each atom of it. In the dead leaf, drying up and falling to pieces, only the lower two are sounding in chord. The silver chord has been broken.

"Each atom of prakriti you say has the potentiality of some kind of phenomenon. We add 'and of life also.' The potentialities of life are in every atom of prakriti. Even the atom of iron may live in the blood. It cannot become a part of any living organism until its prana is sounding the chord of life in unison with the ether and prakriti—the threefold silver chord.

"What is the centre of this prana? It is Alcyone. There are other solar globes beside ours circling around Alcyone, and we have been considering only our own solar globe of ether. Alcyone is the centre of the prana in which they revolve as the sun is the centre of our ether in which the planets revolve. As this prana has a centre around which we revolve with other solar systems, then it must have a center of gravity.

"Then this prana is a globe.

"The prana does not then fill this material universe. There must be yet another form of matter rarer and finer than prana, from which prana is made, as ether is made from prana and prakriti from ether. Have we any other class of phenomena to explain, except vital and physical? Yes, there is a very important class, mental. And here we have the explanation, if we exercise our reason.

"These pranic globes are floating in an ocean of manasa, matter in its rarest form.

"Each atom of prana is formed from manasa, exactly as ether was formed from prana, and each pranic atom in the universe is the centre of a manasic molecule, having an atmosphere of manasic atoms.

"So we are not exact in giving the prakritic atom three planes or octaves of vibration. It has four. You merely surround it with etheric atoms, and this is correct so far as it goes. You only wish to explain physical problems. But there are other problems to be explained, problems of life and mind, and the same knowledge you have explains them as well as the others, if you simply avail yourself of it. That you do not consider the atom as four-fold instead of two-fold is your own fault. I have not told you anything you did not already know. I have only asked you to apply your present knowledge of physics to these problems of life and mind, and apply your reasoning powers.

"The chording vibration in an atom of matter of

"The two planes produces Force, or phenomena

"The three planes produces Life—the silver chord

"The four planes produces Mind—the golden chord.

"You say there is no gulf between the prakritic and etheric worlds; that it is one continuous world; and all its phenomena are by continuity and not impact. That is true, but it is not the whole truth.

"There is no gulf to cross between the prakritic and etheric worlds; none to cross between that and the manasic. The four worlds are one great world, continuous, interchangeable. Through the four as well as through the two, there is continuity and not impact. Whether it is an atom or a world, the four are there. Nothing, no combination of atoms, no matter of any kind, however small or large, can exist in this prakritic world unless it has the four elements, which from time immemorial our philosophers have called Earth, Water, Fire, Air, meaning the four globes or forms of matter in the universe. We do not have to leave the earth to live in the etheric globe. It is here. Nor do we have to go millions of miles to reach the pranic globe. It is here. The problems of light and heat are no easier than the problems of birth and death. The pranic globe is within us; within everything. So is the manasic.

"It is here on these higher planes that the chances for worthy study are greatest. At least we think so, though you may not. We live on the manasic—pranic—etheric globe on precisely the same terms that we live on this of prakriti, and the problems of the three are equally open to us.

"If there are any who care to follow up the line of thought I have opened, who care for the questions that interest us of the East, I will talk as long as they care to listen, provided they will not ask for knowledge that will give them power over others, which cannot fail to be used for evil."

This is but a glimpse of Hindu physics, yet it has helped us in the metaphysics. We now understand the chain of globes—in part. The earth is fourfold. As each atom of the earth is fourfold, so their aggregations give us prakritic earth, an etheric earth, a pranic earth, and a manasic earth—in coadunition and not like the skin of an onion. They are separate and distinct globes, each on its own plane. It is four down and three up for the Angel entering matter, whether from the outmost boundary of manasic matter, or the surface of the earth, or the cover of a baseball. The "chain of globes" in the Secret Doctrine represents the unity of the material universe.

The three-fold nature of the astral model is revealed, and the unity of all prakritic things. But more than that, to many minds, will be the explanation it gives of why there are but four planes of vibration in matter; that the highest form of development in prakriti shows only four elements, prakriti or body, sensation or force, life, and mind, and that these last three, present in all things in esse, become present in posse when they work together harmonically.