tsdd appendix 1

(Appendix 1)

 
“Q:  What, then, are the seven layers of Space, for in the “Proem” we read about the “Seven-Skinned Mother-Father”?

 
A:  Plato and Hermes Trismegistus would have regarded this as the Divine Thought, and Aristotle would have viewed this “Mother-Father” as the “privation” of matter. It is that which will become the seven planes of being, commencing with the spiritual and passing through the psychic to the material plane.

 
The seven planes of thought or the seven states of consciousness correspond to these planes. All these septenaries are symbolized by the seven “Skins”.

 
Q:  The divine ideas in the Divine Mind? But the Divine Mind is not yet.

 
A:  The Divine Mind is, and must be, before differentiation takes place. It is called the divine Ideation, which is eternal in its Potentiality and periodical in its Potency, when it becomes Mahat, Anima Mundi or Universal Soul.

 
But remember that, however you name it, each of these conceptions has its most metaphysical, most material, and also intermediate aspects.

 
Q:  What is the meaning of the term “Ever invisible robes”?

 
A:  It is, of course, as every allegory in the Eastern philosophies, a figurative expression. Perhaps it may be the hypothetical Protyle that Professor Crookes is in search of, but which can certainly never be found on this our earth plane. It is the non-differentiated substance or spiritual matter.”

 
H. P. Blavatsky