Filename: RC1108.TXT
Source: "Etheric Vision & What it Reveals" by students

[PAGE 3867]

suffer less from color blindness. Their etheric aura also shows a larger 
proportion of the golden Light Ether. The positive energy of the Light Ether, 
however, is evident in the dynamic urge to action which characterizes the 
masculine incarnation, and the masculine aura often sparkles thickly with the 
energy-points belonging to this ether. The man also shows more of the fiery 
egoic drive.

   Since light is made up of photons, and the photons consist of both waves 
and particles, both appear together throughout space.

   In trying to study the Light Ether, the student should look out not at an 
object, or against a wall or ceiling, but DIRECTLY INTO SPACE ITSELF. 

   The following quotation is of interest: "Light Ether is a substance of a 
peculiar type which has no familiar atom-mosaic that we usually call 
matter....We can call light ether a SUBSTANCE but we can also call it 
SPACE....keeping in mind that....space may possess certain morphological or 
structural features that make it a much more complicated thing than in the 
conceptions of Euclidean geometry. In fact, in modern physics the expression 
LIGHT ETHER (divested of its alleged mechanical properties) and PHYSICAL SPACE 
are considered synonymous." (Gamow: ONE TWO THREE....INFINITY).

   It may help the student to observe this ether for the first time if he will 
lie prone upon a bed and gaze into the corner of the ceiling in a room full of 
light. His eye will not then come to rest upon a surface, but will rest within 
space itself, and soon he will begin to see waves and sparkles of the Light 
Ether. Eye strain should be avoided.

[PAGE 3868]

                           SUMMARY: THE THREE ETHERS 

   Before entering upon a discussion of the Reflecting Ether, let us review 
the salient features of the three lower ethers as known to physical and occult 
sciences. First: light belongs to what is called the electromagnetic spectrum, 
of which only a small segment, or band, is visible to human eyesight, for the 
reason that this band represents the radiation from our Sun, in whose field 
our senses were evolved. Had our race evolved on a planet belonging to a giant 
red sun, for example, we might have evolved eyesight in the infrared range. It 
is a curious fact that when etheric sight begins to unfold, it is the 
invisible aspect of light in our own solar spectrum that is usually first 
seen: the actual waves of light themselves, and the nuclei of energy sparkling 
in the waves. The waves of light ether are actually made up of units, or 
packets, of energy, which are waves and particles at one and the same time. 
Both are visible, simultaneously, to the etheric vision. The unit of energy is 
called the "photon," and it is not merely the unit of solar light, but it is 
the unit of all electromagnetic waves.

   Photons are packets of energy, says the physicist, which correspond to 
atoms and molecules, which are packets of matter. Electrons, protons, and 
alpha particles are particles of electricity. All radiant energy consists of 
photons. The photon is properly defined as "the building block of the 
electromagnetic field." It travels with the speed of light.

   The photon is never at rest. The electron, proton, and neutron can be at 
rest, but the photon cannot be. Hence the electron, proton, and neutron are 

[PAGE 3869]

the units of matter, so-called, and in occult terms, "packets" of the Chemical 
and Life Ethers, which Max Heindel describes as "the staionary ethers." 
Radiant energy, however, the unit of which is the photon, represents energy 
which is continuously escaping from matter. Occultly it is the unit of the 
Light Ether. The photon itself has no charge, but it carries electromagnetic 
energy. Subatomic particles and photons have a spin, and when charged they are 
responsive to magnetic fields. Astronomers say there are magnetic fields in 
interstellar space, in which new galaxies tend to form; but the occult 
scientist also sees a rain of comsic force, electrical or magnetic in nature, 
which he calls "the colorless solar ether." It is not IDENTICAL in nature with 
cosmic forces ow with solar and planetary magnetism, but there is a connection 
of some sort, which has not yet been determined either by mundane or by occult 
science. The colorless solar ether is subject to the call of the human mind 
and will.

   Just as the magnetic fields of space are known to impart spiral activity to 
certain subatomic particles (usually nuclei), so also the "animal magnetism" 
of occult science seems to be accompanied by spiral activity in the Life 
Ether, which forms and guides the activities of the Chemical Ether. The two 
lower ethers are generally considered together as a working unit, as it is 
almost impossible to study them separately.*

   Photons are not uniform in magnitude. The amount of energy is in proportion 
to the frequency. "X-rays have frequencies one thousandfold larger than 

   *Science speaks of "bioelectrochemistry" and "bioelectromagnetism." 

[PAGE 3870]

visible light, so when they give up their energy to atoms, electrons, etc., 
their 'punch' is greater and more easily observed," the physicist explains.

   The body structure is formed in the two lower ethers, and the Life Ether 
specializes the solar fluid which acts like electricity in the living 
organism; the solar fluid is converted from "inorganic" cosmic magnetism to 
the "living" magnetism known to occult science and now being researched by 
physical science.

   The electrical energy of the solar fluid energizes the nervous systems of 
the human organism, both voluntary and sympathetic. The "two complementary 
halves that make up every functioning electric circuit" have been discovered 
by biologists. We mention in passing here that the back of the head is found 
to carry a positive charge and the front a negative charge; and this front 
portion is termed a "silent area," and is supposed to be associated with 
extrasensory perception. In occult science the keynote of the vital body is 
heard humming in the medulla oblongata, and its vibration is often felt in the 
back of the head.

   The scientific investigators say that there are three axes of magnetic 
force to which the human being is subject; and they are testing various 
patients in hsopitals to see if emissions of cosmic rays, magnetic storms on 
the Sun, and other phenomena of the sort have an effect on the nervous 
condition of human beings. Occult science has taught for centuries that such 
cosmic conditions (the macrocosm) do have a reaction in the human organism 
(the microcosm). Modern science now uses the terms "macrocosm" and "microcosm" 
as freely as occult science has done in previous ages, but the "microcosm" of 

[PAGE 3871]

modern physics tends to be the interior of atoms and molecules and not merely 
the human organism as a whole--the infinitely large being the macrocosm and 
the infinitely samll the microcosm.

   An increased understanding of the Light Ether will bring about an important 
new science in the matter of color healing and the use of color in promoting 
growth in plants and animals. Color therapy is already making great progress, 
not merely among occultists, but in the world of physics, chemistry, and 
medicine. It is understandable now, when the nature of light is seen as 
consisting of particles as well as waves, that color can have a very clear and 
definite physical effect. Even very serious organic diseases have yielded to 
color therapy in the hands of experts; not merely nervous and mental, but 
actual physical disorders.

   Color therapists believe that a ray of color represents an actual 
substance, and that vitamins and other elements contain these substances, so 
that in a very real sense the red ray, for example, may be said to give needed 
iton to the blood, and so forth.

