The Psychology of the New Age (The Hierarchy of Light)
From the primitive esoteric teachings, others emerged such as alchemy, hermeticism, Pythagoreanism and theosophy. The Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and the American colonel Olcott, together with other theosophist members. There they would set out the first principles that gave rise to the current ideas about this New Age movement. The ideas were based on a catalogue of spiritualist beliefs alternative to traditional Christian ideas -reincarnation and karma: individual spiritual evolution-, and to philosophical materialism -cult of the physical mind-, through practices such as mediumistic channelling, clairvoyance or telekinesis, the capacity to heal through crystals, astrology, telepathy and the path of prayer and meditation as tools for illumination. The pagan vision of the theosophists was decorated with the belief in different planes, dimensions or levels of vibration, linked to a psychic function: sensations, emotions, thoughts and intuition. Carl Gustav Jung -who was not a theosophist- would take this esoteric proposal into the fields of psychology and scientific psychiatry, developing the concept of transpersonal, which later transpersonal psychologists would include in their teachings: physical plane or physical body, etheric plane or energetic body, emotional plane or emotional body and mental plane or mental body. Through the mental body one could connect with higher dimensions and communicate with spiritual entities, since the cosmos is organised under a spiritual hierarchy. According to the theosophists, the divine hierarchy has existed since the beginning of time. And in all eras they have acted with man, and through man.
They say that there was a particular time in which the spiritual kingdoms of light, angelic beings, masters and natural beings acted in close relation with humans. A peaceful and creative time. But it seems that then man began to experiment with the power and force of his divine energy. They began to transform the forces in order to live new experiences, thus beginning the spiritual adventure. They condensed matter and introduced the cycle of life and death. Due to this material densification of experience, the two great forces that act in the universe -feminine and masculine- became unbalanced and began to measure themselves against one another. Giving rise to matriarchal cultures that oppressed the masculine force, and patriarchal cultures that equally subjugated the feminine force. The pendulum swung from one extreme to another. As the human being possessed free will, the spiritual hierarchy only acted through those people who gave their consent. The human being wanted to experience darkness and separation in order to appreciate and revere the light. For only he who has felt pain and sadness learns to value health and joy; only he who has wandered through the landscapes of darkness will appreciate the light; he who has lived in necessity, when times of abundance arrive, will value them especially. In this sense, man acquires his own awareness of his energies. According to the theosophists, a new time would be arriving, in which free will -one’s own will- is questioned. In which many people open themselves once again to original spiritual faculties, allowing a greater range of action for the spiritual hierarchy, as it is consciously perceived. Helena P. Blavatsky was capable of bringing her esoteric knowledge to a large number of people, when formerly these had necessarily been reserved for a select group of scholars. She claimed that she spoke with masters from the spiritual realm who accompanied her on her path of development, making her part of very important doctrines. She transmitted to her followers how the masters acted, and from then on it was spread throughout the world as the doctrine of the masters, angels and spiritual hierarchies. The masters would be intermediaries between man and the divine. As they had once walked the earth in human form, they were able to develop their consciousness. This group of incarnated masters has been called the White Brotherhood. The spiritual hierarchy, on the other hand, is an innumerable composition of enlightened beings, of spiritual and divine forces. They inhabit etheric realms from which they send their divine radiation; these realms would not yet be perceptible to the human eye. That is to say, they oscillate at a very high and rapid frequency. The faster an energy oscillates and the higher the level at which it does so, the more difficult it is to be perceived by human senses, which oscillate at slower levels and therefore can only perceive very limited frequencies. Anyone willing to open themselves to interdimensional communication can travel, from an inner level, to those places of light. When they are there, they experience a powerful loving and healing force, as well as acquiring teachings about universal truth -value, security, consolation, overcoming, inspiration, motivation, etc.- thus enriching everyday existence.
In 1919 Alice Bailey moved away from the theosophical society and broke all ties with it. The reasons concerned submission and dogmatic obedience that disciples owed to their master -H. Blavatsky-. By the end of that same year she began to write a series of texts -supposedly transmitted telepathically by a master who lived in Tibet named Djwal Khul-, such as the book Initiation, Human and Solar, where she made known the existence of the spiritual hierarchy that Madame Blavatsky had spread among her disciples, although never as organised as Bailey presented it. She would also present treatises on esoteric astrology, the human soul, healing, the inner world, the seven rays, chakras, etc. Despite her stance against the submissive master-disciple relationship, she took on disciples from 1931 onwards, to whom she assured that she was not any master, but that Djwal Khul and his hierarchy of lamas were the ones communicating everything she said. According to her, the desire of the Tibetan master was to establish an esoteric school whose members would have freedom, who would not be obliged to take oaths or commitments, but rather would be given meditation, studies and esoteric teachings, and from there they would have the freedom to make their own adjustments and interpret the truth according to their capacities. In this way, they would not be influenced or harmed if they listened to talks or read books without possessing the perception to recognise truth. This school was established in 1923, together with the help of her husband Foster Bailey. After several years, Alice closed her school. According to her, her students -not disciples- had not made use of her teachings. She even sent them a letter reminding them that her work did not consist in praising the ego and pride of the student, but rather in making them see their flaws. In her book The Rays and the Initiations -volume 5- she says the following about her students:
Why should I give them the mantra of will of the first ray if all they do is repeat it mechanically like parrots?
