387. Esoteric Psychology - Volume I - 30. Section Two - CHAPTER III - The Rays and Man 5. The Rays in Cyclic Manifestation - A. BAILEY

Section Two - CHAPTER III - The Rays and Man

5. The Rays in Cyclic Manifestation

We come now to a consideration of the forces which are prevailing at the present time and hence have a supreme interest in connection with what I now have to say.  It might first be stated that the main problem of today is brought about by the fact that two rays of great potency are functioning simultaneously.  As yet their effects are so equally balanced that a situation is brought about which is described in the ancient archives in the following terms: "A time of rending, when the mountains, which have sheltered, fall from their high places, and the voices of men are lost in the crash and thunder of the fall". Such periods come only at rare and long intervals, and each time they come a peculiarly significant period of divine activity is ushered in; old things pass entirely away, yet the ancient landmarks are restored.  The seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order or Ritual is coming into manifestation.  The sixth Ray of Idealism or of Abstract Visioning is slowly passing out.  The seventh ray will bring into expression that which was visioned and that which constituted the ideals of the preceding cycle of sixth ray activity.  One ray prepares the way for another ray, and the reason for the manifestation of one ray or another is dependent upon the Plan and divine Purpose.  It is not often that two rays follow each other in a regular numerical sequence, such as is now happening.  When this does happen, there eventuates a rapid following of effect upon cause, and this today can provide the basis for an assured hope.

a. THE OUTGOING SIXTH RAY

The sixth ray influence served to attract men's minds towards an ideal, such as that of individual sacrifice or service, and the mystical vision was the high water mark of the period; the numerous guiding mystics of the Occident and the Orient have appeared.  The seventh ray influence will in time produce the magician, but in this age the magician will be predominantly in the class of white magic (not as in Atlantean days, when the predominance was on the side of selfish or black magic).  The white magician works with the forces of nature and swings them back into control of advanced humanity.  This can already be seen working out through the activity of the scientists which the latter end of the last century and this twentieth century have produced.  That much of their magical work has been turned into selfish channels by the tendency of this materialistic age, and that many of their wise and true discoveries in the realm of energy are today adapted to ends which serve man's hatred or love of self, is equally true.  But this in no way militates against the wonder of their achievements.  When the motive is transmuted from pure scientific interest to love of the divine revelation, and when service to the race is the determining force, then we shall see the true white magic.  Hence therefore the need to turn the mystic into the occultist, and to train the modern aspirant in right motive, mind control and brotherly love, all of which must and will express themselves through harmlessness.  The most potent force in the world today is harmlessness.  I speak not of non-resistance, but of that positive attitude of mind which thinks no evil.  He who thinks no evil and harms naught is a citizen of God's world.

The following relations between the sixth and seventh rays should be held clearly in mind, and students should grasp the relation of the immediate past to the immediate future, and see in this relation the working out of God's Plan and the coming salvation of the race:

a. The sixth ray fostered the vision.

The seventh ray will materialise that which was visioned.

b. The sixth ray produced the mystic as its culminating type of aspirant.

The seventh ray will develop the magician who works in the field of white magic.

c. The sixth ray, as part of the evolutionary plan, led to separations, to nationalism, and to sectarianism, due to the selective nature of the mind and its tendency to divide and separate.

The seventh ray will lead to fusion and synthesis, for its energy is of the type which blends spirit and matter.

d. The sixth ray activity led to the formation of bands of disciples, working in groups but not in close relation, and subject to internal dissension, based on personality reactions.

The seventh ray will train and send forth groups of initiates, working in close unison with the Plan and with each other.

e. The sixth ray brought the sense of duality to a humanity which regarded itself as a physical unity.  Of this attitude the academic materialistic psychologists are the exponents.

The seventh ray will inaugurate the sense of a higher unity; first, that of the integrated personality for the masses, and secondly, that of the fusion of soul and body for the world aspirants.

f. The sixth ray differentiates that aspect of the universal electrical energy which we know as modern electricity, produced to serve man's material needs.