   But none of these color deposits could be made in plants without the 
keynoting or pattern-making activity of the Life Ether, as we have indicated. 
At the borderline of the Life and Light Ethers the strange life-substances 
called enzymes do their work. It has been found that "in plants as diverse as 
apple trees and lettuce there is a light-sensitive enzyme which regulates 
plant growth at all stages from germination to the ripening of fruit. The 
government experimental stations (e.g. U.S. Department of Agriculture Research 
in Beltsville, Md.) have partially isolated the substance, which is effective 

[PAGE 3872]

in minute quantities and have reproduced what is apparently its critical 
reaction in a test tube. The enzyme exists in two forms, and transforms 
reversibly from one to the other upon exposure to appropriate wave-lengths of 
light. One form absorbs light in the orange to red range, the other absorbs 
far-red light, near the limit of the visible spectrum. The first form triggers 
such effects as the reddening of apples and the germination of lettuce seed; 
the other form promotes flowering and regulates growth.

   "The predominant form of the enzyme in the plant depends upon the color of 
light to which the plant is exposed. Both forms are present in about equal 
amounts after exposure to light in the middlke of the red range. At longer 
wave-lengths the reaction favors the orange-red absorbing form, while shorter 
wave-lengths (toward the yellow) stimulate the production of the far-red 
absorbing form. In the living plant the intensity as well as the wave-length 
of the light influences the function of the enzyme. The investigators found 
that soybean plants will flower after an extremely short exposure at night to 
far-red light but will not flower if the intensity of the light is increased 
100 times. Exposure at low intensity to the same wave-lengths stimulates 
germination in lettuce seed; exposure at high intensity reduces germination to 
about zero."

   Occult science divides the spectrum of light into positive, negative, and 
neutral areas; with the colors below green called "hot," or positive, and the 
colors above green being called "cool" and electric, or negative. Green is 
neutral, but no color is more important, for this is the color of chlorophyll. 

[PAGE 3873]

In color therapy the positive or "hot" colors are thought of as streaming 
upward, as if from the Earth; the negative or "cool" colors are thought of as 
streaming downward from the heavens, while green, the neutral color, draws in 
its forces horizontally. Green has been proved to be a primary color in the 
new color science.

   Whatever may be said of the effects of color on humamn beings as purely 
psychological, the same cannot be said of the influences of colored light on 
vegetation: some kinds of light promote growth of roots; others of the stems, 
leaves, and flowers; others the germination of the seed, and so on; while the 
light-sensitive enzyme in the plant tissue proves to be an important link in 
the life process.

   Science has gone down to the far-red limit of the spectrum, but has not yet 
found the "peach-blossom" color known to the occultist. 

   Wave-lengths of color will one day be used to open up the spiritual 
faculties, for as we have shown, these also belong to the Light Ether forces, 
supersensory perception as well as common sensory perception being dependent 
upon this Ether, so far as consciousness in the body is concerned.

[PAGE 3874]

                           THE REFLECTING ETHER:

                            BETWEEN TWO SKIES:

   As far back as there is any written record, we find references to 
"reflection" and "images" as illustrating the way in which God's creative 
Ideas become objectified in space and time. Now when we look into a pool of 
clear water--man's first mirror--we see that the sky which is farthest above 
us is the bottom-most part of the reflected scene in the water; while other 
objects, including ourselves, occupy intermediate positions BETWEEN TWO SKIES.

   In our study of the reflecting Ether, let us keep this image in mind, as 
neophytes in Mystery Schools have been doing for many thousands of years.

   In  THE  ROSICRUCIAN  COSMO-CONCEPTION,  Max  Heindel  has  written:
"The  Reflecting  Ether  deserves  its  name for more than one reason, for 
the pictures in it are but REFLECTIONS of the memory of nature. The real 
memory of nature is found in a much higher realm. In this Reflecting Ether no 
thoroughly trained clairvoyant cares to read, as the pictures are blurred and 
vague compared to those found in the higher realms. Those who read in the 
Reflecting Ether are generally those who have no choice, who, in fact, do not 
know in what they are reading. As a rule ordinary psychometrists and mediums 
obtain their knowledge through the reflecting ether. To some slight extent the 
pupil of the occult school in the first stages of his training also reads in 

[PAGE 3875]

the Reflecting Ether, but he is warned by his teacher of the insufficiencies 
of this ether as a means of acquiring accurate information, so that he does 
not easily draw wrong conclusions.

   "This ether is also the medium through which thought makes an impression 
upon the human brain. It is most intimately connected with the fourth 
subdivision of the World of thought. This is the highest of the four 
subdivisions contained in the Region of Concrete Thought and is the homeworld 
of the human mind. There is a much clearer version of the memory of nature is 
found than in the Reflecting Ether."

   He also states that the "memory" aspect of this ether resides in the 
negative pole, while thought processes make their impression on the brain by 
way of the positive pole. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT THESE POLES ARE MAGNETIC POLES, 
HOWEVER. The Reflecting Ether is not electrical, nor is it magnetic. Its 
"positive" pole is dominant in the front of the brain, in the area where the 
"Silent Watcher" (Divine Spirit) has its seat.

   We are taught further that the Reflecting Ether is the least dense of the 
four ethers; that in the growth cycle it ripens at about the age of twenty-
eight; that it is negative in men and positive in women; that like the Light 
Ether it is volatile and migratory; that it is really a hyper-ether, as much 
astral as etheric, and even mental, (since it is so closely penetrated by 
desire and mind-stuff); and while it appears to be empty at first glance, it 
hides within its translucent folds many secrets, in a picture record which 
consists not only of reproductions of physical forms but also of feelings and 
thoughts. Consequently, when the student-seer learns to read in this ether he 

[PAGE 3876]

may be surprised to discover that he not only sees thge moving pictures of 
past events in his life, but may also sometimes see the auric formations and 
thought forms which accompanied them, even though he had no clairvoyance at 
the time the events occurred.

   Another of the oddities of the Reflecting Ether, which makes it difficult 
to assess the value of what is seen there, is familiar to assess the value of 
what is seen there, is familiar to most students, for Max Heindel has 
mentioned it often. This is the way in which the time stream of the Reflecting 
Ether seems to move backward, so that if it is desired to investigate an 
event, say, in the year 500, it would be necessary to look first for the year 
600, and then allow the record to roll back to the year 500. Yet it is not to 
be supposed that this reverse flow is comparable to the backward unrolling of 
a moving picture film strip, in which for example the chicken grows back into 
a chick and then enters into the eggshell which closes around it. it is more 
in the nature of time pulsations which go back to a certain point and then 
move forward, according to some as yet undefined law governing the time-
images. For it is common knowledge among occult students that pictrues of 
former incarnations seem to unfold in a perfectly regular and normal way, at 
least so far as any one interval is concerned. The exercise of Retrospection 
is recommended for development of time-stream vision, with power to regulate 
the flow of images.

   Again, the Reflecting Ether sometimes reverses numbers, so that a number 
which seems to read 235 may be in fact 532. However, no analogy can be pushed 
too far, and it would not be true to say that numbers reflected in the 

[PAGE 3877]

Reflecting Ether are turned backward in the way that mirror numbers are, and 
as handwriting is. Books and documents seen in the "library" of the Reflecting 
Ether are usually read straight-forwardly as in the physcial world; but in 
many instances the reader then suddenly finds that instead of reading a 
script, he has suddenly plunged into the midst of the story or record, which 
he views as an omnipresent though invisible spectator.

