mental--is
fully understood later confusion of thought will be avoided. Physical
language is not capable of fully expressing much with which students of
the occult must deal. Because there is nothing better for the purpose,
words must be used that express but a part of the truth and may
sometimes prove misleading unless the constitution and relationship of
the three spheres is kept in mind. Thus, it is necessary to speak of
higher and lower worlds, or planes, inner or outer, and of the soul
coming "down" into the material world when, as a matter of fact, _no
movement in space_ is under consideration. The astral is commonly spoken
of as an inner plane and while it truly is so because it can be known
only to astral senses by a withdrawal of the consciousness from its
exterior, material body, it is also true that the astral world is
outside the physical because it envelops it as the sea does a sponge.
We usually speak of coming down from higher planes to lower and that may
be true not only in the sense of changing the state of consciousness
from higher vibrations to lower ones but it _could_ mean a journey in
space from a point in the astral plane above the physical globe to a
point at its surface. "Up" and "down" are relative, not absolute. "Down"
for us is toward the earth's center and "up" is the opposite direction.
A spire in the Occident and a spire in the Orient are both said to be
pointing upward but they are pointing in opposite directions. On most
parts of the earth's surface we have four directions, while at the poles
there is, of course, but one direction--south or north, as the case may
be. East, west and north disappear at the north pole. Reflection upon
such facts leads one to at least faintly comprehend the possibility of
space itself disappearing from the inner planes--space as we know it.

The matter of each of the planes consists of seven classes. We are
familiar with the solids, liquids and gases of the physical plane, and
to them must be added four grades of the ether. The seven grades of
matter of the astral and mental worlds constitute an important part of
the mechanism for the soul's evolution, for they determine the state of
consciousness in the life beyond the physical plane. But a study of
those states of consciousness belongs to a later chapter.

A difficulty which the student of theosophy should make an early effort
to eliminate, is the tendency to think of invisible realms as unreal. It
shoul