The seventh ray period will familiarise man with that type of electrical phenomena which produce the coordination of all forms.

g. The sixth ray influence produced the emergence in men's minds of the following knowledges:

1. Knowledge of physical plane light and electricity.

2. Among the esotericists and spiritualists of the world, knowledge of the existence of the astral light.

3. An interest in illumination, both physical and mental.

4. Astro-physics and the newer astronomical discoveries.

The seventh ray will change the theories of the advanced thinkers of the race into the facts of the future educational systems.  Education and the growth of the understanding of illumination in all fields will eventually be regarded as synonymous ideals.

h. The sixth ray taught the meaning of sacrifice, and of this teaching  the crucifixion was the outstanding emblem, to the initiates.  Philanthropy was the expression of the same teaching, to advanced humanity.  The nebulous ideal of simply "being kind" is the same motivation, applied to the unthinking masses.

The seventh ray will bring to the consciousness of the coming initiates the concept of group service and sacrifice.  This will inaugurate the age of the "divine service".  The vision of the giving of the individual in sacrifice and service, within the group and to the group ideal, will be the goal of the masses of advanced thinkers in the New Age, whilst for the rest of humanity, brotherhood will be the keynote of their endeavour.  These words have a wider connotation and significance than the thinkers of today can know and understand.

i. The sixth ray promoted the growth of the spirit of individualism.  Groups exist, but they are groups of individuals gathered around an individual.

The seventh ray will foster the group spirit, and the rhythm of the group, the objectives of the group, and the ritual-working of the group will be the basic phenomena.

j. The sixth ray influence conveyed to men the ability to recognise the historical Christ, and to evolve the structure of the Christian faith, coloured by a vision of a great Son of Love, but qualified by an excessive militancy and separativeness, based on a narrow idealism.

The seventh ray will convey to man the power to recognise the cosmic Christ, and to produce that future scientific religion of Light which will enable man to fulfill the command of the historical Christ to permit his light to shine forth.

k. The sixth ray produced the great idealistic religions with their vision and their necessary narrowness,—a narrowness that is needed to safeguard infant souls.

The seventh ray will release the developed souls from the nursery stage and inaugurate that scientific understanding of the divine purpose which will foster the coming religious synthesis.

l. The effect of the sixth ray influence has been to foster the separative instincts,—dogmatic religion, scientific factual accuracy, schools of thought with their doctrinal barriers and exclusiveness, and the cult of patriotism.

The seventh ray will prepare the way for the recognition of the wider issues which will materialise as the new world religion which will emphasise unity but bar out uniformity; it will prepare for that scientific technique which will demonstrate the universal light that every form veils and hides, and for that internationalism which will express itself as practical brotherhood and as peace and goodwill between the peoples.

I could continue emphasizing these relations, but I have enumerated enough to show the beauty of the preparation made by the sixth great Lord of Idealism for the work of the seventh Lord of Ceremonial.

b. THE INCOMING SEVENTH RAY

It might be wise here to elucidate somewhat the idea underlying ceremonial and ritual.  There is so much revolt at this time against ceremonial, and so many good and well-meaning people regard themselves as having outgrown and transcended ritual.  They pride themselves on having attained that so-called "liberation", forgetting that it is only the sense of individuality that permit this attitude, and that no group work is ever possible without some form of ritual.  The refusal therefore to participate in uniformity of action is no sign of a liberated soul.

The Great White Brotherhood has its rituals, but they are rituals which have for their objective the inauguration and the assistance of various aspects of the Plan, and of the varying cyclic activities of that Plan.  Where these rituals exist, but where the meaning (inherently present) remains hidden and unrealised, there must as a consequence be demonstrated a spirit of deadness, of uselessness, and of weariness of interest over forms and ceremonies.  But where it is demonstrated that ritual and organised ceremonies are but the evidence of a custody of forces and energies, then the idea is constructive in its working out, cooperation with the Plan becomes possible, and the aim of all the divine service begins to demonstrate.  All service is governed by ritual.

The coming in of the seventh ray will lead to this desired consummation, and the mystics who are training themselves in the technique of occult motive and in the methods of the trained magician will increasingly find themselves cooperating intelligently with the Plan, and participating in those basic rituals which are distinguished by their power to:

a. Harness the forces of the planet to the service of the race.

b. Send forth those energies which will produce in some one or other of the kingdoms of nature effects of a desirable and beneficent aspect.

c. Call in and re-distribute the energies which are present in all the forms in the various subhuman kingdoms.

d. Heal through a scientific method of bringing together soul and body.

e. Produce illumination through right understanding of the energy of Light.

f. Evolve that coming ritual which will eventually reveal the true significance of water, which will revolutionise its uses and open to man the free passage to the astral plane. This plane is that of the emotional-desire nature, and its symbol is water.  The coming Aquarian Age will reveal to man (and hence also facilitate the work of the seventh ray) that that plane is his natural home at this state of development.  The masses today are entirely, but unconsciously, polarised on that plane.  They must become consciously aware of their activity.  Man is on the verge of becoming normally awake on the astral plane, and it will be through scientific rituals that this new development will be brought about.

