Knowledge of Life One
5. THE PLANETARY HIERARCHY
5. THE PLANETARY HIERARCHY
1Mankind consists of individuals (monads) who have acquired causal envelopes (47) and have thereby passed from the animal to the human kingdom (from the third to the fourth natural kingdom).
2The hierarchy of our planet consists of individuals who have acquired essential envelopes (46) and have thereby passed from the fourth to the fifth natural kingdom.
3There are four degrees in the planetary hierarchy: individuals who have envelopes and full consciousness in worlds 46, 45, 44, and 43. Those in worlds 46 and 45 are said to belong to the fifth natural kingdom; and those in worlds 44 and 43, to the sixth natural kingdom, or the first (or lowest) divine kingdom. In the fifth natural kingdom, the individual has his monad centred in his second triad; in the sixth natural kingdom, in his third triad. The fifth natural kingdom consists of causal selves, essential selves (46-selves), and superessential selves (45-selves). The sixth natural kingdom consists of 44-selves and 43-selves.
4The hierarchy dwells in the worlds 43–46, of which world 46 is part of our planetary system and worlds 43–45 are part of the entire solar system. Those who work with the planetary evolution, however, have a firm anchorage in the physical world of the planet (49:1). This is true of the planetary hierarchy as well as of the planetary government.
5The planetary government consists of individuals who belong to the second (36–42) and third (29–35) cosmic kingdoms and can at need consult those in the fourth (22–28). All these kingdoms develop. All strive to eventually achieve the consciousness in their next higher atomic kind. With each higher kind of consciousness their capacity increases on a fantastic scale. A planetary ruler needs an entire planet in order to get an outlet for his capacity (full sovereignty in 21 dimensions) in a purposeful manner. The degree of difficulty of the problems which they have to solve in this endeavour increases with each higher atomic world. Moreover, they have to fulfil various functions concerning the three aspects of lower worlds and kingdoms, particularly in respect of evolution and its conditions. All this is in accordance with the Law (the sum total of all laws of nature and laws of life in the different worlds).
6This process can be described in various ways, depending on which one of the three aspects of existence (the matter, motion, or consciousness aspect) we choose as our starting-point. For those who have a scientific orientation, the matter aspect is the most natural, and is, besides, the easiest to comprehend for everybody. People, especially Westerners, are so ignorant of the motion and consciousness aspects, also their expressions in the worlds of man, that any mention of the higher kinds of consciousness of higher material worlds will just be misunderstood. We must be content with the fact that from world 46 (the essential world) on, the consciousness expansion of the individual implies subjective and objective omniscience in the world concerned and all lower worlds, with a common participation in the consciousness of all beings and a possibility of complete knowledge of the past of these worlds. The attempts man has made to comprehend this have always degenerated into imaginative speculation. What lies beyond the possible human experience remains incomprehensible, although it provides emotional thinking with opportunities of ecstatic excesses so cherished by mystics and yogis.
7Essential energy (46) manifests itself partly as aspiration to unity ("love"), partly as wisdom. Love is what unites the planetary hierarchy with mankind. Wisdom unites the hierarchy with the planetary government. This explains why "love is the path to god".
8The planetary hierarchy receives directions from the planetary government, which is subordinate to the solar systemic government, which in its turn belongs under the successively higher divine kingdoms of the cosmic organization.
9The hierarchy is divided into seven departments, and the individuals in the pertaining worlds belong to some one of these seven. Each department works with its special kind of motion and consciousness.
10The matter–energy–consciousness currents from departments 1, 4 and 5 are the most important for man's mental development at his present stage of development; 2 and 6 for his emotional life; and 3 and 7 for his physical life.
11In all the higher natural kingdoms every individual is a distinct individual character. Unity is determined by everything's accordance with law, which is the necessary condition of the absolutely frictionless harmony. Without the knowledge of the Law and the ability of exact application of the Law, the cosmos would degenerate into chaos.
12All members of the planetary hierarchy are servants of life in the planet to which they belong. Their task is to supervise the consciousness development of the individuals, the transmigration of the monads from kingdom to kingdom, to give man the knowledge he needs for his development on his level. Perhaps this sounds easy to those who do not suspect how many factors they must consider in doing this. It is no use for the ignorant of life to make appeals or claims. When the individual has done his share, which he has seldom done, then he can with certainty count on getting his share too. It is not possible for any man to propose a better order of things. The cosmic organization works with unfailing precision according to all the laws of nature and laws of life in existence.
13Almost all individuals belonging to the planetary hierarchy are incarnated in human organisms. Mankind is unaware of this. They do not make themselves known, for in so doing they would jeopardize their mission in life. Mankind is too primitive for such knowledge. When an influential minority is sufficiently advanced to understand their mission and realize their indispensable importance for human consciousness development, for continued civilization and culture, and sufficiently numerous to keep ignorance, barbarism, and other primitivity within bounds, then they will be able to reappear as in Atlantis.
14Even in Atlantis the planetary hierarchy tried to make men acquire attractive emotional consciousness. Still – after fifty thousand years – mankind has not advanced any further. So consciousness development certainly is a slow business.
15At present, the planetary hierarchy is busily preparing for its reappearance. It therefore exhorts all its disciples to spread the knowledge of its existence. That knowledge is of a great importance, for it directs mankind's longing for a helper in its need to a concrete object and a factor existing in reality.
16In the following, some brief data are given on the planetary hierarchy, its organization, its mission to give men knowledge of reality and life (the only chance they have to get real knowledge), and to help men to activate the various kinds of superconsciousness themselves.
1Life is transformation, ever new kinds of experience in new relations of life. Standstill and crystallization hamper consciousness development. Change affords opportunities of liberation from things of lower levels.
2All develop, all in higher kingdoms as well. The planetary hierarchy today knows more than it knew a zodiacal epoch ago. It has itself acquired a vaster knowledge of worlds 43–46. It has also learnt still more about human evolution, about mankind's possibilities of misunderstanding ever more.
3Within the planetary hierarchy there are two categories: researchers who deepen the knowledge of their worlds, and teachers who impart to disciples ever more of the knowledge which they are able to receive, those disciples who want to understand ever more, also in order to be increasingly competent teachers themselves. What the researchers find benefits all the others, of course.
4You should be clear about the fact that nobody is born a teacher. It is not enough that you comprehend and understand for yourself. It is a special capability to make others comprehend, to teach so that "even an idiot may grasp it". The acquisition of that ability requires many incarnations. Most people have experience of teachers who lacked that ability, and of others who could put things into perspective, show how they were parts of a greater whole, put the subject into living reality, make it as exciting as a detective story.
5Omniscience of and in a world everybody must acquire himself, or, if it has been communicated by others, re-examine himself. Astrologers in the hierarchy ascertain vibrations coming in from the zodiac, the planets, and even other solar systems. It is one of the tasks of the planetary hierarchy to utilize these energies for the evolution of lower kingdoms (with everything that the word "evolution" implies).
6Those members of the planetary hierarchy who have acquired 42-consciousness have seven alternatives of further consciousness development to choose between, corresponding to the seven cosmic departments.
7Our solar system makes up a cosmic globe in conjunction with six other solar systems. The 42-self's choice of department determines which one of these seven he will choose. If he prefers to remain in his own solar system, then he passes automatically into the planetary government or as a "neophyte" into the solar systemic government.
8The three highest cosmic kingdoms (atomic worlds 1–7, 8–14, 15–21) can be safely omitted from all expositions, since not even the planetary hierarchy knows more about them than that they exist and are the grounds and causes of the cosmic manifestation. The individuals who have attained these kingdoms have no contact with those in the worlds of the solar system (43–49). They fulfil no functions in the four lowest cosmic kingdoms (22–28, 29–35, 36–42, 43–49).
1There are two other main kinds of hierarchies, hierarchies for the matter aspect and for the motion aspect. At their disposal are billions of evolutionary beings at various stages of development on the various parallel evolutionary paths. Only rebel mankind refuses to its own detriment to participate in the evolutionary work and has made life in the physical world the hell it is.
2The evolution of the monads (primordial atoms) takes place in seven parallel evolutionary streams, one of which is that passing through the human kingdom. Since each evolutionary stream has its own supervising hierarchy, there are seven planetary hierarchies, if you include among the hierarchies the monads who have become 46-selves, acquired 46-consciousness, entered into the fifth natural kingdom. Information is only available on two of these seven paths of evolution: the human and the deva evolutions. The planetary hierarchy mentioned in esoterics supervises the human evolutionary stream, consciousness development in the four lowest natural kingdoms.
3All the seven hierarchies mentioned belong under the planetary government, which thus is common to all within the planet. The hierarchies are executives that work according to directions given them by the planetary government.
4The planetary hierarchy's sphere of activity is within the consciousness aspect, concerning the consciousness development in human individuals, nations, races, as well as in lower natural kingdoms. The tasks that fall within the law of reaping belong to the deva hierarchy (the deva evolution within our planetary system, comprising about 200 billion individuals as compared to the 60 billion of mankind). Its tasks belong to the matter and motion aspects. It is impossible for mankind to contact it.
5The planetary hierarchy is called so in contrast to those "hierarchies" which mankind sometimes sees fit to invent.
6The Augoeides and the Protogonoi belong to the deva evolution but cooperate with the planetary hierarchy.
7"Nirmanakaya" is a common term of a series of successively higher beings (the lowest ones being essential selves, 46-selves), whose function it is to scale down the cosmic energies into systemic and planetary ones. They serve (to use technical terms) as "transformers" and "accumulators". They do not concern themselves with individuals or their consciousness development. Of course, incurable human presumption and belief in its own discernment (the belief that brainwaves and fancies accord with reality) has concocted a lot of unreliable statements about them as about everything else.
1The planetary hierarchy is a perfect organization. By this is meant that everybody knows his place without "appointments". No orders are given in the hierarchy, because no orders are needed. A general plan is discussed at conferences (at which all put forward their viewpoints), until all are clear about what they have to do. The principles which follow automatically from the laws of life are self-evident. If questions arise which require higher insight, the answers are received immediately. Other requisite knowledge can be obtained from the subconscious of the higher selves without the need of taking up their attention. The common knowledge in every world exists in its globe memory. A 45-self can instantly get to know everything he does not know about everything in worlds 45–49. World 45 is the lowest world that is common to all the planets in the solar system.
2The planetary hierarchy is divided into seven departments in the fifth natural kingdom and three departments in the sixth kingdom. However, this applies only to those who fulfil special functions in connection with the activity of the organization. In actual fact, there are representatives of all the seven departments in all the worlds of the hierarchy.
3The best analogy of the organization of the planetary hierarchy is seven central civil service departments with appurtenant subdivisions ("offices") consisting of officials of various degrees.
4These seven authorities are in certain respects working independently on evolution (biological as well as consciousness evolution) but are in other respects under the control of the planetary government, which supervises them all and from time to time gives necessary directions to be worked out in detail in the departments.
5The corresponding is true of the cosmic organization with its six ever higher kinds of governments. Our entire cosmos is a perfect organization since long ago.
6The second department of the planetary hierarchy is usually called the department of education. This has no bearing on the matters belonging to school or university, but rather to all attempts made by the hierarchy to impart reality ideas (Platonic ideas), to present esoteric knowledge to mankind.
