ental,
or on the buddhic plane. It does not matter in what world you
are moving, in what matter your consciousness is acting; so long as
it is utilising organised matter for its own expression so long are
those manifestations psychic, and are properly included under the term
psychism. You may perhaps wonder why I lay stress on this. You will
see it at once if I remind you that unless we keep this definition in
mind--accurate, legitimate as it is--we shall be making a division
between the manifestation of the consciousness on the physical and on
the astral and mental planes, between its manifestation in the
physical and those in the astral and mental bodies; and if we do that
the whole of our thought will be on mistaken lines. You need
practically to be pressed back to what you know of consciousness on
the physical plane, before you can thoroughly follow its
manifestations on the astral and on the mental. If you try to separate
off manifestations which are the same in kind though differing in
degree, according to the fineness of the matter which is employed, if
you try to separate them off, you will always regard what you call
psychism--that is, astral and mental manifestations in the subtler
bodies--in an artificial and unwise manner. If, on the other hand, you
realise that consciousness is one, that its manifestation on any plane
is conditioned by the matter of the plane, that it is one in essence,
only varying in degree according to the lessening or the increase of
the resistance of the matter of the planes, then you will not be
inclined to take up exaggerated views with regard to what people are
so fond of calling psychism. You will not denounce it in the foolish
way of many people, because in denouncing it you will know that you
denounce all intellectual manifestations, an absurdity of which very
few people are likely to be guilty; if you take your intellectual
manifestations in the physical world as admirable things, to be always
encouraged, strengthened, developed, then you will be compelled, by
parity of reasoning, to understand that the manifestations of the same
consciousness in finer matter, astral or mental, are equally worthy,
and no more worthy, of development, of consideration. You will not
find yourself in the absurdly illogical position of declaring it a
good thing to train the physical plane consciousness, while it is
dangerous to cultivate the astral and mental plane consciousness. You
will understand