We are constantly reminded that a diagram is not a picture of a thing but merely represents in pictorial form the underlying principles of the truths under study. This is particularly true in the case of the diagram commonly used to explain globe-chains. We designate by horizontal lines one above the other that there are planes of consciousness of varying degrees of energy and substance; and in those cosmic planes we allocate the globes of the planetary chain. We are not to suppose that the implication is made that the cosmic planes are actually one above the other. Yet there is good reason for showing it thus on our diagram.
That this diagram does not give a clue as to the true nature of the globes or their positions in the heavens, if they have any, can be better shown by using an analogy of the radio. The stations come in on your dial in a certain definite order according to their wave-lengths; and this order will be found on all radios.
Thus you think of the stations of high frequency at one end of your dial, and those of low frequency at the other. But no one supposes for an instant that the stations themselves all line up in this order. We know, as a matter of fact, that the stations are scattered all over the country, not to speak of the world; and, furthermore, that the wave-lengths from all the stations that are now broadcasting are penetrating your room at this very instant, and that there is not one section of your room devoted to stations of certain frequencies and another section to those of another frequency. We know that every cubic inch of the room is permeated by all the wave-lengths, all interblended, not one of them interfering with any of the others, and that tuning-in one to the exclusion of all the others merely proves the point that the wave-lengths differ.
Thus the position of a station as it comes in on your dial gives no clue as to the nature of the wave-lengths, or the construction of the radio-station, or the fine technicalities involved in radio transmission.
So we can look at radio from three standpoints:
1. The order in which the stations come on your dial.
2. The positions of the various broadcasting stations throughout the world.
3. The nature of radio and the ether-waves.
Applying this now to our usual diagram of the globe-chains, we can really look at the globes in three ways:
1. The manner in which they are regarded on a diagram — which corresponds to the dial of your radio.
2. The actual positions or locations of the globes in space.
3. The nature of these globes, and the energies coming to us from them.
Thus the diagram has its right and proper place in our studies, but we must look deeper and find out why the globes are pictured as seven, what is the significance of their circular arrangement in the diagram, etc.; and having then solved, at least in some degree, the meaning of our symbol, we must pass on to other and perhaps deeper aspects of the truths about the globe-chains.