COSMIC PICTURE GALLERY

The plane familiar to us is called the physical plane; it is related to our physical senses. These senses are limited in their scope; they give us a partial view of nature. While they are commonly regarded as our means of communication with nature, it is also possible to regard them as windows which only allow us to see a small part of nature and shut us out from the rest. From the reports received from these senses we have constructed an imaginary picture of the universe: put in technical language, we have a set of concepts derived from our percepts. If we have other senses, more subtle ones, and these should come into play while our former senses became inactive, we should get quite another picture of the universe. Things which we have taken for granted because we are so familiar with them, and which we have assumed to be universal and invariable, would be seen to be peculiar to the physical plane, to our physical consciousness, and not necessarily appropriate to other planes. Notions of space and time, magnitude and position, and density and force might be entirely different. We should have left the physical plane; we should be on the astral plane, in the astral light.
Henry T. Edge