THE ESOTERIC STRUCTURE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLAINED BY ALFRED SINNETT

(The following text is the first part of chapter ten of the book "The Growth of the Soul" by Alfred Sinnett; and I added subheadings to make it easier to read.)

THE SYSTEM TO WHICH WE BELONG

THE EARTH CHAIN

Everyone who has touched the outskirts of Theosophic teaching will be familiar with the idea that this planet we are actually inhabiting for the moment forms one of a connected series through which the human life-wave flows, manifesting in full activity on one only at any given period; that the course of the whole Manvantara involves a septenary journey round this chain of worlds; that each in turn is brought into full activity during this progress, and fades back into comparative obscuration as the life-wave passes on, and that the passage around the whole seven globes is spoken of for convenience as a "round" in evolution, seven of which make up a whole Manvantara.

The strain and struggle of existence is not equally great on all these globes — in four of them, indeed, two of these being on the downward and two on the upward arc of the circle, humanity is not called upon to undergo the strain of physical existence at all.

On the first globe of the series existence is altogether conditioned by surroundings corresponding with that which we call the Manasic Plane of the earth, while the lowest point of materiality touched by the second globe of the series is on a level with that which we here call the astral plane.

Life on the third planet on the downward series has already the physical vehicle, and that third planet, therefore, becomes perceptible to our present senses, and is in fact the planet Mars.

Passing onward from this earth, humanity again functions on a physical globe — the planet Mercury — and then passes to the sixth, the lowest materiality of which is astral, and to a seventh which, like the first, is altogether manasic.

I need not attempt the almost impossible task of describing life on the non-material planets of the chain to which we belong. Nor, indeed, will I attempt to deal with the conditions of life on the three physical planets during the earlier rounds of human progress through them.

Let us be content with an attempt to comprehend in some measure the condition of ou"r world and of the two other physical worlds of the chain during our present world period, the middle period of the whole grand process described as the Manvantara. Here, perhaps, it is worth while to interpolate an explanation of the term just used.

THE EARTH'S EVOLUTIONARY SCHEME

(To facilitate understanding of what follows, I'll first share the diagram that Charles Leadbeater included in his book "Man: From Where, How, and Towards Where," which summarizes the seven stages that Mr. Sinnett will describe below.)

The whole existence of a given planetary chain constitutes merely one episode in the vast series of manifestations which embrace, in the whole, seven successive episodes of somewhat similar, though in some respects widely different, manifestations of creative power and evolutionary progress.

At one time, at the early stages of theosophical study, we were left with the impression concerning such episodes that each involved the existence of a septenary change of worlds. Clearer and more scientific comprehension of the process enables us to realise that this is not the case.

The first Manvantara

We must think of the first Manvantara as representing simply divine ideation on the Manasic Plane; creative power, that is to say, engenders what we may think of as a globe on the Manasic Plane in which the scheme of the whole Manvantara is faintly shadowed forth.

That stupendous process of divine creative thought constitutes the first Manvantara or creative process. An interval elapses and the divine activity is resumed. That which was done is recalled into existence relatively without an effort.

The second Manvantara

The next effort is to approach the materialisation of the ideas engendered, in the first instance, on the astral plane of consciousness. So the second Manvantara consists of a manasic globe, an astral globe — realising the first intention to that extent — a third globe on the upward are representing manasic consciousness developed to a higher level than in the first instance.

Such phrases, of course, must be exceedingly vague and merely suggestive, not to be taken with too rigid a devotion to the letter.

The third Manvantara

Another interval and then ensues the third Manvantara. The purpose to be achieved here is that of bringing down the original ideas to physical manifestation, and the third Manvantara witnesses the development on the physical plane of a world constituted of physical matter.

In our own case that world was the one we now call the Moon, but in a condition of very much fuller development. I think this will become intelligible later on, and I need not stop now to develop the idea.

We may then conceive a return to astral conditions and an ultimate return to manasic conditions. And again I venture to describe that interpretation as rather symbolically than literally accurate.

The truth is that the more our knowledge extends, the more it becomes difficult to invest any stage of natural activity with explanations that seem directly to correspond with the experiences of our present more advanced stage of knowledge.

By reason of the fact that the Moon was the physical planet of the third Manvantara, that one is always referred to in theosophical writing as the Lunar Manvantara — full of the deepest interest for us, as further explanations will show.

The fourth Manvantara

Here on the earth we are at the middle point of our progress in each round, and this period of the earth's activity is the middle period of the whole Manvantara as the round on which we are engaged is the fourth, just a little more than half of which is already accomplished.