7A complete re-organization of the planetary hierarchy is in progress. Henceforth, 45-selves will not, as hitherto, be able to take beginners. A large-scale incarnation in the West of individuals at the stages of humanity, ideality, and essentiality is foreseen. The task of these ancient disciples is to be teachers of aspirants, the number of whom will increase according as esoterics attracts more attention and is more closely studied. In this way an esoteric "university" is obtained instead of the ancient knowledge orders. In this connection it should be pointed out that the Indian yoga schools, led by yogis of various kinds, have not issued from the esoteric knowledge orders, and therefore their yoga philosophy was never in agreement with the knowledge systems taught in the planetary hierarchy's orders instituted by 46-selves.
1The planetary hierarchy is omniscient in the solar system. It waits, with infinite patience, for mankind to develop so far that it realizes universal brotherhood, the will to unity, overcomes hatred, and is working for the evolution of consciousness. When this is a fact, all its knowledge will be put at the disposal of mankind. Before then, as long as men are blindly striving for wealth, glory, power, etc., they will always abuse their power (everybody according to his possibilities), and so long mankind must live in appearances, wander in darkness.
2The planetary hierarchy has sufficient experience of the impossibility of conferring power to anyone who has not acquired consciousness of unity (46). Knowledge of the Law is not enough, for the Law is always set aside as long as the individual does not live in order to serve the whole. It is not enough to serve an ideal, an idea, a church, or anything that is a part of the whole.
3The members of the planetary hierarchy, consciously sharing in the total consciousness, regard any talk of individual consciousness as a proof of life ignorance. Even self-consciousness is to them nothing more than self-identity. There is no isolated consciousness. The requirements for entry to their hierarchy are constantly tightened up according as more and more people reach the stages of culture, humanity, and ideality. Also among members of the hierarchy the understanding of all things in life increases automatically. There is no standstill in the hierarchy either. The ideas of the world of Platonic ideas increase according as more and more causal selves bring their experience into it, and the corresponding is true of higher worlds. The very cosmic total consciousness is nothing more than the common experience of all monads, which must increase constantly as long as the cosmos exists, must be enriched by the individual conceptions of all.
445-selves and higher selves are infallible in their conception of the present and the past. However, where the future and its possibilities are concerned, even the planetary hierarchy can make miscalculations. This is clear from the fact that there are often different views within the hierarchy as to the suitability of desirable measures. What makes exactitude impossible is the law of freedom and the unpredictability of individual actions. If everything were predetermined, as many philosophers have thought, then mistakes would be impossible.
5The planetary hierarchy's precalculations of the future are based on its knowledge of the past, of what exists in the present, and of those cosmic departmental energies which are to pour through the planet during a zodiacal epoch as well as the realizations they are intended to make possible.
1Our god is the planetary ruler at the head of the planetary government. Besides its work for its own consciousness development, the planetary government supervises the material process of the planet, the consciousness evolution of the six natural kingdoms, and the infallible application of the laws of life. The individuals of all kingdoms have to solve their problems themselves according to the law of self-realization, and are supervised by billions of individuals belonging to the deva evolution, who evolve by doing this work. Where man is concerned, these devas administer both the law of destiny and the law of reaping. This entire organization is working according to the laws of nature and of life, wherefore arbitrariness and injustice are absolutely precluded. It should be evident from this that the prevalent ideas of god are the imaginative speculations of ignorance.
2The planetary government adapts the cosmic energies (the energies of the seven cosmic departments) to planetary needs and very often after asking for the suggestions of the planetary hierarchy. Both the planetary government and the planetary hierarchy are evolutionary kingdoms that develop by having experiences and working them up, by acquiring qualities and abilities with a view to reaching higher kingdoms, by obtaining knowledge of the laws of higher kingdoms and by faultlessly applying the laws of lower kingdoms.
3The fact that probability is a law might at first surprise those who are ignorant of the accommodatory laws of existence. It is inescapable in connection with the law of consciousness development, which implies relative imperfection in all the kingdoms except the highest one.
4Both the planetary government and the hierarchy can be regarded as energy centres from which energies pour down through the lower worlds. The energies of the planetary government are cosmic and interplanetary and are taken charge of by the hierarchy for planetary use. The energies received from the government are especially related to the motion aspect, energy aspect, will aspect, the impelling force in events and individuals. They make it possible for individuals in lower kingdoms to utilize dynamis, the absolute energy of which must be scaled down through the different worlds in order not to act destructively and dissolve the material composition. As free energy dynamis acts destructively.
5For entry to the planetary government acquisition of cosmic consciousness is required. This means at least 42-consciousness. Of course 43-selves are unrestrictedly admitted to the government for constantly recurring deliberations.
6The members of the planetary government belong to three different cosmic kingdoms (22–28, 29–35, 36–42); thus are at most 22-selves and at least 42-selves. Fortunately we have no knowledge of their functions, for we lack all possibilities of comprehending anything of these, and, moreover, ineradicable conceited human imaginative speculation would, as usual, idiotize it all.
7What the envelopes are for man (opportunities of learning) the planet with its worlds and their content of natural kingdoms, parallel evolutions etc., are for the members of the planetary government. Although every one of them has his particular function, they profit by the experience of all the others. By function is meant the full utilization of one's own abilities in current life processes. In so doing they acquire the qualifications of fulfilling ever greater functions in the cosmic processes of manifestation. By receiving "energies" from higher cosmic kingdoms and utilizing them purposefully they also assimilate their "nature". In serving they acquire ever greater insight and ability. This is a thing which the disciple learns to realize.
8Because of the immense power the black lodge wields through the continuing idiotization of mankind (in religion, philosophy, and science - not to mention politics) and the extreme situation mankind is in at the verge of self-destruction of all physical life, those 43-selves who have become 42-selves, at the request of the planetary ruler have decided to enter the government and remain in it until "the crisis" has been overcome and the planetary hierarchy has been able to reappear as the guide of evolution on our planet.
9A 43-self has to acquire consciousness in 42 additional worlds, cosmic worlds. But that does not mean that such selves would be in any way unqualified for their tasks within the planet and the solar system. They are fully competent to faultlessly judge all conditions within their sphere of activity. Their ignorance concerns cosmic conditions, and that is quite another thing. A rule that applies in the cosmic organization is that nobody is charged with a function that he is not fully competent to judge. Moreover, the supervision effected through the series of higher selves precludes any mistake.
10Theosophical writers have, unwisely, discussed "the failure of the Buddha" (an unhappy expression, besides), mentioned in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine. That was no failure on account of ignorance or incompetence. It was a change of mind – to remain in the planet instead of leaving it for other tasks. Such an action necessitates rearrangements of the plans of other individuals as well and is considered "inappropriate". We human beings, however, should be grateful for it.
11Those individuals, who have become manifestal selves (43-selves) and so have acquired full subjective and objective consciousness in the worlds of the solar system, as a rule leave our solar system on their acquisition of 42-consciousness (the lowest kind of cosmic consciousness).
12The planetary hierarchy has sometimes called solar systemic worlds 43–49 "cosmic physical", worlds 36–42 "cosmic emotional", worlds 29–35 "cosmic mental", partly for lack of other terms of these worlds, partly because of existing analogies and relations. Perhaps the spread of such terms, duly distorted, makes people drivel about their "cosmic consciousness" when they become clairvoyant (have acquired emotional objective consciousness in 48:4-7).
1"The ancients" (initiates) called the planet Venus "the morning star" (not the evening star) as well as "Lucifer" (he who brought "the light", the knowledge to our planet). By order of the solar systemic government the Venusian planetary government relinquished some of its members, who took over the management of our planet when biological evolution had reached so far that the brain of "ape-man" could begin to be mentalized. This was 21 million years ago. The direct result of this was that the apes could begin to causalize (pass from the third to the fourth kingdom by acquiring causal envelopes). The prerequisite of the transfer was, of course, that Venus was enormously far ahead of Tellus in developmental respect. In fact, the mankind of Venus is the only mankind in the solar system that concludes its evolution in the current aeon.
2The individuals of the fifth natural kingdom must of course have appeared as "gods" to mankind in Lemuria and Atlantis. A relic of this view recurs in the talk of "the kingdom of god" in reference to that future event when "the supermen" of the planetary hierarchy will reappear.
3In its incredible foolishness and presumption mankind banished the planetary hierarchy whose function it was to help men with their problems: social, economic, etc. problems, which mankind will always fail to solve until it persuades itself to call its true leaders back. Since then the planetary hierarchy has been able to help only through imperfect human tools who have been rejected, they too. The hierarchy still continues to help in the ways that are at hand: transference of ideas into brains that are receptive to them. The fact that many of those under inspiration have thought themselves to be the authors of their more or less ingenious ideas is just a proof of the total ignorance of life prevalent.
4All true knowledge of existence beyond the visible world is a gift of the planetary hierarchy.
5Knowledge orders were instituted after the planetary hierarchy (who in Atlantis made up "the higher priesthood") was banished by the elite educated in the temple schools of the hierarchy. It became apparent that the knowledge which confers power (the knowledge of the motion aspect) is abused by all who are capable of using it for their own good. That lust for power is strengthened by fear, ambition, greed, envy, and vengefulness (the strongest expressions of hatred). The expression "sin against the holy spirit" has, as always, been misinterpreted by the theologians. Its meaning was "hatred in all its life expressions" (D.K.).
6The relatively harmless part of the esoteric knowledge (treating of the matter and consciousness aspects) has been allowed for publication since the year 1875. One might think that mankind would have received this "revelation" with gratitude. Instead, it has been met with frenetic opposition from all those who have been content with some one of the fiction systems even when they realize its insufficiency. They have not even cared to examine the reality content and explanatory resources of hylozoics.
7Only those who have been initiated into some one of the esoteric knowledge orders of the planetary hierarchy have known about the existence of the hierarchy. Ever since the year 1875, more and more facts belonging to the esoteric knowledge have gradually been allowed for publication. Regrettably, writers who were not qualified for this task tried to compile these originally too few facts into systems. The result of this was a series of exposes, which equally injudicious readers (everybody relying on his authority) dogmatized, thereby giving rise to the usual sectarianism.
8Confusion has also been wrought by the use of the term "esoteric", ever since it was publicly known, to embellish all manner of religio-philosophical quasi-knowledge. Mystics and occultists of many kinds nowadays call themselves esotericians, although this term originally was used only in reference to those who possess esoteric knowledge (hylozoics) latently and when studying it immediately recognize that it concords with reality.
9Of course the planetary hierarchy has not restricted itself merely to instituting knowledge orders for the elite. Its members have also made frequent attempts to present mankind with life views adapted to prevalent general ways of looking at things, with the intention of orienting in life and establishing norms for purposeful action and frictionless social life. Enterprising "spiritual leaders" made these views systems, and the powers that be made them the phenomena which we call religions.
10The history of religion shows how these systems of orientation were formed into inflexible, sacred dogmatic systems with the immense power such things have over a life-ignorant mankind at the lower emotional stage. This history shows how almost impossible it has been to discard misconceptions that have once slipped in, however absurd, however hostile to common sense and the most elementary humanity they have been.
11Buddhism is in many respects a misstatement of the teaching of the Buddha. Islam is in many respects a misinterpretation of Muhammad's teaching. But no religion has as thoroughly misunderstood the teaching of its author as has Christianity. The Buddha warned, fruitlessly of course, against the writings which men called "sacred". They have been the curse of mankind.
12Buddhism was the first attempt to mentalize religion. Everything preceding it (Taoism, for instance) belonged to mysticism. Christos–Maitreya made use of the cosmic vibrations from the zodiacal constellation of Pisces in order to establish a path of communication between emotionality (the typical 6th department) and essentiality (2nd department). The history of religion shows those who possess sufficient understanding that both the Buddha and Christos failed in their attempts.
