Question 4. Of what value is it to know about the seven rays?

Question four is of importance on account of its vital practicality.  In the last analysis, definition conveys mental satisfaction but is no criterion as to applied knowledge.

Above everything else, it is necessary that the aspirant be practical.  The days of a mystical and dreamy consciousness are rapidly passing away, and as man, through understanding of psychology, comes to a more accurate knowledge of himself he will begin to act with precision and with intelligence; he will know with exactitude the way that he should go, and will comprehend the forces in his own nature which will lead to specific action when brought into touch with the forces of his environment.  Aspirants should endeavour to make practical application of the imparted truths, and so minimise their responsibility.  Where there is acquired knowledge and when no use is made of it there exists a condition of danger and subsequent penalty.

Much has been given in previous books which awaits your adaptation and useful service.  Much will be given in the present volume, but students need to remember that they themselves evoke and call forth the teaching they receive.  The position between me and those who are reading is not that of a teacher imposing a system of knowledge upon a group of waiting pupils.  The group is simply the channel through which a particular aspect of the Ageless Wisdom can reach a waiting world.  I do not regard you as a body of good men and women, who, because of your point in evolution, are deemed worthy to receive something esoteric and unusual, and hence withheld from the rest of the race.  I regard you as sincerely interested in the spiritual life, as concerned with the endeavour to be intelligent, and as willing (more or less) to try to live as souls, and to use as much of the imparted teaching as can be understood.  What use students make of it is entirely their own affair.  But the value of any group of aspirants and disciples consists [111] in this: They can—if they so choose and if their united aspiration is strong enough—draw forth the teaching, and so form a centre through which that teaching may go forth and begin its work of moulding human thought, of throwing light upon the problems of psychology, and of so expanding the point of truth (anent the seven rays, an ancient septenate, but little comprehended) that a new realisation may be evolved and a new science of psychology may be launched upon its career.

You ask, therefore: What must we as a group do that we may be of service, and so constitute a good channel for the helping of humanity?

First of all, you must see to it that your attitude towards all teaching is that of willing service, with no thought of self.  The growth in spiritual realisation and the lifting of humanity is that which is of moment, and not your own personal growth or development, nor your own satisfaction at receiving special and new information.  You will grow, and your soul will take increasing hold upon its instrument, when your mind and effort are turned towards group service, and when your tongue is rendered harmless, through the inflow of Love.

Secondly, let not your mind be occupied with idle speculations as to the identity of the teacher.  What matters it who he is?  Can you prove his identity in one way or another?  And of what value is it to accept the statements of any fellow student who may claim to be informed on the matter, be he who he may?  You cannot prove him right or wrong, and therefore it remains a waste of time which could well be given to more fruitful service, to closer study of the life-essentials, and to meditation.

What is taught should matter.  The aspects of truth which I present to your consideration should count; the measure of help which I can give and the spiritual and mental stimulation which I may impart are of moment to you.  The training [112] of the intuition to recognise spiritual truth should be the subject of your effort.  The sole authority is the teaching, and not the teacher; upon the rock of authority many schools have foundered.  There is but one authority—each man's own immortal soul, and that is the only authority which should be recognised.

Learn to grasp the teaching correctly, and see it for what it is.  Some of it is written for a distant time, and the true significance of this Treatise on the Seven Rays will begin to emerge as part of the general knowledge of humanity only towards the close of this century, unless the imminent outpouring evokes greater change than is now deemed possible by the watching Hierarchy.  Some of the teaching is of immediate usefulness to all of you.  Some of it will throw light upon the problems of modern psychology, and link the many aspects of the science of the soul.  Disciples grow these days by finding out the reservoir of their soul's nourishment; they will discover that the source of their strength is to be found in group teaching and in group endeavour.  We are training men to live as souls and not as children to be nursed and cared for in a protected nursery run by rules and orders.  As souls, men derive their life from the ocean of the universal, and not from the tiny well of the particular.  Carrying their little pitchers, they find their way to that ocean, and for themselves they draw into that receptacle that which they need.  In the light of your own intuition and illumined mind (developed and brought to usefulness through meditation) take that aspect of the teaching which suits and aids you, and interpret it in the light of your own need and growth.