   Take note, however, that the supersensory powers vary greatly, according to 
individual bias and and temperament, for just as the physical eye cannot see 
an object if the eyelid covers the eye, so clairvoyance cannot show anything 
to the seer unless he definitely and consciously tunrs his attention in a 
given direction. Saints of the Church have in many instances achieved 
clairvoyance, yet saw nothing in the astral world except the thought-forms of 
heaven and hell built up by their own community of faith.

   Occult students have developed the power to see disembodied spirits, Nature 
forces, and the celestial Hierarchies, without ever discovering the nuclear 
forces known to modern physics, BECAUSE THEY DID NOT THINK TO LOOK FOR THEM.

   The pictures in the Reflecting Ether generally fade away in a few thousand 
years, leaving "holes" where the seer can find nothing. In the charged areas 
of the Mystery Temples, however, the Elder Brothers and their Initiates read a 
clearer version of the Memory of Nature, which in the fourth or archetypal 
region of the World of Thought, carries all of the records pertaining to our 
current Earth Period; and as these records are reviewed and vivified in the 

[PAGE 3878]

mind of each Initiate the corresponding record in the Reflecting Ether is, so 
to speak, reinforced and continues to be available even to the relatively weak 
vision of the ordinary clairvoyant or beginning student in the occult school. 
Again, the Teachers on the inner planes will sometimes themselves project into 
the Reflecting Ether the pictures they eant the neophyte to see and remember; 
and thus the neophyte sees records which would not otherwise then be available 
to him.

   Max Heindel has shown that the Light and reflecting Ethers are very 
intimately associated not only in the Golden Wedding Garment, but also in 
particluar functions of the bodily organism. The student may find this 
closeness of function between these two ethers a source of confusion when 
first observing them.

   When once the student-seer has begun to see the agitation of the Light 
Ether with its wing-like movement and its dashing comets of energy in their 
filmy packets, he begins to recognize that space is pulsing like the swells of 
the ocean, in great slow waves. As he looks into these bluish space-waves he 
begins to see what may at first appear to be colorless transparent forms, 
sometimes geometrical, but often resembling leaf forms which move in the sea 
of ether like underwater plants. Then, as the attention continues to focus in 
these deep tides of light, the student may suddenly realize that he is in fact 
gazing into the Reflecting Ether, for behind the moving waves of light his 
gaze comes to rest upon what seems to be a mirror world, a world with pictures 
as bright and clear as images in a mirror. There is no movement her, no 
ripples.

[PAGE 3879]

   The records in the Reflecting Ether are not easy to read at first sight for 
the reason that the ether seems so full of them, all of which can be SEEN 
THROUGH; so it necessitates practice in separating them before each can be 
read. This is done by the power of the will in holding the attention focused 
upon one image, not allowing side-images to distract the attention. There is a 
tendency in all undeveloped seers simply to relax and allow these pictures to 
stream or move past the mental vision, with no attempt to ocntrol or analyze 
them. The ordinary person may indeed never realize that it is at all possible 
to control the stream of images, and he may even boast of the fact that he 
cannot "turn-off" the pictures which ruch past his eyes. This is the secret of 
the negative development which may lead to obsession; or if not to actual 
obsession, then at least to mediumship, and perhaps to a lack of mental and 
emotional control which medical science would define as "unbalanced" or 
"disturbed."

   The student must therefore exercise discrimination as regards the stream of 
images he sees. It may seem to him that the images are irresistibly self-
impelled, but this is not so; they do respond to his will, as he soon discoves 
when he makes the effort to control them.

   Note that not all of these images are "records." They include, sometimes, 
actual scenes  and real people living on earth; and again they may include 
faces and forms of those who have passed on, and scenes of the inner worlds. 
For this Ether may be likened to a two-way mirror, as Max Heindel says, 
reflecting the outer universe on the one hand and the inner, spiritual worlds 
on the other.

[PAGE 3880]

                     WHAT THE REFLECTING ETHER REFLECTS:

   It is often said that every observer colors (by his own mental bias) his 
observations of the world as it exists both without and within himself. There 
can be no argument about this. Of course we see the world, we experience the 
world, through what we are. It cannot be otherwise. But the phlosopher of 
modern science goes beyond this in saying that it is not only that impressions 
of the outside world depend on his mental bias as well as on the individual 
sensorium seated in the brain, but that the OUTSIDE OR OBJECTIVE WORLD ITSELF 
IS REALLY AND LITERALLY CHANGED BY THE ACT OF OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION, 
through the interaction of physical forces, and the pressure of mentally 
generated forces as in telekinesis. How can this be?

   The answer lies, for the occultist, in the Reflecting Ether, with its 
strange mirror-like qualities. 

   It is the Archetypal Force of the Ego, "reflecting" or "projecting" into 
the great root substance of Nature, the subconscious mind of the cosmos, which 
thus affects its world. The Reflecting Ether, as Max Heindel has shown, 
extends all through the First Heaven, and even through the Second Heaven, for 
it contains the principle of memory and it has a special connection with the 
Region of Archetypal Forces. We may call it the "floor" of the two lower 
heavens. When the philosopher of science observes that it may not be necessary 
any longer to separate subject from object, the observer from the observed, he 

[PAGE 3881]

is expressing the spiritual reality of the Archetypal Force as known to occult 
science. Space and time "collapse" in the realm of the Reflecting Ether, but 
the Virgin Spirit-as-Ego Consciousness, remains.

   For the physical scientist, the outward attributes of the Reflecting Ether 
are of primary concern. He thinks of worlds and universes of matter which are 
explained by laws inhering (or reflected) in this subtle plane. But for the 
occultist, it is the INNER UNIVERSE, reflecting into the Reflecting Ether, 
which is of primary importance. And what collapses here is the "sense of 
barrier," the sense of separation, between mankind and the Living Universe 
with its innumerable Hierarchies, from elemental forces to the One Supreme 
Being in whom all creation lives, and moves, and has its continuing existence.

   Thus Max Heindel's statement that this hyper-ether is a mirror which 
reflects a twofold reflection, the upper or inner universe and also the 
downward or outer universe, receives a new application in modern science.

   We recall further that Mr. Heindel called both Light and Reflecting Ethers 
"migratory" and "volatile." The Reflecting Ether, like the Light Ether, is 
luminous, and it flows, which is the reason that at a certain point the seer 
finds it difficult to tell where the one leaves off and the other begins.

