at
is mysterious quite as miraculous things are going on constantly about
us unnoticed. Thoreau calls attention to the fact that we become so
accustomed to the marvelous expressions of life all about us that we are
oblivious of the phenomena that are taking place. Commenting on the
magic possible to nature he says:

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where
no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed--a, to me,
equally mysterious origin for it. Convince me that you have
a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.... In
the spring of 1857 I planted six seeds sent to me from the
Patent Office, and labeled, I think, 'Poitrine jaune
grosse,' large yellow squash. Two came up, and one bore a
squash which weighed 123-1/2 pounds, the other bore four,
weighing together 186-1/4 pounds. Who would have believed
that there was 310 pounds of poitrine jaune grosse in that
corner of my garden? These seeds were the bait I used to
catch it, my ferrets which I sent into its burrow, my brace
of terriers which unearthed it.... Other seeds I have which
will find other things in that corner of my garden. Perfect
alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end,
and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible
treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value
which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz
about it. Yet farmer's sons will stare by the hour to see a
juggler draw ribbons from his throat, though he tells them
it is all deception. Surely, men love darkness rather than
light."[E]

A seed is a center of force through which life, at a much lower level
than the human, flows and gathers about that center the material mass
that serves the purpose of its lowly evolution. At the human level
consciousness has become self-consciousness and a marvelously complex
mechanism is required to express it and serve the purpose of its farther
evolution.

This complex mechanism of consciousness, composed of the various bodies
through which the ego expresses itself at different levels, is used as a
whole for functioning on the physical plane. But when the ego is
functioning no farther down than the astral plane, the physical body
is, of course, temporarily discarded. It is then in the condition known
as sleep, or trance. Sleep is the natural withdrawing of th