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Reincarnation: A Study of the Human Soul

By J.A. Anderson

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The Evolution Of The Soul

A STUDY of the evolution* of the human soul implies and necessitates a primary examination of the processes of evolution generally. Man is but a factor in nature a part of the finite expression of the inexpressible Infinite and differs only in degree from entities both above and below him in the scale of being. To arrive at his basic principles, to discover the modus operandi of the law of evolution under whose action he has reached his present standpoint, we have to turn to the universal cosmic factors which are equally the cause of man and of his every environment, whether material, intellectual or spiritual.

Certain recent experiments in physics, as well, also, as studies in mathematics, indicate hitherto unsuspected facts concerning natural phenomena, which have a profound bearing upon our conceptions of evolution. For instance:
We have been taught by modern Western science to believe that force is most active and most potent upon grossly material planes, and that as we retreat to those more subjective it becomes less and less potent, until when mental or thought planes are reached it ceases to exist as force at all.

Having passed the uttermost limits of our ability to pursue or detect it by physical means, it of course, no longer exists, unless we ascend to its higher
retreats. Naturally, all experiments which deal with the purely physical seem to warrant this conclusion ; especially those in which our very thoughts have been measured by molecular vibrations, expressed in a rise of temperature of the superficies of our brain, and which expression becomes more and more faint as our thoughts become more and more interior and subjective. But the behavior of water, even, when changed into vapor by heat, ought to have aroused suspicion that higher states of matter contain greater potencies than lower.

And the liberation of " inter-etheric" force by Keeley, backed by the behavior and potencies of electricity, together with numerous other phenomena, show us that what we have been in the habit of considering as the very essence of force is only the driftwood, so to speak, cast upon the shores of the great seas and oceans of potential energies in which we have our being.

Force being, like Substance and Consciousness, an attribute of the Absolute, must have infinite potencies.

Hence, it logically follows that the nearer we penetrate to Absolute planes and eternal states of matter and consciousness the more stupendous and inconceivable be- come the forces which have there their normal field of activity. Nothing could exceed the emptiness, the utter void, in our conception of the interstellar or ethereal spaces lying between planets or suns. "Ether" has become a synonym for a state of matter which, while necessary to account for certain phenomena, is still considered so tenuous that it is practically non-existent, and hydrogen gas becomes by comparison with it as dense as iron. Yet out of this ether, when manipulated by knowledge, ap-pears an energy before which ajl purely physical forces are brushed aside, as are wisps of vapor in the path of a cannon-ball. The only reason for the existence and relative permanency of the forces and matter of this plane lies in the fact that they are out of direct relation to, and only sustain those distantly harmonic with, the forces of higher ones; that for astral, ethereal and akasic matter our own " physical basis of life" is practically non-existent.

The ethereal vibrations play through our earth, our bodies and our senses even, without producing any effect upon our consciousness, or, as far as analogy permits us to suppose, our affecting by our presence the consciousness of entities ensouled by this higher form of matter. Of course, this earth is not out of all relation to inner states of matter and modes of force, but it is out of direct relation thereto. Physical matter is the production of forces having their origin in vibrations upon these interior planes; but before such force is converted into physical terms it passes through many gradations, each removing it more and more from the potencies of those infinite store-houses of energy from which the Cosmos springs into being.

Bearing in mind, then, that force becomes more and more potent as it retires to realms which to us are more and more subjective, we can approach the subject of evolution with a better conception of the nature of the problems to be solved. For evolution is not, in this view, the study of the process of "creation out of nothing" the task set themselves by theologians and theology-biased philosophers; but, rather, the method by which the Absolute or Infinite Force, Matter and Consciousness, limits itself and becomes the finite as revealed to man. We are not troubled at all by the insufficiency of the Cause, but by the apparent limiting in time and space of the effects of a necessarily unlimited Causeless Cause.