The days of personality contact, of personality attention and of personal messages are over, and have been over for quite a while, save in the vale of illusion, on the astral plane.  This is a hard message, but no true disciple will misunderstand.  From [113] the depths of his own experience and struggle he knows it to be so.  It is the group of Masters, the Hierarchy as a whole, that is of moment and its interaction with humanity; it is the Masters' group of disciples that counts, and its relation to probationary disciples on the physical plane, who are seen by the group as existing in group formation all over the world, no matter where its units may be; it is the body of teaching that can be made available, and its effect upon the collective mind of the thinkers of the race, that is of vital importance; it is the interplay between the subjective group of world workers and—on the outer plane of objectivity—the lovers of humanity which seems to us, the teachers, to be of supreme importance.  The satisfying of individual aspiration, the meeting of the desire of the probationers and the feeding of spiritual ambition appeal to us not at all.  The times are too serious, and the crisis too acute.

It is of course a fact that there are today groups of aspirants receiving definite instruction, and disciples being subjected to definite training.  But it must be remembered (in spite of all statements by the devotees of the world to the contrary) that no training is given in these cases as to the handling of the details of the personality life; the specific problems of health, finance and family concerns are not dealt with nor considered; nor is comfort given or time taken to reassure or satisfy the unstable personality.  Training aspirants as to the technique of spiritual growth is undertaken; correction of the hidden factors producing emotional conditions may be suggested; meditations may be arranged in order to bring about certain results; and instruction in the laws governing soul union may be offered; but no personality work is attempted.  Disciples handle their own personalities.  In the pressure of world work, the Masters are finding Themselves with less and less time to give even to Their disciples.  How then do those who are not in the [114] ranks of accepted disciples expect the Master to have the time to deal with their little affairs?

In the future, however, groups will be formed increasingly, which will function on a new basis, and some of these new "group organisms" are forming in the world at this time.  They are still in the nature of an experiment and may prove premature or undesirable.  The teaching given in these new groups, the suggestions made, the experiments in training to be attempted, and the technique imparted will not be given personally and privately to an individual group member, but all of it is open and can be read, known and considered by every other member in the group.  These groups are as yet necessarily few, and very small in number.  They are in the nature of an attempt to see if it will be possible eventually to externalise the groups gathered around a Master on the inner planes.  These groups of accepted disciples on the inner side are sensitive organisms, and each member of these circles gathered around a Master is aware of that which concerns his fellow disciples' spiritual unfoldment, within the radius of the circle in which he finds himself.  These small outer attempts at a tentative duplication are in an embryonic condition as yet.  It is a test and a trial effort, and may fail.  The members of these tiny outer groups (whose membership and grouping are known only to those who form part of them) have to be willing to be instructed and developed as group units, with the other members of their group aware of their failures or successes.  They have also to preserve complete silence as to the existence of the group, and a breaking of this silence warrants their elimination from the group.  The personnel of these groups is forgotten in the life of the group entity as a whole.  The members are trained in the group, and the group is trained as a whole, with no emphasis upon the individual but only on the group interplay and interaction, its integration and growth. [115]  Only those factors in the life of the individual are noted and handled which would hinder the growth of the group life and expression.  It is the group note, the group colour, and the group development which count with the training staff of workers, and the individual is never considered as an individual, but only in his relation to the group.  What he is told to do, and the discipline applied, is all based on the desire to preserve the group balance, and not on any personal interest in the individual.  In this experiment a man is tried out to see his fitness.  He will be tested early in his career as a group unit.  If he passes the test and makes the grade, the group is enriched and grows thereby.  If he fails, he drops out and others take his place until such time as the group unit is attuned and completed, and those who are sincere and true, impersonal and mentally poised, self-forgetful and loving, are found to work together in harmony.  Thus they can, as a group entity, form a focal point for the transmission of spiritual force to a needy and waiting world.