The sixth ray influence produced the appearance of the modern science of psychology, and that science has been its consummating glory.  The seventh ray influence will carry forward that infant science to maturity.  Belief in the soul has become widespread during the sixth ray period.  Knowledge of the soul will be the result of the incoming ray activity, plus the aid contributed by the energies released during the incoming Aquarian Age.

The new and esoteric psychology will be steadily developed.  It will be apparent therefore that A Treatise on White Magic  has a definitely seventh ray import, and this Treatise on the Seven Rays has also been sent forth in an effort to clarify the incoming spiritual influences.  One of the first lessons that humanity will learn under the potent influence of the seventh ray is that the soul controls its instrument, the personality, through ritual, or through the imposition of a regular rhythm, for rhythm is what really designates a ritual.  When aspirants to discipleship impose a rhythm on their lives they call it a discipline, and they feel happy about it.  What groups do who are gathered together for the performance of any ritual or ceremony whatsoever (Church ritual, the Masonic work, the drill of the army or navy, business organisations, the proper functioning of a home, of a hospital, or of an entertainment, etc.) is of an analogous nature, for it imposes on the participants a simultaneous performance, an identical undertaking, or a ritual.  No one on this earth can evade ritual or ceremonial, for the rising and the setting of the sun imposes a ritual, the cyclic passing of the years, the potent movements of the great centres of population, the coming and the going of trains, of ocean liners and of mails, and the regular broadcasting of the radio organisations,—all of these impose a rhythm upon humanity, whether this is recognised or not.  Of these rhythms the present great experiments in national standardisation and regimentation are also an expression, as they demonstrate through the masses in any nation.

There is no evading the process of ceremonial living.  It is unconsciously recognised, blindly followed, and constitutes the great discipline of the rhythmic breathing of life itself. The Deity works with ritual and is subjected to the ceremonials of the universe.  The seven rays come into activity and pass out again under the rhythmic and ritualistic impulse of the divine Life.  Thus is the temple of the Lord built by the ceremonial of the Builders.  Every kingdom in nature is subjected to ritualistic experience and to the ceremonials of cyclic expression.  These only the initiate can comprehend.  Every ant hill and every beehive is equally impelled by instinctive rituals and by rhythmic impulses.  The new science of psychology could well be described as the science of the rituals and rhythms of the body, of the emotional nature and of the mental processes, or of those ceremonials (inherent, innate, or imposed by the self, by circumstances and by environment) which affect the mechanism through which the soul functions.

It is interesting to note how the sixth ray, which produced in human beings the sense of separativeness and of pronounced individualism, has prepared the way for the organising power of the seventh ray.  It is almost as if (to speak symbolically) the executives who were to undertake the reorganising of the world in preparation for the New Age were trained and prepared for their task by the influence now going out.  Today a process of house-cleaning is going forward in practically every great nation, preparatory to the coming revelation, and the executives and dictators who are sponsoring this realignment and readjustment are the experts whom the genius of each nation has brought forth to deal with the unique problems with which it is beset.  They are predominantly seventh ray executives, whose task it is to reorganise the world as a whole upon the newer lines.  They are in the nature of material efficiency experts who have been sent in to deal with internal affairs and to institute that activity which will eliminate those factors which prevent the nation concerned from functioning as a whole, as a unit, integrated and coherent.  It is from the lack of internal harmony and synthesis that those internal difficulties and disorders emerge which (if of long continuance) prevent a nation having aught to contribute to the world of nations and lead to that nation's being so intensely disordered that the wrong people come into power and the wrong aspects of truth become emphasized.  A disordered inharmonious national unit is a menace to the comity of nations, and therefore the separative house-cleanings and rearrangements must go forward before the Federation of Nations can be an accomplished fact.

The new era is however upon its way, and nothing can prevent that which the stars decree and which the Hierarchy of guiding Minds consequently foresee.  The new executives who will succeed the present dictators and powers will take over the control towards the year 1955, and they will be seventh ray aspirants and disciples in the majority of cases; their capacity towards integration and towards fusion along right lines will then rapidly bring about the needed international understanding.

