CHAPTER IV.

Thh Mental Plane.
The mental plane, as Its name implies, is that which belongs to consciousness working as thought; not of the mind as it works through the brain, but as it works in its own world, unencumbered with physical spirit-matter. This world is the world of the real man. The word ''man" comes from the Sanskrit root ''man," and this is the root of the San- skrit verb "to think," so that man means thinkers- he is named by his most characteristic attribute, in- telligence. In English the word "mind" has to stand for the intellectual consciousness itself, and also for the effects produced on the physical brain by the vibrations of that consciousness ; but we have now to conceive of the intellectual consciousness as an entity, an individual — a being, the vibrations of whose life are thoughts, thoughts which are Images, not words. This individual is Manas, or the Think- er;* he is the Self, clothed in the matter, and work- ing within the conditions, of the higher subdi-
* Derived from Manas is the technical name, the manasic plane, Englished as "mental." We might call it the plane of the mind proper, to distinguish its activities from those of the mind working in the flesh.
108 the: ancie:nt wisdom
visions of the mental plane. He reveals his pres- ence on the physical plane by the vibrations he sets up in the brain and nervous system; these respond to the thrills of his life by sympathetic vibrations, but in consequence of the coarseness of their mate- rials they can reproduce only a small section of his vibrations, and even that very imperfectly. Just as science asserts the existence of a vast series of ethe- ric vibrations, of which the eye can only see a small fragment, the solar light-spectrum, because it can vibrate only within certain limits, so can the physi- cal thought-apparatus, the brain and nervous sys- tem, think only a small fragment of the vast series of mental vibrations set up by the Thinker in his own world. The most receptive brains respond up to the point of what we call great intellectual power; the exceptionally receptive brains respond up to the point of what we call genius ; the exceptionally un- receptive brains respond only up to the point we call idiocy; but every one sends beating against his brain millions of thought-waves to which it cannot re- spond, owing to the density of its materials, and just in proportion to its sensitiveness are the so- called mental powers of each. But before studying the Thinker, It will be well to consider his world, the mental plane itself.
The mental plane is that which is next to the as- tral, and is separated from it only by differences of materials, just as the astral is separated from the physical. In fact, we may repeat what was said as to the astral and the physical with regard to the
MENTAL SPIRIT-MATTER 109
mental and the astral. Life on the mental plane is more active than on the astral, and form is more plastic. The spirit-matter of that plane is more highly vitalized and finer than any grade of matter in the astral world. The ultimate atom of astral matter has innumerable aggregations of the coarsest mental matter for its encircling sphere-world, so that the disintegration of the astral atom yields a mass of mental matter of the coarsest kinds. Under these circumstances it will be understood that the play of the life-forces on this plane will be enor- mously increased in activity, there being so much less mass to be moved by them. The matter is in constant, ceaseless motion, taking form under every thrill of life, and adapting itself without hesitation to every changing motion. "Mind-stuff," as it has been called, makes astral spirit-matter seem clumsy, heavy, and lustreless, although compared with the physical spirit-matter it is so fairy-light and lumi- nous. But the law of analogy holds good, and gives us a clue to guide us through this superastral region, the region that is our birthplace and our home, al- though, imprisoned in a foreign land, we know it not, and gaze at descriptions of it with the eyes of aliens. Once again here, as on the two lower planes, the subdivisions of the spirit-matter of the plane are seven in number. Once again, these varieties enter into countless combinations, of every variety of com- plexity, yielding the solids, liquids, gases, and ethers of the mental plane. The word "solid" seems in- deed absurd, when speaking of even the most sub-
110 TH^ ANCIENT WISDOM
stantial forms of mind-stuff; yet as they are dense in comparison with other kinds of mental materials, and as we have no descriptive words save such as are based on physical conditions, we must e'en use it for lack of a better. Enough if we understand that this plane follows the general law and order of Nature, which is, for our globe, the septenary basis, and that the seven subdivisions of matter are of less- ening densities, relatively to each other, as the phys- ical solids, liquids, gases, and ethers ; the seventh, or highest, subdivision being composed exclusively of the ultimate mental atoms.