If we concentrate our attention on the present world period alone we find evolution being carried out during the whole of the period through seven great races, with seven different configurations of land and water to harmonise with their needs, the race in the midst of which we Europeans and some other populations now find ourselves being the fifth, while the fourth, the middle race, was the great Atlantean race which already began very slowly to decline from its culminating grandeur nearly a million years ago.

The last remnant of land which belonged to the great continent it once occupied disappeared in the natural convulsion of which some faint records have been preserved in classical literature, and more definitely in the Mexican manuscript known as the Troana MS., lately deciphered by Dr. Le Plongeon.

Periods of years expressed in figures simply bewilder the mind when we begin to talk of millions, and yet we know that the duration of a great root race must be counted in millions, that a great many millions of years are thus represented by even the briefest of the world periods which are connected with the great course of planetary evolution.

The evolution of humans

It will not be an exaggeration of the truth to say that if we think of the whole Manvantara as representing the individual life of a man, such a lifetime as we are familiar with now, say one of seventy years, would stand in the same relation to the whole as one second of time would stand in relation to the seventy years.

Illustrations of this nature may, to some extent, help the mind in realising the length of the evolutionary journey through which we have already passed, and in realising the rate at which the soul grows while it is left, so to speak, to the single influence of what may be thought of as the evolutionary drift.

In looking backward over the progress achieved in the past by any soul not yet transcending from ordinary conditions — and such retrospect is possible for those whose faculties have already begun to function on manasic levels — there is something almost appalling in the tardiness in the growth observable. Each physical life has such infinitesimally minute contributions to make to the permanent individuality!

Look back, if you are able, for a dozen lives, and you will probably find so little difference between the spiritual individuality at that remote period and the corresponding individuality at this moment, that you might be tempted to think the time and strain and effort of all that existence but thrown away and wasted.

But it has not been wasted really, any more than the corresponding interval of time has been wasted by the stalactite, that wonderful monument to Nature's patience, which is not without its significance for observers who can appreciate analogies.

And though progress may have been slow along the immeasurable course of bygone ages, the final result attained, even if we look merely at the spiritual individuality of the human being of our own period, is a growth the accomplishment of which eclipses that of the stalactite in the estimation of those who can appreciate the difference between the plane of Nature on which it has been achieved and that to which the perishable, however ancient, mineral form belongs.

But what is the road to be travelled by the Ego in its development between this middle period of the Manvantara and the final culmination of its possibilities at a period in advance to be measured by the magnitude of that awful journey we have already taken, during which we have been shielded from a perception of its wearisome length by the torpor of our higher nature?

The distance to be yet travelled as measured on the scale of human condition, from the place at which the ordinary humanity now stands to that it should reach at the end of the Manvantara, is not less than that which separates a fashionable example of modern civilisation — say a man of distinguished literary culture or scientific attainments — from the primitive savage of Tierra del Fuego.

It is the design of Nature that the majority of the whole human family shall at the end of the seventh round of planetary experience attain to a condition in which existence, in reference to this planetary chain to which we belong, will be, to begin with, more free than our present incarnate existence in as great a degree as the living man of to-day, so to speak, is freer than the stone.

If we endeavour to invest the stone in our imagination with a consciousness, it must clearly be one of a very restricted character, and, amongst other conditions, it exists wherever it is put, not wherever it wills to go.

Within limits the man can move about on the surface of this earth at his pleasure, but compared with the being he may become, he is as much in prison in his present vehicle, and as much chained down to one spot by the limitations of his capacity, as in comparison with him the stone itself is subject to restrictions.

The final example of perfected humanity will use whatever body he then retains as a mere instrument of his convenience, to be worn or left aside at pleasure.

The higher realms of Nature, of which I have been speaking in endeavouring to describe the course of human experience between death and re-birth, and others, again, immeasurably transcending these, will be accessible to him as readily as the various rooms in the house in which he lives may be accessible to him now.

From any one globe of the chain to another he will be able to pass as freely as within the various phases of each. Forces of Nature as far transcending any with which modern science is acquainted as these transcend the resources of the African savage will lie within his reach and command, for his moral nature will have attained altitudes corresponding with the development of his power and knowledge, and by that time his Will will be so completely welded with that which controls the whole of Nature, and is represented to our ordinary thinking by the idea of Divinity, that no care on the part of Nature for his own or others' welfare will render it necessary to subject him to the disabilities of ignorance.

