lane, thus opening up before the Ego, as he learns
to function through these vehicles, two entirely new and far wider
worlds of knowledge and power. Now these new worlds, though they are
all around us and freely inter-penetrate one another, are not to be
thought of as distinct and entirely unconnected in substance, but
rather as melting the one into the other, the lowest astral forming a
direct series with the highest physical, just as the lowest mental in
its turn forms a direct series with the highest astral. We are not
called upon in thinking of them to imagine some new and strange kind
of matter, but simply to think of the ordinary physical kind as
subdivided so very much more finely and vibrating so very much more
rapidly as to introduce us to what are practically entirely new
conditions and qualities.

It is not then difficult for us to grasp the possibility of a steady
and progressive extension of our senses, so that both by sight and by
hearing we may be able to appreciate vibrations far higher and far
lower than those which are ordinarily recognised. A large section of
these additional vibrations will still belong to the physical plane,
and will merely enable us to obtain impressions from the etheric part
of that plane, which is at present as a closed book to us. Such
impressions will still be received through the retina of the eye; of
course they will affect its etheric rather than its solid matter, but
we may nevertheless regard them as still appealing only to an organ
specialized to receive them, and not to the whole surface of the
etheric body.

There are some abnormal cases, however, in which other parts of the
etheric body respond to these additional vibrations as readily as, or
even more readily than, the eye. Such vagaries are explicable in
various ways, but principally as effects of some partial astral
development, for it will be found that the sensitive parts of the body
almost invariably correspond with one or other of the _chakrams_, or
centres of vitality in the astral body. And though, if astral
consciousness be not yet developed, these centres may not be available
on their own plane, they are still strong enough to stimulate into
keener activity the etheric matter which they inter-penetrate.

When we come to deal with the astral senses themselves the methods of
working are very different. The astral body has no specialized
sense-organs--a fact which perhaps needs some explanation, since many