13In our times, a new attempt was made (Blavatsky, 1875) to awaken the intelligentsia, who at the time were generally beginning to recognize that philosophy (the human intellect) was unable to solve the "enigma of existence". But the concerted, furious attack from theologians, philosophers, and scientists thwarted also this endeavour. However, the planetary hierarchy has decided to let entire clans of old initiates incarnate and to take up the battle itself against the satanists, who have hitherto been all but sovereign masters in the physical and emotional worlds. Mankind shall not need to grope in the dark any more. The knowledge of reality shall be given to the seekers, so that nobody need to be ignorant any more that such a knowledge is obtainable. The satanists of course make a desperate attempt to stop the teaching, and even though the struggle be long, the outcome is assured after the planetary hierarchy has decided to engage all its powers in the terrible tug of war.
14Confronted with the contemporary total disorientation in respect of knowledge and the impending chaos, which is matchless in history and threatens all mankind, the planetary hierarchy has seriously considered the possibility of reappearing, should it be possible to bring about the necessary conditions for this. Having waited about twelve thousand years the planetary hierarchy now makes new preparations for its return. Intimations of these ancient plans made in the esoteric knowledge order of the gnosticians were misconceived as was everything else and resulted in the legend of the "imminent return of Christ", of "judgement day", of "the millennium", and other follies.
15The preconditions of its new appearance are in brief that it will be welcomed by the intellectually leading portion of mankind, who have of course recognized the ideological sovereignty of hylozoics and have taken the requisite planetary actions. By then, mankind will have reached the Sokratean insight and realized that it is incapable of "managing its own affairs".
16Inevitably the day will come when the esoteric knowledge is generally recognized to be the only rational working hypothesis. The planetary hierarchy can return when there are esotericians in every nation, in every political party, in every social group, in every religious sect. When this realization has become sufficiently widespread, then it will be turned into public opinion. "The kingdom of god" will come when the planetary hierarchy can appear again.
17It should perhaps be pointed out that the planetary hierarchy has always existed in the physical world. Contrary to many people's assumption, it has not needed to retreat to some heaven from where to observe the path of suffering which mankind has chosen to wander. All the higher worlds exist in the physical world of our planet. The place where the planetary hierarchy resides will remain unknown to incurable curiosity. Suffice it to say that it is absolutely inaccessible to self-invited guests. It should be noted that the Jews, on returning from Babylon, monopolized the cosmic father of all as well as the king of the planet. The king's residence (unknown to them) was called the heavenly Jerusalem, and the king himself was given the name of Melchizedek.
18The planetary hierarchy has also made extensive preparations for making mankind realize, if possible, that its illusion and fiction systems are worthless and also for developing the requisite common sense. The hierarchy makes entire clans at the stage of humanity incarnate to orient in reality in as many respects as possible.
1The planetary hierarchy has its tasks (its "plans") concerning consciousness activation in the four lower natural kingdoms. The planetary government supervises all three aspects within the planet. The solar systemic government has the corresponding task in the matter of all the planets and their reciprocal actions. The higher the kingdom, the more extensive are of course the "plans".
2Tellus, this "planet of sorrow", gives them particular worry. The physical and emotional worlds are in the power of the black ones, and mankind listens most eagerly to the voice proclaiming that the glory of the earth is the only thing worth striving for, blind to the meaning of life, unaware that it will in unnecessary incarnations constantly hunt the same chimeras, ignorant of and indifferent to its consciousness development. When will mankind awaken, realize its folly of having banished the only ones who are capable of furnishing true knowledge of reality, of solving the problems which mankind will never be able to solve, of being the true guides out of the labyrinth? For twelve thousand years the planetary hierarchy has waited for the possibility of returning in order to help a disoriented mankind and to liberate mankind from the dark powers that blind it.
3The entire evolution is made possible through the work of higher kingdoms. Without the interventions of the planetary hierarchy in the consciousness development of the monads (on a planet like ours, being the abode of monads with a repulsive basic tendency), this development would require an incalculable number of eons accompanied with recurrent wholesale destructions like those of Lemuria and Atlantis. From that point of view it is thus justified to speak of "the grace of god".
4The energies which we need for our development pour down into mankind through the planetary hierarchy, since its function is to supervise consciousness development on our planet. It is from the planetary hierarchy that we receive all the facts about reality and life.
5The energies that are needed for the continuance of life, biological evolution, etc., we receive from the planetary government.
6The concept of god was an attempt to impress mankind with the idea that it is higher powers that form and maintain our visible universe with everything therein. The fact that this concept was later satanized and the theological absurdities were accepted, just shows mankind's total lack of a knowledge of reality, total lack of common sense.
7All ideas that lead mankind forward are hierarchical ideas (KR 2.17), coming from the planetary hierarchy. They begin as causal ideas and become mentalized. As mental ideas they are embraced by thinkers who incorporate them with their systems, so that the intelligentsia may assimilate them. Subsequently they are popularized (emotionalized) so that they are attractive to public opinion. It is by performing such tasks, among others, that workers on various levels may regard themselves as servers of evolution.
8"The world's history is the world's judgement." This originally esoteric expression is fully justified. There are innumerable examples (easily ascertained) of the effects of the law of reaping even in exoteric world history. The most serious one is the path of suffering that mankind has trodden in ignorance and barbarism, idiocy and bestiality, ever since the planetary hierarchy was banished.
9Not all members of the planetary hierarchy supervise human consciousness development. There are for them missions in life without number, functions of which mankind in its enormous ignorance of life is quite unaware and would not even be able to comprehend.
10All members of the planetary hierarchy are independent explorers of the three aspects of existence in their worlds, even though the result of everybody's work is available to and benefits all. Those who supervise consciousness development in the human kingdom have various tasks, they too: supervision of mass development, of workers in religion, philosophy, science and technology, of those who have reached the stage of humanity and are approaching the fifth natural kingdom, of workers in social, political, cultural spheres, etc.
11The members of the planetary hierarchy, too, must develop, not least in order to enable individuals in higher kingdoms to pass to still higher kingdoms when they are able to do this and their functions can be taken over by their successors. Therefore they must give the most of their attention to their own development. This entails that they can devote themselves to men just five days in the moon period ("the month"; two days before and two days after full-moon). Their disciples who want to contact them then are taught the procedure that makes a contact possible. Of course this presupposes that they have activated subjective causal consciousness.
12All life activity has its particular periodicity. Man has much to learn from this law by studying the life of nature and of consciousness: day and night, work and rest, attention and relaxation, etc. ad infinitum.
13There are always representatives of the planetary hierarchy in physical incarnation (avatars). At the present stage of mankind's development they must remain unknown to all except their disciples.
14Now that the esoteric knowledge of existence has been made exoteric (far more of it than mankind is able to work up and assimilate in hundreds of years) the planetary hierarchy does not intend to give individual instruction or special training. Henceforward that will be the business of men.
15So called god's guidance in men's life consists in two kinds of supervision, according to the law of destiny and to the law of reaping. The law of destiny might also be called the law of upbringing, and the law of reaping the law of retribution, if these terms were not misleading.
16"Upbringing" is effected according to the individual's own desire and striving. "Retribution" has bearing on the good and evil thoughts, feelings, and deeds of past lives.
17Special attention may be reckoned on only by those who have the necessary qualifications for making a real contribution to consciousness development or to supranational work for unity.
1All individuals in higher kingdoms are "functionaries". Every one of them has a particular function to fulfil, an assigned task to perform like an official in a ministry. They are also supposed to work for their further development in order to acquire consciousness in the next higher world. They are teachers as well, instructors of collaborators in the worlds of man, causal selves whose chief mission in life is to serve mankind in accordance with the laws of life they know of. Furthermore they exceptionally take as extra disciples such mental selves as have acquired perspective consciousness and such a high percentage of the requisite qualities and abilities that they stand a chance of becoming causal selves within a reasonable number of incarnations. The twenty-four hours from one day's end to another hardly suffice for all this work, even though their capacity for work is a thousandfold greater than that of a man. The first thing a disciple has to learn is never to bother them with any personal difficulty whatever, never to ask them any favour whatever, never to attract their attention unless it concerns a vital human question, a problem that must be solved at once. It is the teacher that enters into communication with the disciple, not the other way round.
2When a 45-self finds that some particular work for the illumination or uplift of mankind is of importance, then he looks about in mankind to see who possesses the particular qualifications for doing this fairly satisfactorily. If this individual is willing, then he will be "inspired" with the mental ideas that he is able to apprehend. It matters not in the least whether the individual is a saint or an "unworthy creature" in the eyes of men; the one thing that matters is that he has the capacity for the task. Generally, the inspiring individual is not the 45-self himself but some causal self acting as an intermediary. The willing worker is seldom aware of the cause of this sudden interest of his.
3Those in higher kingdoms are individuals with an individuality. The common consciousness of course precludes every possibility of misunderstanding. However, this consciousness presents no obstacle to divergences of opinion in all matters where exactitude is impossible and only probability is possible. For instance, this is the case with problems concerning measures to be taken for the consciousness development of mankind. According to the law of freedom, mankind has a "free will" to defy all calculations. Our mankind, in particular, has a curious aptitude for choosing in its thought and action the one wrong thing, the craziest alternative.
4In the planetary hierarchy there are often divergent opinions about the expediency of measures to be taken in regard to mankind. Some members are more circumspect than others who credit mankind with faculties of rightly understanding and using knowledge and energies put at man's disposal. Sometimes the former prove right, sometimes the latter.
5One thing must be laid down. The plan for evolution shall be implemented and is also being implemented. When and how this is done, however, depends on mankind, the only kingdom that can counteract the plan and also manages to do so to an amazingly high degree. Therefore, it is almost impossible for the planetary hierarchy to state exact points of time for the implementation of the various details of the plan. It is to be understood that this entails a constant rearrangement of the requisite measures. Mankind does its best to thwart all measures. It prays to god that he do everything that, according to the law, mankind must do itself. And the granting of wishes that is possible is not accepted, but the good is counteracted in almost all respects. Thus the planetary hierarchy has abundant opportunity to ascertain mankind's lack of understanding and good will (common sense).
6Add to this the fact that men wonder that god does not do a lot of things, which according to the law he cannot do, and lose their "faith in god". Well, losing that kind of faith in that kind of god is rather a gain. A long and efficient development of reason is needed before men will be able to "believe" right. As long as such a theology as the current one can be accepted, all mental prerequisites are lacking.
7The planetary hierarchy is always full of plans for the helping of mankind, the helping of races, nations, cultures, sciences, everything that can be done to make consciousness development possible and to facilitate it. Strange as it may seem, two laws of life limit the hierarchy's activity: the law of freedom and the law of self-realization. (The law of reaping falls outside the hierarchy's sphere of action.) It is a task which to an esoterician seems almost hopeless, considering the almost total disorientation in reality and life, those illusions and fictions contrary to the laws of life and common sense, which continually and anew cross the plans of the hierarchy, bringing them to nothing. Those individuals who can instinctively or consciously (by serving in accordance with the law) contribute to this meet with very little understanding and are even counteracted by those who ought to know better.
8Disciples, especially those having the first department in their causal envelope or triad envelope, often make the mistake of thinking out their own plans according to the kinds of services they are able to offer. They learn eventually to appreciate the wisdom of working with that overall plan for the organized work which the planetary hierarchy alone can mark out.