But it is important to remember that the attitude of the training initiate or teacher is one of complete detachment and impersonality; he is aware of the soul light and condition, and of the mental state, but he does not turn his attention to the handling of the affairs of the aspirant on the physical plane, nor to the training of his emotional nature and his astral development.  Aspirants learn to be master and adept by handling their own physical plane affairs and their astral idiosyncrasies.  This they must do in the light and strength of their own souls.  We who teach would break a law and hinder their development if we attempted to enforce conditions which come not naturally.  We should also overstimulate their lower natures.  When will aspirants learn that the teachers and senior disciples in charge of them work only on mental levels and with the soul?  When will they grasp the fact that until a man has contacted his own [116] soul, and has learned to function as a controlled mind as well, there is little we can do for him?  Again I say, we are not interested in personalities and their small affairs.  We have neither the time nor the inclination to interfere with the way and method of a man's daily life.  Why should we, when enough has been printed and taught to occupy the attention of the aspiring man for many a day?  When a man is beginning to live as a soul, and when his consciousness has shifted away from the world of illusion, then he can be useful.  The first lesson he has to learn is a sense of values in time and space, and to know that we work with souls and do not nurse the personality.

Seems this too hard a saying to you?  If it is indeed so to you, it means that you are as yet somewhat self-centred and in love with your own individual soul, having not yet duly contacted it, and having but perhaps sensed its vibration and no more.  You have not yet that true picture of the world's need which will release you from your own ambition and set you free to work as we (on the subjective side) work, with no thought of self or of spiritual happiness, and with no desire for any self-appointed task; with no longing for glittering promises of future success, and with no demanding ache for the tender touch and contact with those greater in consciousness than ourselves.  If this lies still beyond your realisation, recognise the fact, and understand that there is no blame attached.  It only indicates to you the ground whereon you stand, and that the illusion of the astral plane still holds you in its thrall and still leads you to place personality reactions before group realisation.  As long as you walk on that plane and function on that level of consciousness, it is not possible to draw you consciously into the Masters' groups on mental levels.  You are still too destructive and personal; you would be apt to hurt the group and cause trouble; you would see things (through the group stimulation) with a clarity for which you are not yet [117] ready, and would be shattered thereby.  You have need to learn the lessons of accepting guidance from your own soul, and of learning to work with harmony and impersonality on the physical plane with the group or groups to which your destiny impels you.  When you have learnt the lesson of self-forgetfulness, when you seek nothing for the separated self, when you stand firmly on your own feet and look for aid within yourself, and when the trend of your life is towards cooperation, then you may pass from the stage of Observer to that of Communicator.  This will happen because you can be trusted to communicate only that which is impersonal and truly constructive, and which will not feed the emotional nature and satisfy the desire-self.

An interesting point might here be noted and a question answered.  In A Treatise on White Magic I referred to the two groups of Observers and Communicators (the third group lies outside our present discussion), and the question was asked: Who trains these Observers and Communicators?  I should like to make it clear that the observers train themselves or—more accurately—the soul of each trains the personality in true observation.  In the case of the communicators, they are slowly and gradually trained by senior disciples—working from the subjective side of life. This training is never organised and arranged for on the physical plane, nor are any disciples—working on the physical plane—engaged in training groups of communicators to be employed later by the Hierarchy.  In this matter (as in all else in the spiritual life) the disciple first trains himself to be responsive to his own soul, and then trains himself to be responsive to the inner group of workers, who later, as a result of his self-initiated effort, teach him to be a communicator, an intermediary.  The hallmark of such communicators is mental clarity, true impersonality, spiritual tolerance, [118] and a frugality in the use of words, when embodying concepts.  It should be remembered that in the wealth of psychic writings pouring into the world today, the work of the true communicators will concern itself with the Plan and not with personalities; with principles and not with individual purposes; and that all such communicators will be mental types, channels for the love of God, and group conscious.  There will be nothing in their work to produce separativeness, and nothing to feed the fires of controversy, antagonism or partisanship.  Much of value may come along other lines than through this group of communicators, and you may look for an increased flood of inspirational writings of a high order, and for an outpouring of wisdom from the world of souls through the hundreds who are in touch with their own souls; there will also be much emanating from the highest level of the astral plane, of a high order along devotional lines, but none of this will be the work of the band of communicators now in process of forming.  Only a handful are doing this work as yet, and the true influx of communicators will not start for another fifteen years.

