it must first have been “involved” or “folded-in, or wrapped up, etc.”  Everything must be “involved” before it can be “evolved;” remember this, please—­it is true on all planes, mental, physical, and spiritual.  A thing must be “put in” before it may be “taken out.”  This truth, if remembered and applied to metaphysical problems, will throw the clearest light upon the darkest problems.  Make it your own.

Therefore before the process of Evolution from the gross forms of Matter up to the higher, and then on to the Mental, from higher to higher, and then on the Spiritual plane—­that Evolution which we see being performed before our sight today—­before that Evolution became possible there was a necessary Involution, or “wrapping-up.”  The Spirit of the Absolute first “involved” itself in its Mental Image; Thought-Form, or Creation, of the Mind Principle, just as you may “involve” yourself in an earnest thought in deep meditation.  Did you never “lose yourself” in thought, or “forget yourself” in an idea?  Have you not spoken of yourself as having been “wrapped in thought?” Well, then you can see something of what is here meant, at least so far as the process of “involution” is concerned.  You involve yourself in your meditations—­the Absolute involves Itself in Its Mental Creations—­but, remember the one is Finite, and the other Infinite, and the results are correspondingly weak or strong.

Obeying the laws imposed upon it, the Mental Principle then involved itself in the Energy Principle, or Prana, and the Universal Energy sprang into existence.  Then, in obedience to the same Laws, the Prana involved itself in the Akasa, or Universal Matter Principle.  Of course each “involving” practically “created” the “wrapper,” “sheath” of the lower Principle.  Do you see this?  Each, therefore, depends upon the Principle higher than itself, which becomes its “Parent Principle,” as the Yogis express it.  And in this process of Involution the extreme form of Matter was reached before the process of Evolution became possible.  The extreme form of gross Matter is not known to us today, on this planet, for we have passed beyond it.  But the teachings inform us that such forms were as much grosser that the grossest Matter that we know today, as the latter is gross in comparison with the most ethereal vapors known to Modern Science.  The human mind cannot grasp this extreme of the scale, any more than it can the extreme high degree of manifestation.

At this point we must call your attention to certain occult teachings, widely disseminated, which the highest Yogi teachers discountenance, and contradict.  We allude to the teaching that in the process of Involution there was a “degeneration” or “devolution” from higher to lower forms of life, until the gross state of Matter was reached.  Such a teaching is horrible, when considered in detail.  It would mean that The Absolute deliberately created high forms of life, arch-angels, and higher than these—­gods in fact—­and then caused them to “devolve” until the lowest state was reached.  This would mean the exact opposite of Evolution, and would mean a “going down” in accordance with the Divine Will, just as Evolution is a “going up” in accordance with the Divine Will.