9The planetary hierarchy's plan for mankind in its entirety is that mankind realize universal brotherhood, the unity and cooperation of all and everybody. There is no mysticism in its work, but it is sober, matter-of-fact, purposive common sense. We need not "unite with god", since we are co-partners in the unity of the cosmic total consciousness. We realize this divine state by realizing the unity with all life. That is the one true religion, which has become so totally bungled and twisted. The individual who is ahead of mankind in his development has reached the fifth natural kingdom by realizing unity for himself. When all mankind has acquired the will to unity, then the work for consciousness development will be an automatic procedure, because the goal is the world of unity, the world of love, which we realize automatically in the physical world, "the heavenly kingdom on earth".
10As for the future, the planetary hierarchy starts from the plan existing in the present which it intends to implement. The essentials of the plan, that which makes further evolution possible, are always carried out. This does not mean, however, that the plan will always be implemented either as the planetary hierarchy has conceived or at the time calculated. The two factors which time and again have thwarted the calculations of the hierarchy are the ignorance and opposition of mankind and the immense opportunities of the black lodge to influence human egoism.
11Esoteric history shows that the mankind of our planet with its repulsive basic tendency (except, perhaps, ten percent) has done its utmost to counteract evolution (has abused both knowledge and power) and has succeeded in this beyond expectation. Also the minority mentioned has in its injudicious belief in fatuous paper popes chosen the longest possible roundabout way.
12The current exoteric historical way of looking at things ties up the future to the past, not understanding that all life is change, that all exoteric ways of looking at things are temporary.
13No higher kingdoms set the tempo of evolution, but mankind. Those who will for development work themselves up to the elite, the highest stage of human development. In so doing they demonstrate to the planetary hierarchy what prospects of development gradually exist for mankind. And it is to this elite that the planetary hierarchy adapts its guidance of consciousness development. The laggards, who do not want or cannot keep up with the tempo of evolution, may lag behind to continue on another planet, possibly in another solar system, when that time will come.
14A common misconception is that mankind's cry for help rouses higher kingdoms to intervene. As if they had not foreseen the need long ago! Mankind has nothing to teach them. It is not worth-while to take extra measures, however, unless mankind is ripe to perceive the help given, wherever it comes from, and use it rightly. Higher kingdoms are willing to help, but the help given must further evolution. Else it will lead astray.
15The planetary hierarchy works for the "salvation" of all mankind, not in order that some few individuals may reach the fifth natural kingdom. The individual does not enter alone into this kingdom. He brings his group with him. He will learn about this group by helping others to reach higher, to attain to clarity. Like is attracted to like, and in some certain incarnation he will find himself surrounded by his esoteric group.
16Anyone who cannot realize this, but believes himself to be chosen and far ahead of others and remarkable also in other ways, may certainly be said to have misunderstood the whole thing. There are entire clans at the stage of humanity. It follows from this that "salvation" is not individual but collective. Those who "want to be saved" should discover the collective and work for the salvation of the collective, not their own. Anyone who forgets his own salvation for that of others has understood what it all is about. Mankind has to learn to put off its conceit, its subjectivism, its individualism, and to acquire a sense of proportion. The talk about unity is no empty phrase. The law of unity is the law of salvation. "He who is on the path exists not for himself, but for others." (K.H. – Pythagoras) This is always forgotten. "Care for others and forget yourself", and you will be rid of 90 per cent of all your concerns.
17When a second self (the monad in the second triad) is to acquire higher kinds of consciousness, then he must do this in the physical world in order to find in it the higher world, in the physical ascertain the objective tenability and pass the definitive final test.
18The planetary hierarchy works in order to produce a mankind in which the majority lives for the welfare of everybody and not for selfish individual objectives. When people live for others, everybody will receive his due share and nobody will want for anything.
19The planetary hierarchy plans to stimulate the next generations to be increasingly interested in the psychological problems, the marriage problem, the problem of religions, the problems of upbringing and education. The hierarchy foresees a radical reform of the entire educational system. The knowledge of man's envelopes will entail an interest in the individual's ability to master the consciousness of these envelopes and to perfect "the personality". Clans at the stage of culture will incarnate increasingly as the possibilities of reaching the stages of humanity and ideality are offered to them. They will also be group-conscious, which will entail better prospects for them to choose the right partners with mutual physical, emotional, and mental attraction. They will also be able to judge who have their centres above the diaphragm vitalized, which will be another guarantee of harmonious married life. They also have prospects of having children who are individuals at higher stages.
20Group consciousness, the consideration of the welfare of the group instead of individual egoism, will be a great step towards the stage of unity and will facilitate the acquisition of telepathic common consciousness.
1The planetary hierarchy awaits the opportunity of reappearing among mankind in order to help men with their consciousness development more effectively. That this implies an enormous sacrifice for the individuals in the fifth and sixth natural kingdoms is a fact that probably only esotericians are able to comprehend. It also requires careful and extensive preparation with an expenditure of force that is possible only through the additional force contributed by the planetary government and, possibly, by other planetary systems.
2The work of the hierarchy in connection with mankind involves on the hierarchy's part a triple sacrifice. They must scale down their "thinking" to the level of illusions and fictions (thus to a level which must appear as idiocy to them). And the enormous amount of attempts they make to help men meet with no appreciation at all.
3Moreover, they must abandon all plans of further consciousness development in their own worlds. Will mankind understand what such a sacrifice means?
4To try to orient a totally disoriented mankind, to impress mankind with so much reason that it will be able to solve its problems of life otherwise insoluble in millions of years, to make mankind realize the meaning of the incarnations and the meaninglessness of living a mere physical life, may well be said to be a more than Herculean task. To live in this ocean of repulsive and idiotizing vibrations must for them be an experience comparable to hell.
5In order to come into contact with man those in higher kingdoms must inhibit the enormously strong vibrations of their envelopes. They must live the illusions and fictions of the idiots. Human envelopes emit vibrations that disgust them more than the worst noise, the loudest colour, or the most offensive stench disgusts us.
1In the planetary hierarchy the tradition is that an individual keeps the name he carried in that incarnation during which he became a 45-self, whatever names he has received in subsequent incarnations. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Jeshu remained Jeshu, although he became a 45-self in his incarnation as Apollonios of Tyana. However, that was of course due to his universally known contribution as a 46-self.
2Since present 44-self Pythagoras and present 45-self Kleinias are best known in the West under these names, these names will be used when referring to them, although quotations from them belong to later incarnations.
3There are many legends of 45-self Count de Saint-Germain. Since also causal selves are able to remember all their past incarnations, he could tell people about events that he had witnessed many thousands of years ago. To the monad consciousness, incarnations are days in a long life, a life that of course is not interrupted even when the organism "is asleep". Ignorance either thought his organism was immensely old or regarded him as a charlatan.
4The then 45-self M. admitted in 1882 that the planetary hierarchy, which in 1775 had been opposed to the idea of publicizing the esoteric knowledge, was right and that K.H. and himself had failed in their experiment. But certainly it was not their fault. Had Pythagoras (K.H.) been permitted to put forward the hylozoic mental system as it stands (KR 1.4–1.41), then the result would have been different. Then all the seekers of the world would have received what they longed for and needed, a perfect, logical "working hypothesis" (hypothesis because the knowledge of reality must remain a hypothesis for man); then we would have been spared all these quasi-occult sects, which the philosophically and scientifically educated intelligentsia rightly has refused to accept. Such as the matter was presented it was bound to fail. That was not the fault of the two 45-selves, however, but of the planetary hierarchy, which would not give K.H. free rein to manage the matter as he wanted. He had studied Western natural science and realized that its way of looking at things must also be made the basis of the presentation of esoterics. The subjectivism of philosophy had proved untenable. It was no mere coincidence that his chief disciple, C. W. Leadbeater, started from the matter aspect and was most successful of all with his clarifying presentation. One may just regret that he did not receive the requisite facts for a presentation of the hylozoic system. After K.H. had become a 44-self he was given other tasks, and C.W.L. was to content himself with what he could ascertain himself. K.H.'s successor, 45-self D.K., had his own disciples and emphasized increasingly the consciousness aspect, being the most suitable study for those who pursue the 2-4-6 path, the path he has pursued himself. However, Western natural research follows the 1-3-5-7 path, and it will need Pythagorean hylozoics as a basic working hypothesis.
1Life is power. Everything is power. Power is at everybody's disposal. This power, which makes everybody happy, is the power of unity. Without love for all, the power will act destructively, no knowledge will be of any avail, faculties will just entail ever increasing responsibility and ever worse reaping. Without unity realized in our lives suffering will just increase in the world.
2This has been said by Buddha as well as by Christos. This has been heard by everybody. Few they are who draw the consequences, who heed the Law. However, those who realize this knowledge in their lives will soon enter into the world of supermen. That knowledge of life, which makes the realization of unity possible, can be understood by the simplest mind.
3When asked whether one should dare to doubt religious teachings, Buddha answered that if reason was god's greatest gift to man, then god could not be angered at a man who did his best with this reason. According to him, it is wrong to accept anything that conflicts with your own common sense (such as it is). It should be added that the planetary hierarchy prefers atheists and skeptics to these blind believers who can accept all manner of absurdities, thereby destroying "the principle of reason", the sense of reality.
4Buddha tried to teach people to use their common sense. Indian mythology was teeming with gods (330 million). What they knew about them was just legend. He wanted people to come down to earth and to use their physical incarnation to solve the problems of physical life. The normal individual cannot know anything about the superphysical. And anyone who believes in what others say will be the victim of any madness whatsoever. That message did not suit the Brahmin priesthood, however, so his disciples were expelled from India.
5Christos wanted men to love one another. It is hatred that makes life a hell for all. If men could be made to love, then there would be a kingdom of heaven on earth. But they could not be made to love. And so his teaching was distorted, and hatred destroyed all who tried to realize his teaching.
6Common sense and love. That was what the two divine messengers wanted to show mankind. Instead, people made religions of their teaching. When will men realize that this was a mistake?
7If men would strive after common sense and the brotherhood of all, then they would receive the knowledge of reality for nothing. Instead, they started to philosophize, not understanding that knowledge is a system of facts and that they can never ascertain superphysical facts. Esoterics is common sense. Common sense is required in order to put facts into their correct contexts. Anyone who has acquired common sense is able to comprehend esoterics and to see that reality must be such as esoterics describes it.
8The teachings of Buddha and Christos were distorted since they spoke to initiates and uninitiated alike, and it is the conception of the uninitiated that has been given out as being their doctrines.
9The Buddhists were expelled from India because their teaching was a menace to the power of the highest caste. The truth has always been dangerous for all priestly power. Those in power have always monopolized knowledge and formulated it to suit their own ends.
10It was the Brahmins who expelled the Buddhists from India. Even today the Brahmins (with the Vedas and the Upanishads as their paper pope) have not understood Buddha, which indeed is possible only for an esoterician. Buddha is as misinterpreted in India as Christos in the West.
11In biographies of Buddha, also in those written by such people as believe they are initiates, we may read about "Buddha"s progress to adeptship?. And such balderdash is produced about a then 43-self and head of the second department of the planetary hierarchy. Is this supposed to be "esoteric psychology"? In his incarnation Buddha is said to have "attained nirvana" (which is world 45) when instead he attained world 42 and thereby entered into the second divine kingdom (36-42). In occult literature we can read that Buddha as well as previous Tathagatas reorganized the planetary hierarchy, which thus is supposed to have had some defects which needed rectification. On the contrary, a regrouping always takes place when a 43-self leaves our planet or his office and the vacancy thus produced needs to be filled.