The question emerges in your mind as to whether such a prophecy will indeed be fulfilled; and if unfulfilled, will not that fact militate against much that I have said and prove me unreliable?  Let me answer this question by pointing out that those of us who foresee that which may and ought to be are nevertheless well aware that though the fulfillment of the prophecy is inevitable, yet the time factor may not work out as indicated.  This will be because the distressed human mechanisms of those to whom the work is given will fail to react either correctly or at the right time.  These incoming seventh ray aspirants and disciples may make mistakes and may perform their undertakings in such a manner that delay may eventuate.  They are permitted to have the general outline of their task committed to them by their own souls, working under the inspiration of those great and liberated souls we call the Masters of the Wisdom, but there is no coercion under the Plan and no forced and dictated service.  Much of the success in the coming momentous years is dependent upon the work done by all who may be affiliated (even slightly) with the New Group of World Servers.  If public opinion is educated in the new ideals, the momentum of that growing tide will greatly facilitate the work of these seventh ray executives, and in some cases will constitute for them the line of least resistance.  Failure, therefore, will rest upon the shoulders of the world aspirants and disciples, and will not indicate inaccurate prophecy or misinterpreted astrological conditions.  In any case, the prophesied end is inevitable, but the time of that end rests in the hands of awakened humanity.  The margin of difference will also be only between one hundred and three hundred years.  The impulse towards synthesis is now too strong to be long delayed.

Under this seventh ray influence the Masonic Fraternity will come into a new and pronounced spiritual activity and begin to approximate its true function and to fulfill its long-seen destiny.  One point it might be of interest here to note.  During the period of the activity of the sixth ray the Fraternity fell into a crystallised and sectarian attitude, along with the many other grouped circles.  It fell also into the snare of materialism, and the outer form has for centuries been of more importance in the eyes of Masons than the inner spiritual meaning.  The symbols and the system of allegories have been emphasized, whilst that which they were intended to convey and to reveal to the initiated has been quite forgotten.  Also, the trend of the attention of a lodge of Masons, and the main emphasis, has been potently placed on the function and place of the W.M., and not upon the inner significance of the work upon the floor of the Temple.  The lodge has not been regarded as an integrated functioning entity.  This must and will be changed, and the potency and the effectiveness of the lodge work and ceremonial will be demonstrated. It will be seen that in the regularity of the rituals and the sanctified formality of the ordained ceremonials lies the true meaning of the work and the use of the Word.  The coming era of group work and power and of organised synthetic ritualistic activity will profoundly affect Masonry, as the importance of a central dominating figure passes out with the sixth ray influence and the true spiritual work and function of the lodge itself is understood.

The prime cosmic function of the seventh ray is to perform the magical work of blending spirit and matter in order to produce the manifested form through which the life will reveal the glory of God.  Students would be well advised to pause here and re-read the section of this treatise in which I dealt with the seventh ray Lord, with His names, and with His purpose.  When this has been done, it will be apparent that one of the results of the intensified new influence will be the recognition, by science, of certain effects and characteristics of the work being accomplished.  This can already be seen in the work done by scientists in connection with the mineral world.  As we have seen in an earlier part of this book the mineral kingdom is governed by the seventh ray, and to the potency of this incoming ray can be attributed the discovery of the radio-activity of matter.  The seventh ray expresses itself in the mineral kingdom through the production of radiation, and we shall find that increasingly these radiations (many of which still remain to be discovered) will be noted, their effects understood and their potencies grasped.  One point remains as yet unrealised by science, and that is that these radiations are cyclic in their appearance; under the influence of the seventh ray it has been possible for man to discover and work with radium.  Radium has always been present, but not always active in such a manner that we were able to detect it.  It is under the influence of the incoming seventh ray that its appearance has been made possible, and it is through this same influence that we shall discover new cosmic rays. They too are always present in our universe, but they use the substance of the incoming ray energy as the path along which they can travel to our planet and thus be revealed.  It is many thousands of years since what are now studied as the Cosmic Rays (discovered by Millikan) played definitely upon our planet, and at that time the fifth ray was not active as it now is.  Therefore scientific knowledge of their activity was not possible.