One thing seems certain that, as has been expressed by a recent writer,* "if Infinite Being is to be manifested in finite existence, it must be through infinite variations of the finite." Thelaw of infinite variation, indeed, would seem to be one of the methods by which the Infinite expresses itself without lessening its own infinity. Another means by which, from our point of view, the Absolute and Unconditioned becomes the finite and conditioned, is in the all-pervading and unbroken law of cycles. In some form or degree, cyclic activity marks all existence or evolution, from that of a molecule to that of a manvantara.f Still another of these basic generalizations which have their common root in the Unknowable is the absolute sway of Cause and Effect in all realms of nature, from the highest and most super-spiritual to the lowest and most material. It is a logical conclusion that all absolutely unvarying laws, modes of motion, or states of consciousness, are direct as- pects of the Absolute ; and that by means of them we mayapproach to at least a partial conception of some planes of the Great Source of all life and being. Such would appear to be those we have cited; viz.: Infinite potentiality reflected in infinite variation of the finite; Absolute permanency of Being, shown in the absolute sway of Cause and Effect; and Eternal Duration in the unending, universal cycles which enable Duration to manifest as Time.

To the above, we have to add the unavoidable deduction that there can not be opposing factors in the universe, whether existing as force, matter, or consciousness; because these would be either equal, and produce universal inertia, or unequal, in which case the greater must necessarily have overcome the lesser in the unthinkable durations of the eternities of the past. An early conception of the importance of. this simple and logical law, that unity in essence must underlie every manifestation in nature, however differentiated and opposed such manifestations may appear, will clear away a mass of theological rubbish from our first postulates, at the very outset. If all matter, force, and consciousness proceed from unity, even though that unity remain for us an Unknowable Causeless Cause, still it effectually excludes the possibility of evil as such from the cosmic scheme.

Hence, Satans, Ahrimans, Beelzebubs, or Plutos are relegated to realms of ignorance and fear in which they had their birth, and good and evil become only relative aspects and planes of the play of the absolute, impersonal law of Cause and Effect. A study of evolution in general, then, is necessarily prefaced by the admission or postulating of three great Aspects of the one Unknowable Root, or Causeless Cause.

These are, as already pointed out, Consciousness, Substance, and Force. Consciousness, often referred to as " spirit," embraces all that manifestation of the Absolute which we term subjective. Substance is the root of all matter and form, or the Object* side of nature, while Force or Motion relates the one tq the other and causes all the bewildering complexity of form and function in the Cosmos. The absolute potentialities of Consciousness, Force, and Matter are and must ever remain infinite and unchanged. Yet the degree to which each is manifested in successive Universes must ever remain felative and finite.

Hence, all the vast scheme of evolution which we perceive in nature is due solely to the correlations and combinations of these three Immutable and Universal Bases. We can not say, even at the end of a great manvantara, or the duration of a Universe, that anything has been added to the sum total of the Force, Consciousness, or Matter within the great Mother and Container of all Space. Only their mutual relations have been somewhat changed. Consciousness, which before existed as an undifferentiated part of the Whole, has ac- quired Self-Consciousness, or a new quality or potency; but as Consciousness per se it remains unmodified. So of Force and Substance; they have been brought into newer and perhaps grander correlations, but as basic potentialities they remain unaltered. Nor can an end of this change of relation, or evolution as it appears to us, ever be predicated, for infinite potentialities of variation require infinite time for their manifestation. A dim con- ception of the possibilities of changes and of conscious ex- periences which never had a beginning, and of which no end can be predicated, may be had from a study of the law^of permutation. The combinations possible with two elements are but two, but with three they rise o six; with four, to twenty-four; with five, to one hundred and twenty; and so on, ever increasing until we are driven to the recognition that an infinite series of atoms, such as are at the base of physical manifestation, even, must be capable of infinite combinations and correlations, and hence re- quire infinite duration for that manifestation.

