THE PLANE OF ETHEL' 31 



plainly open to the eye from the outside, and all objects near or far 

 are seen alike without perspective. The fourth dimension, the dream 

 of geometry, is plainly visible and in the omnic plane is clearly seen a 

 fifth or sixth dimension. With these chances for error, it is not strange 

 that the Feringhi, or English writers, on the higher planes have made 

 frequent errors, while even the Hindu adept is never quite infallible. 

 As a preparation for such investigation crystal-gazing has been found 

 desirable. Still better is the formation of circles of silence when men 

 and women gather around a white lily or other creation of purity and 

 beauty and, clasping one another by the hand, endeavor to think Ether 

 and Om. After many years of these exercises, gathering around perfect 

 objects under his direction, the Swami said, a few devoted women had 

 even risen to think Devachan and Shushup. No Englishman had, 

 however, come to this and in our Caucasian race not even a woman of 

 English birth had ever been able to think Nirvana. For in Shushup 

 all desire to act is lost, as in Om is all desire of speech. In Nirvana 

 alone is the absolute extinction of all desire — a thing impossible to 

 you Americans. 



The scenery of the etheric plane is much as in the physical exist- 

 ence, only more wavering, more delicate, more enchanting. Its objects 

 of fine matter, finer than anything in the atomic or molecular way, 

 freely interpenetrate all merely physical matters. It is therefore not 

 necessary to seek it far from home. In India and Thibet, this scenery 

 is peopled with its multitudes of beings, for these are the oldest lands of 

 man, peopled for ages with him and his creations. California, on the 

 other hand, with the exception of a few areas, as Point Loma and 

 Chinatown, is virgin soil in its astral and ethereal aspects, its sole 

 abundant life being the nature emanations and the essential spirits of 

 animals. One may wander in its verdant etheric shades for weeks and 

 never encounter a human creature. When one meets such a being there 

 on the etheric plane, she is most gracious and friendly, her company a 

 welcome recompense for months of loneliness. The appearance of a 

 friend in these wastes is signalized by the glimmer of his aura which, 

 as a most learned occidental adept has pointed out, appears " as an oval 

 mass of luminous mist of highly complex structure, from its shape 

 sometimes called the Auric Egg." This writer maintains with apparent 

 truth that these auras are not mere emanations but the actual mani- 

 festation of the ego on their respective planes. " It is," he says, " the 

 auric egg which is the real man, not the physical body which on this 

 plane crystallizes in the middle of it." This is certainly clear if we 

 keep in mind the difference between this ego-aura and the physical 

 health-aura which is the first purely astral object seen by the un- 

 trained and seldom enters the etheric plane. For the sake of clear- 

 ness we should call the contents of the auric egg the ' etheric double,' 

 which is merely a new name for a very old idea, for it has long been 