1In the year 1875 the planetary hierarchy started to make a fresh attempt at contacting mankind directly and not just select members of secret knowledge orders. A number of disciples (particularly Blavatsky, Besant, and Leadbeater) were assigned to present some basic facts about reality. In 1920 the hierarchy considered that the time had come to let a special secretary make a more detailed expose. 45-self D.K. dictated 18 books to a disciple in physical incarnation, Alice A. Bailey. In her autobiography A.A.B relates how this was done. D.K.'s chief work is A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, a commentary to Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.
2The present secretary of the planetary hierarchy (appointed in 1925), 45-self D.K. (Djwhal Khul), formerly Kleinias (a disciple of Pythagoras), Dharmajyoti (a disciple of Buddha), Aryasanga (founder of the Yogachara school of Buddhism about 500 A.D.), might henceforth be called Kleinias just as 44-self K.H. (Koot Hoomi) is called Pythagoras. These were their names when incarnated in Greece, and thus they are Western.
3D.K. is the future world teacher K.H.'s (Pythagoras') right hand. To all appearances he will some time succeed Pythagoras as the world-teacher. He has renounced individual development almost entirely in order to afford to mankind the planetary hierarchy's knowledge to the extent that this is possible. The current zodiacal epoch (Aquarius) should be the last "incarnation" of the present world-teacher, Maitreya-Christos, before he leaves our planet to continue his consciousness expansion in interstellar kingdoms. Pythagoras will then succeed him and Kleinias– D.K. will be his deputy.
4D.K. has seven envelopes (dense physical, etheric physical, emotional, mental, causal, essential, and superessential). In the fifth natural kingdom he is a second self. At the same time he is a first self in the physical world. And as a first self he is an Oriental with the outlook of a yoga (Advaita) philosopher. As a teacher he sometimes is a physicalist, sometimes a mentalist. As a philosopher he is predominantly a subjectivist, since objective, material reality to him has the function of merely being the vehicle for consciousness. He admits himself that he is not familiar with the specially Occidental way of looking at things, which also in hylozoics is primarily based on the matter aspect. It is obvious that this has influenced his mode of presentation in many respects, a fact which his readers are wise to keep constantly in mind.
5D.K. is considered to be the foremost expert on esoteric history and on esoteric literature, the literature accumulated during millions of years and kept in the esoteric archive, also the literature from Atlantis. His writings are indeed studded with quotations and symbols, symbolic and archaic expressions. During immense ages, when consciousness development was incredibly slow and the opportunities for it were minimal, the members of the hierarchy had plenty of time to sum up their experiences and to write. Of course, the majority of this literature would be incomprehensible to us even if it were reinterpreted into our modern languages. The carefully chosen quotations cited by D.K. have at least the merit that they bear witness to the existence of this literature. Besides, it cannot be understood until two prerequisites are fulfilled: the ability of mental consciousness to understand ideas regardless of linguistic form, and a knowledge of the matters under discussion.
6D.K. has given out new esoteric facts about discipleship, the planetary hierarchy, cosmic evolution etc. The prerequisite of understanding the contents of his books is a thorough knowledge of the esoteric mental system of hylozoics. It has indeed been seen that these books cannot be put into the hands of the "uninitiated", such people as do not possess the knowledge latently from previous incarnations. It is the same recurrent phenomenon: those who do not understand but who believe they are able to understand have become more or less cracked and have misconceived the most of it. Also theosophists are proofs of this. The other occult sects, which have been disoriented by their incompetent leaders, have never had any opportunity even to misunderstand their quasi-esoterics, since in these cases you cannot speak about the possibility of understanding at all.
7Certainly there are exceptions to this rule: such people as have realized their misconceptions when through the study of hylozoics they have got the necessary basic concepts and then have been able to do a bit of rethinking. We must not assume, however, that this is possible for the majority.
8Then D.K. says himself that he has written for future generations and disciples, that only causal selves can interpret his communications with full understanding, and that he has written with precisely these in mind, who are expected to incarnate in greater numbers at the close of the century. Those authors, however, who wish to make esoterics comprehensible to the contemporary intelligentsia, find much of well-nigh irreplaceable value in his works.
9It is perhaps interesting to know how Kleinias defines vice and virtue.
10Vice is the energies of the envelopes of incarnation, synthesized in the personality, because they keep the self in its envelopes and counteract the causal energies.
11Virtue is for the self to utilize the causal energies and by means of them to control the personality (the energies of the envelopes of incarnation).
12For aspirants it is important to realize the risk of breathing exercises such as they are performed by yogis and other teachers ignorant of life. The important thing in these exercises is the knowledge of what energies thereby vitalize the etheric envelope and the organism and to which centres these energies are to be directed by consciousness. This is known only to causal selves.
13If mankind duly considers the work of D.K., this will mean that the planetary hierarchy can come into closer contact with men, and when public opinion in this manner has come to realize that there must be a fifth kingdom in nature, then the entire hierarchy will be able to appear again, as formerly in Atlantis, and guide mankind.
14Only then will mankind receive the true knowledge of reality and life and will realize the foolishness of going back to ancient, historical sources, which just add to disorientation. History has always hampered research. The historical man is an atavistic phenomenon.
1Ever since the planetary hierarchy was banished (was forced to live in obscurity) mankind has been ignorant of its existence. Perhaps "banished" is not the exact word. It is a misnomer in so far as it was a voluntary withdrawal with fatal consequences for the mankind then living. Had the planetary hierarchy desired to use its resources of power, then it would have been able to put down the rebellion. But it was not allowed to do that, according to the Law. If mankind wants to follow the black lodge, then the Law cannot hinder that. The law of freedom, which grants man the right to choose, is an inviolable law of life.
2The planetary hierarchy drew the consequences of the attitude taken by mankind. If men would not let themselves be led by those who had the knowledge of reality, then they had to try to do without the hierarchy. Since the year 9564 B.C., when the last remnant of Atlantis, the island of Poseidonis, was submerged, nobody who knew about the existence of the hierarchy was allowed to make any mention of it and mankind has ever since been ignorant of everything connected with higher kingdoms. Instead, the black lodge introduced the fiction of "god", which has been an article of faith ever since. And history bears witness how the conception of god has changed during the ages. That is how it must happen, since it was a fiction.
3Anyone who lacks the knowledge of the planetary hierarchy and government is ignorant of reality, no matter how learned he is.
4When the planetary hierarchy in Atlantis was banished by a mankind stirred to mutiny by the lower priesthood, the hierarchy declared that it would be willing to return when mankind had had enough of the tyranny of ignorance and asked the hierarchy to return. Until then those who have desired to enter into communication with them have been made to fulfil certain qualifications. In secret orders they were informed about these qualifications.
1The planetary hierarchy wishes that its existence be made known. But it requests that the individuals who make it up may remain unknown. Above all, they do not wish to be the objects of
18 any kind of worship. We disturb them by our thoughts, and therefore they should be left alone also in that respect.
2The disciple is informed that he is to live and work without a thought of his teacher ("master"), who wants to be "left alone" and always helps when he thinks fit. "Prayers for help" show that the disciple is not the right sort for a disciple.
3For particular reasons members of the planetary hierarchy have requested that their private lives be left in peace from human curiosity. Whatever in that line has been made public knowledge has met with their emphatic disapproval on account of its general unreliability as well as the inconvenience and trouble it has caused them in their work. Those particular conditions, which existed in the matter of the pioneers for their first appearance after the year 1875, have been misjudged and so raised deplorable expectations of discipleship in individuals who have not even attained the stage of the mystic. Henceforth it will be possible only for groups to contact them personally.
4It should be emphasized that no members of the planetary hierarchy ever appear in the emotional world and that they never communicate through spiritualist mediums.
5After all the unreliable drivel about the planetary hierarchy it has been clearly announced that no disciple of the hierarchy ever gives himself out as being a disciple. Those who speak of any connection whatever with any member of the hierarchy thus are either deceivers or self-deceived. Besides, anyone who in his teaching needs to invoke a "higher authority" thereby has demonstrated his unsuitability.
6The planetary hierarchy cherishes no illusions to the effect that "the world" will realize its existence. They know sufficiently of the historical lagging behind and the power of the old fictions. For the next few generations they expect that only those who have been initiated into genuine knowledge orders and thus have the knowledge latently will be able to liberate themselves from prevalent idiologies when they again get an opportunity to study esoterics, now in its published form. Therefore, it is important that attempts are made to discover and contact these seekers, who in most cases have rather become skeptics.
7The hierarchy has ample experience of how few let themselves "be chosen" of all those have been "called". When they realize that duty should enjoin them to inform other people about esoterics, they lose much of their mental interest and their hope to derive personal advantages. If enthusiasm succeeds in vitalizing their emotions, these yet prove too weak to incite them to work for the cause in the physical.
1Ever since in Atlantis the planetary hierarchy withdrew in order to show men that they could not do without its help, the hierarchy has waited to be called back. It is ready to reappear as soon as mankind has reached that insight. But that is also an indispensable condition, since the hierarchy otherwise would not be able to do what is required. According to the law of freedom, the hierarchy cannot force anybody to receive help; according to the law of destiny, the hierarchy cannot help if the help given cannot be rightly apprehended or used; according to the law of reaping, the hierarchy cannot do anything if it does not have the right to help. Mankind must have had sufficient experience of life and power of judgement to realize this. It has developed so far that the overwhelming majority can be impressed with this.
2The hierarchy also takes measures to demonstrate this. Then it will be able to fulfil its mission: to help mankind with its consciousness development and solution of problems that cannot be solved without its assistance. If conditions were normal, as they are on other planets in the solar system, then evolution would go on without resistance in accordance with the Law and extra help would not be necessary. But since mankind on the whole consists of monads with a repulsive basic tendency, the will to unity is lacking, the instinct for brotherhood is lacking, the basic goodwill and readiness to help are lacking, the desire to understand is lacking. The receptivity for the vibrations of emotional attraction is abnormally weak and that for the vibrations of repulsion is correspondingly abnormally developed. Hatred rules mankind. Hatred is mankind's "elixir of life". Only in the exceptional people is impersonal love the elixir of life. This is also the explanation why the history of mankind has been that of unspeakable suffering.
3The planetary hierarchy will not come in order to satisfy the excessive material demands of egoism. When men recognize each other as brothers, then all problems of physical necessities will be solved automatically. If there were a will to unity, then life in the physical world could be what it is on other planets: a paradise. Without the will to unity there can never be "peace on earth".
4Such as things have developed, the energies of emotional attraction are not sufficient to overcome hatred. Essential energies from world 46 are required for this. It is these energies that the planetary hierarchy wants to help men to learn to apprehend and to assimilate. And for this the visible presence of the planetary hierarchy is required.
5The reappearance of the hierarchy before the public does not at all mean that mankind may enter into some paradise arranged by the hierarchy. That belief is one of the innumerable illusions of the ignorance of life.
6Life is consciousness development through work and toil. No external forces lift mankind up the "coils" of the ladder of development. The law of self-realization is, like all other laws of life, an imperturbable law.
7The appearance of the hierarchy means a changed atmosphere with a scattering of those illusions and fictions which now dominate even the portion of mankind that are seekers, the demonstration of the total disorientation of man-made idiologies. Falsehood will not as now rule mankind, will not be unchallenged.
