There is evidence to suggest that other worlds or dimensions exist just beyond the range of our normal perception, but we remain unaware of them because our minds are not objectively conscious at these higher levels. Our normal level of consciousness is restricted in some way, preventing us from tuning in to these subtler realms. If you have young children you might have noticed them looking a things that don't appear to be there or talking to "imaginary friends". Very young children can actually see into these hidden worlds, but they lose the ability as they grow older.

In altered states of consciousness the censorship of the physical mind ceases. Altered states can be induced by certain drugs, holotrophic breathing techniques and meditation, but they also occur naturally every night in the hypnogogic state when we are not quite asleep but not quite awake. Several years ago I woke up in the middle of the night to see a ghostly image of my partner sitting in a chair next to our bed. It was translucent white, dimly glowing and perfectly detailed. It was definitely Sarah, but her physical body was lying next to me asleep. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. My "fight or flight" response immediately kicked in and I had a fraction of a second to decide whether to hide under the covers or make a grab for it. I must have been feeling brave that night because I decided to make a panicky grab for it, but it vanished as soon as I "touched" it (my perception returned to normal). I didn't actually feel anything and I only saw it for about two seconds but I was definitely awake (the adrenaline and fear saw to that). I immediately woke Sarah to tell her what I had seen and ask her if she was aware of anything – but she was just aware of being asleep, and then being woken up! At the time I had no explanation for what I had seen, but it turned out to be one of the key events in my life which fuelled my desire to uncover the truth about our so-called "reality". I now know this ghostly image was her emotional (or astral) body, and what it was doing away from her physical body will be described in Chapter 12.

What am "I"?

Dr Evan Harris Walker, author of The Physics of Consciousness, is regarded as one the pioneers of the modern consciousness research. Walker rejects the conventional physical explanations of consciousness and believes that consciousness is something outside the physical world and does not depend on the brain. He believes that consciousness transcends time and space, that our minds are all interconnected, that we are all part of the one quantum mind, and that our consciousness survives physical death.

In his book World of Psychic Research, Hereward Carrington describes how Dutch scientists succeeded in weighing the physical body before, during and after out-of-body experiences. They measured an average weight loss of 2¼ ounces (63g) during out of body experiences, which is due to the self and the subtle bodies leaving the physical body. This is objective proof that we are more than just our physical bodies and brains.

Here is a simple exercise you can use right now to determine who you really are: Just sit down, close your eyes and become aware of everything within you. Start off by noticing your physical body – the fact that you are aware of it means that you must be more than your body. Then become aware of your emotions – the fact that you are aware of how you feel means that you are more than your emotions. Finally turn your attention to your thoughts – you will notice that thoughts just pop in and out of your mind without you actively thinking them. Because you are objectively aware of the thoughts in your mind, you must be more than your mind. You will realise that whatever part of yourself you focus on there will always be a sense of awareness that is somehow above and beyond everything else. This inner awareness or inner essence is the real "you". It is the basis of all your experiences: asleep or awake, "dead" or "alive" – it is eternal.

Human Experience

You may have heard the expression "we are spiritual beings having a human experience" – it means that we are more than just our physical bodies. It means that we are pure awareness temporarily inhabiting a human body in order to develop our consciousness. Think of your inner essence as the pure white light of a movie projector and your life as the reel of film. The white light becomes coloured by its interaction with the film – giving it new depth. We develop new dimensions of consciousness from our interactions with life in just the same way.

In order to operate in a multi-dimensional universe we require a multi-dimensional body – or more accurately a series of bodies which enable us to operate in all the "realms" of human endeavour. These bodies are all inter-linked and inter-penetrate each other because each one is more subtle (or less physical) than the previous. Our subtle bodies are integrated enough so that the average person considers himself to be a single being. For example, we consider our minds, our emotions and our physical bodies as integral parts of our being. Our personality is composed of a monad (source of awareness), a causal body (field of awareness), a mental body (intellect and creativity), an emotional body (emotions and desires) and an etheric body (life energy), all of which operate through a physical body. As we develop, the focus of our consciousness rises higher and higher through these bodies.

The physical body allows us to move around and interact with things in this physical world. They are like virtual-reality suits that convert everything we touch, see, hear, taste or smell into electrical impulses that can be perceived by our other subtle bodies.

The etheric body or energy body largely determines our physical health and well being. Just as blood circulates through our physical body, subtle energy (chi or prana) circulates through our etheric body. The energy body is the template around which the physical body grows, so treating the cause in the energy body can be more effective than treating the symptoms in the physical body – this is how alternative therapies such as acupuncture and reiki work.

The emotional body is the home of our emotions and desires, and its aura allows us to subjectively sense our environment. For example: when we walk into a room soon after people have been arguing we can sense the tension. Our emotional bodies emit emotions into the atmosphere and can sense those emitted by other people. This explains the shared feelings and emotions we often experience in group situations, such as supporting our favourite sports team or protesting in a rally. The effect can be so strong that normally pleasant people can end up doing some very unpleasant things.

The mental body is the home of the intellectual and rational mind. Thoughts, like emotions, are "objects", which our mental bodies create and transmit into the environment, or receive and interpret from others. The physical brain is not the source of our intellect; it is merely the organ that allows the intellect to operate through the physical body. In fact, the brain is more like a relay station which links the mental body to the physical world. The causal body is what differentiates humans from animals – we have them and animals don't.

The causal body performs four main functions in human beings:

• It is the true home of the human self – where the monad "sleeps" between incarnations.
• It is our personal storehouse of experiences and memories from all our incarnations.
• It is the source of our abstract, conceptual and intuitive thoughts.
• It constructs a link between our personality (lower self) and soul (higher self).