Other cosmic rays will play upon our earth as this seventh ray activity becomes increasingly active, and the result of their influence will be to facilitate the emergence of the new racial types, and above all else, to destroy the veil or web which separates the world of the seen and tangible from the world of the unseen and the intangible, the astral world.  Just as there is a veil called "the etheric web" dividing off the various force centres in the human body, and protecting the head centres from the astral world, so there is a separating web between the world of physical life and the astral world.  This will be destroyed, slowly and certainly, by the play of the cosmic rays upon our planet.  The etheric web which is found between the centres in the spine, and which is found at the top of the head (protecting the head centre) is destroyed in man's mechanism by the activity of certain forces found in that mysterious fire which we call the kundalini fire. The cosmic rays of which the modern scientist is aware constitute aspects of the planetary kundalini, and their effect will be the same in the body of the planetary Logos, the Earth, as it is in the human body; the etheric web between the physical and astral planes is in process of destruction, and it is of this event which the sensitives of the world and the spiritualists prophesy as an imminent happening.

Much of profound interest is on its way as a result of this seventh ray activity.  For one thing, though the animal kingdom reacts but little to this type of influence, yet there are going to be very definite results within the soul of the animal form.  The door of individualisation or of entrance into the human kingdom has been closed since Atlantean times, but under the new influence it will be partially opened; it will be set ajar, so that a few animals will respond to soul stimulation and discover that their rightful place is on the human side of the dividing door.  Part of the reorganisation which will go on as a result of the seventh ray activity will concern the relation of humanity to the animal kingdom and the establishing of better and of closer relations.  This will lead men to take advantage of another effect of the seventh ray, which is its power to refine the matter out of which the forms are built.  The animal body of man has received much scientific attention during the past one hundred years, and medicine and surgery have reached great heights of achievement.  The framework of man, his body, and its internal systems (with their diverse rituals) are now understood as never before, and this has been the result of the incoming ray force with its power to apply knowledge to the magical work.  When this knowledge is applied intensively to the animal world much new and interesting data will be discovered; when the differences between the physical bodies of the animals and those of humanity have been more closely investigated there will appear a new and very fruitful field of study.  These differences are largely in the realm of the nervous systems; not enough attention has been paid for instance to the fact that the brain of the animal is really in the region of the solar plexus, whilst the human brain, the controlling agent, is in the head, and works through the medium of the spinal column.  When scientists know exactly why the animal does not use the brain in the head as does man, they will arrive at a fuller knowledge of the law governing cycles.

There is much that could be said, but little of it would, as yet, be comprehended.  Until the incoming ray force and all that attends its entry has produced the adequate changes in the nervous system, it will not be possible for more to be made clear.  Brain cells, hitherto dormant in even the most advanced thinkers, must be brought into functioning activity and with this consummated, then more teaching and further elucidation will be possible,—but not till then.  Some time must yet elapse before the present human mechanisms are adapted to the registration of that which is new and as yet unknown.

Three final points I wish to touch upon.  As you may have noted from some of our earlier tabulations, there is a definite relation between the first kingdom in nature, the mineral kingdom, and the final kingdom, the solar kingdom, the seventh and last to appear in manifestation upon our planet.  There is a mysterious unity of response existing between the lowest kingdom in the scale of nature and the highest, between that which expresses the densest manifestation of the divine life and that which embodies its final and glorious consummation.  This response is fostered by the play of the seventh ray, which produces those initial reactions to organised movement and ritual which, at the close of our great world period, will demonstrate the response of our entire solar system to the same basic seventh ray influence.  What can now be seen in the organisation of a crystal, a jewel and a diamond, with their beauty of form and line and colour, their radiance and geometrical perfection, will appear likewise through the medium of the universe as a whole.  The Grand Geometrician of the universe works through this seventh ray, and thus sets His seal upon all form life, particularly in the mineral world.  This the Masonic Fraternity has always known, and this concept it has perpetuated symbolically in the great world cathedrals, which embody the glory of the mineral world and are the sign of the work of the Master Builder of the universe.

When the great work is consummated we shall see the Temple of God, the solar system, organised objectively and subjectively; its courts and holy places will then be accessible to the sons of men, who will work then without limitation, and will have free access to all parts of the building.  Through the magic of the Word which will then have been recovered, all doors will fly open, and the consciousness of man will respond to every divine manifestation.  More of this I may not here say, but the work of the Craft is symbolic of the ritualistic organisation of the universe.  Of this the mineral kingdom (with which the work is done, and through which the geometrical plan expresses itself) is at the same time the symbol and the undertaking, the beginning and also the concrete expression of divine purpose.

