Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The first point which it is necessary to make clear in describing this astral plane is its absolute reality. Of course in using that word I am not speaking from that metaphysical standpoint from which all but the One Unmanifested is unreal because impermanent; I am using the word in its plain, every-day sense, and Imean by it that the Objects and inhabitants of the astral plane are real in exactly the same wav as our own bodies, our furniture, our houses or monuments are real - as real as Charing Cross, to quote an expressive remark from one of the earliest Theosophical works. They will no more endure for ever than will objects on the physical plane, but they are nevertheless realities from our poirft of view while they last - realities which we cannot afford to ignore merely because the majority of mankind is as yet unconscious, or but vaguely conscious, of their existence. No one can* get a clear conception ofthe teachings of the wisdom-religion until he has at any rate an intellectual grasp of the fact that in our solar svstem there exist per fectly definite planes, each with its own matter Of different degrees of density, and that some of these planes can be visited and observed by persons who have qualified them selves for the work, exactly as a foreign country might be visited and Observed; and that, by comparison Of the observations of those who are constantly working on these planes, evidence can be Obtained of their existence and nature at least as satisfactory as that which most ofus have for the existence Of Greenland or Spitzbergen. Further more, just as any man who has the means and chooses to take the trouble can go and see Greenland or Spitz bergen for himself, so any man who chooses to take the trouble to qualify himself by living the necessary life, can in time come to see these higher planes on his own account. The names usually given to these planes, taking them in order of materiality, rising from the denser to the finer, are the physical, th
