We only need more light, in the esoteric sense, in order to see the soul, and that light will shortly be available and we shall understand the meaning of the words, “And in Thy light shall we see light.”
This intensification of the light will continue until A.D. 2025, when there will come a cycle of relative stability and of steady shining without much augmentation. In the second decanate of Aquarius [ii]
these three aspects will again be augmented by increased light from the fourth aspect, that is the light from the soul realm, reaching us via the universal “chitta” or mind stuff.
…. There is an aspect of human consciousness which has for long baffled the materialistic psychologist, and this is the curious power of prevision, the ability to foresee and foretell with accuracy events coming in the immediate future, or distant happenings. There are warnings given by some inner monitor which have again and again saved man from death and disaster; there are the appearances, to their friends and relatives, of men or women who have just died, before any word of their death has been received. This is not in the field of telepathic knowledge of the death, but involves the appearance of the person. There is the power to participate in events in distant places and to recover the recollection of what transpired with accuracy as to place, personnel and detail. These powers and many similar previsions and recognitions have long bewildered investigators and must find correct explanation. In their wise investigation, in the accumulation of responsible evidence, and in the later substantiation of the prevision, it will begin to be seen that some factor exists in man which is not bound by space-time limitations, but which transcends the normal human consciousness. The present attempted investigation and explanations are inadequate and do not account satisfactorily for all the facts. When, however, they are approached from the standpoint of the soul, with its faculty of omniscience and its freedom from categories of past, present and future (for they are lost in the consciousness of the Eternal Now), we shall begin to understand the process a little more clearly. When the true Dweller in the body is recognised and the laws of prevision are discovered, and when the power to foresee is generally prevalent, then we shall begin to find ample proof of the existence of the soul. It will be impossible to account for the ordinary phenomena then current without admitting its existence.
Along these various lines proof of the soul will accumulate. In the massing of testimony and of evidence a fruitful field of activity lies. In the training of the higher types of men in the use of the soul force and soul powers, and in the trained control of the mechanism, that evidence so produced will be seen to be of so high an order and will be so scientifically presented that it will be regarded as of as much importance and as justifiable as any views presented by our leading scientists in their various fields of research today. The study of the soul will before long be as legitimate and respectable an investigation as any scientific problem, such as research into the nature of the atom. The investigation of the soul and its governing laws will, before long, engross the attention of our finest minds. The newer psychology will eventually succeed in proving the fact of its existence, and the paralleling intuitive and instinctive response of mankind to soul nurture, emanating from the invisible side of life, will steadily and successfully prove the existence of a spiritual entity in man,—an entity all-wise, immortal, divine and creative.
But the process would be slow were it not for the work now being done by a group of disciples and initiates working in collaboration with the Master P—, Who has His headquarters in America and Who, with His disciples, is doing much to stimulate the various psychological schools in the world today. It is needless for students to endeavour to ascertain His identity. He works through movements and schools of thought, and does no work with private individuals. He works practically entirely on the mental plane, with the power of thought, and is quite unknown and unrecognised, except by His fellow workers in the various countries in the world, and by the disciples on His ray, the fourth ray. Much that is opening in the world of psychology today is due to the work He does in stimulating the minds of the leaders of movements. He works with them on the mental plane, but does not contact them as physical plane individuals.
The urgency of the time is great, and the Masters are exceedingly active and profoundly concerned at this time with the work of salvaging the world. They have not the time for personal work, except with Their own groups of accepted chelas, all of whom are active in the world work, or they would not be in the Masters’ group. Also They may work intermittently with small groups of probationers to whom They offer opportunity and give an occasional hint. Each of Them has a few, a very few, probationers in training, to take the place of chelas who pass on to initiation, but beyond these two groups, during this century, They do no personal work, leaving the many aspirants to the care of lesser initiates and chelas. Even Their work and Their personal chelas at this time are much restricted, and word has been sent out to the working disciples in the world to stand on their own feet, to use their own judgment and not handicap the Masters at this time of intense strain and danger by attracting Their attention needlessly.
