“But it is essential to know that the full teaching on cosmoses speaks not of two, but of SEVEN COSMOSES, included one within another. Fragments: Ten

“Seven cosmoses, taken together in their relation to one another, alone represent a complete picture of the universe. The idea of two analogous cosmoses, accidentally preserved from a great and complete teaching, is so incomplete that it can give no idea whatever of the analogy between man and the world. “The teaching on cosmoses examines SEVEN COSMOSES: “The first cosmos is the Protocosmos — the first cosmos. “The second cosmos is the Ayocosmos, the holy cosmos, or the Megalocosmos, the ‘great cosmos.’ “The third cosmos is the Macrocosmos — the ‘large cosmos.’ “The fourth cosmos is the Deuterocosmos — the ‘second cosmos.’ “The fifth cosmos is the Mesocosmos — the ‘middle cosmos.’ “The sixth cosmos is the Tritocosmos — the ‘third cosmos.’ “The seventh cosmos is the Microcosmos — the ‘small cosmos.’ “The Protocosmos is the Absolute in the ray of creation, or world 1. The Ayocosmos is world 3 (‘all worlds’ in the ray of creation). The Macro-cosmos is our starry world or the Milky Way (world 6 in the ray of creation). The Deuterocosmos is the sun, the solar system (world 12). The Mesocosmos is ‘all planets’ (world 24), or the earth as the representative of the planetary world. The Tritocosmos is man. The Microcosmos is the ‘atom.’ Fragments: Ten

“You see that in the general order of the SEVEN COSMOSES the Microcosm and the Macrocosm stand so far apart from each other that it is impossible to see or establish any direct analogy between them. Fragments: Ten

“What personally interests me most in this system of cosmoses is that I see in them the full ‘period of dimensions,’ of my New Model of the Universe. It is not merely a coincidence of details — it is absolutely identical. I do not know how it has come about; I have never heard of SEVEN COSMOSES related to one another in the ratio of zero to infinity. Nevertheless my ‘period of dimensions’ coincides with this absolutely exactly. Fragments: Ten

“Further, SEVEN COSMOSES represent a ‘period of dimensions,’ but this does not mean that the chain of cosmoses comes to an end with the Microcosmos. If man is a Microcosmos, that is, a cosmos in himself, then the microscopic cells composing his body will stand towards him in about the same relation as he himself stands to organic life on earth. A microscopic cell which is on the boundary line of microscopic vision is composed of milliards of molecules comprising the next step, the next cosmos. Going still further, we can say that the next cosmos will be the electron. Thus we have obtained a second Microcosmos — the cell; a third Microcosmos — the molecule; and a fourth Microcosmos — the electron. These divisions and definitions, namely ‘cells,’ ‘molecules,’ and ‘electrons,’ are possibly very imperfect; it may be that with time science will establish others, but the principle will remain always the same and lower cosmoses will always be in precisely such relation to the Microcosmos.” Fragments: Ten

It proved that friends and acquaintances asked very shrewd questions to which most of bur people had no answers. They asked for instance what we had got from the work and openly expressed doubts as to our “remembering ourselves.” On the other hand others had themselves no doubt whatever that they “remembered themselves.” Others found the “ray of creation” and the “SEVEN COSMOSES” ridiculous and useless; “What has ‘geography’ to do with this?” very wittily asked one of my friends parodying a sentence from an amusing play which had been running shortly before this; others asked who had seen the centers and how they could be seen; others found absurd the idea that we could not “do.” Others found the idea of esotericism “entertaining but not convincing.” Others said that this idea in general was a “new invention.” Others were not prepared to sacrifice their descent from apes. Others found that there was no idea of the “love of mankind” in the system. Others said that our ideas were thorough-going materialism, that we wanted to make people machines, that there was no idea of the miraculous, no idealism, and so on, and so on. Fragments: Twelve