   It has been pointed out that when once the student has learned to see the 
waves of the Light Ether, and practices sighting into these waves in near-
darkness when the air seems filled with the pulsing tides of bluish light or 
mist, his sight comes to rest upon leaf-like forms which float and drift in 

[PAGE 3882]

the watery ether like underwater plants. Here he may see the familiar frost 
pattern of the winter's windowpane, its branches waving in the steady pulsing 
flow; and after a time he may become aware of the presence of color, and of 
life moving among the forms. It may be that he sees a little tree, which has 
the appearance of crystal, moving softly in waves of light; and small 
transparent winged shapes cluster, like crystal butterflies, upon its twigs. 
He discovers that when he fixes his attention upon this, it seems suddenly to 
move in toward him, thus seeming to grow larger, and its colors and details of 
structure may be studied as if under magnification. But if the attention 
wanders, all disappears.

   Although called "volatile" and "migratory," the Reflecting Ether does 
present pictures as vivid and clear as those seen in a mirror, so that the 
student may feel as if he had indeed stepped "through the looking glass" when 
he has his first experience with this ether.

   Looking into the space-waves moving in near darkness, he seems to himself 
to be at the bottom of an ocean of dim bluish light, and the great swells 
pulsing around him continuosuly reveal new forms, all of them moving slowly 
along like objects carries by sea tides.

   Sometimes he may feel convinced that he can really see, with his physical 
sight, in this bluish light, and he may fix his eyes upon something in the 
room, say a picture which he knows hangs in a certain spot. For a moment 
indeed it seems that he is really seeing the picture; and then he realizes 
that instead he is seeing the same omnipresent plant forms, glowing, 

[PAGE 3883]

translucent, and crystalline in the ether. Space is full of patterns: "God 
geomterizes." At this point, gazing into the negative pole of the Light Ether, 
the student-seer passes insensibly into the vision of the negative pole of the 
Reflecting Ether. It is virtually impossible to say when or at what place the 
boundary has been crossed.

   Note that these "patterns" which swim in the Light Ether shows every 
indication of being the gudie-patterns for the elemental forces which 
construct earth forms. Geometric patterns and also intricate plant patterns of 
every sort, together with the life-forms that work through and with them as 
beheld here, pertain not merely to records of the past, but directly to the 
present-day world.

   It is at the boundary between these two ethers that the Archetypal Forces 
mysteriously cross over into the space-time continuum. Here is the point where 
subjectivity, so-called, becomes objective, and the thought-form hovers on the 
verge of chemicalization.

   The record inscribed on the seed atom of the heart and in the negative pole 
of the Reflecting Ether is only one manifestation of the powers resident in 
the Reflecting Ether; it is the SPECIALIZED record belonging to ONE 
individual. The Reflecting Ether of the planet is the "memory" of the entire 
globe, receiving reflections from the planet's own mental envelope where the 
records--memories of the living Earth Spirit--are held inviolate and 
unchanging.

   Some pictures in the Reflecting Ether do belong wholly to what we call the 
past, whether in the subconscious mind of our present embodiment, or in the 

[PAGE 3884]

race sub-conscious recorded in the sed atom in the apex of the heart, which we 
carry with us from life to life. All of the past resides in that part of the 
reflecting Ether, which we call the "sub-conscious," both in man and Nature, 
and which can be probed with the right technique.

   Apropos of which Max Heindel says: "George du Maurier haw written a story 
called PETER IBBETSON, wherein this theory of the sub-conscious memory is very 
clearly drawn. Peter Ibbetson, a prisoner in an English penitentiary, learned 
how to `dream true'; that is to say, by putting his body in a certain position 
he LEARNED HOW TO LOCK THE CURRENTS OF ETHER WITHIN HIMSELF so that at night 
he was able at will to keep in touch with any scene in his past life that he 
desired to; there he could see himself as a specttator (grown man that was) 
and he could see himself among his parents and playmates, and in the 
environment he was in at the time that scene was enacted. he could see the 
whole scene with many more details than he had been able to observe at the 
time when the events took place in this material world....He would have been 
unable to gain any information concerning the future, but the past had been 
inscribed upon the tablet of his heart and was, therefore, accessible under 
the proper condition." (Vol. I, Q & A).

   Note that the seer does not have to "go" to the Etheric Region in order to 
read the records in the Reflecting Ether. He does not leave his body or "go" 
anywhere. He simply reads from the Reflecting Ether which permeates the air he 
breathes, which has a special connection with the blood stream and the seed-

[PAGE 3885]

atom in the heart. Max Heindel has said, however, that in his opinion it is 
necessary to be able to leave the body consciously in order to read in the 
Memory of Nature in the fourth Region of the World of Thought, for this record 
exists high up in the mental atmosphere of the planet.

   Although the Reflecting Ether is largely confined to the past and the 
immediate present, yet it is also true that "coming events cast their shadows 
before;" but by the time these "shadows" are being cast into the Reflecting 
Ether they are on the very threshold of materialization. Clairvoyants often 
see these reflected shadows of the future in the Reflecting Ether, their own 
and others', but they do not see the archetypal forces belonging to the higher 
level in the World of Thought, and which may change these "shadows" without so 
much as a moment's notice. The student-seer should take note, therefore, that 
he himself, the Ego, active as a thinking, willing Being in the mental world, 
can alter or cancel out any picture seen in the Reflecting Ether; but he does 
this, not by attacking the matter-environment, but by treating through 
spiritual force and understanding the Creative Idea BEHIND the picture, which 
is a property of the World of (Abstract) Thought, homeworld of the human 
Spirit.

   There are many interesting stories of people who have had flash-dreams of 
pictures of future events, usually those about to happen. Sometimes these have 
been in the nature of warnings of danger, and acting upon them has saved the 
seer's life. But in a great number of cases the pictures are not clear enough 
or complete enough for the seer to be able to plot a course of action; and 

[PAGE 3886]

sometimes they show circumstances over which he has no control. In such cases 
it is well to remember that THE REAL SEAT OF CONTROL IS IN THE ARCHETYPAL 
WORLD OF THOUGHT, from which point the Ego works with the subtle forces of 
Nature and controls every situation in harmony with cosmic law.

   The Ego can and does control events which are at the point of material-
ization and which are, therefore visible  as  pictures  in  the  Reflecting 
Ether, since it is through the positive pole of this ether that thought makes 
its impression upon the brain. But let no one become disturbed by the 
prophecies of fortune tellers or by his own flash-pictures and flash-dreams, 
because these pertain to the Reflecting Ether only, and can be referred back 
to spiritual forces in the home-world of the Ego itself, where IT HOLDS THE 
REINS OF POWER.

   Now how is the record made in the first place? Max Heindel says (Vol. I, Q 
& A):  "Memory  is  of  three  kinds.  There  is  in  the  first  place  the
record  which  is  made  by our senses....these impressions are engraven upon 
the cells of the brain and we are able to consciously to call them back--yet 
not always,....for this memory is exceedingly unreliable and capricious, and 
were this the only method of gaining a record of our lives the law of cause 
and effect would be invalidated--our life would not be a sequence of what we 
have done or left undone in the past.