[i] I reading this text, it might be noted that it was published in 1936. The Tibetan (DK) often takes a long view of the timing of events.
[ii] As far as I am aware, the book gives no further information on the timing of this. A second decanate is the second one-third of an astrological age. It lasts approximately 700 years. However, there seems no consensus among astrologers as to when the Age of Aquarius began, of even if it has yet begun at all, let alone when the second decanate is to begin.
e regarded as a step in the right direction. That something survives the process of death, and that something persists after the disintegration of the physical body, is steadily being proved. If that is not so, then we are the victims of a collective hallucination, and the brains and minds of thousands [Page 99] of people are untrue and deceiving, are diseased and distorted. Such a gigantic collective insanity is more difficult to credit than the alternative of an expanded consciousness. This development along psychic lines does not prove the fact of the soul, however; it only serves to break down the materialistic position.
It is among the thinkers of the race that the first assured recognition of the soul will come, and this event will be the result of the study and analysis, by the psychologists of the world, of the nature of genius and the significance of creative work.
Some men and women in the world tower above their fellow men, and produce that which is superlative in its own field; their work has in it the element of divinity and of immortality. The work of creative artists, the intuitive perception of great scientific investigators, the inspired imagination of the poets of the world and the vision of the illumined idealists, have all to be accounted for and explained, for the laws under which such men and women work have yet to be discovered. The close study, by the psychologist, of the abnormal and the subnormal, of warped and distorted minds and of defective equipments, has been over-emphasized, and due attention has not been given to the divinely abnormal, and to those types of consciousness which transcend the ordinary human state of intelligent awareness. These latter super-normal states find expression through the medium of the great artists, musicians, dramatists, writers, and the many other types of creative workers who have been the glory of the human kingdom down the ages, and who will flame forth during the coming century with greater glory still.
When the hypothesis of the soul is accepted, when the nature of the spiritual energy which flows through the soul is admitted, and when the mechanism of the force centres is [Page 100] studied, we shall make rapid progress towards knowledge. When, through meditation, experiment is made to produce creatively some of the beauty contacted, some of the ideas revealed and some of the patterns seen, we shall learn to cultivate genius and understand how to train people to work creatively. Then much will be discovered about the centres in man where the divine principle has its dwelling, and from which the Christ within[i] can work. The study of the super-conscious must be undertaken, and not simply the study of the self-conscious or of the sub-conscious. Through this study, carried forward with an open mind, modern psychology will eventually arrive at a recognition of the soul.
The range of investigation is so wide that I can only indicate some of the possible fields of research ….
It is, however, from the field of science that the greatest help will come. The fact of the soul will eventually be proved through the study of light and of radiation and through a coming evolution in particles of light. Through this imminent development we shall find ourselves seeing more and penetrating deeper into that which we see today. One of the recognised facts in the realm of natural science has been the cyclic change in the fauna and flora of our planet. Animals, plentiful and familiar many thousands of years ago, are now extinct, and by means of their bones we endeavour to reconstruct their forms. Flowers and trees that once covered the surface of our planet have now entirely disappeared and only their fossilized remains are left to indicate to us a vegetation vastly different to that which we now enjoy. Man himself has changed so much that we find it difficult to recognise homo sapiens in the early primitive races of the far distant past. This mutability and obliteration of earlier types is due to a major factor among many. The quality of the light which promotes and nurtures growth, vitality and fertility in the kingdoms of nature has changed several times during the ages, and as it has changed it has produced corresponding mutations in the phenomenal world. From the standpoint of the esotericist, all [Page 102] forms of life on our planet are affected by three types of light substance, and at the present time a fourth type is gradually making its presence felt. These types of light are:
- The light of the sun.
- The light in the planet itself—not the reflected light of the sun but its own inherent radiance.
- A light seeping in (if I may use such a phrase) from the astral plane, a steady and gradual penetration of the “astral light” and its fusion with the other two types of radiance.
- A light which is beginning to merge itself with the other three types and which comes from that state of matter which we call the mental plane—a light in its turn reflected from the realm of the soul.
Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Psychology I, pp 98-102
To be continued in Part V