Approaching the survey of evolution from its material or Substance Aspect the only one recognized by modern science we may obtain a relative and limited idea of the manner in which matter takes on or descends into objective form by the following illustration : Imagine a large vessel or receptacle filled with a solu- tion of some salt to the saturation point when heated to ioo." As long as this temperature is maintained the solution is perfectly transparent. No one would suspect any solid material hidden in its crystal clearness. But now let the rate of vibration be changed in the fluid; let the temperature fall to, say, 60, and out of that which was before so clear, crystallizes a solid mass which renders the whole solution translucent, opaque, or it may so change its mqlecular relations as to cause it to become a solid. From this comparison we may at least faintly conceive of that which transpires within the Universe at the dawn of a manvantara; for then Space may be likened to a clear, transparent, ethereal fluid, holding in potentiality
the future Universe, which, so to speak, crystallizes out by a change of vibration within this universal, homogeneous substance.

If we imagine matter as it exists upon our earth to pass into greater and still greater degrees of attenuation and dissociation as, for example, when iron becomes gaseous we will arrive ultimately at a state in which it is evenly distributed throughout the Cosmos, and subjected to conditions so different from any that now obtain, or at least that we can perceive, that we can no longer term it matter, but, rather, as approximating that eternal Substance, its (to us) subjective Root. To aid in forming some idea of the extreme attenuation and molecular dissociation to which matter in its cosmic condition is thus subjected, it is necessary to remember how minute the specks We know as planets are when compared to the space in which they revolve. The old illustration of Herschel as to the immense distances involved in visible space may aid us here:

Suppose one wished to construct a model of the solar system in which its proportions, though reduced, would be accurately preserved ; and that for this purpose he should take a globe two feet in diameter to represent the sun. Then the earth, reduced to a corresponding size and in its proper position, would be represented by a pea placed at a distance of two hundred and fifteen feet from the globe; Jupiter, by an orange, placed a quarter of a mile away; and Neptune, our farthest planet, by a plum, at a distance of a mile and a quarter. On the same scale, Sirius, one of the brightest fixed stars, would be removed to the distance of forty thousand miles, so that it would require a space of nearly twice the entire circumference
of the earth for a model to be constructed in which the earth is represented by a pea! Now, Sirius is not the nearest star; but the very closest one to our sun Alpha Centaur is 20,000,000,000,000,000 of miles distant, and within at least one-third of this vast extent of space our sun and his little band of planets represent all the visible matter, except a few wandering comets and systems of meteors. We know matter in three states solid, liquid and gas- eous; and the experiments of Prof. Crooke prove a fourth state that of " radiant matter" as demonstrable to our senses. If beyond this fourth, or radiant, state we could imagine, if ever so dimly, the three following and still higher states, recognized and taught by Theosophy, we would have a dim conception of that original Substance out of which the material portion of this universe is fashioned, when the dawn of a manvantara awakens it once more to sentient life. The infinite Universe, then, is filled, from a material standpoint, with that which holds both the potency and potentiality of matter. It also holds the potentiality and potencies of spirit, or consciousness; being, besides, in its aspect of ever-present, indestructible space, the arena of that force which we know to be equally eternal under its objectivized aspect of motion. Thus, at the dawn of differentiation, at the beginning of the "out-breathing of Brahm," or the manvantaric activity following the " in- breathing" or universal pralaya, three hypostases of the Absolute potential Matter, potential Thought, and potential Force are held concealed, in some inconceivable way, within the bosom of space, as our salt was also concealed within the solution which we have used as a symbol.

And the material side of the Unknowable Triad is probably concealed in a precisely similar manner, or by the rate of its vibration. For Theosophy accepts the matter of science, and its force, or motion, also; but it avers, most uncompromisingly, that the former is molded and shaped by the latter through a third eternal predicate, Intelligence, under the aspects of Consciousness and Ideation. Hence, when one great rhythm of the Universe has expended its original impetus in a manvantaric objectivation, and has returned into the Silence and Darkness of Non-Being until again at the initial moment of another outward flow of the never-ceasing Motion, at this point Intelligent Beings assume control, and, by ideative Will, guide the vibrations of the eternal motion, so that matter capable of exhibiting form appears as a consequence of this modification or change of vibration in the eternal Motion. Yet, as Absolute Force or Motion can not be added to nor diminished, so this modification of vibration must eventually be overcome, and the Universe return to its original condition, to again re-emerge in form when the reactionary swing of the pendulum of eternity has described its arc, and so permits v of another effort on the part of these Creative Intelligences.