To return to our two questions, and particularly to the one concerning the value of studying the rays.  I have felt the need to write on this matter for the following reasons:

1. Modern psychology is in a cul-de-sac.  The many psychologies have made their contribution to the whole subject, and all of them have value, for all have embodied an aspect of truth.  Through them we have arrived at an amazing knowledge of man, of his instincts and animal mechanisms, of his reactions to his environment and of his sensitive apparatus; we have learnt much about the sub-conscious, through which ancient racial sins and knowledges, suppressed complexes and latent desires, as well as highly organised psychic reactions, [119] well up into the conscious mind so disastrously.  We know much anent the man as a whole functioning unity, and of the interactions existing between the nervous system, the glandular system, the muscles, and their expression, in forms of quality, character, personality, and the environment.  We have learnt much, therefore, about that composite being called man, and man, as a psychic entity, is an established fact in nature, as is man, the animal.  But man, the soul, remains still a speculation, a hope, a belief.  The fact of the soul is not yet substantiated; and in helping the truth into the light I seek to bring the subject of the seven rays to the notice of the thinkers of modern times, so that the light of this esoteric knowledge may be thrown upon the science of psychology.  Thus may the work of revelation be aided.

2. If there is one thing that has emerged into the minds of investigators, as they have studied man, it is the fact that he is essentially dual.  Psychology has shown that in the consciousness of every human being is a sense of duality, that man is in some mysterious sense two beings, and that it is the warfare between these two which has led to all the neuroses and complexes which tax the ingenuity of trained psychologists to solve.  The initiate Paul referred to this when he spoke of the eternal warfare going on between the carnal mind and the heavenly nature, and all aspirants who are occupied with an intelligent struggle towards liberation bear witness to the same.  Paul points out that victory is won through Christ, and I give a clue to the importance of this study of the rays when I state that, esoterically, these seven rays are the sevenfold expressions of the Cosmic Christ, the second Person of the Trinity.  Bewildered men and women go in their thousands to the clinics of the psychologists, carrying with them the burden of their dual natures; and psychologists in their thousands recognise [120] this duality and seek to unify the dissociated aspects.  When the true nature of the seven rays is grasped, and when their effect on humanity in expressing the seven types of men is also understood, we shall then approach the subject of man's duality with greater intelligence.  We shall comprehend better the nature of the forces which constitute one or another of these dualities.  This is the true esoteric science.  The science of the seven qualities or rays, and their effect upon the myriad forms which they mould and energise, is the coming new approach to the correct method of training and developing the human family.  Modern exoteric science knows much about the outer form, or matter aspect, and its electrical nature.  Esoteric science knows much about the nature of the subjective energies and the qualities which colour and condition the form.  When these two knowledges are brought intelligently together, we shall evolve a truer and more accurate psychology and a new science of human culture.  Then the work of unifying man—man, the psychic entity, and man, the conditioning soul—will go rapidly forward.

3. A knowledge of the rays and their tendencies and energies will bring much illumination to the workers in the field of the various sciences.  All the sciences find themselves on some one or other of the rays, and a science is literally the light thrown by a ray into a particular field of divine manifestation. The four kingdoms in nature are embodiments of four great Lives Who are found, each on one of the four minor rays.  The Being Who is the life of the fourth or human kingdom in nature (regarding that kingdom as a distinct organism, just as man's body nature or personality is a distinct organism, separable from him as a soul) is on the fifth ray.  The Being Who ensouls similarly the third kingdom, the animal kingdom, vibrates to the sixth ray.  The Being Who is the expression [121] and active force of the entire vegetable kingdom is to be found upon the fourth ray.  Therefore we have:

These statements mean little to you at present, but we shall elaborate them later, when we come to the consideration of these rays in greater detail.  I am but giving a general impression at this time.  It is apparent nevertheless that when the nature of the energy permeating and animating any particular kingdom in nature is recognised and accepted (even if hypothetically) by the scientists, much light will be thrown upon the outer form qualified by a particular force and life.