Language entirely fails to do more than hint in the vaguest fashion at the kind of exaltation thus within the possibilities of human progress, but that progress may in some faint degree be appreciated with the help of the thought that it will amongst other things embrace all knowledge concerning this whole Manvantaric design — an absolute and complete understanding of every intricacy in Nature's stupendous mechanism, and will embrace the answer to every moral enigma which the experience of life may suggest, or to which in the weary efforts of our speculative thinking in the present day we may turn continually in despairing sorrow, holding on with what strength we may to the vague trust that in superior wisdom there resides, beyond our reach, a clue to the mysteries of evil.

That is the course along which human evolution has still to travel, but it ought to be manifest to any reasonable thinker that the scheme thus set forth, involving, as it does, the elevation of Man to levels which we are in the habit of thinking God-like, is not to be accomplished by any process of evolution pressing upon him from without.

In a certain sense, though even this is perhaps a strained one, it may be said that up to the present period of evolution, primeval germs of human consciousness have been brought to the position in which we now stand under the influence of external forces or guidance, but before a man can be invested by nature with God-like attributes, he must engender within his own consciousness the will to be God-like, and he must, as it were, put the whole force of his own intention into the undertaking.

He must be actuated by an intelligent will as well as by vague aspiration towards progress; he must make the choice between good and evil with his eyes open; he must determine whether he would rather grasp whatever good things connected with progress it may be possible for him to monopolise for himself, or whether he would rather join his forces to those who are endeavouring to serve the purposes of God, and to promote the acceleration of the whole undertaking. It will only be by individual effort at each step of man's progress as he goes on through the ordinary course of Nature that he will really ascend along the gentle upward spiral, but at this point it is impossible to describe the course of normal evolution without making some reference to that kind which is abnormally hastened.

If a man follows the normal course no great magnitude of effort, so to speak, will ever Be required from him at any given moment, but his growth towards ultimate possibilities of his own development will be correspondingly slow. On the other hand, the extent to which, by emphasising that effort to an enormous degree of intensity, it is possible for him from this stage of human advancement onward to accelerate his own evolution will be found to eclipse the boldest conjectures which anyone might form from the point of view of comprehending the whole evolutionary scheme without actually knowing what have been the results of abnormal effort on the part of those who have gone in advance of the rest.

But whether he concentrates his effort or distributes it, for the evolution of the latter half of the Manvantara he must contribute his own effort to the evolutionary tendency or he will fall back into the rear. This will be better intelligible when we come to study the conditions of abnormal progress, but meanwhile explanations are still wanting to complete our picture of the whole evolutionary field, within the almost boundless range of which the growth of the soul proceeds.

_  _  _

The planetary series with which our present Manvantara is concerned, with all its marvellous intricacies as regards its physical manifestation alone, with all its unseen conditions of existence around it, with all its magnificent possibilities of consciousness having to do with the spiritual planes of Nature, is but one of a series of such with which this human family is concerned.

Seven Manvantaras succeed each other in due order, this we are now going through being the fourth, and the worlds of each succeeding Manvantara are themselves evolved afresh each time, though each in turn must be thought of as a Reincarnation of its predecessor rather than as an entirely fresh creation.

THE TEN SCHEMES THAT MAKE UP THE SOLAR SYSTEM

(Sinnett pointed out that the planets of the solar system are grouped into ten planetary evolutionary schemes.)

Meanwhile within the limits of the solar system of which we form a part, there are other chains of Manvantaras in progress connected with other planets, visible and invisible, and in all we are given to understand that there are thus seven schemes of planetary evolution, all having some touch with the physical plane, and deriving their vital energies from the sun.

At certain very exalted stages of spiritual progress the foremost representatives of humanity in the very vanguard of our evolution are in a position to acquire definite knowledge concerning these other schemes, and some information on the subject has filtered down to occult students of our level. We are thus enabled to form a comprehensive conception of the solar system as a whole, and even to appreciate to some extent the nature of the great design it represents.

Seven, as we have long recognised, is the root number of our system — in so far, at any rate, as that system is in any way concerned with physical manifestation — and the simple invariability of the law makes the great plan in question more easily intelligible than it would be otherwise.

The solar system includes (we must take care not to fall into the arrogant mistake that might be involved in saying it consists of) seven great schemes of planetary evolution, in each of which there are some worlds, one or more, on the physical plane. The schemes are not all designed to match one another, and in some more than in others the higher planes of Nature are engaged in their design.

Theosophists are well used now to the conception that super-physical planes of Nature may be just as real and the manifestations thereon just as objective as those which affect the physical senses.