Thus the law of cycles controls even this inconceivable period which measures the duration of an Universe. Like the intermittent glow of a fire-fly to one who watches the flight of the in- sect must appear even these vast successions of Universes to Intelligences behind the Veil of Isis, who remain for- ever untouched by any dissolution of form. At the out- ward flow of the eternal Motion, for them, nebulae, suns and systems blaze into a fleeting existence; at the " inbreathing of Brahm" all disappear; and this in an eter- nal succession of exact cycles.

These cycles, so transitory in eternity, are so vast in time that reason reels in the effort to conceive of them. The nature of the initiatory impress of these Formless Creative Intelligences from its conscious aspect is seen in the unerring selective "affinities" of atoms; from its force aspect it is undoubtedly a modification or change of vibration.

The result of this primal modification of vibration, matter throughout the Universe assumes a state which the Book of Dzyan, quoted in the Secret Doctrine, describes as resembling " milk-white curds." These curds, which must be conceived of as infinitely more attenuated than the ether of science, are next brought by the agent through which cosmic intelligences act upon cosmic matter, known in Eastern Occultism as Fohat, into forms described as " fiery whirlwinds," or that in which magnetic attraction alone is controlling the vibration. Gravitation, representing a response to much lower rates of
vibration and coarser aggregation of particles, o~nly acts after the finer magnetic forces have prepared the neces- sary conditions permitting this form of attraction and re- pulsion to obtain 'a foothold among the sentient atoms.

This stage in the evolution of matter up through the domain of that force we hazily describe as " magnetic," into the field where the lower 'activity of gravity obtains, may be traced in the form of some nebulae, whose arrangement of matter still shows evidences of the original "whirlwind" force in the magnetic disposition of their contents.*

From the time of the evolution of matter into the nebulous condition, the after processes are comparatively easy to trace. Indeed, many of the subsequent evolutionary strides of Fohat are plainly visible within the limits of our own little solar system. The differing degrees of density from Neptune to Mercury ; the state of matter in the sun ; the dead moon, now in a minor pralaya, or rest; the comets which occasionally visit our region of space all illustrate degrees of differentiation, and different states of that which, known to us only by its external attributes and not by its inner essence, we term matter. Yet this Material Aspect of evolution is incomplete, and indeed incomprehensible, except in the light of its Conscious Aspect. This brings us to the direct consideration of those High Intelligences from whom proceed the wisdom to plan and the energy to stamp that original impress upon the plastic " root of matter" which remains an indelible and unalterable law for it throughout all its subsequent transformations and evolutionary processes.

Here we approach the real problem; and here, in com- mon with all religious and philosophical systems, we have to postulate a Causeless Cause, Omnipresent and Eternal, and having the Substance, Force, and Conscious Aspects to which reference has already been had, and upon the correlations and permutations of which all evolution depends. The late Subba Row, in his lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, regarding this Absolute, Causeless Cause, writes: "Even the so-called atheists have never denied it. Various creeds have adopted various theories as to the nature of this Causeless Cause.* All sectarian disputes have arisen not from a dif- ference of opinion as to its existence, but from the difference of the attributes which man's intellect has constantly tried to impose upon it.

Is it possible to know anything about the Causeless Cause ? No doubt it is possible to know something about it. It is possible to know all about its manifestations, though it is next to impossible for human knowledge to penetrate into its inmost essence, and say what it really is in itself. We know that it is subject to periods of activity and passivity. When cosmic pralaya comes, it is inactive ; and when evolution commences, it becomes active. But even the real reason for this activity and passivity is unintelligible to our minds.

