violet light, although
scientific experiments show that they exist, and there are other
consciousnesses with differently-formed organs who _can_ see by them. A
being living in the astral world might be occupying the very same space as
a being living in the physical world, yet each would be entirely
unconscious of the other and would in no way impede the free movement of
the other. The same is true of all other worlds. We are at this moment
surrounded by these worlds of finer matter, as close to us as the world we
see, and their inhabitants are passing through us and about us, but we are
entirely unconscious of them.

Since our evolution is centred at present upon this globe which we call the
earth, it is in connection with it only that we shall be speaking of these
higher worlds, so in future when I use the term "astral world" I shall mean
by it the astral part of our own globe only, and not (as heretofore) the
astral part of the whole solar system. This astral part of our own world is
also a globe, but of astral matter. It occupies the same place as the globe
which we see, but its matter (being so much lighter) extends out into space
on all sides of us further than does the atmosphere of the earth--a great
deal further. It stretches to a little less than the mean distance of the
moon, so that though the two physical globes, the earth and the moon, are
nearly 240,000 miles apart, the astral globes of these two bodies touch one
another when the moon is in perigee, but not when she is in apogee. I shall
apply the term "mental world" to the still larger globe of mental matter in
the midst of which our physical earth exists. When we come to the still
higher globes we have spheres large enough to touch the corresponding
spheres of other planets in the system, though their matter also is just as
much about us here on the surface of the solid earth as that of the others.
All these globes of finer matter are a part of us, and are all revolving
round the sun with their visible part. The student will do well to accustom
himself to think of our earth as the whole of this mass of interpenetrating
worlds--not only the comparatively small physical ball in the centre of it.

Chapter IV

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE

All the impulses of life which I have described as building the
interpenetrating worlds come forth from the Third Aspect of the Deity.
Hence in the Christian scheme that Aspect is called "the Giver of Life",
the Spirit