One of her most well-known contributions was the Treatise on the Seven Rays, composed in five volumes -from 1936 to 1960-. In her work, these seven rays -colours: the rainbowarise from a great cosmic ray -of the Sun- carried out within our skies, and that place would be the Great Bear, opposing the Pleiades -negative pole-. The star Sirius would be the central sun that balances such radiations. Each of these rays is a custodial receiver of the energies coming from seven solar systems and twelve constellations. According to electromagnetic theory, light is nothing more than a magnetic field that alternates and travels very rapidly through the universe in the form of waves. She affirmed that the seven rays that reach the Earth originate within the Solar Logos -the sun-. The seven rays focus on the Solar Logos, through Sirius and the seven stars in the Great Bear -and the sister stars of the Pleiades, which are found in the constellation of Taurus-, forming the Galactic Logos, which originates in the mind of God. She also adds that the seven rays are transmitted from the Solar Logos through the God who governs our planet, Sanat Kumara, and then through the spiritual hierarchy of our planet, the White Brotherhood. These seven rays are associated with a different type of occult energy and colour, and even with ascended masters. Alice describes these masters as beings who live in immortal bodies, having residences in physical planes, but each master had the ability to travel long distances incognito, and even to teleport, pass through walls, become invisible and influence human beings by travelling through inner planes. The doctrine of the seven rays is an esoteric philosophy believed to have been practised at least since 600 BC in India. These Aryan peoples spoke of the seven Prayapati or Rishi -Vedic era, 1200 BC-. Hindus believe that these beings dwell in the Great Big Dipper. Enter -Vishnu- into the seven solar rays that expand into seven suns, and the seven suns into which the seven solar rays expand in the consummation of all things. The Chaldeans also had a doctrine based on the seven Apkallu -2000 BC-. The Pleiades belong to the constellation of Taurus, and the face of this sacred bull is said to shine with seven rays of fire. In Christianity, the dove -Holy Spirit- is shown with an emanation of seven rays, as is the Virgin Mary. Could it be that the sacred triangle -among others with the same symbolism- was the geometric figure that represented solar worship -the Sun has three principal points of rising during the year: East, North-East and South-East- or cosmic ray? Could it be that when different governing bodies replaced the ancestral legacy, they imposed the triangle? Yes, the political order that establishes a hierarchical government based on the social pyramid. Where at the tip would be kings and priesthood, and at the base the people, managed by classes: nobles, bourgeois and poor. And what was the social structure they replaced? That of the sacred circle -the circle of the earth-. Power resided in the community, and the circle was the worship of universal principles.
Helena Blavatsky described the seven primordial rays as a group of celestial beings known as gods, angels or powers. And she affirmed that the symbolism was adopted by the Judeo-Christian religion as the seven angels of the presence. Alice Bailey stated that each person has a soul ray that remains the same throughout the incarnation, and also a personality ray that differs in each incarnation.
If you were born on a Sunday, your personal ray is blue. If you were born on a Monday, your personal ray is yellow. If you were born on a Tuesday, your personal ray is pink. If you were born on a Wednesday, your personal ray is white. If you were born on a Thursday, your personal ray is green. If you were born on a Friday, your personal ray is gold-ruby. And if you were born on a Saturday, your personal ray will be violet.
Each ray corresponds with masters -chohan-, planets, cycles, places, cultures, etc. The doctrine of the seven rays would form the basis of what Alice called New Age psychology. The Armenian metaphysician Gurdjieff -1842-1949- also wrote about the seven rays of creation. According to the philosopher, these seven rays would be the seven manifestations of energy in our universe. In total, there would be seven rays of incarnation and five occult rays. Our soul incarnates in the body of one of these seven rays, resulting in the occult ray of the soul; there would also be the ray of personality or life, the ray of the mental body, the ray of the emotional body and the ray of the physical body. There is no hierarchical difference between the rays, they simply possess different qualities. As mentioned, each of the seven rays has a group of ascended masters connected to it; these masters of the rays have been called Chohans -they work with the attributes and principles corresponding to their rays-. In short, the doctrine of the seven rays considers that the concept of the masculine and the feminine are inseparable, in order for the divine force to be complete. God would not be only our Father, but Father/Mother, Son/Daughter and Holy Spirit/Active Love. The forces are comparable to one another if they meet. Each man carries within himself a feminine part, just as every woman carries within herself a masculine part. Each person should therefore attempt to balance both forces within, assigning them an equal and at the same time homogeneous place -yin yang-. This is the basis that, according to the theosophists, will flourish as a new golden age full of peace.