The astral and manasic planes are available as areas of manifestation within the solar system as completely as the physical plane, and, indeed, over and above the seven planetary schemes, to which I have already referred, there are some others which are altogether established on the higher planes and have no physical planets connected with their evolution at any time. It will not be possible to say much of these at present, but the recognition of the fact that they exist will help to bring order into our thinking at a later stage of this inquiry.

Our own scheme makes a larger draught than any other but one on the resources of the physical plane, and at the period of our present Manvantara three planets of our own series are on this plane; but the constitution of the various chains is varied in this respect.

Each scheme of evolution is worked out by means of a series of seven Manvantaras. Each Manvantara includes an evolutionary process, such as that set forth in theosophic teaching in reference to the seven rounds of our planetary chain.

As each round includes a world period of activity on each planet in turn, and as each of these world periods is divided into seven great racial cycles, we may get a view of the proportionate magnitude of a race period — itself extending over some millions of years — as compared with the whole system to which we belong, if we bear in mind the following progression:

Seven root race periods make up one world period. 

Seven world periods (following each other on as many planets in succession), one round. 

Seven rounds one Manvantara. 

Seven Manvantaras, one scheme of evolution. 

Seven schemes of evolution (more or less contemporaneous in their activity), the solar system. 

Some of these schemes are much more advanced than others, but before going into a more minute account of the condition in which we find the whole stupendous undertaking at the present time, it will be desirable to go back in imagination to its beginning, and appreciate the beautiful intuition with which modern science — not always entitled to as much credit— has divined with a very close approach to accuracy the condition in which our system existed before any of its planets were differentiated.

The creation of the solar system

The nebular hypothesis is one of the grandest achievements of which the unassisted human intellect has ever shown itself capable. That hypothesis closely harmonises with theosophic teaching on this subject, even though that teaching expands and interprets it in a way that would not be possible from the narrow platform of thought which recognises only one order of matter.

The theory that solar systems were each, in the first instance, vast aggregations of highly heated and very attenuated matter — gaseous, or perhaps even more attenuated still — and that by degrees each such nebula was subjected to a cooling and contracting process which condensed its nucleus, and so forth, is generally attributed to the great astronomer Laplace.

Some writers trace the genesis of the idea to Tycho Brahe, who suggested that stars were formed by the condensation of the ethereal substance of which he supposed the Milky Way to be composed.

Kepler extended the idea by suggesting that the nebular substance may originally have pervaded all space, instead of being confined to the Milky Way, and other great thinkers in turn suggested further modifications of the original conception.

It was immensely fortified when the researches of Sir William Herschell showed us over 2'000 separate nebulae within range of the telescope, and then, in the last year of the eighteenth century, Laplace worked out the whole scheme far more systematically than any of his precursors, and developed it into pretty much the shape in which the astronomical world generally accepts it now.

Laplace showed how the planets of a system could be successively formed by the rupture, from the central mass of the nebula, of great external rings of condensing matter. The whole nebula was assumed to have been originally in rotation, so the rings would themselves continue to rotate in the same way.

By degrees the rings would themselves be somewhere ruptured, and then the matter of which they were composed would roll up and aggregate itself either into great globular planetary bodies, or into swarms of smaller meteoric masses. This view is not confirmed in detail by occult teaching, but is based on broad ideas that are fairly in harmony with that.

Concurrently with the development of the whole idea, speculation has concerned itself with the question how the nebula in the first instance was probably formed. According to one view, sometimes spoken of as the vortex theory, matter is supposed to be drawn in with a whirling motion around some already existing nucleus.

By another — the impact theory — the original nebula is supposed to be due to the collision in space between two cold and extinct suns moving in different directions with planetary velocities. The heat engendered by such an appalling catastrophe is recognised as sufficient to volatilise all the matter of which the two globes consisted, and to set up in this way, a new nebula of glowing incandescent gas, which would be set in rotation by the nature of the collision which caused it, as the chances would be enormous against the exact encounter of the two bodies centre to centre.

At present, I think, the impact theory of nebular origins is most in favour, and it is profoundly interesting to learn from our exalted teachers that, though as a matter of fact it is not the method of development that was actually adopted in the case of our own solar system, it has been employed in the course of Nature with some other systems, and can be brought into harmpny with those activities on higher planes than the physical, which our theosophic instincts will at once assure us must always be mainly instrumental in bringing a solar system into existence.

The method actually adopted at the inauguration of our own solar system was one concerned entirely, in the first instance, with higher planes of Nature. On some level of superphysical matter a force was set in action which had the effect of creating what we may think of — without claiming, in this respect, to think with exactitude — as a vast electric field extended over a region of space greater by far than the area included in the orbit of Neptune.