8From the ideological point of view the reappearance of the hierarchy will rather mean an aggravated struggle between "the children of light and the children of the world"; between those who want to enter into the world of Platonic ideas and the essential world of unity of the fifth natural kingdom and those who refuse to renounce power, glory, wealth, and are content with the level of development they have attained, who want to go on living in the religious etc. views of the past, and above all those who seek to counteract evolution by all means.
9When the planetary hierarchy reappears, the needs of mankind will be provided for. Without its assistance it will take millions of years. For love requires essential energy and willingness to receive it. And it is the hierarchy that conveys this energy.
10What people need is love, understanding, and right human relations. And the conditions of their realization of these ideals are freedom, certainty, and security. All must be granted the right to think, feel, say and do what they consider right and proper within the limits set by the equal right of all. They must have certainty of the meaning and goal of life. They must have security.
11Freedom, certainty, and security are the three supports that man needs to be able to live as a man. Freedom and security are the external supports for which we are dependent on the spirit of brotherhood. Freedom is the recognition of our divine right to be free within the limits of the divine law. Certainty is the inner support we get from a fundamental knowledge system that clarifies the meaning and goal of life. Security is obtained through guaranteed protection against enemies, destitution and poverty, the right to help when helpless.
12However deplorable a situation mankind is in at present, yet there have never been so great prospects for the reappearance of the hierarchy. There is a seeking in our times after a tenable foundation for a world view as well as a life view.
13Millions of people are working for better human conditions. Millions are ready to make their contribution; they just lack the clear ideas as to the right procedure. Millions are inquiring into the meaning of life. Countless people would greet with enthusiasm the prospect of ordered conditions for mankind, would acclaim with rejoicing anyone who could guarantee them this. Never has there been such a universal understanding of the idea that everything must be done for the betterment of the human condition.
14In just a few generations many more people will have realized the untenability of theological, philosophical, and scientific fictionalism. There are already millions who, unaffected by dogmas, work for the establishing of right human relations. What is lacking in them, however, is the certainty as to the manner in which to realize the good in the most purposeful way. Many have thought that democracy would show the way. Regrettably, this very diffuse ideal is a piece of wishful thinking. You do not build a better world by satisfying an ever-increasing desire for possessions where envy is the actual driving force. You cannot build society on the principle of envy. A society constructed without due consideration for the stages of human development cannot be upheld in the long run.
15It would be meaningless for Christos to return as a single person. At the present stage of mankind's development, with a mankind that is capable of accepting the current idiologies, these illusion and fiction systems that bear witness to such a great ignorance of life, such an endeavour would be completely hopeless. Not until a decisive elite has acquired the esoteric knowledge of reality will there be such a general understanding of the necessity of calling the planetary hierarchy back that the endeavour has any prospect of success.
16Anyone who has the least understanding of the immense distance between our mankind and the planetary hierarchy must realize that its reappearance means a true sacrifice. Anyone who has some understanding of what is meant by this kind of sacrifice can perhaps conceive how the idea of sacrifice has been so distorted by primitive mankind such as has happened in Christian theology. The doctors in a mental hospital are perhaps in the best position to realize what such a sacrifice means. Their prospects of restoring their patients to their "normal" reason are small. It can be as difficult to replace the conceited belief in our own power of judgement by the realization of insufficiency. Sokrates had much experience of that. If we were to wait for the day when mankind by itself had realized the necessity of calling back the planetary hierarchy, then there is a risk that it would take several thousand years. But there are other possibilities, thank goodness. Clans at the stages of culture, humanity, and ideality will incarnate, and their concerted work will sweep away the idiologies of the prevalent ignorance of life. Thus we can expect a true mental revolution, a revolution in politics, philosophy, and science.
17The theologians will of course counteract the plans of the planetary hierarchy and do their best to hinder mankind from calling it back. They have their paper pope, "the pure, unadulterated word of god" (which nobody has been able to interpret rightly), by means of which they will prove that Christos is not Christos.
18The fathers of the Church have a great responsibility, having acted as disciples of a master whom they have never known and to whom they have testified falsely.
19Also the philosophers have their paper popes, Kant or Russell or some other fictionalist. Those who have accepted some fictitious system are subsequently immune against all rational arguments. That is the manifest risk to studies in the history of idiologies.
20To the scientists there is no "higher world", so hylozoics is to them an imaginative construction. A simple comparison between the hylozoic world view and the scientific one or the miserably poor hypothesis systems of philosophy should, indeed, be enough to show them that no human intellect has been able to formulate that system.
21There is a danger that academic opinion, which has always lagged behind the times, will idiotize common sense. As long as these learned men are regarded as authorities by the great mass of uneducated people, no consciousness development is to be expected.
22When the intelligentsia recognize the faultiness of prevalent opinions, then they will be more observant of what basis so called authority is built on. For an esoterician, that basis can only be an elaborated hylozoic world view and life view. It is true that facts are always facts. But these facts must be put into their correct contexts and, ultimately, into the correct system. And a better system than the one provided by the planetary hierarchy cannot be produced even by the black lodge, even if it makes desperate attempts, working at it with its usual frenzy.
23We must expect that, when the existence of the planetary hierarchy is generally known, all manner of imaginative people (seers and poets) will drivel about everything they cannot know from their own experience, everything they have read and heard and misunderstood. Imagination is sovereign in the higher emotional world, and every mystic experiences there everything he wants. And, as we know, they have no difficulty in convincing their readers, always lacking in judgement, of the reality of their imaginative constructions. Martinus, Swedenborg, Steiner, Ramakrishna and others without number are instances of the impossibility of finding any criteria of reality whatsoever in the higher regions of the emotional world.
24When the planetary hierarchy can appear among men again as in Atlantis, then, according to what it has said, the nature of religion, the purpose of science, and the goal of education will be clarified. These are not what people think today.
25The planetary hierarchy wants to give mankind a new science, called by D.K. the science of "invocation and evocation". It will clarify the possibilities of contact between the individuals in all kingdoms, the relations and mutual influences existing. It will clarify faculties not yet clearly comprehended and a number of phenomena that have of course been misinterpreted, such as telepathy, the discovery of ideas, inspiration, prayer, etc.
26When the planetary hierarchy reappears and becomes the "spiritual guide", then those who have the qualifications of acquiring higher kinds of consciousness will get immensely greater chances to do so thanks to the enormous stimulation they receive. Mankind will also get all the proofs it will need to realize the correctness of esoterics. That will of course bring about a complete revolution in people's attitude to each other and to all other life. Esoterics will be recognized as the only rational working hypothesis. To those who can only comprehend it, esoterics will be a religion, of course. To those who understand, it will be a hypothesis with overwhelming probability. It cannot be anything else until man has become a causal self and can ascertain facts for himself. Once they have come round from their delusive ways of thinking, the theologians will realize that the saying in the "New Testament": "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of god", has been wrongly reported and therefore totally misunderstood. "Born again" meant the passing of the monad from the first to the second triad. They will also understand the import of the expression: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father, which is in heaven, is perfect." How have the theologians interpreted that exhortation? It was a circumlocution of the exhortation given to those disciples who had become second selves that they must strive to become third selves.
27The reappearance of the planetary hierarchy will entail that the worlds of the fifth natural kingdom become accessible in quite another manner than is the case now. They will not reckon with just the physical, emotional, and causal-mental worlds any more, but also the worlds 46 and 45 will be included in the worlds of mankind. And that will give us the "kingdom of god on earth", which has been so much talked about and which the theologians have never been able to understand rightly.
1The great majority of the intelligentsia of our times have begun to see that the existing idiologies are untenable, and have begun to doubt whether human reason will be able to solve the problems of existence. Indeed, reason will not be able to do it, which even Gautama Buddha made clear about 2600 years ago. This is due to the fact that the objective consciousness of the normal individual (the majority) can ascertain facts in only about one per cent of material reality.
2But the knowledge of reality has always been available for those seekers who have had the qualifications for comprehending and not abusing it. That knowledge has been given to mankind by the planetary hierarchy, which supervises consciousness development and the members of which have instituted the esoteric knowledge orders.
3Signs showing that these seekers were ahead of the rest of mankind were always the fact that they were unable to accept any of the idiologies of their times and the fact that they were instinctively certain that the knowledge must exist and therefore remained seekers. The others either have been content with prevalent fictional systems or have thought they were able to construct better ones themselves. Conceited enterprisingness has filled libraries and archives with untold acute and profound speculative systems, which in our time the learned have begun to compile into a history of ideas.
4These seekers at the humanist stage have the stage of the mystic behind them in their consciousness development, and so do not enter into any such occult societies as are proliferating for the present, whose members think themselves called to achieve great things in the future. These societies will soon have had their day. The co-workers that the planetary hierarchy needs are no dogmatists with esoteric paper popes, but individuals who are independent in thought and action, unaware of the task they have taken on them and decided to perform before they incarnated. Their new envelopes of incarnation know nothing of it, and the continuity of their self-consciousness has been lost at their incarnation. Their latent instinct of life drives them, however, and they find (even though after much erring) their true field of work. Their lot is not an easy one. They are looked on as dreamers and utopists. Often they act destructively, since they realize the necessity of liberating mankind from its fictional systems. As they cannot feel at home in the existing societies, their lives must often be spent in unintentional isolation. Nor can they reckon on encouragement or assistance. They find their way into politics, finance, science, the educational field. They are free of nationalism, partisanship, sectarianism, dogmatism. They have long ago acquired tolerance and goodwill and try to bring about right human relations.
5The clans that incarnate with latent knowledge from the ancient esoteric knowledge schools will have access to the necessary esoteric literature, which will resuscitate their knowledge. They will reach the highest posts everywhere in society, so that not even public opinion, which only goes by such merits, will by its inert mass be able to offer resistance any longer.
6It will eventually dawn even on the most slow-witted that facts about superphysical reality can be obtained only from the fifth natural kingdom and that only from there true help is to be had for the solution of the basic problems. It is just a matter of time when mankind will call back that planetary hierarchy which the deceived masses in their immense folly contributed to banishing in Atlantis.
1There are plenty of secret "knowledge orders" or rather occult sects. Of course, the only proper thing would be to differentiate between occultism and esoterics and use the latter term for the knowledge that was taught in the orders of the planetary hierarchy.
2Most occult sects have individual development as their (at least avowed or generally accepted) aim. This is not necessarily a sign of egotism but might as well indicate a desire to be able to serve better. According to the planetary hierarchy it is by working for others that you have the experiences that make you develop most rapidly. Then the personality steps back before the task and thereby the self acquires the impersonal attitude most easily.
3The planetary hierarchy looks for co-workers in the physical world. Without such workers the hierarchy is not able to achieve much. Anyone who wants to become a disciple should, therefore, aim at making himself fit to be a helper. Those who live for their own development are unfit to be tools of the planetary hierarchy. By becoming a tool the individual develops most quickly.
4The planetary hierarchy is not particularly interested in those who eagerly work for their own development. It is not at all as the mystics in their religious sentimentality believe, that the planetary hierarchy is on the hunt for suitable candidates for discipleship. Discipleship is anyone's own business. Rather, it is newly accepted disciples who hunt for aspirants to discipleship, thus trying to help the ignorant of life to activate consciousness in higher emotional and mental molecular kinds.
5What the planetary hierarchy needs is fit tools in its work for mankind. In order to be such a tool you need not have esoteric knowledge, nor be an aspirant to discipleship. The hierarchy seeks for individuals who have the right motives and common sense (47:5), and who are unselfish.
