Let us take the first point: I wish to enumerate the centers to be dealt with in this treatise, keeping the enumeration very closely to that laid down earlier, and dealing not with all the centers, but simply with those closely concerned with man's fivefold evolution.

1. The physical plane,
2. The emotional or astral plane,
3. The mental plane,
4. The intuitional, or the buddhic plane,
5. The spiritual, atmic, or nirvanic plane, by means of the five senses and their correspondences on all the five planes:

1. Hearing,
2. Touch,
3. Sight,
4. Taste,
5. Smell.

By the time the fifth round is reached, three-fifths of the human family will have attained this point and will have their five senses fully functioning on the three planes in the three worlds, leaving the two other planes to be subjugated during the remaining two rounds. I would here point out a fact that is little realized, that in this fivefold evolution of man and in this solar system, the two remaining rounds in any planetary cycle, and the sixth and seventh root-races in those cycles are always synthetic; their function is to gather up and synthesize that which has been achieved in the earlier five. For instance, in this root-race, the sixth and seventh subraces will synthesize and blend that which the earlier five have wrought out. The analogy lies in the fact that in this solar system the two higher planes (the logoic and the monadic) are synthetic. One is the synthesizing plane for the Logos from whence He abstracts the essence in manifestation; the other for the Monad, from whence the Monad abstracts and garners the fruits of objectivity.

We will therefore only concern ourselves here with those centers which relate to the evolution of the subtler bodies, the evolution of the psyche, and not with those connected with the evolution and propagation of the dense physical body. These centers are five in number: [165]

1. That at the base of the spine, the only one dealt with that has a physical effect.
2. That situated at the solar plexus, the most important one in the body from the standpoint of the astral plane.
3. That found at the throat, the most important from the standpoint of the mental plane.
4. That in the region of the heart, which has an occult link with the buddhic plane.
5. That above the top of the head, which is the crown, and has relation with the atmic plane.