The region of space affected would, to begin with, be pervaded by matter of a certain order, or, indeed, of certain orders. The more we comprehend the spirit of occult teaching, the more clearly we realise the idea that space is nowhere empty and vacant. It may contain nothing that affects some given set of limited senses, but for all that it is a plenum rather than a vacuum. Something pervades all space with which we can concern ourselves in thought.

Recognising this, and recognising also that matter on other planes than the physical is clearly subject to limitation— so that what we habitually talk of, for example, as the astral plane is not a homogeneous infinitude but is the astral plane of this earth — esoteric students sometimes puzzle over the question, What plane in the ascending series is common to the solar system, what common to the cosmos?

The answer to the riddle is to be found in the fact that each plane is represented by matter in several — the usual seven — stages of refinement. The lower sub-planes are in all cases specialised around each planet; but in each case the highest sub-plane is co-extensive with the solar system — with the universe itself, for all we know to the contrary.

Thus in a certain sense even the physical plane is co-extensive with space, as represented by the highest, the atomic state of ether. So equally with the astral and manasic planes; these, in their highest states, are co-extensive with the ether; and a fortiori higher planes still are co-extensive.

(Cid's note: here I note that Sinnett adopted the lie invented by Charles Leadbeater about the etheric subplanes.)

From this it will be apparent that matter of every variety, plus all its potentialities, lay within the region in which the sublime power, directing the manifestation of our system, set up the activities already referred to.

These activities had for one effect, we are told, that of drawing in from surrounding space, as into a vortex, immense additional supplies of the all-pervading ether.

Some scientific difficulties present themselves to the mind in reference to this statement, but solar systems are sufficiently wide apart in their distribution through space to harmonise with the idea that even the ether, though we have to think of it as incompressible to accommodate our prevailing conceptions of matter with some of its attributes, may be attenuated in intersolar space, and relatively condensed in and around solar systems.

At all events, the esoteric interpretation of the beginning of our system seems to involve the idea of such condensation, and on the ether in this condition an influence coming down from some higher plane of^ature ultimately converted the condensed mass into a physical nebula — an immense volume of incandescent gas at some inconceivably high temperature.

From this condition of things the process imagined in connection with the nebular theory appears to have come into play.

The various planets originally formed were grouped by degrees into seven great schemes of evolution, and to comprehend these in some approximate measure, we must regard them from our present point of view.

The survey we have to carry out would not be materially assisted by attempts to fathom the all but unfathomable past so far as to investigate the order in which the various schemes were launched.

Three planetary schemes without physical planets

Meanwhile, however, we may take note of the fact already referred to that there are within the solar system three schemes of evolution to which no physical planets are attached, so that in truth there are not seven but ten schemes to be thought of; and probably if we possessed a sufficiently exhaustive knowledge of Nature we should find septenary systems constantly merging themselves in a more embracing system of tens; but wherever the physical plane plays a part in any cosmic undertaking the septenary law appears to hold good. Thus our first task in attempting to understand the solar system has to do with seven schemes in each of which the physical plane is touched.                             

The Neptune scheme

Beginning with that which is the outermost in space, we find that the planet Neptune is concerned with a scheme of a very different character from that which may be assigned to most of the others. In this world-series the evolutionary process is not destined to achieve results commensurate with those which it is the purpose of the other schemes to bring about. The life with which Neptune is concerned is not calculated to attain very high levels, but on the other hand this planet is interesting for an astronomical reason.

Connected in evolution with Neptune there are in fact two other planets physically belonging to our system that have not yet fallen a prey to telescopic research. One of them may ultimately be discovered by ordinary means, the outermost lies far beyond the range of physical instruments, for not merely is its distance something appalling to the imagination, but the light it would throw back to us by reflection from the sun is exceedingly feeble.

Viewed from Neptune itself the sun would appear a mere speck in the sky compared with the glowing disc we have to deal with, but the two outer planets are at distances from the centre of the system which continue to observe what is called in astronomy "Bode's law."

Thus without having yet discovered either of them we know that the radius of the orbit in which the outermost of all is moving is something over 10'000 million miles. (The distance of Neptune from the sun, it will be remembered, is about 2'700 millions.)

At that distance the light of the sun would barely make darkness visible. And for any warmth the distant planet may require it must be dependent chiefly on influences with which physical science on this earth at present is ill acquainted. However, little as we can expect just yet to understand the Neptune scheme, we may formulate our thinking on the subject So far as to recognise that scheme as including — at its present stage of advancement — three physical planets.