These subdivisions are grouped under two head- ings, to which the somewhat inefficient and unintel- ligible epithets ''formless" and "form" have been assigned.* The lower four — the first, second, third, and fourth subdivisions — are grouped together as * Vith form ;" the higher three — the fifth, sixth, and seventh subdivisions — are grouped as "formless." The grouping is necessary, for the distinction is a real one, although one difficult to describe, and the regions are related in consciousness to the divisions in the mind itself — as will appear more plainly a little farther on. The distinction may perhaps be best expressed by saying that in the lower four subdivi- sions the vibrations of consciousness give rise to forms, to images or pictures, and every thought ap- pears as a living shape; whereas in the higher three, consciousness, though still, of course, setting up vi-
* Arupa, without form ; rupa, form. Rupa is form, shape, body.
ABSTRACT AND CONCRKT^ THOUGHTS HI
brations, seems rather to send them out as a mighty stream of living energy, which does not body itself into distinct images while it remains in this higher region, but which sets up a variety of forms all linked by some common condition when it rushes into the lower worlds. The nearest analogy that I can find for the conception I am trying to express is that of abstract and concrete thoughts: an abstract idea of a triangle has no form, but connotes any plane fig- ure contained within three right lines, the angles of which make two right angles; such an idea, with conditions but without shape, thrown into the lower world, may give birth to a vast variety of figures, right-angled, isosceles, scalene, of any color and size, but all fulfilling the conditions — concrete tri- angles, each one with a definite shape of its own. The impossibility of giving in words a lucid exposi- tion of the difference in the action of consciousness in the two regions is due to the fact that words are the symbols of images and belong to the workings of the lower mind in the brain, and are based wholly upon those workings; while the "formless" region belongs to the Pure Reason, which never works within the narrow limits of language.
The mental plane is that which reflects the Uni- versal Mind in Nature, the plane which in our little system corresponds with that of the Great Mind in the Kosmos.* In its higher regions exist all the
* Mahat, the Third Logos, or Divine Creative Intelligence, the Brahma of the Hindus, the Mandjusri of the Northern Buddhists, the Holy Spirit of the Christians.
112 THE ANClE:N'r WISDOM
archetypal ideas which are now in course of concrete evolution, and in its lower the working out of these into successive forms, to be duly reproduced in the astral and physical worlds. Its materials are capa- ble of combining under the impulse of thought vibra- tions, and can give rise to any combination which thought can construct ; as iron can be made into a spade for digging or into a sword for slaying, so can mind-stuff be shaped into thought-forms that help or that injure; the vibrating life of the Thinker shapes the materials around him, and according to his volitions so Is his work. In that region thought and action, will and deed, are one and the same thing — spirit-matter here becomes the obedient ser- vant of the life, adapting itself to every creative motion.
These vibrations, which shape the matter of the plane into thought-forms, give rise also — from their swiftness and subtlety — to the most exquisite and constantly changing colors, waves of varying shades like the rainbow hues in mother-of-pearl, ethereal- Ized and brightened to an indescribable extent, sweep- ing over and through every form, so that each presents a harmony of rippling, living, luminous, delicate colors, including many not ever known to earth. Words can give no idea of the exquisite beauty and radiance shown in combinations of this subtle matter, instinct with life and motion. Every seer who has witnessed it, Hindu, Buddhist, Chris- tian, speaks in rapturous terms of its glorious beauty, and ever confesses his utter inability to describe it;
BRILLIANT THOUGHT FORMS 113
words seem but to coarsen and deprave it, however deftly woven in its praise.
Thought-forms naturally play a large part among the living creatures that function on the mental plane. They resemble those with which we are al- ready familiar in the astral world, save that they are far more radiant and more brilliantly colored, are stronger, more lasting, and more fully vitalized. As the higher intellectual qualities become more clearly marked, these forms show very sharply defined outlines, and there is a tendency to a singu- lar perfection of geometrical figures accompanied by an equally singular purity of luminous color. But, needless to say at the present stage of human- ity, there is a vast preponderance of cloudy and irregularly shaped thoughts, the production of the ill-trained minds of the majority. Rarely beautiful artistic thoughts are also here encountered, and it is little wonder that painters who have caught, in dreamy vision, some glimpse of their ideal, oft fret against their incapacity to reproduce its growing beauty in earth's dull pigments. These thought- forms are built out of the elemental essence of the plane, the vibrations of the thought throwing the elemental essence into a corresponding shape, and this shape having the thought as its informing life. Thus again we have ''artificial elementals" created in a way identical with that by which they come into being in the astral regions. All that is said in