   "There must be another memory, and this is what scientists have called the 
subconscious mind. Just as ether carries to the camera of the photographer a 
record of the surrounding landscape and imprints it upon the sensitive plate 

[PAGE 3887]

to the minutest detail, SO THE SAME ETHER WHICH CARRIES A PICTURE TO OUR EYE 
AND IMPRINTS IT UPON THE RETINA carries into our lungs a similar picture which 
then is absorbed by the blood, and as the blood passes through the heart this 
record is indelibly inscribed upon the sensitive seed atom which is located in 
the left ventricle of the heart near the apex. The FORCES ("soul") of that 
seed atom are taken out by the Spirit at death and contains the record of the 
whole life to the minutest detail, so that, regardless of whether we have 
observed the facts in a certain scene or not, they are, nevertheless there."

   (We may add that the third kind of memory is the super conscious memory 
found in the World of Life Spirit, which is the Christ Consciousness.
"COSMO-CONCEPTION").

   As Max Heindel has said that each atom of the body has a film of Light and 
Reflecting Ether, one sees that this must form, collectively, a sheath or 
aura. As the Ego evolves greater spirituality, it draws more heavily upon the 
cosmic Light and Reflecting Ethers, and the film surrounding the atoms grows 
and expands until they enclose the entire body in an extensive aura having 
very special properties and powers: the "Golden Wedding Garment" of the 
Initiate.

   The PERMANENT record of the seed atom goes with the Ego from life to life; 
but the film of Reflecting Ether on each atom carries a record pertaining to 
the present life in the body, moment by moment, until death, all of which is 
focused in the permanent record of the seed atom and carried from life to 
life.

   There is but a small amount of the two higher ethers in the average human 

[PAGE 3888]

organism, and this is found chiefly in blood, brain, and nervous system; and 
it is precisely the enlargement of the Light and Reflecting Ether aura which 
brings about a stronger and more extensive memory, and one which is better 
able to focus the pictures from the planetary Memory of Nature, as well as 
from the seed atom of the heart.

   Medieval philosophers made the surprising deduction that memory was not a 
part of the mind; just as we now say that it belongs to the subconscious, 
whence it may be called up, voluntarily or involuntarily.

   Or as Max Heindel puts it in his camera analogy, the Light Ether pictures 
are focused on the film, which is the Reflecting Ether and permanent record of 
the seed atom.

   Since Light Ether and Space are "almost synonymous" we see that the 
"pictures" in "space" imprint their images upon the film of the Reflecting 
Ether, flowing in two directions, one toward the past, the other toward the 
future.

[PAGE 3889]

           THE REFLECTING ETHER AND RECORDS OF PREVIOUS INCARNATIONS:

   Not only does the reflecting Ether contain the records pertaining to daily 
life, it also contains the records of the hours that are spent in sleep, which 
in the case of the occultist are hours of great activity. Few students 
remember the activities of the night hours when as Invisible Helpers they are 
working, or studying, in the spiritual worlds. The Invisible Helpers have a 
choice of action, and while all of them show an interest in the healing work, 
some have other fields of activity as well. They attend classes, and also are 
given the opportunity of visiting the regions of Purgatory and First Heaven, 
to observe conditions there. Even after the First Initiation, Max Heindel 
said, his memory was not yet perfect, and required further training.

   Psychologists used to speak of people as being "eye-minded," or "ear-
minded," or "abstractionists" (as we may designate the third group), who could 
recall with no images whatever, of any sort. Incredible as it may seem to most 
people, there are some who can tell you exactly what they had for breakfast, 
describe everything that was on the table, and yet insist they do not "see" 
any image at all. Possibly this type of recollection without images belongs to 
the mathematical mind, accustomed to thinking without imagery except 
mathematical formulas. The occult student who is beginning to awaken upon the 
inner planes shows similar differences of memory and recall, which are 

[PAGE 3890]

undoubtedly due to just such differences of mental habit and temperament. Some 
will say to themselves, "I was at such and such a place last night and talked 
with so and so." Yet asked to describe the scene or the person he cannot do 
so, having no image at all in his mind relative to the situation. Perhaps in 
daily life he has the same sort of imageless recollection. To improve memory 
it may then be necessary to practice building images in the mind, which the 
student is to perform every morning upon awakening.

   If the student is "ear-minded," if his auditory responses ar acute, he will 
be likely to recall words and speeches more vividly than images; and if he is 
"eye-minded," and his visual responsiveness is the outstanding quality, he 
will bring back a memory of scenery, objects, and people. Obviously, artistic 
people are largely "eye-minded," musicians and speakers "ear-minded." But 
those who say they recall experiences without images either visual or auditory 
are nevertheless also placing on record a true recollection.

   Recent psychological experiments at various universities have brought up 
the suggestion that forgetting occurs as the result of interference of several 
memory-systems of which the images or items are closely similar. This the 
contrary of popular belief, which would have it that one remembers more easily 
things that are similar. In the case of inner-plane memories, the unusual 
events are the most easily recalled; bu the continuous life of study and work, 
night after night, is forgotten, largely, because it resembles our daily 
activities in many ways.

[PAGE 3891]

   Along with the ability to recall the experiences of the inner planes where 
the Spirit functions during the sleep of the body (provided, of course, that  
it has ny higher interests than those of the body), comes the ability to see 
the pictures in the negative pole of the reflecting Ether, which relate to 
past incarnations. We are told that these records, in a way not yet definable 
in scientific terms, are impressed upon the seed-atom of the heart and carried 
from life to life; and these seed-atom records are among those which, 
reflected into the negative pole of the Reflecting Ether, the student often 
sees before sinking to sleep and before awakening in the morning. 
Psychologists call them "hypnogogic" visions, visions thrown out of the 
subconscious, in sleep or near-sleep. Since they come during sleep, like 
dreams, the student is not able to exert any real control over them, but as 
the soul-awareness increases he does acquire control. Most "trance" vision 
belongs to the area of hypnogogic vision. In the higher order of clear-seeing, 
however, the person is wide awake, but relaxes into complete stillness by an 
act of will, and then sees these so-called "hypnogogic" visions in full waking 
consciousness, and learns to control and direct them. 

   It is because of the need of complete relaxation that most occult schools 
in the past were situated in out-of-the-way places, on mountain-tops and deep 
in forests or desert places where the air was clear and pure, and there were 
only the sounds of Nature. Obviously, when students trained in such quiet 
places went out into the noisy thoroughfares of the towns and cities, they 

[PAGE 3892]

tended to lose their hard-won powers, and had to learn to concentrate in the 
midst of noise and confusion.

   The Western Mystery School of the Rose Cross has seen and met this problem. 
Its training id designed for the use of the city-dweller, and while it may 
seem to the student that his progress is slow, he would find, if he were to 
make a retreat to some quiet spiritual haven in the country, that he had 
actually acquired more power than he had realized, and would compare favorably 
with the students resident there who had been trained in solitude.

   It is not to be thought that the "sleeping" vision carries over into the 
waking state. The point we are making is that the sleeping state gradually 
clarifies, or becomes permeated with waking consciousness; and this waking 
consciousness then covers both the hours of sleep and the hours of waking, and 
also the intermediate zones where the "hypnogogic" visions occur.

