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so that the organs of sense we think of as in association with the human being are entirely superseded. This, to begin with, is one of the most difficult ideas to realise from the point of view of ordinary thinking. People cannot emancipate their conception of existence from the conception of the human form, so that poets and painters have followed the guidance of anthropomorphic theology in all their attempts to represent beings of a celestial nature. Their highest efforts are in this way little more than grotesque for those who, either with the help of imagination or experience, are enabled to realise in some degree the nature of consciousness in realms which transcend sense, and are wholly superior to the limitations of a differentiated organism. But it will be remembered that the Aura that surrounds the human being even on this plane of life is, if we omit those elements of its constitution which have to do with the magnetic conditions of the body, itself a congeries of the actual vehicles in which it is qualified to function on the higher planes of nature. The Aura itself has no limbs or features, and yet in a far truer sense than the limbs and features is the vehicle of our thoughts and emotions, of our knowledge and our will, so that anyone who desires to realise in some measure what the conditions of the Arupa levels are like, must begin by getting rid of the false association established by the habits of physical life between consciousness and the differentiated organism. The lowest of the three Arupa planes is that on which the Karana Sharira of every human being may be thought of as already existing in some degree or THE SPIRITUAL PLANE. 261 other of early development. On the intermediate Arupa plane those Karana Shariras will be found, in connexion with which a very considerable degree both of intellectual and spiritual development has been accomplished, while on the highest of all existence is only possible for those in whom such advancement has been supplemented by the actual acquisition of know- ledge and power incidental to that degree of progress marked by the first, at all events, of the great steps of initiation. That process of initiation represents the accelerated accomplishment of the evolution laid out as regards humanity at large, for the second half of the Manvantara. At a later stage of that period, evolution will have brought considerable numbers to the levels, with which at present those are concerned alone who have hastened with extraordinary rapidity along the path. ‘Thus, whatever it may be possible for us at present to learn concerning the highest of the Arupa planes has to do rather with the attempt to appreciate abnormal than with a survey of normal evolution. We may come back to this subject further on, when the course of initiation has been more dis- tinctly traced; for the moment the highest level of the Arupa planes need not be brought into the picture which concerns itself with an appreciation of the regular course pursued by the human entity in its progress from physical death to re-birth. In conclusion of this part of our subject, however, it may be hinted that the spiritual conditions of being attainable -by the human soul still in relations with this earth are not exhausted by the resources of those planes of Nature 262 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. described in the foregoing pages. Occult teaching 1s to the effect that even above the highest region of Devachan which itself transcends the manifestations of form and objectivity, there is a spiritual state attainable by man which transcends even that. But it is useless to attempt any speculation which shall deal with the characteristics of that plane in words, and it is outside the natural cycles of human existence, so that in the ordinary course of things the soul after death would not touch it, returning instead in due time to incarna- tion from the spiritual realm already dealt with. So we need not take cognisance of it for the present further than to say that it constitutes the state of unimaginable spiritual sublimity referred to in Eastern theosophy by the expression Nirvana. THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 263 CHAPTER X. THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. EVERYONE who has touched the outskirts of Theosophic teaching will be familiar with the idea that this planet we are actually inhabiting for the moment forms one of a connected series through which the human life- wave flows, manifesting in full activity on one only at any given period; that the course of the whole Man- vantara involves a septenary journey round this chain of worlds ; that each in turn is brought into full activity during this progress, and fades back into comparative obscuration as the life-wave passes on, and that the passage around the whole seven globes is spoken of ) for convenience as a “round ”’ in evolution, seven of which make up a whole Manvantara. The strain and struggle of existence is not equally great on all these globes—in four of them, indeed, two of these being on the downward and two on the upward arc of the circle, humanity is not called upon to undergo the strain of physical existence at all. On the first globe of the series existence is altogether conditioned by surroundings corresponding with that which we call the Devachanic plane of the earth, while the lowest point of materiality touched by the second globe of the series is on a level with that which we here call 264 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL, the astral plane. Jife on the third planet on the downward series has already the physical vehicle, and that third planet, therefore, becomes perceptible to our present senses, and is in fact the planet Mars. Passing onward from this earth, humanity again func- tions on a physical globe—the planet Mercury—and then passes to the sixth, the lowest materiality of which is astral, and to a seventh which, like the first, is altogether Devachanic. It seems desirable here to interpolate an explana- tion with which earlier dissertations on the planetary chain were not concerned, in reference to a confusion of nomenclature which has apparently invaded the domain of astronomy. By ordinary usage, of course, the planet whose orbit is nearest to us as we approach the sun, is called Venus, the one next within the orbit of Venus and nearer to the sun is called Mercury. And whatever the original astrological motives may have been for bestowing these names on the planets, ordinary astronomy requires nothing more than a label by means of which each shall be known, and it does not matter at all what names are employed if these are always used in the same signification. But from the point of view of astrology, the names although apparently derived from mythology have a meaning, and in this way the name Venus has been associated with the planet which, as these explanations proceed, will be seen to be the habitation of a race more advanced than our own, and the name Mercury belongs astrologically to the planet associated with our own planetary chain and to which in the normal course of events the tide THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG. 265 of human evolution will flow when the present world period comes to an end. But the planet to which humanity will thus drift is in reality the planet whose orbit is next to our own (as we approach the sun) and the planet within that orbit, nearer to the sun, is really the one inhabited by that advanced race spoken of in the earlier theosophical books as the Venus evolution. So when we say that Mercury belongs to our planetary chain it should be remembered that in reality we are speaking of the planet commonly called Venus; that when we speak of the Venus evolution we really mean an evolution on the planet commonly called Mercury. The confused nomenclature is of no consequence in dealing with mere physical astronomy, but at all events, some astrologers inform me that by associating what are commonly known as the Venus aspects with the planet nearest the sun and those known as Mercurial aspects with the planet whose orbit ts nearest to the earth more satisfactory results are to be obtained than can be worked out with the more conventional system. At the first glance the reader who has not made a special study of the solar system as a whole will fail to see why this alleged confusion need give rise to any trouble, but for some purposes connected with the interpretation of the system as a whole it is important that the mistake should be cleared out of the way. Here on the earth we are at the middle point of our progress in each round, and this period of the earth’s activity is the middle period of the whole Manvantara as the round on which we are engaged is the fourth, 266 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. just a little more than half of which is already accom- plished. If we concentrate our attention on the present world period alone we find evolution being carried out during the whole of the period through seven great races, with seven different configurations of land and water to harmonise with their needs, the race in the midst of which we Europeans and some other popula- tions now find ourselves, being the fifth, while the fourth, the middle race, was the great Atlantean race which already began to decline from its culminating grandeur nearly a million years ago. The last remnant of land which belonged to the great continent it once occupied disappeared in the natural convulsion of which some faint records have been preserved in classical literature, and in the Mexican manuscript known as the Troana MS., lately deciphered by Dr. Le Plongeon.