There is, for instance, a definite reason why the bulk of the wild flowers and garden flowers in the occident, and also those found during the autumn season, are at this time found in tones of yellow and orange; and the mental calibre of the later sub-races of the Aryan race, as well as its general tone throughout the Aryan age, is also related to the same reason.  The influence of the fourth Ray of Harmony and Beauty, and the developing power of the fifth Ray of Knowledge (synonymous to the merging of the intuition and the intellect in highly evolved man) have a definite effect upon the vegetable kingdom and upon the human aura.  Yellow-orange shines forth in both.  I mention this as an illustration of an externalisation of ray force, and as an indication of the value of the esoteric science when applied to the exoteric.

The blue ray of devotion passes now into the violet of what we term the ceremonial ray.  What do these words mean? Simply that the great Musician of the universe is moving the [122] keys, is sounding another note and thus bringing in another turn of the wheel, and swinging into the arc of manifestation the ray of violet, the great note G.  These rays bring with them—in every kingdom in nature—all that is attuned to them: Human beings, devas of order high or low, elementals of a desirable or undesirable nature, flowers, fruits, and vegetable life of a certain kind, and animals and forms of varying species.  It is the passing out of a ray that signals the ultimate extinction of some particular form, some type of animal life, and leads to some vegetable aspect coming to an end.  Hence the confusion among the scientists at this time.  The process of coming in is slow, as is all work in nature, and as is the process of passing out.  Simultaneously with the cyclic birth and emergence of a new ray is the slow return to its source of the prevailing ray, present at the advent of the new.

At this time the sixth ray is passing out and is taking with it all those forms whose keynote is blue—those people, for instance, who with devotion (misplaced or not) followed some particular object, person or idea.  With it passes, therefore, those whom we term fanatics, those who with one-pointed zeal work towards some sensed objective.  Many of the flowers in which you now rejoice are passing out, the bluebell, the hyacinth and the olive for example; the sapphire will become scarce and the turquoise will lose its hue.  Flowers of violet colour, of lavender and of purple will come into favour.  Behind all this lies a purpose profound.

The physical plane, in its densest aspect, holds little of mystery for man today; he has knowledge on these matters.  But the rarer levels of the physical plane lie hid and are, for man, his next field of discovery.  The ceremonial ray brings with it the means whereby that knowledge may be acquired and revealed to all, and thus not be the sole property of the wise and of the occultists.  The three higher etheric levels, with their [123] denizens, are waiting to become the property of all, and with their inhabitants comes the next approximation.

It is possible at this time to foretell certain events which will come to pass during the next one hundred years.

First, in about ten years time the first ether, with all that is composed of that matter, will be recognised scientific fact, and the scientists who work intuitionally will come to recognise the devas of that plane.  People coming into incarnation on this seventh ray will have the eyes that see, and the purple devas and the lesser devas of the etheric body will be visioned by them.

Secondly, when He Whom both angels and men await, will approach near unto this physical plane, He will bring with Him not only some of the Great Ones and the Masters, but some of the Devas who stand to the deva evolution as the Masters to the human.  Forget not that the human evolution is but one of many, and that this is a period of crisis among the devas likewise.  The call has gone forth for them to approach humanity, and with their heightened vibration and superior knowledge unite their forces with those of humanity, for the progression of the two evolutions.  They have much to impart anent colour and sound, and their effect upon the etheric bodies of men and animals.  When that which they have to give is apprehended by the race, physical ills will be nullified and attention will be centred upon the infirmities of the astral or emotional body.