The other five schemes only have one physical planet

All the other schemes, as we shall see by degrees — excepting our own — are at present represented on the physical plan by only one planet each. But all through this survey of the system it must be remembered that schemes are not equally represented on the physical plane at each of their Manvantaric stages.

Our own scheme had but one physical planet in its last Manvantara, and will have but one in its next Manvantara, though at present it has a triple manifestation on the physical plane. So other schemes which at present have only one physical planet may have more than one at later stages of their progress, may have had more than one at former stages.

The Uranus scheme

The Uranus scheme — for thinking at this date we may as well call each scheme by the name of the visible planet of its present chain — is the next in order to be considered.

I understand the Uranus scheme is fairly well advanced, and to be concerned with evolution of a high order of life, but of course the physical conditions of Uranus must be widely unlike any with which we have acquaintance.

The sun can hardly seem a much larger object viewed from Uranus than Jupiter appears to us, but one of the lessons most strongly emphasised by the esoteric study of the whole system is that life is compatible with conditions of the most diverse character, and that we must never seek to determine the habitability of other globes in space by inquiring how far their meteorological or climatic conditions correspond with our own.

The Saturnian scheme

The Saturnian scheme is very much less advanced in its Manvantaric development than our own, and the planet Saturn itself is in an early round of its present Manvantara, so that it is not yet physically habitable at all.

The family of beings with whose evolution it is concerned are still at an early stage of their descent into matter, even though it must not be supposed that the Saturn scheme, any more than other schemes connected with the outer planets, are young in the order of their creation as compared with some of those nearer the sun.

The rates of progress of the various schemes are very different. Saturn is slow in its evolution, with Manvantaras of enormous length. We must be patient yet a while in regard to speculations which would attempt to correlate the rate of progress of the various schemes, though no doubt they are all designed to harmonise their results in some way towards the close of the mighty drama in which they play their several parts.

The Jupiter scheme

The Jupiter scheme is very interesting, for though it is still young — in advancement, if not in time — it is destined, we understand, to bring forward its family of evolution to a very high level eventually. So far, however, the Manvantara of the Jupiter scheme now in progress is only the third of the septenary series, corresponding to our lunar or last Manvantara, which did not bring our family forward to a very mature stage of development.

Moreover, at present the Jupiter family is only in the second round of its third Manvantara, and its physical planet therefore is not yet fitted to be the abode of physical life. It is still hot from its relatively recent condensation, and this condition of things, recognised by ordinary astronomy, is not due, as ordinary astronomers suppose, to the fact that Jupiter is much larger than the inner planets, and has thus taken more time to cool since the original nebula consolidated. Jupiter is a later creation than the earth, but the view of the whole subject with which this fact is connected will more conveniently be dealt with when the general survey of the schemes is completed.

Coming inward from Jupiter, the next planetary orbit we reach is that at present occupied by the swarm of asteriods, merely the broken remains of a complete planet which? once occupied that orbit.

The Earth scheme

The next planet is Mars, but in reaching this interesting world we of the earth chain are comparatively at home, for the scheme to which we belong, at present in its fourth Manvantara, is at the stage of its deepest immergence in matter, and is thus represented on the physical plane by three planets, Mars being one.

Mars, the Earth, and Mercury are in evolutionary partnership, Mars being the planet behind the earth in the order of progress round the entire chain, and Mercury in advance of us.

A large portion of the present human family has actually lived on Mars — where, if we could but visit the planet now, as, indeed, some of our more advanced companions can and do, in the appropriate vehicle of consciousness while out of the physi-cal body, we should still find the least advanced, — the dregs of the family, — still hanging on there.

The Venus scheme

Of all the seven schemes of the system, that which Venus at present represents on the physical plane is the farthest advanced in evolution, not necessarily the oldest as judged by the period at which it began, but the quickest of the series as regards the rate of its progress or the duration of its Manvantaras.

Our own scheme is now going through its fourth Manvantara, but that to which Venus belongs is far advanced through the fifth. It is already in the seventh round of that Manvantara, the family it is evolving being at present established like ourselves on the physical planet of its chain, although at such an immensely more forward stage of its progress, that the foremost of its beings, in great numbers represent, as compared with our humanity, a fairly god-like degree of exaltation.

From Venus, as all students of esoteric teaching will be aware, the guardians of our infant humanity in the later third and early fourth race of this world period descended to stimulate in our family the growth of the manasic principle, and to them we owe the fact that as we stand at present we are in truth somewhat further advanced in evolution than our actual place in our own scheme strictly entitles us to be.