The causal body is commonly called the soul, but it is not commonly known that it divides in two at the start of each new life and only a small piece actually incarnates. In simple terms, a piece of the causal body detaches itself from the main causal body and incarnates into a personality and a physical body in order to experience life as a human being. The lesser causal body collects life experiences and, after physical death, returns to the greater causal body to add its haul to the storehouse.

The Monad and the Three Triads

The monad is the true self – the source of our awareness. The monad contains everything it needs on its journey of awakening, but in the beginning all these faculties are latent and undeveloped. It is only through experience that they unfold and become active. Monads evolve by ensouling a series of ever-higher life-forms. They temporarily embed themselves in life-forms in order to acquire experiences that will develop their consciousness. All life-forms are composites of primary, secondary and tertiary matter, plus one atom of quaternary matter – the ensouling monad which is in control of the life-form. In all there are forty nine levels of ensouling monad; one for each plane of existence.

A monad can simultaneously exist in three places at once:

• The monad is a 49-atom which remains on plane 49 for its entire time in the universe.
• Embedded in a 7:7-atom on plane 7 for its entire time in the solar system.
• Embedded in one of the permanent atoms, e.g. the 2:7 atom.

This is possible because the matter of lower planes is made up of matter of higher planes, so the monad (49-atom) is part of the 7:7-atom, which in turn is part of the 2:7-atom.

Monads begin their evolutionary journey through the kingdoms of nature on plane 7, the highest plane in the solar system. A solar system is the first "school" that an evolutionary monad attends. From plane 7 the monad oversees his evolution through the six kingdoms of nature. The level of consciousness of a new quaternary monad is still very low, so it must begin its experiential journey in the first kingdom of nature, the mineral kingdom, which is focussed solely on the physical plane (plane 1). I should point out that there are several evolutionary paths through the solar system, but I will mainly be focussing on the one that passes through the human kingdom. The deva (or angel) evolutionary path is also of some relevance since it runs parallel to the human evolutionary path and even overlaps it in places. The main difference between these two evolutionary paths is that the human path is focused on the development of consciousness and the deva path is focused on developing control over matter.

Remember that monads are actually atoms on plane 49, but they embed themselves into an atom on plane 7 to oversee their evolution through the solar system. It is not possible for a monad to operate directly through a physical body because physical matter is too dense and the monad's energy would fry the body's nervous system. So intermediate components are needed between the monad and physical body to transform, or step down, the spiritual energies of the monad. In order for the monad to develop consciousness on the lower planes it must attach to itself an atom or molecule (of tertiary matter) from each lower plane. Note: the actual attachment of the atoms to the monad is done by devas. These atoms and molecules remain permanently attached to the monad for its entire evolutionary journey through the solar system, and act as focal points for the monad's consciousness on the lower planes. Nine permanent atoms or molecules are required, and these operate in three triads (groups of three). Each triad permits the monad to develop consciousness on three planes at a time. Triads are only utilised on planes 1-7; beyond which monads operate through single atoms.

Figure 6a - Three Triads and Nine Permanent Atoms or Molecules

The mental atom (3:7) remains in the greater causal body at all times, so the lesser causal body does not have a permanent atom. Without a focal point of consciousness the lesser causal body only has passive consciousness, so the average person cannot utilise causal consciousness in the same way that they can utilise the intellectual consciousness of their mental body or the emotional consciousness of their emotional body.

 The two atoms and one molecule within each triad are connected by lines of consciousness which allow them to directly and instantly communicate with each other, but the communication links between three triads are must weaker. The main purpose of the causal body is to first to establish communication between the first and second triads, and then to build a material link between them.

The second triad is called the soul triad because the causal body, the lowest subtle body of the second triad, is where the human soul is found. At the average level of human development the causal body is the only subtle body of the second triad that exists, as the others have not yet been built. New higher subtle bodies are only built as the monad's level of conscious reaches those higher planes. The third triad is called the spirit triad because the spiritual body, the lowest subtle body of the third triad, is where our spirit will eventually be found. The spirit performs a similar function to the soul, only on a higher level. Its main purpose is to link the second and third triads together, but it is of little relevance to humans because most of us have not even linked our first and second triads together yet.

Subtle Bodies

Permanent atoms and molecules are only focal points of consciousness. The monad requires subtle bodies, such as the etheric, emotional, mental and causal, for it to function interactively on those planes. It is not my intention to fully describe the subtle bodies here; Chapter 11 is reserved for that. This chapter provides the background information such as how they are built, how they interact with each other, how they are refined, etc.

The mechanism by which our subtle bodies are built and refined is quite simple, but it may sound a little odd initially. Before I explain, I must remind you that everything is composed of vibrating matter and that there are seven grades of matter within each plane, one atomic and six molecular, which correspond to the seven subplanes of each plane.

Figure 6b - Man's Subtle Bodies

Figure 6b shows the subtle bodies a human being possesses. Each subtle body has three main structural components:

• An outer membrane composed of atomic secondary matter of the relevant plane, e.g. 2:7 atoms.
• The molecular contents of the subtle body are initially the lowest kind of molecular secondary matter of the relevant plane, e.g. 2:1 molecules. Over thousands of incarnations these molecules are gradually replaced by higher kinds: 2:2, 2:3, etc...
• A permanent atom or molecule of evolutionary tertiary matter which acts as the ensouling monad's focal point of consciousness on that plane.

Our etheric bodies initially developed from the group soul our monads shared in the mineral kingdom, our emotional bodies from our group soul in the plant kingdom, and our mental bodies from our group soul in the animal kingdom. Our causal bodies were acquired in a completely different manner which will be described separately.