   In this clarified, or "clear," state the student-seer reads in the negative 
pole of the Reflecting Ether, and sometimes within that ether he will see 
pictures from past incarnations, his own and others'.

   There are certain important points to be observed in connection with these 
visions in the Reflecting Ether. First, the known characteristics of this 
ether to transpose some of the images, as in the case of Mme. Blavatsky who 
read a page number backward. The mirror-analogy should not be pushed too far, 
because, after all, the Reflecting Ether is not a physical looking-glass; IT 
IS A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL MIRROR IN WHICH THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE ARE 

[PAGE 3893]

EXPERIENCED BY CONSCIOUSNESS AS A REFLECTION.

   This means that unlike the mirror-image, which is never mixed up with our 
physical selves but remains apart, we ourselves seem to be taken into the 
stream of the Reflecting Ether, so that we stand in the very midst of the 
events shown taking place there. It is only at first that the pictures rush 
past like the moving pictures familiar to us on the theater screen; the 
student at some point will find that he has, himself, entered the scene shown 
him, and he is likely to assume that he is seeing a picture of his own past 
incarnation. And this is usually true. The first pictures seen are generally 
those which pertain to our own past incarnations. However, we may not 
recognize ourselves, in a scene where many people are shown, and where our 
sympathies go out to some one character. Inevitably the student-seer will 
assume identity with the character with whom he feels the strongest sympathy, 
because he has, through the "reflecting" power of the ether, actually entered 
into the emotion-pattern of the character he sees. Thus several women wrote to 
Arthur Weigall, the Egyptologist, thanking him for his kind treatment of the 
history of Cleopatra--who, they said, they were in their former incarnations! 
Now how could these several women all believe that had been Cleopatra? 
Obviosuly they has seen visions of Egypt with Cleopatra central to them all; 
and they had felt a powerful emotional identity with the unfortunate queen.

   We may assume that the seers were people who had, in very truth, lived in 
Egypt and who had known Cleopatra. They may have been servants at court, or 
court ladies, friends of the queen. They may even have been her sincerest 

[PAGE 3894]

enemies, who worked to bring about her downfall and death, and who in 
Purgatory between incarnations, had entered into her suffering and learned to 
repent their evil. Now, in the incarnation when they at last entered upon the 
Way of Initiation, the past opened its doors and showed them the place in 
which they had made much karma. They were not only in the midst of the scenes 
of Cleopatra's time, they were also in the midst of the waves of emotion which 
usrged through her court, of which she was the pivot and the center. Each of 
the women seers, obviously because of personal vanity and perhaps also because 
she was starved for excitement, promptly decided that she herself was 
Cleopatra reborn.

   Thus we see that there is a MEMORY OF EMOTION as well as a memory of 
thought and action, and this also is touched upon in the Reflecting Ether 
clairvoyance; though this emotion-memory is for most people more rarely 
experienced than the other. However, when the image of the past is not merely 
viewed, but entered into in the way described, the emotion-memory comes into 
play. Now since most of us identify ourselves with our emotions and feelings 
to an even greater degree than with body-sensations and thought, it is natural 
that, feeling a strong emotion emanating from a pictured character, we assume 
an identity which is not really ours, and thus ridiculous situations arise 
such as that of the several women who thought they were Cleopatra.

[PAGE 3895]

             THE REFLECTING ETHER AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO MATTER:

   Note that every object in the outer universe has its clear and unmistakable 
replica in the Reflecting Ether. It is not only the Soul Body or Golden 
Wedding Garment that is found there. Everything in the universe has its 
reflection in this ether. The laws of reflection in the hyper-ether, however, 
are not a simple mirror-type image, although this is the analogy upon which 
teachers base their explanations. We suggest that science's newest theories 
about matter and anti-matter pivot about this ether; and that as anti-matter 
has anti-gravity one may read here a possible explanation of the old saying 
that levitation is accomplished by means of the astral light. A current theory 
has it that in the beginning matter and anti-matter existed together in a sort 
of "cosmic egg," and were separated by some kind of repulsive force as yet 
unknown. Max Heindel has said that levitation is accomplished by the reversal 
of the polarity of atoms.

   The proposition that the negative pole of the reflecting Ether may 
constitute the "great negative mass" which underlies the Space-Time continuum 
of which modern science begins to be aware may come as a shock to students who 
have not realized how close physics has come to metaphysics.

   Max Heindel speaks often of "interplanetary ethers," chief of which are the 
Light and Reflecting Ethers. The interplanetary Light Ether, in particular, he 
associates with the Cosmic Christ or Solar Logos. But just as matter actually 

[PAGE 3896]

extends throughout the universe in interplanetary and interstellar space--
there are atoms of matter in every cubic foor of cosmic space; space is not 
empty--so also do the ethers; and each planet specializes its own field in 
which evolution proceeds for the life-wave belonging to that planet.

   Many of the so-called illusions of matter are due, indirectly, to the 
properties of the Reflecting Ether, which has been called the Mirror of the 
Gods.

   All three of the lower ethers are active WITHIN the confines of the 
Reflecting Ether. We may, indeed, think of each ether, starting from the top, 
as enclosing or enfolding (and interpenetrating) those below it. Thus the 
Reflecting Ether "contains," as it were, the Light, Life, and Chemical Ethers. 
The Light Ether "contains" the Life and Chemcial Ethers; and the Life Ether 
"contains" the Chemical Ether, which we may add, in its turn may be said to 
"contain" the physical organism.

   For example: the Ego impresses thought upon the brain by way of the 
positive pole of the Reflecting Ether. Now we know that the thinking and 
memory processes of the embodied Ego have not only the electromagnetic 
correlations of the Light and Life Ethers, but also the purely chemical 
correlations of the Chemical Ether. There is a chemistry of memory and a 
chemistry of thought, as well as an electromagnetic pattern and forces in 
brain and nerves which transmit thought impulses to the body and which carry 
sensory impressions from the body to the brain.

   Certain forces in the Light Ether flow in response to the thought-impulse 

[PAGE 3897]

focused by the Ego in the positive pole of the Reflecting Ether, where the 
thought form moves out toward chemicalization, passing downward (which is 
outward) by way of the electromagnetic spectrum and Light Ether. Some 
biologists have already formulated the theory that the electrical currents in 
the voluntary nervous system actually pour out from the brain, where they are 
generated. The occultist points out that the Ego has its seat in the brain. 
Max Heindel speaks of the great waves of energy that push out from the brain 
when the Ego wills action in the body.

   Therefore, says the biologist, there is "an intricate chemical basis for 
how people remember and why they forget." Experiments have shown that learning 
is reflected by changes in the cell's production of RNA (ribonucleic acid), 
but how the RNA is changed remains as yet unknown. It is known, however, that 
the learning process is accompanied by basic changes in the composition of 
this complex chemical. Since RNA molecules tell cells what proteins to make, 
changes in RNA strcutures would result in changes in the production of 
proteins. These proteins apparently "form the chemical basis for thoughts."

