The Seven Planes of Existence

What are the Seven Planes of Existence? 

The Seven Planes of Existence are the belief that our world is composed of seven different planes of consciousness that help make up the universe. These seven planes are given many different names depending on the teachings or the beliefs of the individuals, but are commonly known by these names in order of lowest to highest level: 

• The physical plane - the plane where living beings reside, bounded to physical bodies.
• The astral plane - where the consciousness goes after death, and begins the transition from the physical to mental states of existence.
• The mental plane - plane where the conscious mind becomes sheer thought, unbounded by the capacities of the human brain.
• The unity plane - plane of pure consciousness where the mind develops to deal with issues of ego or selfishness.
• The spiritual plane - plane for highly intelligent spiritual beings who seek knowledge.
• The divine plane - the plane where all souls are born from, & then descend downwards from.
• The monadic plane- highest plane of existence; at the level of god.

Each of these planes contains a different state of being that differs from each other. For example, the spiritual plane is said to contain spiritual beings with extremely advanced intelligence's and pursue the power of spiritual knowledge. While the astral plane is where your consciousness goes to after your death, and is a transitional plane for a person to move on to the mental plane. The planes serve as a way to provide knowledge of higher forms of human existence, and that we currently reside at the lowest level of the physical plane, but that our presence can evolve into something much greater than just a mortal physical body. 

The Magical Solution

Magical reasoning claims that these planes of existence are simply a part of the human conscious mind, and that each level ascends into a sense of greater being, like climbing a ladder to reach the top.  However, as the diagram showed at the top of this post, each of the respective planes is displayed as a circle, which represents the concept that each of the individual circles compose one giant loop, at they are each contained within another in order form full living existence. Conscious growth begins to evolve and take new forms and advance beyond normal comprehension. Living beings go through these various stages of living in order to obtain the highest form of our own existence. How the soul must works its way through each level and grow past what the physical plane had imprinted on them into a living force rather than a living vessel. These 7 planes help build the foundation for us living beings to become a part of the life itself. 

The Scientific Solution

The scientific side of this claim believes that the 7 planes of existence don't so much exist on that of a spiritual level, but as different forms of energy or atoms. The planes are referred to as dimensions that have a different frequency of energy and atoms, where the physical plane resides at the lowest with the most stable and consistent amount of atoms and energy in its range. So when a living being say moves from the physical plane to the astral plane, they transition into a completely new set of rules and attributes that are none like that of the previous dimension's. And this is a cycle that can continue to occur for as long as the energies with the dimensions continue to transform and evolve into new states of energy. However, the scientific side also views each of these different planes/dimensions has separate from one another, in contrast to the interlinked loop of the magical side, as each plane exists at different frequencies and contains many different qualities from one another, despite all having the same general direction they each go in. 

Work Cited:

• “Plane (Esotericism).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Jan. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(esotericism)#The_planes. 
• Gregg, David. “7 Planes of Existence.” The Michael Teachings, www.michaelteachings.com/7planes.html.
• Knowledge, Delightful. “The Different Planes of Existence in the Universe.” Delightful Knowledge, 4 Nov. 2014, www.delightfulknowledge.com/different-planes-existence-universe.
• “10a - An Introduction to the Seven Planes.” The Seven 7 Planes of Existence, esotericscience.org/article10a.htm.