of force, and we are at the point where
matter, as we have known it, disappears. All the force and consciousness
of the solar system is, of course, but the life of the Logos, and on
higher planes the distinctions we observe here fade out. Matter becomes
a very different thing from the matter we know. The ether of the
physical world is almost inconceivably tenuous matter. Yet it is gross
when compared to the lowest grade of astral matter. The matter of the
mental world is enormously rarer than the most tenuous matter of the
astral world. In view of these facts it requires no stress of the
imagination to understand that the matter of the higher planes is
responsive to the vibrations of consciousness.

The outraying energies of the individualized center of consciousness act
upon the matter of the plane and draw about it a film that slowly grows
into a vehicle through which consciousness can be more fully expressed,
and which serves as a point of vantage from which its expression can be
extended to lower planes.

The seven subdivisions of the mental world fall naturally into two
groups, composed of the three higher and the four lower grades of
matter. The ego, anchored in the matter of the two planes above the
mental world, descends to the upper levels of the mental and the vesture
of matter with which it clothes itself is known as the causal body.
Sending its energies downward, or outward, to the lower levels of the
mental world, it establishes itself there in what slowly becomes a
mental body. Again in the astral world the process is repeated and a
vehicle of consciousness is formed of astral matter. The physical body
is the lowest and last of the vehicles to be formed and as it is slowly
built, in the months preceding birth, the matter it contains falls into
place under the operation of occult laws which permit no element of
chance to enter into its construction.

Each of these bodies serves as a vehicle of consciousness on the plane
to which it belongs. The soul is evolving simultaneously in each of the
worlds, physical, astral and mental, and these various bodies enable it
to receive the vibrations of the plane they belong to and thus to be
conscious there. The mental body is the seat of intellectual activity.
Thought arises as a vibration in it and passes through the astral body
into the physical brain. Whenever we think we are using the mental body.
The astral body is the seat of emotion. With it we feel. All emoti