   Again a scientific writer comments: "The enormity of the task of 
mechanizing and electrifying brain power is illustrated by the fact that the 
human brain contains about 10,000,000,000 nerve cells. We do not know how it 
translates nerve impulses into sight, sound, or touch, or how it stores and 
retrieves vast amounts of knowledge." The occultist classifies the "brain 
power" and nerve impulses in the Light Ether; the storing and retrieving of 

[PAGE 3898]

knowledge in the reflecting Ether. The Life Ether supplies the life force 
which keeps tissues and cells alive and growing, and the Chemical Ether is the 
field in which atoms and molecules are cemented magnetically into the patterns 
of evolution. Again, Max Heindel comments ("THE WEB OF DESTINY")  that  the 
vital fluid from the Sun "charges" the Chemical and Life Ethers, and that 
"thus chraged (they) are the avenues of assimilation which preserve the 
individual and of fecundation which perpetuates the race."

   Since Reflecting Ether vision is not dependent upon the optic nerve, the 
physically blind can learn to see in this ether, and see not only inner-plane 
images but physical-plane images as well. If this seems a poor substitute for 
physical sight, let us consider that normally no one ever does look out 
directly upon the physical world. Ordinarily one sees only the image which has 
reached the retina of the eye, which is translated into nerve impulses, these 
in turn passing inward to the optical center of the brain, where somehow, the 
nerve impulses are translated back into the image and interpreted by the Ego. 
And where does this translation take place? Where but in the Reflecting Ether 
interpenetrating the brain?

   "Within each individual there is a built-in mechanism, not yet discovered, 
that allows man to evolve. The DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that embodies this 
mechanism, the genetic code of all living organisms (except the blood and 
several viruses) is made up of four chemical bases; adenin, guanine, cytosine, 
and thymine, and it is the different combinations of these four chemicals that 

[PAGE 3899]

provide the specific information used by the cells in the construction of 
proteins. It is this DNA which is shaped by evolution. There is constant 
competition for survival among these combinations, and in this way organisms 
slowly become enriched with experiences that facilitate this survival. No one 
yet has discovered the complete base sequence of these different combinations 
fro a single genes. Now we are out of the field of generalities of epigenesis 
and philosophy and into the alchemist's laboratory, where our alchemists of 
old with their four basic elements would feel right at home." (RAYS FROM THE 
ROSE CROSS, Nov., 1963, page 516.)

   Without the Reflecting Ether, the Ego could not express consciousness in 
the physical body; that is, it could not be conscious in the physical world. 
Consciousness, suggests a philosopher of modern science (Erwin Schrodinger) 
appears in the role of a tutor. It "supervises our education," introduces us 
to new experiences, but leaves us to carry on our old routines in the form of 
"habit"--which we relate to the negative pole of the Reflecting Ether. 
Consciousness is concerned with the learning process and is intimately 
associated with all that is new. That is, with new experiences and with 
creativity, epigenesis, the forces of the positive pole--in a word, the 
future.

   Occultists have long recognized phosphorus as important to the thinking 
process. Max Heindel says: "Phosphorus is the particular element by means of 
which the Ego is able to expresas thought and influence the dense body....The 
degree of consciousness and intelligence is in proportion to the amount of 

[PAGE 3900]

phosphorus contained in the brain." "Soul growth enables the brain to 
assimilate an increasing amount of phosphorus" (which is a chemical poison).

   The term "Astral Light" is not (as is well known) an orientalism, but was 
anciently used by Western teachers in reference to the star-like Soul Body and 
its aura. Paracelsus refers to it as "the sidereal light." The words of the 
great Paracelsus are most significant: "Hidden things of the soul which cannot 
be perceived by the physical senses may be found through the sidereal body, 
through whose organism we may look into Nature in the same way that the Sun 
shines through glass. The inner nature of everything may therefore be known, 
through magic in general, and through the powers of the inner or second 
sight." In the Rosicrucian Philosophy the descriptive term "Reflecting Ether" 
is used instead of "Astral Light," the latter term including the Light Ether 
as well as the Reflecting Ether.

   We deem it important that oriental and medieval European occultists have 
claimed that heavy bodies can be levitated by means of the Astral Light, 
besides noting its function in promoting the other supersensory powers. We may 
study the various chemical and electromagnetic properties and processes of the 
body singly or collectively; but the root of the mystery is found nowhere else 
than in the Reflecting Ether; in the negative pole, which is the Cosmic 
Reflector, and in the positive pole which projects the creatively working 
archetypal image that represents the future.

[PAGE 3901]

                 THE REFLECTING ETHER AND ARCHETYPAL FORCES:

   In this final chapter on the Reflecting Ether we turn again to Max 
Heindel's statement that "this ether is the medium through which thought makes 
an impression upon the human brain. IT IS MOST INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH THE 
FOURTH SUBDIVISION OF THE WORLD OF THOUGHT. This is the highest of the four 
subdivisions contained in the Region of Concrete Thought and is the home world 
of the human mind. There a much clearer version of the Memory of nature is 
found."

   The fourth subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought is termed the 
Region of Archetypal Forces. ("COSMO-CONCEPTION"). Let us look farther into 
what we are taught concerning this region, in order to gain a clearer 
understanding of the Reflecting Ether, for it is the record in this Region 
which is reflected "down" into the Reflecting Ether, and the cosmic 
relationship existing between the World of Thought and the Reflecting Ether 
has its microcosmic replica within the aura of the embodied human being.

   The records of the Memory of Nature are contained in the negative pole of 
the Reflecting Ether, and so is the individual memory. But the Ego directs its 
positive thought force into the brain by way of the positive pole of the 
Reflecting Ether. This positive thought force, which works through the 
positive pole of the Reflecting Ether in the brain and nervous system (the 

[PAGE 3902]

mind really works everywhere that the "gray matter" is present, throughout the 
body) is CREATIVE; it is not passively receptive. The negative pole is the 
receptor, and therefore contains the memory, being the storehouse of all 
images, as hitherto described.

