age, and one may appear to be more advanced than the other, according as the observer estimates most highly the more “practical” or the more “contemplative” powers of the soul, the active outward-going energies, or the quiet inward-turned musing faculties. The perfected soul possesses all, but the soul in the making must develop them successively, and thus arises another cause of the immense variety found among human beings. For again, it must be remembered that human evolution is individual. In a group informed by a single monadic group-soul the same instincts will be found in all, for the receptacle of the experiences is that monadic group-soul, and it pours its life into all forms dependent upon it.

But each man has his own physical vehicle and one only at a time, and the receptacle of all experiences is the causal body, which pours its life into its one physical vehicle, and can affect no other physical vehicle, being connected (Page 202) with none other. Hence we find differences separating individual men greater, than the ever separated, closely allied animals, and hence also the evolution of qualities cannot be studied in men in the mass, but only in the continuing individual. The lack of power to make such a study leaves science unable to explain why some men tower above their fellows, intellectual and moral giants, unable to trace the intellectual evolution of a Shankarâchârya or a Pythagoras, the moral evolution of a Buddha or of a Christ.

Let us now consider the factors in reincarnation, as a clear understanding of these is necessary for the explanation of some of the difficulties – such as the alleged loss of memory – which are felt by those unfamiliar with the idea. We have seen that man, during his passage through physical death, Kâmaloka and Devachan, loses one after the other, his various bodies, the physical, the astral, and the mental. These are all disintegrated, and their particles remix with the materials of their several planes. The connection of the man with the physical vehicle is entirely broken off and done with; but the astral and mental bodies hand on to the man himself, to the Thinker, the germs of the faculties and qualities resulting from the activities of the earth-life, and these are stored within the causal body, the seeds of his next astral and mental bodies.

At this stage, then, only the man himself is left, the labourer who has brought his harvest home, and has lived upon it till it is all worked up into himself. The dawn of a (Page 203) new life begins, and he must go forth again to his labour until the even. The new life begins by the vivifying of the mental germs, and they draw upon the materials of the lower mental levels, till a mental body has grown up from them that represents exactly the mental stage of the man, expressing all his mental faculties as organs; the experiences of the past do not exist as mental images in this new body; as mental images they perished when the old mind-body perished, and only their essence, their effects on faculty, remain; they were the food of the mind, the materials which it wove into powers, and in the new body they reappear as powers, they determine its materials, and they form its organs. When the man, the Thinker, has thus clothed himself with a new body for his coming life on the lower mental levels, he proceeds, by vivifying the astral germs, to provide himself with an astral body for his life on the astral plane.

This, again, exactly represents his desire-nature, faithfully reproducing the qualities he evolved in the past, as the seed reproduces its parent tree. Thus the man stands, fully equipped for his next incarnation, the only memory of these events of his past being in the causal body, in his own enduring form, the one body that passes on from life to life. Meanwhile, action external to himself is being taken to provide him with a physical body suitable for the expression of his qualities. In past lives he has made ties with, contracted liabilities towards, other human beings, and some of these will partly (Page 204) determine his place of birth and his family. – ( This and the following causes determining the outward circumstances of the new life will be fully explained in Chapter IX, on “Karma”.) He has been a source of happiness or of unhappiness to others; this is a factor in determining the conditions of his coming life. His desire-nature is well disciplined, or unregulated and riotous; this will be taken into account in the physical heredity of the new body. He has cultivated certain mental powers, such as the artistic; this must be considered, as here again physical heredity is an important factor where delicacy of nervous organisation and tactile sensibility are required.

And so on, in endless variety. The man may, certainly will, have in him many incongruous characteristics, so that only some can find expression in any one body that could be provided, and a group of his powers suitable for simultaneous expression must be selected. All this is done by certain mighty spiritual Intelligences,( Spoken of by H.P.Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine. They are the Lipika, the Keepers of the kârmic records, and the Mahârâjas, who direct the practical working out of the decrees of the Lipika.) - often spoken of as the Lords of Karma, because it is their function to superintend the working out of causes continually set going by thoughts, desires, and actions. They hold the threads of destiny which each man has woven, and guide the reincarnating man to the environment determined by his past, unconsciously self-chosen through his past life.(Page 205) The race, the nation, the family, being thus determined, what may be called the mould of the physical body – suitable for the expression of the man’s qualities, and for the working out of the causes he has set going – is given by these great Ones, and the new etheric double, a copy of this, is built within the mother’s womb by the agency of an elemental, the thought of the Kārmic Lords being its motive power.

The dense body is built into the etheric double molecule by molecule, following it exactly, and here physical heredity has full sway in the materials provided. Further, the thoughts and passions of surrounding people, especially of the continually present father and mother, influence the building elemental in its work, the individuals with whom the incarnating man had formed ties in the past thus affecting the physical conditions growing up for his new life on earth.

At a very early stage the new astral body comes into connection with the new etheric double, and exercises considerable influence over its formation, and through it the mental body works upon the nervous organisation, preparing it to become a suitable instrument for its own expression in the future. This influence commenced in ante natal life – so that when a child is born its brain-formation reveals the extent and balance of its mental and moral qualities – is continued after birth, and this building of brain and nerves, and their correlation to the astral and mental bodies, go on till the seventh year of childhood, at which age the connection between the man and his physical (Page 206) vehicle is complete, and he may be said to work through it henceforth more than upon it.

Up to this age, the consciousness of the Thinker is more upon the astral plane than upon the physical, and this is often evidenced by the play of psychic faculties in young children. They see invisible comrades and fairy landscapes, hear voices inaudible to their elders, catch charming and delicate fancies from the astral world. These phenomena generally vanish as the Thinker begins to work effectively through the physical vehicle, and the dreamy child becomes the commonplace boy or girl, oftentimes much to the relief of the bewildered parents, ignorant of the cause of their child’s “queerness.”

Most children have at least a touch of this “queerness,” but they quickly learn to hide away their fancies and visions from their unsympathetic elders, fearful of blame for “telling stories,” or of what the child dreads far more – ridicule. If parents could see their children’s brains, vibrating under an inextricable mingling of physical and astral impacts, which the children themselves are quite incapable of separating, and receiving sometimes a thrill – so plastic are they – even from the higher regions, giving a vision of ethereal beauty, of heroic achievement, they would be more patient with, more responsive to, the confused prattlings of the little ones, trying to translate into the difficult medium of unaccustomed words the elusive touches of which they are conscious, and which they try to catch and retain. Reincarnation, believed in and understood, would relieve child life (Page 207) of its most pathetic aspect, the unaided struggle of the soul to gain control over its new vehicles, and to connect itself fully with its densest body without losing power to impress the rarer ones in a way that would enable them to convey to the denser their own more subtle vibrations.