We have been helped onward by some of those who are in the loftiest sense of the term our Elder Brethren in the whole system, and among us there have been found some at all events, who have proved apt pupils, and are already on levels of spiritual dignity commensurate with those previously attained by their sublime instructors.

The Vulcan scheme

Within the orbit of Mercury another planet is to be found, and probably will be found some day by ordinary astronomers, who already suspect its existence, and have been keenly on the look out for it when solar eclipses give them a chance of seeing it. Merged as it is in the blinding glare of the sun at other times, it is hopeless to seek for it in the unshielded sky.

A name has been given in advance by some astronomers to the undiscovered planet, and it is sometimes referred to as Vulcan. It must certainly be a very hot little world, although Bode's law should give it a distance from the centre orb of something like thirty millions of miles.

However, it belongs to an independent scheme of evolution not destined to bring forward life to the high levels to be ultimately attained in connection with our own and the Venus scheme.

Summary

It completes the series of seven schemes. Enumerating them once more as under we have:

1. The Neptune scheme.

2. The Uranus scheme.

3. The Saturn scheme.

4. The Jupiter scheme.

5. The Earth scheme.

6. The Venus scheme.

7.The Vulcan scheme.

The first and fifth of this series have each three physical planets, the others one each. 

Of the three schemes which have no touch with the physical plane there is very little to be said at present. They are concerned with high orders of evolution and in some way with the ultimate perfection of the life of the system at large when all the septenary schemes shall have completed their cycles.

It must not be supposed, however, that they are awaiting development till such time as the other schemes have completed their cycles. They are already in activity, and the globes of which they consist occupy definite places in space, though composed of higher orders of matter than those which our physical senses can cognise. On the other hand we need not think of them as dealing with phases of existence entirely beyond the reach of our imagination.

The highest plane of Nature to which they are directly related is the lower Manasic. 

Death and birth of planetary chains

From the general idea of the structure and design of the system that has already been given, and particularly from many passages in Theosophical literature, it will be apparent that the configuration of the solar system is no more unchangeable throughout the life of that system than the configuration of land and water on the earth's surface is unchangeable during the progress of a world period.

In every scheme the chain of planets on which its evolution has been carried on, during any given Manvantara, is disintegrated at its close (subject to a qualification to be noticed directly) and a new chain of worlds is called into being.

This does not mean that new matter is created out of non-manifested substance, but that planets, when their life cycle is completed, are broken up or resolved into dust which is dispersed through the solar system at large and is available to be drawn together into new forms, just as the elements of a dead human body, dissolved in the earth or air and absorbed in process of time into vegetable tissue, become in due season the nutriment of new animal or human forms.

Thus it will be seen that our earth, for instance, with its companion planets, is not alone a new creation as compared with the state of things that existed when the nebula was first condensed, but is in the fourth generation of such new creations having regard to our own scheme alone.

I have no information as to the manner in which the planetary matter of the system was first distributed, but it is a matter of obvious certainty that from Uranus inwards not one of the existing planets belongs to the first- born series of the nebula.

It hardly concerns us to make close inquiry as to the actual course of events in this respect. Our appreciation of Nature's design and of our own place therein would not be materially assisted by knowing, for instance, what planets existed in connection with the Uranus evolution before Uranus came into being.

Nor in regard to the other chains would it profit us much to know by how many predecessors each of the now known planets have been heralded in past ages. But there are some aspects of the problem which do present features of peculiar interest as applied to our own chain, and without making any conjectures as to the extent to which the analogies of our own scheme apply to others, attention may usefully be turned at this stage of the in- quiry to the plan on which our own planetary habitations are from time to time remodelled.

As the tide wave of life leaves each planet (in our scheme) during the seventh round of any Manvantara, each planet in turn is disintegrated, and the matter of which it is composed returns to the general ocean of such matter within the solar system. Corresponding planets are evolved afresh for the next Manvantara, becoming as it were re-incarnations of the higher principles inherent in the old planets.

This arrangement, however, does not apply to the fourth planet of each chain — the most physical in its constitution. That loses a good deal of the matter forming it in a way that will be appreciated directly, and in its shrunken condition becomes the moon of its successor.

(Cid's note: logically, the other globes in the planetary chain also become satellites of their respective successor globe.)

CORRECTIONS

Alfred Sinnett offers a cumbersome and complicated explanation of the esoteric structure of the solar system. It is based on what Master Kuthumi taught him, but unfortunately Mr. Sinnett added many falsehoods that he obtained from misunderstandings, from the séances he later conducted, and also from lies that Charles Leadbeater shared with him; I will detail several of these falsehoods below.