"This Causeless Cause, or Parabrahmam of the Vedantin philosophers, is not matter nor anything like matter. It is not even consciousness, because all we know of consciousness is with reference to a definite organism. What consciousness is or will be when sepa- rated from a vehicle in which to function is a thing utterly inconceivable to us, and not only to us but to any other intelligence which has the notion of self or Ego in it, or which has a distinct, individualized existence. " Of course, every entity in this Cosmos must come under the head of Ego, Non-Ego, or Consciousness. But Parabrahmam, the Causeless Cause, does not come under any one of them. Nevertheless, it seems to be the One source of which Ego, Non-Ego, and Consciousness are manifestations, or modes of existence. In the case of every objective consciousness, we know that what we call matter, or Non-Ego, is, after all, a mere bundle of attributes. But whether we arrive at our conclusion by logical inference, or whether we derive it from innate consciousness, we always suppose that there is an entity the real essence of the thing upon which all these attributes are placed which bears these attributes as it were, the essence itself being un- known to us. " Now this Parabrahmam, or Causeless Cause, which exists before all things in the Cosmos, is the one essence from which starts into ex- istence a center of energy called the Logos.

In almost every doctrine is formulated the existence of a center of spiritual energy which is unborn and eternal, and which exists in a latent condition in the bosom of the Causeless Cause at the time of pralaya, and starts as a center of conscious energy at the time of Cosmic activity. It is the first Ego in the Cosmos, and every other Ego and every other self is but its reflection or manifestation. It is the great mystery in the Cosmos, with reference to which all the initiations and all the systems of philosophy have been devised. It is not material nor physical in its constitution, and it is not objective ; it is not different in substance as it were, or in essence, from the Causeless Cause, and yet at the same time it is different from it in having an individualized existence.

It exists in a latent condition in the Causeless Cause at the time of pralaya, just as the sense of Ego, or 'I am I,' is latent in man during sleep. "It must not be supposed that this Logos is but a single center of energy which is manifested by Parabrahmam, or the Causeless Cause. There are innumerable others. Their number is almost infinite. This first manifestation of Parabrahmam appears to it as MulapraIcriti." That is to say, that the first conscious. Beings in the Universe awaken to self-consciousness to find themselves in material forms or vehicles, precisely as we awaken to consciousness to find ourselves encased in these physical bodies. We know that our " I" is not the same as the matter which clothes it; similarly, the Logoi know that the " root" of matter which clothes them is only a clothing, and what the real nature and essence of that Causeless Cause, which calls into objective existence both the "I" of the Logoi and their material base, is as un- knowable to the great and primal Ideation expressed in those First Logoi as is the source of our "I" and its physical vehicle to us.

At the first dawn of differentiation and consequent evolution matter has impressed upon it, from these First Logoi, the primal manifestation of Consciousness in the Cosmos that impulse and directing energy which will carry it through all the successive and myriad phases of its succeeding evolutionary manifestations, to the time when the Great Pralaya, or Rest, shall interpose another period of inactivity, as certainly as that Niagara will carry over its sublime cataracts all the water which flows into it from the great lakes. Remember, there is no evolution of consciousness; but only an evolution of matter into forms fitted to express higher and higher states or reflec- tions of that Absolute Consciousness, which it is just as absurd and unscientific to predicate any additions to through evolution, or in any other manner, as it 1 is to as- sume the " creation" of new matter. 'The matter of the Universe is a whole, which can not be added to nor taken from; Consciousness is also a whole, alike incapable of addition to or subtraction from. The relation of the one to the other is, as already pointed out, all that falls under the law of evolution ; the real essence of both remains forever
untouched, resting in the bosom of the Causeless Cause.

This does not bar from our consideration intelligent su- pervision over the evolutionary impulse by those high, Creative Logoi above referred to. For the whole scheme of evolution, so far as it seems comprehensible to finite beings, consists in and has for its motive the changing of the relations between matter, force, and consciousness, so that through this change undifferentiated consciousness shall "evolve" into self-consciousness. It is only neces- sary that these Creative Beings should act in conformity to those few primal and underlying laws which apparently limit the Absolute itself, of which the law of cycles, the law of karma, and the law of infinite Unity rendered manifest by infinite diversity, or variation, are examples. The
"I" in a man can and does take control of his body, for instance, and transport it wheresoever it pleases, so long as it acts in accordance with the underlying and basic laws of mechanics and gravitation pertaining to this plane.

