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    "num": 5,
    "slug": "04-chapter-iv",
    "title": "CHAPTER IV.",
    "of": 12,
    "words": 1832,
    "text": "## CHAPTER IV.\n\nThe Mental Plane.\n\nThe mental plane, as its name implies, is that\nwhich belongs to consciousness working as thought ;\nnot of the mind as it works through the brain, but\nas it works in its own world, unencumbered with\nphysical spirit-matter. This world is the world of\nthe real man. The word \"man\" comes from the\nSanskrit root \" man,\" and this is the root of the San-\nskrit verb \"to think,\" so that man means thinker;\nhe is named by his most characteristic attribute, in-\ntelligence. In English the word \"mind\" has to\nstand for the intellectual consciousness itself, and\nalso for the effects produced on the physical brain\nby the vibrations of that consciousness; but we have\nnow to conceive of the intellectual consciousness as\nan entity, an individual — a being, the vibrations of\nwhose life are thoughts, thoughts which are im-\nages, not words. This individual is Manas, or the\nThinker;* he is the Self, clotViad in the matter, and\nworking within the conditions, of the higher subdi-\n\n* Derived from Manas is the technical name, the m^nasic\nplane, Englished as \"mental.'' We might call it the plane of\nthe mind proper, to distinguish its activities from those of the\nmind working in the flesh.\n\nvisions of the mental plane. He reveals his pres-\nence on the physical plane by the vibrations he sets\nlip in the brain and nervous system ; these respond\nto the thrills of his life by sympatlietic vibrations,\nbut in consequence of the coarseness of their mate-\nrials they can reproduce only a small section of his\nvibrations, and even that very imperfectly. Just as\nscience asserts the existence of a vast series of ethe-\nric vibrations, of whIcJi the eye can only see a small\nfragment, the solar H^ht-spectrum, because it can\nvibrate only within certain limits, so can the physi-\ncal thought-apparatus, the brain and nervous sys-\ntem, think only a small fragment of the vapt series\nof mental vibrations set up by the Thinker in his\nown world. The most receptive brains respond up\nto the point of whpt we call great intellectual power;\nthe exceptioually receptive brains respond up to the\npoint of what we call genius ; the exceptionally irn-\nreceptive brains respond only up to the point wc call\nidiocy; but everyone sends beating against his brain\nmillions of thought-waves to which it cannot re-\nspond, owing to the density of its materials, and\njust in proporiion to its sensitiveness are the so-\ncalled mental powers of each. But before studying\nthe Thinker, it will be well to consider his world,\nthe mental plane itself.\n\nThe mental plane is that which is next to the as>\ntral, and is separated from it only by differences of\nmaterials, just as the astral is separated from the\nphysical. In fact, we may repeat what was said as\nto the astral and the physical with regard to the\n\nMENTAL SPIRIT- MATTEIL IO9\n\nmental and the astral. Life on the mental plane is\nmore active than on the astral, and form is more\nplastic. The spirit-matter of that plane is more\nhighly vitalized and finer than any grade of matter\nin the astral world. The ultimate atom of astral\nmatter has innumerable aggregations of the coarsest\nmental matter for its encircling sphere-world, so\nthat the disintegration of the astral atom yields a\nmass of mental matter of the coarsest kinds. Under\nthese circumstances it will be understood that the\nplay of the life-forces on this plane will be enor-\nmously increased in activity, there being so much\nless mass to be moved by them. The matter is in\nconstant, ceaseless motion, taking form under every\nthrill of life, and adapting itself without hesitation\nto every changing motion. ** Mind-stuff,\" as it has\nbeen called, makes astral spirit-matter seem clumsy,\nheavy, and lustreless, although compared with the\nphysical spirit-matter it is so fairy-light and lumi-\nnous. But the law of analogy holds good, and gives\nus a clue to guide us through (his superastral region,\nthe region that is our birthplace and our home, al-\nthough, imprisoned in a foreign land, we know it not,\nand gaze at descriptions of it with the eyes of aliens.\nOnce again here, as on the two lower planes, the\nsubdivisions of the spirit-matter of the plane are\nseven in number. Once again, these varieties enter\ninto countless combinations, of every variety of com-\nplexity, yielding the solids, liquids, gases, and ethers\nof the mental plane. The word \"solid\" seems in-\ndeed absurd, when speaking of even the most sub-\n\nno THE A.\\Cir,N-T WISDOM.\n\nstaiitial forms of niind-stuff; yet as they are dense\nin comparison with other tiuds of mental materials,\nand as we have no descriptive words save such as\nare based on physical conditions, we must e'en use\nit for lack of a better. Enough if we understand\nthat this plane follows the general law and order of\nNature, which is, for our globe, the septenary basis,\nand that the seven subdivisions of matter are of less-\nening densities, relatively to each other, as the phys-\nical solids, liquids, gases, and ethers; the seventh,\nor highest, subdivision being composed exclusively\nof the ultimate mental atoms.\n\nThese subdivisions are giouped under two head-\nings, to which the som.ewhat inefficient and unintel-\nligible epithets \" formless\" and \" form\" have been\nassigned.