These violet devas of the four ethers form, as you may imagine, four great groups with seven subsidiary divisions. These four groups work with the four types of men now in incarnation, for it is a statement of fact that at no time in this round are more than four types of men in incarnation at any one time.  Four rays dominate at any given period, with one in excess of the other three.  I mean by this, that only four rays are in physical incarnation; for on the plane of the soul all [124] seven types are of course found.  This idea is brought out in the four castes in India, and you will find that these four are found universally.  The four groups of devas are a band of servers to the Lord, and their special work is to contact men and to give them definite and experimental teaching.

They will instruct in the effect of colour in the healing of disease, especially the effect of the violet light in the lessening of human ills and in the cure of those physical plane sicknesses which have their origin in the etheric body or double.

They will teach men to see etherically, by heightening human vibration by action of their own.

They will demonstrate to the materialistic thinkers of the world the fact that the superconscious states exist—not the superhuman only—and will also make clear the hitherto unrecognised fact that other beings, besides the human, have their habitat on earth.

They will also teach the sounding of the tones that correspond to the gradations of violet, and through that sounding enable man to utilise the ethers, as he now utilises physical plane matter for his various needs.

They will enable human beings so to control the ethers that weight will be for them transmuted, and motion will be intensified, becoming more rapid, more gliding, noiseless, and therefore less tiring.  In the human control of the etheric levels lie the lessening of fatigue, rapidity of transit, and the ability to transcend time.  Until this prophecy is a fact in consciousness, its meaning is obscure.

They will also teach men how rightly to nourish the body and to draw from the surrounding ethers the requisite food.  Man will in the future concentrate more on the sound condition of the etheric body, and the functioning of the dense physical body will become practically automatic.

They will enable human beings, as a race, and not as individuals, [125] to expand their consciousness so that it will embrace the superphysical.  Forget not the important fact that in the accomplishment of this the web that divides the physical plane from the astral plane will be discovered by the scientists, and its purpose will eventually be acknowledged.  With that discovery will come the power to penetrate the web, and so link up consciously with the astral body.  Another material unification will have been accomplished.

Then what else will occur, and what will be the method of approach to these devas?

More and more, during the next fifteen years, will men receive definite teaching, often subconsciously, from devas to whom they are linked.  This will be done telepathically at first.  Doctors today get much information from certain devas.  There are two great devas belonging to the green group on mental levels who assist in this work, and some physicians get much knowledge subjectively from a violet deva working on the atomic subplane of the physical plane, aided by a deva of the causal level who works with, or through, their egos.  As men learn to sense and recognise these devas, more and more teaching will be given.  They teach in three ways:

a. By means of intuitional telepathy.

b. Through demonstration of colour, proving the accomplishment of certain things in this way.

c. By definite musical sounds, which will cause vibrations in the ethers, which in their turn will produce forms.

The ether will eventually appear to the enhanced vision of humanity to have more substance than it now has, and as etheric vision increases, the ethers will be recognised as being strictly physical plane matter.  Therefore when in sickness men shall call a deva, when that deva can destroy diseased [126] tissue by sounding a note that will result in the elimination of the corrupt tissue, when by the presence caused by the vibration new tissue is visibly built in, then the presence of these devas will be generally acknowledged and their power will be utilised.

By what means will their presence be realised and their powers employed?

First of all, by a definite development of the human eye, which will then see that which is now unseen.  It will be a change within the eye, and not a form of clairvoyance.

Next, by a steady experimentation with invocations, and through their use the method of calling the devas will be discovered.  This development must be approached with caution, for to the unprotected it leads to disaster.  Hence the necessity to inculcate pure living, the learning of protective invocations and formulas, and the power of the church and of Masonry to protect.  Forget not that evil entities exist on other planes than the physical, that they can respond to analogous vibrations, and that the invocations that call a deva may, if sounded inaccurately, call a being that will work havoc.  In ritual lies protection.  Hence the emphasis laid upon church forms and on the Masonic rituals,—an emphasis which will increase and not grow less as the years slip by.  The force of invocations will be known later.

Every individual vibrates to some particular measure.  Those who know and who work clairvoyantly and clairaudiently find that all matter sounds, all matter pulsates, and all matter has its own colour.  Each human being can therefore be made to give forth some specific sound; in making that sound he flashes into colour, and the combination of the two is indicative of some measure which is peculiarly his own.