6The hierarchy is looking for individuals on the verge of the causal stage who are willing to assist the hierarchy in its work for mankind and who possess more than ordinary competence. And those who prove themselves fit for the task are given more and more tasks and learn thereby to solve their own problems.
7The hierarchy is looking in mankind for co-workers who are living in order to serve. As their capability for this increases with their self-acquired competence, this is of course to advantage. But service must be their primary motive. The hierarchy wants to uplift all mankind. The progress of individuals is of significance only as it reinforces the capacity for supplying aid.
8The hierarchy wants first of all to liberate men from their illusions and fictions, so that we will be able to make physical life a paradise, live in peace with each other and overcome hatred in all its countless manifestations; "peace on earth and good will toward men". This is the next goal of the hierarchy. Religions that give themselves out as showing the path for the "salvation of the soul" are on the wrong track. The soul need not be saved. It is the task of the self to become conscious in the envelope called the soul and, by filling the deputy's place, become "the soul" itself and so become "conscious of its own divinity", its unity with all.
9Only he who, through the study of the esoteric writings, has acquired a knowledge of reality and life, realizes how abortive is the entire theological view of man and his task in life. What the theologians and their echoes call saints are individuals who have concluded their emotional consciousness development in an incarnation as a saint in order to pass to the humanist stage with its higher mental development within the two highest kinds of mental consciousness (47:4,5) as a condition of the acquisition of causal intuition (47:1-3).
10The planetary hierarchy employs men in the physical world (49) as well as in the emotional world (48). Those who believe that only saints are fit to be their tools are greatly mistaken. They can use any man whatever, regardless of his so called moral qualifications. They use anyone who is best suited to a particular assignment. They use all who possess the very qualities or capabilities that are required for the carrying out of a particular task, of course preferably such people as have once and for all and without reserve declared themselves willing to perform tasks for the hierarchy as best they can. If they were to use only "perfect" individuals, then none would be fit, for such ones do not exist in the human kingdom. Most so called saints are not at all particularly suitable where mental capacities are needed. The planetary hierarchy must use men, for that is its only possibility of working in mankind.
11Formerly and as a rule, anyone who had attained the humanist stage (they were few) was accepted as a disciple, as soon as there was a vacancy in the planetary hierarchy (which occurs whenever a 43-self passes to the first cosmic kingdom), and was given the necessary directions to enable him to become a member of the hierarchy. Nowadays, there are thousands of disciples on their way to become causal selves, and this is the reason why the hierarchy has decided to gather them into an organization within the hierarchy. It has been named "the new group of world servers". It is a "kingdom" between mankind and the hierarchy that has been given the task of preparing for the reappearance of the hierarchy and of admitting into itself all who have decided to attain the fifth natural kingdom in the shortest possible time. They recognize one another by their participation in universal brotherhood and serve mankind irrespectively of race, nation, creed, sex, etc. They live in order to serve without thoughts of their own development, or special privileges, or good sowing, or any reward whatever by men or by the planetary hierarchy. They form no organization, but measures will be taken to make it possible for them to learn of each other's existence, thereby giving them the opportunity of co-operating across all racial and national barriers for the benefit of all mankind, and for the raising of its developmental level in particular.
12The members must find one another, and they do so by acquiring the qualities of attraction and the abilities of perspective consciousness. Impatience will not wait, but qualities and abilities are not acquired by merely studying them. You do not at once re-create yourself (the tendencies in your envelopes of incarnation) such as you have become in a mankind at or near the stage of barbarism during tens of thousands of incarnations. But it can be done more quickly than most people think, if one-pointed purposiveness, perseverance, and steadfastness have been acquired. No short cuts are taught, and stability is tested in daily work. Anyone who does not have his incarnation as a saint behind him must not reckon on being "accepted" in his current incarnation. However, the new energies, which after the year 1950 are put at the disposal of the "spiritual workers and servers", make possible a development that is incomparably more rapid than any time before in the history of mankind.
13All esotericians can certainly serve individually. But they should also be on the look-out for those new groups of esoteric servers that have already started functioning, are constantly enlarged and also try to find one another. It is only as a member of such a group that the individual can come into contact with the planetary hierarchy.
14During that phase of intensified activity for the planetary hierarchy, for which the period from 1875 to 1950 was a preparation, the workers in the vineyard of esoterics have largely been reduced to individual work. The prospects of collaborating in a group are constantly being improved, however, and such work is incomparably more efficient than individual work. Teamwork is the future method of working.
15We all belong to some esoteric family and clan. The members of such groups have had common experiences of life during thousands of incarnations. All know each other, help each other, trust each other. Understanding is direct, criticism is precluded.
16Aspirants to discipleship are brought together, in the incarnation in which the invitation to discipleship was made, with their esoteric groups in order to learn to form a common envelope, something corresponding to the animal's group-soul. At the work on forming it, the group envelope is supplied with mental and emotional molecules from the participants' envelopes, so that the group envelope eventually becomes a living being of community. It is via this group-soul that the members receive their teaching and also achieve telepathic contact with each other. The collective soul becomes like a greater self for all in the group, who grow aware of each other's thoughts and feelings.
17In consequence of the deception in all respects concerning the knowledge of superphysical reality and all the self-deception that is inevitable when the unpractised have occult experiences, the planetary hierarchy emphatically declares that anyone who has not been accepted as a disciple, thus is not living in telepathic contact with his esoteric group, runs a great risk of making mistakes. The planetary hierarchy is the fifth kingdom and no mystical phenomenon but the most natural of all natural things. The first condition of discipleship is healthy critical common sense, and that is lacking in most people who occupy themselves with occultism. It is better to be a skeptic than a believer. It is better to distrust your own experiences than to believe that your are "far advanced", "an elect soul". The mystic as a rule is living in an "overheated spiritual atmosphere" which precludes common sense. Perhaps these spiritually heated persons will calm down somewhat when they learn that "so great a soul as Platon" is calculated to become a causal self only in the zodiacal epoch of Sagittarius. Anyone who wants to be "saved" before all the others has very small prospects even of reaching his next higher level. "Save" others first; then you will be "saved" yourself. That is the only way.
18There is in the hierarchy a ceremony which confirms the self-acquisition of higher kinds of consciousness. People have wrought regular mischief with such so called initiations. There are initiates who have not participated in any ceremony. You do not boast of your faculties. The planetary hierarchy will see no more of this mischief.
19Esotericians take no interest in personalities and their private lives. They are interested in the self's stage of development and prospects of understanding. It is in that respect they try to help. Biographies, with their gossip of private life, which most people find exceedingly interesting, are trespassings into spheres that are forbidden zones for the esoterician, as is every kind of curiosity and occupation with the affairs of other people. Esotericians take the same view as the planetary hierarchy, which does not intervene in the individual's life except for the furthering of his development. Everything else is taboo. Whatever falls under the law of reaping is outside the hierarchy's province. Only whatever concerns the laws of development, unity, and destiny belongs to its field.
1Those who are studying esoterics and are bent on receiving all tenable facts about existence from the planetary hierarchy are often disappointed when their questions are not answered.
2Men want to know so much about all manner of phenomena, a knowledge which mankind has not the slightest use of, does not need in order to serve evolution, cannot use in the human kingdom. Nor do we receive such facts from the planetary hierarchy. There is immensely much which is more important for us in order to live meaningful lives.
3No kingdom receives more knowledge from higher kingdoms than is necessary for the consciousness development of this kingdom and for understanding existence at a certain evolutionary stage. Moreover, no kingdom is presented with such facts as in the course of evolution must be ascertained in this kingdom.
4Disciples are often informed that their questions do not concern essentials for their own development, that many questions will be answered by mankind itself in the future, and then mankind must wait until it can do this itself. The curious must learn to leave off their impatience. Patience is a quality closely akin to humility.
5The planetary hierarchy has not given us knowledge of reality in order that we may feel important, superior, and despise the uninformed. The hierarchy has not given us knowledge that confers power in order that we may abuse it to the detriment of life. Anyone who does not want to serve has no right to either knowledge or power. Those who have got opportunities of receiving knowledge or of wielding power are thereby put to the test. Those who abuse these should not count on getting new opportunities very soon. There are lower cultures. There are worse brains. The powers of reaping have many means of letting people relearn.
6The planetary hierarchy has expressly stated that much that has already been communicated is beyond the possibility of verification or comprehension by others than causal selves. For the seekers, however, it furnishes materials for reflexion and analysis, although they must of course take care not to draw definitive conclusions. Mankind consists of individuals at different stages of development (not to be confounded with stages of education), and also those at the highest stages must get opportunities of such meditations as can result in the activation of the superconscious that is within their reach, try their strength in unknown areas. It is by forming rational (perspectivist) hypotheses that consciousness and the power of divination is developed. The risk is always that divination is taken for reality. Divination is not intuition but the searchlight that is sent out in all directions in order to find facts, if possible.
7There are those who are concerned that further scientific discoveries of forces of nature will lead to the self-destruction of mankind, since all such discoveries are made to serve hatred, oppression, and war. The planetary hierarchy has of course gone into the matter. Therefore, no new energies from the fifth department will be allowed to pour down into the human worlds. It will take some time yet before those that have already reached these worlds have exhausted the possibilities of their vibrations. After the year 2000, however, they are inactive and mankind has in its immense folly severed this connection. For millennia to come there will be no possibilities of revolutionary scientific discoveries.
1During the zodiacal epoch of Aquarius, the seventh department will be dominant, and it remains to be seen how its supreme chief (formerly known as Saint-Germain) will lead research.
2The seventh department was formerly called the department of ritual or ceremonial magic, three words that have of course been misinterpreted by the usual ignorance of life which will explain everything that it cannot comprehend. Ritual or ceremony consists in a series of symbolic actions which carefully represent the methodical procedures that mental energy undergoes when a faultless experiment in the lowest physical molecular kinds is to be obtained. The whole process was called magic. It should be understood that symbolic actions are completely meaningless for those who have not mastered the technical procedure. The purpose of the ritual is to enable the magicians present to participate in the process simultaneously and so obtain the enormously heightened effect of the combined energies.
3Thus ritual concerns co-operation in a group. Without the requisite knowledge of the technique, ritual is an empty ceremony without a meaning. The best natural qualifications for magic are found in those whose causal envelopes belong to the seventh department, next in those who have this department in any one of their envelopes of incarnation. Such people should be more frequently met with in the new zodiacal epoch. The improving possibilities of effective exploitation of the pertaining zodiacal vibrations will of course be utilized. Teamwork and group-work of other kinds are already growing more and more frequent.
4We may expect the elaboration of an entirely new "magical" method as a means to forestall abuse, a group method to supersede the individual one. This new method has two great advantages. Individual abuse is prevented and the group-work provides the participants with a common protection. Regrettably there is an even greater risk for the community in case the knowledge would fall into the hands of a group of unscrupulous individuals. How ruthlessly the possibilities furnished by any organization are exploited we have regrettably already experienced in the fields of our politics and economy with their general lawlessness and corruption. As long as such a risk exists (and it does with the present and next generations) the new magic will remain just a possibility. Probably, we shall have to wait until the planetary hierarchy is called back.
1According to the planetary hierarchy, all in higher kingdoms decline to be regarded as gods, objects of worship, adoration, oblation, etc. Even if they are eons ahead of us in development, they are on the path to still higher kingdoms.