* The lower four — the first, second, third,\nand fourth subdivisions — are grouped together as\n\"with form:\" the higher three — the fifth, sixth, and\nseventh subdivisions — are grouped as \"formless.\"\nThe grouping is necessary, for the distinction is a\nreal one, although one difficult to describe, and the\nregions are related in consciousness to the divisions\nin the mind itself — as will appear more plainly a lit-\ntle farther on. The distinction may perhaps be best\nexpressed by saying that in the lower four subdivi-\nsions the vibrations of consciousness give rise to\nforms, to images or pictures, and every thought ap-\npears as a living shape ; whereas in the higher three,\nconsciousness, though still, of course, setting up vi-\n\n*.\\rftpa, without form; r&pa, form, Rfipa is form, Rhape,\nbocly.\n\nABSTRACT AND CONCRETE THOUGHTS. Ill\n\nbratious, seems rather to send them out as a mighty\nstream of living energy, which does not body itself\ninto distinct images while it remains in this higher\nregion, but which sets up a variety of forms all linked\nby some common condition when it rushes into the\nlower worlds. The nearest analogy that I can find\nfor the conception I am trying to express is that of\nabstract and concrete thoughts : an abstract idea of\na triangle has no form, but connotes any plane fig-\nure contained within three right lines, the angles of\nwhich make two right angles; such an idea, with\nconditions but without shape, thrown into the lower\nworld, may give birth to a vast variety of figures,\nright-angled, isosceles, scalene, of any color and\nsize, but all fulfilling the conditions — concrete tri-\nangles, each one with a definite shape of its own.\nThe impossibility of giving in words a lucid exposi-\ntion of the difference in the action of consciousness\nin the two regions is due to the fact that words are\nthe symbols of images and belong to the workings\nof the lower mind in the brain, and are based wholly\nupon those workings; while the \"formless\" region\nbelongs to the Pure Reason, which never works\nwithin the narrow limits of language.\n\nThe mental plane is that which reflects the Uni-\nversal Mind in Nature, the plane which in our little\nsystem corresponds with that of the Great Mind in\nthe Kosmos.* In its higher regions exist all the\n\n* Mabat. the Third Logos, or Divine Creative Intelligence,\nthe Brabmft of the HindtiB, the Mandjusri of the Northern\nBuddhists, the Holy Spirit of the Christians.\n\nir2 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\narchetypal ideas which are now in course of concrete\nevohition, and in its lower the working out of these\ninto successive forms, to be duly reproduced in the\nastral and physical worlds. Its materials are capa-\nble of combining under the impulse of thought vi-\nbrations, and can give rise to any combination which\nthought can construct; as iron can be made into a\nspade for digging or into a sword for slaying, so can\nmind-stuff be shaped into thought-forms that help\nor that injure; the vibrating life of the Thinker\nshapes the materials around him, and according to\nbis volitions so is his work. In that region thought\nand action, will and deed, are one and the same\nthing — spirit -matter here becomes the obedient seir\nvant of the litj, adapting itself to every creative\nmotion.\n\nThese vibrations, which shape the matter of the\nplane into thought- forms, give rise also — from their\nswiftness and subtlety — to the most exquisite and\nconstantly changing colors, waves of varying shades\nlike the rainbow hues in mother-of-pearl, ethereal-\niaed and brightened to an indescribable extent,\nsweeping over and through every form, so that each\npresents a harmony of ripphng, living, luminous,\ndelicate colors, inchidiug many not ever known to\nearth. Words can give no idea of the exquisite\nbeauty and radiance lihown in combinations of this\nsubtle matter, instinct with lite and motion. Every\nseer who has witnessed it, Hindu, Buddhist, Chris-\ntian, speaks in rapturous terms of its glorious beanty,\n;ind ever confesses his utter inability to describe it;\n\nBRILLIANT THOUGHT FORMS. II 3\n\nwords seem but to coarsen and deprave it, however\ndeftly woven in its praise.\n\nThought-forms naturally play a large part among\n;:he living creatures that function on the mental\nDiane They resemble those with which we are al-\nready familiar in the astral world, save that they are\nfar more radiant and more brilliantly colored, are\nstronger, more lasting, and more fully vitalized.\nAs the higher intellectual qualities become more\nclearly marked, these forms show very sharply\ndefined outlines, and there is a tendency to a singu-\nlar perfection of geometrical figures accompanied\nby an equally singular purity of luminous color.\nBut, needless to say at the present stage of human-\nity, there is a vast preponderance of. cloudy and\nirregularly shaped thoughts, the production of the\nill-trained minds of the majority. Rarely beautiful\nartistic thoughts are also here encountered, and it\nis little wonder that painters who have caught, in\ndreamy vision, some glimpse of their ideal, oft fret\nagainst their incapacity to reproduce its glowing\nbeauty in earth's dull pigments. These thought-\nforms are built out of the elemental essence of the\nplane, the vibrations of the thought throwing the\nelemental essence into a corresponding shape, and\nthis shape having the thought as its informing life.\nThus again we have \" artificial elementals\" created\nin a way identical with that by which they come\ninto being in the astral regions. All that is said in",
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