Every unit of the human race is on some one of the seven [127] rays; therefore some one colour predominates, and some one tone sounds forth; infinite are the gradations and many the shades of colour and tone.  Each ray has its subsidiary rays which it dominates, acting as the synthetic ray.  These seven rays are linked with the colours of the spectrum.  There are the rays of red, blue, yellow, orange, green and violet.  There is the ray that synthesises them all, that of indigo.  There are the three major rays—red, blue and yellow—and the four subsidiary colours which, in the evolving Monad, find their correspondence in the spiritual Triad and the lower quaternary.  The Logos of our system is concentrating on the love or blue aspect.  This—as the synthesis—manifests as indigo.  This matter of the rays and their colours is confusing to the neophyte.  I can but indicate some thoughts, and in the accumulation of suggestion light may eventually come.  The clue lies in similarity of colour, which entails a resemblance in note and rhythm.  When, therefore, a man is on the red and yellow rays, with red as his primary ray, and meets another human being who is on the blue and yellow rays, with a secondary resemblance to the yellow, there may be recognition.  But when a man on the yellow and blue rays, with yellow as his primary colour, meets a brother on the yellow and red rays, the recognition is immediate and mutual, for the primary colour is the same.  When this fundamental cause of association or dissociation is better understood, the secondary colours will be made to act as the meeting ground, to the mutual benefit of the parties concerned.

Of the colours, red, blue and yellow are primary and irreducible.  They are the colours of the major rays.

[128]

We have then the subsidiary rays:

d. Orange.

e. Green.

f. Violet.

and the synthesising ray, Indigo.

4. It is of course to the human interest that a study of the rays makes its main appeal.  It is this study that will vivify and awaken psychologists to the true understanding of man.  Every human being finds himself upon one of the seven rays.  His personality is found, in every life, upon one of them, in varying rotation, according to the ray of the ego or soul.  After the third initiation he locates his soul (if one may use such an inappropriate word) on one of the three major rays, though until that time it may be found in one of the seven ray groups.  From that exalted attitude he strives towards the essential unity of the Monad.  The fact of there being seven ray types carries great implications, and the intricacy of the subject is baffling to the neophyte.

A ray confers, through its energy, peculiar physical conditions, and determines the quality of the astral-emotional nature; it colours the mind body; it controls the distribution of energy, for the rays are of differing rates of vibration, and govern a particular centre in the body (differing with each ray) through which that distribution is made.  Each ray works through one centre primarily and through the remaining six, in a specific order.  The ray predisposes a man to certain strengths and weaknesses, and constitutes his principle of limitation, as well as endowing him with capacity.  It governs the method of his relations to other human types and is responsible for his reactions in form to other forms.  It gives him his colouring and quality, his general tone on the three planes of the personality, and it moulds his physical appearance.  Certain attitudes of mind are easy for one ray type and difficult for [129] another, and hence the changing personality shifts from ray to ray, from life to life, until all the qualities are developed and expressed.  Certain souls, by their ray destiny, are found in certain fields of activity, and a particular field of endeavour remains relatively the same for many life expressions.  A governor or statesman has learnt facility in his craft through much experience in that field.  A world Teacher has been teaching for age-long cycles.  A world Saviour has been, for many lives, at the task of salvaging.  When a man is two-thirds of the way along the evolutionary path his soul ray type begins to dominate the personality ray type and will therefore govern the trend of his expression on earth, not in the spiritual sense (so-called) but in the sense of pre-disposing the personality towards certain activities.

A knowledge therefore of the rays and their qualities and activities is, from the standpoint of psychology, of profound importance, and hence this treatise.

5. Groups of people, organisations, nations and groups of nations are all the result of ray activity and magnetism.  Hence an understanding of the forces which stream forth from the divine creative centre, and which we call the rays, is of value in understanding the quality, nature, and destiny of vast human masses.  The seven planets are governed by one or other of the rays.  Countries (viewed independently of their nationals) are likewise the result of ray activity, and thus the importance of the subject cannot be overestimated.