Let this motion in this material universe cease, and matter would melt away and resolve into spirit.  From spirit it came, to spirit it belongs, and to spirit it returns.

Behind each and every astral globe, whether the globe be but an astral atom, or an astral planet, or an astral world; beyond its physics there is a meta-physical globe, its cause, and that is the real globe, of which the astral is but a temporary phenomenon.  Take a spiritual globe and differentiate it.  The Motion resulting produces a material astral globe.  Stop the motion; bring it to a state of rest.  The astral shadow disappears.  It was merely spiritual phenomena.

Each and every astral atom is a model in miniature of the material and spiritual universe.  Each and every prakritic atom is the joint result of spirit and matter united and working together—­of physics and metaphysics; and in its last analysis pure spirit; pure metaphysics.

Behind each and every prakritic atom of our earth there are six other atoms (or globes), three material shadows and three spiritual realities, so that it is a string of seven—­the whole universe in miniature—­material and spiritual.  And all things combined and formed on a prakritic base are a chain of seven —­whether a peach or a planet.

The “chain” belongs to the prakritic plane.  The lines of descent from the Light through the star and sun to planet are “strings.”  The “chains” are beads of the same size strung on a thread.  The strings are beads of different sizes strung on a thread.  The beads of the chain are in coadunition—­in the same space, as gas in water and the water in a sponge.

In metaphysics this earth can only be regarded as a chain of seven globes, its three astral globes in coadunition having their three spiritual doubles.  Of course no one of the higher globes can be seen by the prakritic eye, but that is not to say the astral world cannot be seen by the astral eye in sleep, or by the person who qualifies himself for the astral world, through the development of his astral body.  “No upper globes of any chain in the solar system can be seen,” says H.P.  Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine (vol.  I, p. 187), yet she means by astronomers, not by sages.  And she does not mean the upper globes in the stellar system of Alcyone and its companions.

In pure physics the earth can only be regarded as a chain of four globes consubstantial and in coadunition—­four in and three out.  This makes seven, and the metaphysician when talking physics uses the metaphysical terms interchangeably and speaks of “the chain of seven globes” meaning in one sentence the four material globes making this earth; in another meaning the line of descent or string of beads of different sizes reaching down from the Divine Consciousness; and in still another the seven beads or globes of the same size in coadunition to form this earth chain.  To the student who is thoroughly grounded in the eastern physics this interweaving of the physical and metaphysical presents no difficulties; but to the western mind just beginning the study it is a tangle.