Man can, also, take matter and transform it into any shape, or transport it to any place, if he keep within the same bounds, or his possible as distinguished from his impossible. In like manner, these First Great Logoi can fashion worlds and even sentient beings in any manner they see fitting, so long as they, in turn, do not attempt to transcend their impossible, or those Absolute limita- tions pomted out above. And this working in harmony with and under the direction of this original impress of the First Logoi by intelligent, sentient, yet relatively lower beings, representing of necessity infinite degrees and grades of intelligence, is the true source of that muchharped-on " Design" which Christians assume as indubitable evidence of the existence of their personal Jehovah.

Much of this creative, or fashioning, intelligence is evi- dently very greatly inferior to that of man in some aspects, though immensely transcending his powers in others. For instance, the intelligence which fashions the beautiful form and flowers of an apple-tree is not suffi- cient to prevent the seed which chances to fall under the angle of a stone wall from the hopeless task of attempting to penetrate this obstacle; nor even in the case of man's
physical form which is not created by the same order of intelligences that are the source of his intellect will it suffice to stay the progress of an intended evolution of a human body, although this has been rendered plainly impossible by some intra-uterine accident or influence.

This is the real source of the monstrosities in nature, which puzzle alike the scientist and theologian. If, now, we symbolize the Conscious-Aspect of the Absolute by physical light, then matter may be likened to a prism which decomposes it into many differing strata. Being thus decomposed, that which during pralaya was Absolute Unity, in manvantara manifests differing rates  of conscious vibration, so to speak, just as the white light of the sun when passed through a prism is broken up into the varied colors of the spectrum, each having an entirely different rate of vibratory motion and wave length. Bearing in mind, then, that the One Consciousness, or One Life, is limited in its manifestations by the particular form of matter in which it is functioning, as the human vision is dark, clear, or colored, according to the physical media through which it attempts to look; and, further, that this matter itself is the result of differing rates of vibration acting upon and in the eternal Substance-Aspect of the Absolute we get at least one turn of the key which at the seventh revolution shall unlock the secrets' of evolution and objective life.

We can perceive how these original cosmic curds, driven before the descending vibrations, the mechanical agents of evolution, assume coarser and more compact states as they touch successively lower vibrations of the Force-Aspect of the Causeless Cause. Having reached the lowest point in that which we ignorantly term "dead" or inorganic matter, under the stress of the original impulse they begin to ascend the evolutionary arc to respond to successively finer and more delicate vi- brations thus affording ever clearer and more perfect forms, in which higher centers of consciousness can find suitable vehicles. At the beginning of manvantaric manifestation, it is the One life, represented in self-conscious- ness by the Logoi, or cosmic centers.

When the impulse reaches our plane of matter, it is still the One life, but represented in self-consciousness here by the individualized centers of humanity;.-
The state of matter upon our little earth does not imply that all that in the solar system much less the Cosmos is in similar conditions. Therefore, Consciousness is in as many various stages of expression as its material vehicle is in stages of evolution. From this it will be seen how
necessary is the inference that there are infinite grades of intelligences both above and below us, as the result of the completed evolutions of other worlds, other systems, and even other manvantaras. A Logos, the first " I," which appears in the Cosmos at the manvantaric dawn, is an in- dividualized center of self-consciousness which had at- tained to this stage at the close of trie last great manvantara. With other Logoi, it becomes a duty to watch over and direct the successive evolutions which occur during the manvantara over which they thus preside.

Below them are the various Hierarchies, Builders, Regents, Cosmoscratores, at work in the myriad departments of manifested nature. Ylhe knowledge that one manvantara is the reincarnation of the entire Universe, having its karma, or causes,' set up in preceding manvantaras, exactly corresponding to the reincarnation of the human soul, on its lower plane of operation, enables us to understand much that occurs. The Logoi would correspond to man's self-conscious, reincarnating Ego; these lower Hierarchies, Forces and Builders, to the universal " skandas," or forces which necessarily
pass into latency at the striking of Universal pralaya.