Secondly, I referred earlier to the work of the seventh ray in connection with the phenomena of electricity, through which the solar system is coordinated and vitalised.  There is an aspect of electrical phenomena which produces cohesion, just as there is an aspect which produces light.  This has not yet been recognised.  It is stated in The Secret Doctrine of H.P.B., and in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, that the electricity of the solar system is threefold: there is fire by friction, solar fire, and electric fire—the fire of body, of soul and of spirit.  Fire by friction is coming to be somewhat understood by the scientists of the world, and we are harnessing to our needs the fire which heats, which gives light, and which produces motion.  This is in the physical sense of the words.  One of the imminent discoveries will be the integrating power of electricity as it produces the cohesion within all forms and sustains all form life during the cycle of manifested existence.  It produces also the coming together of atoms and of the organisms within forms, so constructing that which is needed to express the life principle.  Men today are investigating such matters as electro-therapeutics and studying the theory of the electrical nature of the human being.  They are working rapidly towards this coming discovery, and much will be revealed along these lines during the next fifty years.  The principle of coordination about which men talk has reference, in the last analysis, to this concept, and the scientific basis of all meditation work is really to be found in this basic truth.  The bringing in of force and the offering of a channel are all mystical ways of expressing a natural phenomenon as yet little understood, but which will eventually give the clue to the second aspect of electricity.  This will be released in fuller measure during the Aquarian age, through the agency of the seventh ray.  One of its earliest effects will be the increase of the understanding of brotherhood and its really scientific basis.

I referred to the fact that man must before long function as freely on the astral plane and through the astral consciousness as he now does on the physical plane.  We are today laying the emphasis upon the vital aspect of man; the nature of the life principle is under discussion, and the need for "vital" action everywhere emphasized.  We talk of the necessity of increasing human vitality and the vitality of animals and plants; the quality of the vitality-producing factors—food, sun and the coloured rays so widely used now—is creeping slowly into all medical thought, whilst even the advertisers of the tinned goods of our modern civilisation lay the emphasis upon the quota of vitamins.  This, esoterically speaking, is due to the shift of human consciousness on to etheric levels.  Paralleling the growth of modern knowledge as to the "soul as intellect", we find a growth of understanding as to "the soul as life", though it remains as yet the great and apparently insoluble mystery.

There are two happenings of close and imminent occurrence.  Today the bulk of human beings are polarised on the lower levels of the astral plane, but are conscious in the physical body.  This distinction must be studied.  Soon, many will be conscious in the vital body and beginning to be conscious on the higher levels of the astral plane, and some few upon the mental plane.  But large numbers of people today are ready to be fully conscious in the astral body and polarised either on the mental plane entirely or centred in the soul. This produces the wonder and the difficulty of the present time.

Through the scientific ritual of meditation (for that is what it really is) this refocussing can be brought more rapidly about.  Through the scientific culture of the ritual of service it can be still further developed.  The ritual of the solar system is the result of the meditation of God and the act of divine service, carried on throughout the entire period of manifestation.  The subordination of the lower life to the ritual of service is literally the tuning-in of the individual to the rhythm of the life, heart and mind of God Himself.  From that tuning-in, automatically a spiritual development follows.

c. THE FUNCTIONING RAY LAWS

There are certain great laws, connected with the seven rays, that are effective in determining the lines of demarcation, the cleavages which produce separation and the differentiations of the manifested life of God into...

1. The septenary constitution of the solar system.

2. The ten schemes which indicate solar achievement.

3. The inner constitution, or so-called "chains", which distinguish each planetary existence.

4. The planetary constitution of our Earth into the various kingdoms of nature.

5. The basic distinctions between the kingdoms; these produce the types, groupings, families, branches, empires and nations.

These Laws of Cleavage are too difficult for general comprehension.  They govern form life, and are the result of the united working, or rather the simultaneous manifestation, of the three laws dealt with in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. These are:

1. The Law of Synthesis, determining the future, certifying the goal, and concerned with the life or spirit aspect.

2. The Law of Attraction, determining the present, and governing the immediate condition of the planetary types. It is concerned with the consciousness or the soul aspect.