The terrestrial chain

The original Theosophical instructors (Kuthumi, Blavatsky, and William Judge) explained that just as humans have seven envelopes: one physical and six subtle; in the same way and under the Law of Correspondence which says "as it is in the small, so it is in the large," the planets also have six envelopes: one physical and six subtle.

In Theosophy, the envelopes of the planets are called globes, and the set of seven globes is called a planetary chain.

This implies that the terrestrial chain is composed of a physical globe, which is the Earth, and six subtle globes.

But Mr. Alfred Sinnett did not understand this, and he taught in his books that the terrestrial chain is composed of the planets Mars, Earth, Mercury and four unknown globes.

Blavatsky corrected him, and in The Secret Doctrine she wrote: " Neither Mars nor Mercury belong to our terrestrial chain. ... Mars and Mercury have their own seven-part chains and are independent of the Earth." (Vol I, pp. 164-5)

But Mr. Sinnett refused to listen to her and continued to insist on his error, but to claim that is an aberration because it would be equivalent to claiming that a human is composed of three physical bodies, which we all know is false.

(Note: the globes are arranged in a U shape because the beings that evolve within them do so by descending in the first globes and then ascending in the last globes.)

Location of planetary chains

And not content with telling this lie, Sinnett continued adding more lies.

One of these lies was claiming that globes are located on the physical, emotional, mental, intuitional, and spiritual planes.

Which is false because Blavatsky in "The Secret Doctrine I" included a diagram on page 200 where she indicated that the subtle globes of the terrestrial chain (and by extension of the other planetary chains) are located in the intermediate planes of the solar system:

Here's a simpler diagram:

Whereas the planes mentioned by Sinnett correspond to the subplanes of the densest plane of the solar system:

They are not the same names because Leadbeater distorted the original teaching:

    -  He called the atomic plane the spiritual plane.

    -  He called the buddhic plane the intuitional plane. 

    -  He called the manasic plane the mental plane. 

    -  He called the kamic plane the emotional plane. 

    -  The astral plane put him inside the emotional plane. 

    -  The pranic plane brought him into the physical plane. 

In other words, Leadbeater made a tremendous mess, adding even more disorder to that which Sinnett had already generated.

Densification and sublimation of planetary chains

Sinnett also lies about this because he claims that with each new chain, the globes manifest on a denser plane, and so for example in the previous chain (the third one) the "reincarnations" of Mars and Mercury were on the emotional plane.

But that is also false, since genuine Theosophical instructors explained that just as man reincarnates, under the Law of Correspondence, the planets also "reincarnate."

(Note: the correct term is that the planets are re-embodied, but I prefer to use the word reincarnate because it facilitates understanding, although it is not correct since the planets are not re-embodied in a physical body but in a new planet.)

And to be more specific, it is the seven globes of the planetary chain that are re-embodied in their respective planes.

Blavatsky noted that after the lunar chain "died," its "soul" spent some time in Nirvana, and after many billions of years, its skandhas were transferred to the nascent globes of the terrestrial chain.

Just as humans after death spend time in Devachan ("paradise") and when they reincarnate they transfer the characteristics they developed in their previous life through the skandhas to their new bodies: physical, astral, mental, etc.

Planets do the same thing, only they do it on much larger scales and over much longer periods of time.

And Blavatsky illustrated that with the following chart (DS I, p.172):

And since Earth's previous "reincarnation" was a physical planet (the Moon), it is logical that the previous reincarnations of Mars and Mercury were also physical planets.

And even more so considering that Mercury is more developed than Earth, since Master Kuthumi specified that Mercury is about to begin its seventh round (DS 1:165 y 2:28) , while Earth is only in its fourth round.

When Sinnett states that Mars and Mercury in his previous line were subtle globes, it is equivalent to saying that in your previous reincarnation, your physical body was subtle; which is false.

The succession of planetary chains

Sinnett states that Earth and Neptune are currently in the fourth chain of the septenary series, that Venus is in the fifth chain, and that Jupiter is in the third chain.

But the true Theosophical instructors revealed nothing on this subject, and given how terribly wrong Sinnett was on this subject, those claims must surely be false.

The other planetary schemes

These diagrams are incorrect; Sinnett simply wanted to extend his erroneous interpretation of the terrestrial chain to the other planets in the solar system.

NOTE

Unfortunately, the errors invented by Alfred Sinnett have been taken up by other charlatans and have become the most well-known version of the esoteric structure of the solar system.