No manvantara can ever complete conscious evolution; and each must take up its work just as the human soul does at the point it had attained when the universal dis- solution of the Great Pralaya compelled its cessation. When the "hour" strikes for this universal pralaya, the consciousness ensouled in the lowest mineral bodies will first of all pass into a condition of latency, or that of bare subjective potentiality of manifestation when fitting matter is again projected at another manvantaric dawn. This enforced latency will be because the matter or combination of molecules it requires for its outer manifestation no longer exists in the Universe, on account of the withdrawing of the energy which caused it to appear. In like manner, will plane after plane of consciousness be reached, and its entities, deprived of material form, be compelled to sleep during the great eternity of unconsciousness which must precede another reawakening of the Cosmos. All conscious beings, whether of high or low degree, will thus be indrawn into the Absolute ; yet while the consciousness of lower forms remains only a potentiality, like that of a sleeping or entranced man, to be again awakened at the new Dawn, that of the highest ones will, we are .told, pass self-consciously into this great subjective arc of the cycle of Eternal Duration.

These are They, the Logoi, the " luminous Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," who first awaken to self-conscious life upon the objective plane at the new
manvantaric projection. Like our Higher Egos, which represent the wisdom resulting from the sum of our personal experiences, they represent the sum of manvantaric experience, and know that which has been and that which is to be. They project the ideal plan of the manvantara that is to be through Their Divine Ideation, just as an architect creates in his mind the plan of the magnificent structure, which may not be materialized except by years of slow and tedious labor. Having this conception of what is to be, They may be said to have fore- knowledge of it; but it is similar to the foreknowledge of
the architect of the structure he proposes 'to erect. This ideal plan, first clothed with the divine Substance-Aspect of the Absolute, stands as the eternal prototype of that which is to be, throughout its entire cycle. It is past, present, and future combined in an eternal Now. As it clothes and materializes itself by descending to successively lower and more material planes, we name the slow process, the successive stages of this unfolding, Time, and
imagine that it. marks real divisions of eternity. Could we approach nearer to the heart of Being this phantasmagoria of fleeting illusion would cease, and the timeharassed soul pass into eternal peace.

At each successive stage of this unfolding in time of the Divine Ideation, the entities, overtaken by the last pralaya, awaken from their long repose. They have no con- ception of the unthinkable periods which have passed them by, because they have not passed them by time has not existed for them. Like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, their awakening finds them with no knowledge of any interval. The monad ensouled in the mineral atoms again reclothes itself as this form of matter appears, and the various Hierarchies, Cosmocratores and Builders resume their labors. The great workshop of nature, so long stilled, is again filled with its countless entities, each performing its proper office; making what progress it may, until the striking of another pralaya calls to another season of subjective being and rest. There are thus myriads of " Gods," or Creative Forces, or entities, in nature. 

These different Orders of Creators or Builders must be accepted, if evolution is to be intelligently comprehended. It is as though the great Prism to which we have likened matter was capable of being acted upon by eternal Force or Motion until it gradually became more and more transparent and permitted higher and higher rates of vibrations of consciousness to pass through it. Thus, at the stage of "dead" matter the prism is so dense as only to permit the red rays or vibrations, so to speak, to pass. /Keeping to our simile, in these red rays there can only find expression that form of consciousness which is so dif- ferent from the human that we call its matter "dead."

Yet the impulse received at the manvantaric or creative* dawn will not permit matter to rest in this or any other condition. So, very gradually, and requiring ages of geologic time, " dead" matter is lifted or forced up, until, like a mountain top at sunrise, it catches here and there the streams of the next color, or the orange vibrations; and, a higher consciousness being now permitted to obtain a foothold, the vegetable kingdom appears. Becoming, under the constant impact of the eternal motion, still more translucent, it transmits now the yellow rays, and animal consciousness makes its appearance upon the earth. Becoming still more refined, green rays are trans- mitted, and human consciousness is enabled to find a fit- ting vehicle and man appears upon the scene. And when matter has evolved to that state in which the remaining colors of the spectrum are permitted to pass, anct a cor- responding consciousness to function, who can even imagine its glorious potentialities!