Of course no Diagram is anything more than a symbolical mnemonic, so to say; in itself it is entirely insufficient and only permits a glance at one aspect, or face, of the world-process.  It is a step in a ladder merely, useful only for mounting and to be left aside when once a higher rung is reached.  Thus it is that the whole of the elements of Euclid were merely an introduction to the comprehension of the “Platonic Solids,” which must also, in their turn, be discarded when the within or essence of things has to be dealt with and not the without or appearance, no matter how “typical” that appearance may be.

Sufficient has already been said of the Universal Principle, of the Universal Root and of the Boundless Power—­the Parabrahman (That Which transcends Brahma), Mula-Prakriti (Root-Nature), and Supreme Ishvara, or the Unmanifested Eternal Logos, of the Vedantic Philosophers.  The next stage is the potential unmanifested type of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three, the Potentialities of Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva, the Preservative, Emanative, and Regenerative Powers—­the Supreme Logos, Universal Ideation and Potential Wisdom, called by Simon the Incorruptible Form, Universal Mind and Great Thought.  This Incorruptible Form is the Paradigm of all Forms, called Vishva Rupam or All-Form and the Param Rupam or Supreme Form, in the Bhagavad Gita[122] spoken also of as the Param Nidhanam or Supreme Treasure-house,[123] which Simon also calls the Treasure-house [Greek:  thaesauros] and Store-house [Greek:  apothaekae], an idea found in many systems, and most elaborately in that of the Pistis-Sophia.

Between this Divine World, the Unmanifested Triple Aeon, and the World of Men is the Middle Distance—­the Waters of Space differentiated by the Image or Reflection of the Triple Logos (D) brooding upon them.  As there are three Worlds, the Divine, Middle, and Lower, which have been well named by the Valentinians the Pneumatic (or Spiritual), Psychic (or Soul-World), and Hylic (or Material), so in the Middle Distance we have three planes or degrees, or even seven.  This Middle Distance contains the Invisible Spheres between the Physical World and the Divine.  To it the Initiated and Illuminati, the Spiritual Teachers of all ages, have devoted much exposition and explanation.  It is divine and infernal at one and the same time, for as the higher parts—­to use a phrase that is clumsy and misleading, but which cannot be avoided—­are pure and spiritual, so the lower parts are corrupted and tainted.  The law of analogy, imaging and reflection, hold good in every department of emanative nature, and though pure and spiritual ideas come to men from this realm of the Middle Distance, it also receives back from man the impressions of his impure thoughts and desires, so that its lower parts are fouler even than the physical world, for man’s secret thoughts and passions are fouler than the deeds he performs.  Thus there is a Heaven and Hell in the Middle Distance, a Pneumatic and Hylic state.