abel the seven globes by the earlier
letters of the alphabet, and number the incarnations in order. Thus, as
this is the fourth incarnation of our chain, the first globe in this
incarnation will be 4A, the second 4B, the third 4C, the fourth (which is
our Earth) 4D, and so on.

These globes are not all composed of physical matter. 4A contains no matter
lower than that of the mental world; it has its counterpart in all the
worlds higher than that, but nothing below it. 4B exists in the astral
world; but 4C is a physical globe, visible to our telescopes, and is in
fact the planet which we know as Mars. Globe 4D is our own Earth, on which
the life-wave of the chain is at present in action. Globe 4E is the planet
which we call Mercury--also in the physical world. Globe 4F is in the
astral world, corresponding on the ascending arc to globe 4B in the
descent; while globe 4G corresponds to globe 4A in having its lowest
manifestation in the lower part of the mental world. Thus it will be seen
that we have a scheme of globes starting in the lower mental world,
dipping through the astral into the physical and then rising into the lower
mental through the astral again.

Just as the succession of the globes in a chain constitutes a descent into
matter and an ascent from it again, so do the successive incarnations of a
chain. We have described the condition of affairs in the fourth
incarnation; looking back at the third, we find that that commences not on
the lower level of the mental world but on the higher. Globes 3A and 3G,
then, are both of higher mental matter, while globes 3B and 3F are at the
lower mental level. Globes 3C and 3E belong to the astral world, and only
globe 3D is visible in the physical world. Although this third incarnation
of our chain is long past, the corpse of this physical globe 3D is still
visible to us in the shape of that dead planet the Moon, whence that third
incarnation is usually called the lunar chain.

The fifth incarnation of our chain, which still lies very far in the
future, will correspond to the third. In that, globes 5A and 5G will be
built of higher mental matter, globes 5B and 5F of lower mental, globes 5C
and 5E of astral matter, and only globe 5D will be in the physical world.
This planet 5D is of course not yet in existence.

The other incarnations of the chain follow the same general rule of
gradually decreasing materiality; 2A, 2G, 6A and 6G are all in the
intuitional world; 2B, 2F