There is a comparatively narrow "skin" of and for phenomena
within the etheric sun-globe, say the Eastern teachers, where the
etheric solids, liquids, and gases meet and mingle and
interchange. Within this "skin" are all the planets--the
"gaseous" atmosphere of the etheric globe stretching millions of
miles beyond the outermost planetary orbit. The earth is in this
skin or belt of etheric phenomena, and its ether is in touch with
the ether "in manifestation" on the etheric globe. The sun and
other etheric globes are within the corresponding "skin" of
phenomena of the pranic globes. The prana, manifesting as solid,
liquid, and gas, or in combination and in forms, is in perfect
touch with that of the etheric globe, and through that with the
prana of the earth. That our prana is in touch with that on the
pranic globe in all its manifestations means much in metaphysics.
The same is true of the manasic globe, and of our manasa.

The great lesson the Eastern physics burns into the pupil is that
we are living not only within the prakritic earth, but within
each of the other globes as well in identically the same way and
subject to the same laws. Our lives are not passed on one globe,
but in four globes. It is as if one said he lived in Buffalo,
Erie county, New York, United States; that he was a citizen of
each and subject to the laws of each.

This question of the four globes, of the four planes of matter,
of the four skins, and of the four conditions or states of all
matter and necessarily of all persons, from the purely material
standpoint, is not only the foundation of Oriental physics, but
the very essence of Oriental metaphysics--its starting-point and