3. The Law of Economy. This law determines the past, conditions the planetary consciousness, and concerns itself with the form or matter aspect.

When these three function together, during this particular cycle and in our particular race, they produce a fusion of forces which imposes a certain rhythm, a definite materialisation of energies, and a specific type of civilisation which functions under what we (esoterically) call the Laws of Cleavage.  It is the mind which separates and divides; it is mental activity (divine and superhuman, as well as human) which produces the many differentiations.  This process of divisioning comes to its climax during this world period in the Aryan race, the fifth race.  We are today governed by the Law of Cleavages,—a divine law and one of fruitful objective.  This must not be forgotten.

The activity of the three divine aspects, in relation to the human family in the first nebulous race (of which science knows nothing), produced what we call the Law of Immersion.  It caused that growing diversification of matter, clothing the life, which ultimately produced the early manifestation of the incarnating sons of God. It is not a physical incarnation in the sense that we understand that term.

In the next race, of which again man knows little, the fusion of the three divine energies produced a second law.  It should be remembered that a law is but the effect of the continued intelligent activity of the Life aspect as it works in conjunction with matter.  This second law is called (by those of us who deal with law and energy) the Law of Capitulation, because the momentum set up by the desire of the sons of God to incarnate proved too strong for the opposing forces of matter.  Nothing then could stop the coming into tangible existence of the incarnating spirits.  Matter capitulated to spirit, the divine desire and the divine will set their signature upon the rapidly assembling forms.  It must be borne in mind that these laws are called by names which indicate their relation to humanity.  When active in the other kingdoms of nature their influence is different, and they are called by other nomenclatures.

In the next race, the Lemurian, the triple activity of the divine essential attributes demonstrated as the Law of Materialisation, or (as it is sometimes called) the Law of Hidden Radiance. This law concerns the Light which is in man, and the covering of that Light, in time and space, in order to produce its intensification and its consequent and subsequent radiation, so that, through humanity, light may eventually reach all forms of divine expression.  Through man's achievement, and through the conquest of darkness by light, the light of consciousness in all forms must be brought to a condition of a "shining glory which will irradiate the planet, and shine forth into the world of planets as a testimony to the glory of..."

The fourth law controlling human destiny is known by the curious name of the Law of the Tides. It concerns the life of desire and of sensory perception and of feeling.  It is closely concerned with the development of awareness, and is an aspect of the Law of Cycles which controls solar evolution.  It is a basic human law, protective and developing.  It controls the cyclic or "tidal" life of all souls who are carried by the great river of life—on the crest of desire—into incarnation, and is one of the laws with which the aspirant must work, early in his training.  Until he can function as a soul, independent of the cyclic turmoil of terrestrial life, and free from the control of the tides of his emotional existence, he cannot take initiation.  It was the inability to do this which brought on Earth the great Atlantean floods which brought that ancient civilisation to an end.

We come now to a consideration of the Law of Cleavages, for our race is controlled by the great heresy of separativeness.  Through these cleavages (symbolically speaking) the fires of destruction may emerge and end our civilisation, as the Atlantean civilisation was ended, unless the conscious sons of God can build those bridges and develop that understanding which will offset this law, thus bringing into functioning activity the law which governs the coming race.  The work that the disciples of the world must seek to do is analogous to that which they as individuals have to do in their own private development: build the antahkarana, which will bridge the gap between the human consciousness and the spiritual, and make the race eventually as intuitional as it is, today, intellectual.

The law of the coming race is most difficult to express in understandable terms.  I can find no better name for it—so as to express adequately its functional effect—than the words, the Law of Loving Understanding.  This is a quite inadequate and sentimental phrase for a scientific expression of a great coming evolutionary development in the human consciousness.  But until that development is an accomplished fact, we have no means whereby to express the true significance of the underlying idea.  The above must suffice.

Let us now enumerate these laws in sequence, so as to gain a better idea of their relation and interrelationship:

1. The Law of Immersion	first race.
2. The Law of Capitulation	second race.
3. The Law of Materialisation	Lemurian race.
The Law of Hidden Radiance.
4. The Law of the Tides	Atlantean race.
5. The Law of Cleavages	Aryan race.
6. The Law of Loving Understanding	next race.

By a right understanding of these laws we can gain an insight into the present world situation as far as the nations are concerned, and can grasp more intelligently the ray influence which, in conjunction with these laws, has brought about the various typical national units.