   Of the Region of Archetypal Forces, Max Heindel writes: "It is the central 
and most important Region in the five worlds wherein man's entire evolution is 
carried on. On the one side of this Region are the three higher Regions of the 
World of Thought, the World of Life Spirit, and the World of Divine Spirit. On 
the other side of the Region of Archetypal Forces are the three lower Regions 
of the World of Thought, the Desire and the Phsycial Worlds. Thus this Region 
becomes a sort of 'crux,' bounded on the one side by the Realms of Spirit, on 
the other by the worlds of form. IT IS A FOCUSING POINT, WHERE SPIRIT REFLECTS 
ITSELF IN MATTER." ("COSMO-CONCEPTION")

   In another place Mr. Heindel points out that from another viewpoint the 
world of Spirit proper really begins only with the World of Life Spirit, which 
he calls the first universal world, and that in the broad sense, the material 
universe begins with the Region of Abstract Thought, and that above this all 
is "pure" Spirit. The World of Abstract Thought is "chaos, the seed-ground of 
cosmos," in which the "germinal ideas"--the germs of all causation, and 
therefore of evolution, are created by spiritual intelligences in that world. 
In the COSMO-CONCEPTION, Diagram 1,  we  are  shown  a  schematic  drawing 
by which to understand the "relative permanency of the visible and invisible 
worlds," on the ananlogy of the stereopticon with its projected images. THE 

[PAGE 3903]

DIAGRAM IS DRAWN FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE VIRGIN SPIRIT, whose Will 
corresponds to the operator of the stereopticon machine; which conceives, in 
the World of Life Spirit, by means of the divine creative imagination, A 
CONCEPT; this concept takes the form of an Idea in the Region of Abstract 
Thought, and the Idea is posited before the Lens of the Mind, in the fourth 
subdivision of the World of Thought. THIS FORUTH DIVISION ALONE IS PROPERLY 
AND SCIENTIFICALLY DESIGNATED "THE MIND." The mind is the lens, but the light 
emanates from the Life Spirit, while the slide represents the permanent Idea 
created by the Virgin Spirit in the Region of Abstract Thought. That is, this 
Permanent Idea is the "Germinal Idea;" so called because it is the "seed" from 
which the exterior world-objects spring. The light of the Life Spirit projects 
the living, permanent Idea through the Mind, which lies specifiaclly in the 
Region of Archetypal Forces, and, therefore, it is these Archetypal Forces 
which from this point on are represented by the beams of light which emanate 
from the World of Life Spirit. The Archetypal Forces ray downward through the 
Region of Concrete Thought and the Desire World, awakening the driving power 
of desire, and the image, corresponding to the image cast on the screen by the 
stereopticon projector. What are the Archetypal Forces? They are all the 
living beings who work on the Archetypes in the Second Heaven, which 
Archetypes are THOUGHT FORMS. They include human beings between incarnations, 
Nature Forces, and the celestial Hierarchies, such as Lords of Mind, 

[PAGE 3904]

Archangels, Angels, advanced members of our own life wave (Mercurians, 
Venusians), etc., and Adepts of our own humanity.

   Now when we come to the Physical World, where the image is objectified, we 
are shown seven subdivisions, of which the four upper are the ethers which are 
the subject of these chapters; and of these four ethers, the Reflecting Ether 
is the uppermost. It is, Max Heindel says, an Hyper-ether. THIS ETHER IS THE 
SCREEN UPON WHICH THE IMAGE IS PROJECTED FROM THE MIND. But the forces of the 
Desire World are present with the image, just as the heat, light, and 
electricity of the stereopticon machine are involved in projecting the image 
inscribed on the glass slide on to the screen--or, in another analogy, the 
moving picture projected from the film strip.

   But the projected image of the stereopticon or moving picture is flat and 
two-dimensional. The projected image contained WITHIN (not on) the Reflecting 
Ether, is three-dimensional. It is projected in depth, and with life and 
force. THE MEMORY OF NATURE AND OF THE HUMAN MIND is comparable, on this 
analogy, to art galleries and newspapers which carry pictures and symbols, but 
these are only a portion of THE ENTIRE PHYSICAL WORLD ITSELF, the so-called 
time-space continuum of modern physical science.

   The time-space continuum as a whole correlates with the Reflecting Ether, 
and therefore modern scientists speak of "travelling in time," or "the 
annihilation or collapse of space," and "the collapse of time." Where the 
occultist says that he "reads in the Memory of Nature"--particularly the 
Reflecting Ether--the scientists says that he "travels in time." And many 

[PAGE 3905]

scientific fantasies show this travelling in time as if it were possible for a 
person living in the 20th century to return, in actual fact, to a former time 
and way of life, retaining as he does his present-day personality and 
knowledge. The occultist questions such a reversal of the time stream. He 
does, indeed, travel backward in consciousness in the course of his 
Initiations, where he reviews, and remembers, his previous existences--not 
only his embodiments as a human being in the Earth Period but his former 
existences as animal-like, planet-like or even mineral-like beings of earlier 
periods of evolution.

   But whereas those periods were experienced with no self-awareness, the 
Initiate now views them and enters into them sympathetically (or with empathy, 
empathically), in full waking self-consciousness, and in so doing becomes able 
to use the forces voluntarily which he then used involuntarily--negatively or 
passively--under the guidance of higher spiritual beings.

   Now just as the physical body of man is surrounded by and derived from the 
world around him, so that Divine Spirit and Life Spirit are surrounded by and 
derived from their corresponding macrocosmic worlds of Spirit; so also the 
Human Spirit is differentiated within the World of Abstract Thought, and the 
Mind and Desire Body from their corresponding worlds; while the vital body 
consists of the ethers which surround it on all sides, and the physical body 
is made up of physical substances as said.

   But from another point of view we may say that the universe consists solely 
of Spirit: the Divine Spirit which is "reflected" or condensed into the 

[PAGE 3906]

physical body as its representative; the Life Spirit, which is "reflected" or 
condensed into the Vital Body, as its representative; the Human Spirit which 
is "reflected" or condensed into the Desire Body AND Concrete Mind, as its 
twofold representative. BUT--as we see from a process of elimination--IT IS 
THE MIND ITSELF WHICH IS THE FOCUS, CONDESNATION, OR REFLECTION, OF PURE 
VIRGIN SPIRIT. AND THE REFLECTING ETHER IS, AS IT WERE, A KIND OF LOWER 
POLARITY OR OCTAVE OF THE MIND; THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND, IN THE SENSE THAT IT 
OCCUPIES A PLANE BELOW THE TRUE MIND.

   To call the Reflecting Ether the "lower octave" of the mind is of course a 
musical analogy, but such an analogy bears a high degree of accuracy as 
regards the World of Thought, for that world is the great cosmic world of 
tone, or sound; each cosmic sound pattern created in Cosmic Root Substance by 
a Creative Idea sent forth by the Three-fold Spirit in the way shown in 
Diagram 1 of the COSMO-CONCEPTION. The World Archetype sings a song emanating 
from the Solar Logos and the Great Spirits before His Throne who are the 
Planetary Logoi; and Man, as Virgin Spirit, is part of this Song, and he also 
sings along with the innumerable spirits of the celestial Hierarchies.

    It is known to musicians--and to physicists who have drawn up a science of 
sound--that when a certain note is struck, say on a piano, other keys 
harmonious to it will vibrate in sympathy, creating overtones, undertones, 
chords, and octaves, as the case may be. (See COSMO-CONCEPTION)  So the
harmony  of  the  threefold  Spirit  sounds,  and  by  sounding  creates 
tone-patterns in the World of Concrete Thought, which are translated into 
form and substance in the Physical World. This is why it is said that the  
reflecting Ether is the "lower octave" of the fourth or Archetypal Region of 
the World of Thought, and therefore reflects, or RESOUNDS WITH the pictures of 
the Memory of Nature, AND WITH ALL OTHER FORCES WHICH BELONG TO THAT HIGH 
REALM. 

Continued with file "RC1109.TXT"

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