2The planetary hierarchy does not claim omniscience. But it can always decide whether it knows or knows not. Also in higher kingdoms they entertain hopes in matters where they do not know for certain. An esoterician must be able to perceive the difference between the expression of such a hope and a definitive explanation.
3The secretary of the planetary hierarchy (45-self D.K.) rightly makes fun of the theosophists' belief in the omniscience and omnipotence of their "masters". But then they do not know that a 45-self has 44 more worlds to "conquer". It is certainly true that a 45-self is omniscient and omnipotent in the worlds of man (47–49), which in respect of knowledge means that he can find out everything he wants to know about these worlds and their past. They have their special tasks, however, and are fully occupied round the clock with fulfilling the functions they have taken on themselves. The very few who in addition can be teachers of select disciples have thereby taken on themselves an extra burden which is more trying than these disciples may conceive. Perhaps the analogy of a doctor's job in a mental hospital can give a better idea as to the nature of their burden.
4In any case they have no opportunities of familiarizing themselves with either general or individual fictitiousness. It would, besides, be pointless. At the various stages of development from mental selves (47:5) through causal selves (three degrees) and essential selves (seven degrees) up to 45-selves, there are thousands of individuals whose foremost task it is to serve mankind. It is these that the "master" can use as a connecting link. They are in direct contact with men in science, politics, etc. and can inform their assigners as well as "inspire" people.
5It is not the fault of the hierarchy that the stamp of infallibility has been put on books written by its disciples, usually after these books have been deliberately garbled. The hierarchy declares firmly that the Vedas, the Kabbalah, the Old and New Testament, the Koran, the Talmud, etc. are no "sacred scriptures" and would not be accepted by the hierarchy as containing the knowledge of reality and life, exact historical facts, what people call "the truth". Everything in them is misinterpreted symbols at the best. The knowledge of reality has never been exoteric before the year 1875. The works dictated by 45-self D.K. can be rightly understood by "initiates" only. There is a risk that they will be misinterpreted like other truly esoteric writings. By "truly esoteric" is meant those which have been approved by the planetary hierarchy.
1For the esoterician to be able to help people with their many problems of life it is necessary that he familiarize himself not just with the opinions of the day but also with ancient literature, which otherwise he could safely file away. This literature is of historical interest at the utmost, being an example of mankind's general disorientation in reality and life during a few millennia. But if it seems so to the esoterician, how will it seem to the planetary hierarchy when it reappears and finds itself compelled to study the products of error in order to meet men on their level of communication? No wonder that the hierarchy thinks that it needs to make extensive preparations for this task.
2It cannot be stressed too emphatically that for the selves in higher kingdoms to get in touch with those in lower kingdoms is a strenuous, energy-intensive enterprise. The individuals in the fifth natural kingdom live in a world of consciousness so utterly different from that of the individuals in the fourth kingdom, that it is a true sacrifice for them, when contacting men, to try to apprehend their illusory and fictitious conceptions, which are so far from reality concepts ("Platonic ideas"). This holds good all the way. The distances in consciousness are so enormous that their attempts at contact can best be compared to attempts at self-idiotization, immensely limiting in all respects. Add to this the fact that the radiation of energies by higher selves would unfailingly harm the lower selves if not special and "strenuous" measures of protection were taken. In that case you can really speak of "sacrifice". This is one of the many reasons why it is necessary to have a graded gamut of individuals on different levels who can scale down the knowledge of reality. Every disciple of the planetary hierarchy is found somewhere on this gamut. There are whole series of causal selves, essential selves, etc., who collaborate for a final communication of the knowledge. Those who convey the knowledge to men are lowest on the gamut, even though they do not realize it. It is a matter of regret that, hitherto, they have not always had the desirable education for their task.
3It should be pointed out that the planetary hierarchy has no "world view and life view", no "ideals", etc., such things as are necessary for man's orientation in the worlds of life ignorance. Those who have access to the collective consciousness of the planet or the collective consciousness of the solar system need no thought systems for their orientation in life.
4Therefore, they prefer that individuals at the higher mental stage (47:4,5) elaborate suitable knowledge systems for philosophers and scientists. Even causal selves, thus those who have acquired causal consciousness, are not very well suited to do mental construction work. Blavatsky is a typical example of this unsuitability. To causal selves, "facts" are no "concepts", but living realities which they find infinitely difficult to "concretize", scale down into mental conceptions. Moreover, to put causal facts or Platonic ideas into mental systems is for causal selves a toilsome mosaic work, which calls for specially trained capacity, a capacity that Blavatsky did not possess.
5The planetary hierarchy is also limited in its work through the disciples whom they must use in the physical world, since that is the only way for them to work among men. The mental molecules which they rain down into the mental world are mostly without effect, since so few people are prepared to pick them up. So much depends on the mental and emotional capacity of their disciples, their philosophical, scientific, cultural orientation as well as their talents of expression, their capacities for communication with people in social life or in writing. Social life is more important, since the impressions they make go directly to the individuals influenced. Their literary influence could reach more people if their works were better known. But that effect remains minimal as long as publishers and booksellers look just to the economy of the matter and are uninterested in printing and selling books that are in little request. How many realize that they, by advancing the esoteric literature, sow a good sowing for the future? How many readers are anxious to let others learn about the knowledge? How many realize their responsibility?
6The thoughts (mental vibrations) of men cannot reach beyond the mental world. Otherwise those in the worlds of the fifth kingdom would be disturbed in their work. It is quite enough that our mental vibrations have a disturbing effect on their work in the mental world, even though the mental molecular kinds used by them are immensely more effective, since the higher atomic kinds involved into the mental molecules have been activated.
7Sometimes, at least formerly, there were those who criticized statements made by 45-selves. Such things evidence an inability to realize the immense distance in capacity of perception. On the other hand, our teachers admit that their presentations have not always been made with a view to man's prospects of understanding. Then, of course, it all depends on what stage of development they supposed in those who were to receive the teaching. You cannot always write so that everybody will understand it. Then there would be too much that could not be said at all.
8"We may all thee-and-thou our lord", for we are all brothers, whatever kingdom in nature we are in. But those who are familiar with their god should take care to be on familiar terms with everybody. However, their power of reflection does not reach that far. They certainly want to be familiar with higher beings, but not with those whom they, in their incredible stupidity, regard as lower beings.
1The secretary of the planetary hierarchy (45-self D.K.) asserts emphatically the necessity of regarding the energy aspect as the essential one. All consciousness expressions are energy phenomena. Men are almost totally ignorant of the fact that, on the whole, they are handling nothing but energies and that they mostly use them wrongly. Physical as well as emotional and mental energies are causes that have effects. The energies must have outlets. And if these outlets are not purposeful, then they harm, acting destructively in some respect.
2The planetary hierarchy understands fully the difficulties and sufferings of physical life, which is clear from the fact that a 45-self calls the physical world "a real cold hell". If anyone thinks this exaggerated, it just evidences his ignorance of life.
3It has been said that "suffering exists only in the three lowest physical and emotional spheres (49:5-7, 48:5-7)". But this is true only of the sufferings of egoists. Since the higher includes the lower, suffering is also perceptible in higher kingdoms and often causes real agony. Besides, there is the "suffering" that lies in work until the problem has been solved, in striving for a goal not yet attained, in realizing one's own limitation and inability, in not being able to help.
4The planetary hierarchy does what it can to stimulate men to right action, to demonstrate possibilities and clarify responsibilities; it sends out teachers and disciples to lead and educate the race. But it never seeks to force or control anybody. It does what it can to turn evil into good, clarify situations and hint at the right solution of problems. Further it cannot go if mankind is to be brought up to be independent individuals. Ignorant people wonder for instance why the planetary hierarchy did not prevent the world wars. It is beyond question that the hierarchy was able to do so. In so doing, however, it would have violated the Law and impeded development. That it never does. At any cost whatever men must learn to decide themselves how they should act.
5The planetary hierarchy cannot demand any promise of obedience. You cannot promise anything the content of which is unknown to you. The hierarchy cannot give orders to anybody. It cannot force anybody to act against his own conviction. Everybody has a right to his own view on everything and has the right to be the "master of his own wisdom", however erroneous this might be. Nobody may be deprived of the right which according to the Law and the divinity of life is unalienable. Everybody is responsible for everything himself, a responsibility according to the law of incorruptible, implacable justice.
6The planetary hierarchy recognizes no neutrality, no "third standpoint". Such an attitude is regarded as cowardice, error, treason. In the choice between right and wrong, truth and untruth, freedom and slavery, law and lawlessness, there is no possibility of compromise. He who is not for is against.
1To the esoterician, "god" is the symbol of omniscience, omnipotence and law personified, of higher kingdoms in nature, of the cosmic total consciousness or of the Law. God is no person, but a collective which has the task of supervising everything and also does so effectively. The concept of god as a person was introduced by the Jewish religion, since the Jews needed a Jehovah (Jahveh) who made them his "peculiar people". Besides, anyone may have his own idea of god. The essential thing is the knowledge of the presence of "god", the trust and personal certainty.
2You can, of course, call the head of the planetary government "god". But he himself does not approve of that designation, since there are higher natural kingdoms also for him.
3Man's "god" is the "fifth natural kingdom", the planetary hierarchy. It is from there that we receive all knowledge, all "power", all help.
4The members of the planetary hierarchy as a matter of principle regard all monads in all natural kingdoms as their brothers, since they are conscious of the unity of all life.
5The planetary hierarchy is an accomplished organization which sees to it that all monads are supervised, the more effectively the higher the kingdom and stage of development the monad has reached.
6The hierarchy helps whenever it may according to the Law, whenever help is required for the individual's development. It helps in the way it sees to be best. The hierarchy is the shield. Only with its help is "victory" possible.
7To the planetary hierarchy, locutions such as "struggle, battle, victory, defeat" etc. are symbolical and may be replaced by "resistance, work, toil" etc. The planetary hierarchy guarantees success. It is up to everybody to receive it.
8The hierarchy does its share if you do your share. "The heavenly ladder is within you." But you must climb and not look down.
9All prophets and reformers will fail who believe they can do without the hierarchy. Under the banner of the hierarchy your mind is strengthened against cowardice and treachery, and victory is assured.
10There is no more rewarding task than to serve the hierarchy.
11No evil can befall anyone who trusts in the hierarchy. The heart centre is the connection with the essential world and the hierarchy.
12Concentration towards a given point has an effect. It makes your thought steady. The hierarchy is such a point.
13All higher worlds are well-organized states with rulers who supervise everything.
14Anyone who lives for the hierarchy liberates himself from much unnecessary bad sowing, from much evil.
15All endeavours are easy when you are in contact with the hierarchy. It is the hierarchy that inspires and guides. Anyone who trusts in the hierarchy need never be afraid.
16Men betrayed the hierarchy, turned away from their helpers in order to be great and important. They cry for light and persevere in their selfishness. They find only darkness and impotence.
17Without the help of the hierarchy nobody reaches up to the fifth natural kingdom.
18The hierarchy is Ariadne's thread out of the labyrinth. Anyone who seeks the hierarchy finds unity, the knowledge and the power.
19The physical and emotional worlds are in the power of the black lodge until the hierarchy has been called back.
20We are all watched over. To those in higher kingdoms the past (every thought, feeling, word, and action) exists in the present, so that the supervision is a relatively easy arrangement. That was what was meant by the old saw "god is watching you".
21Anyone who is constantly aware of "the presence of god" is in contact with the hierarchy.
22The cosmic organization is perfect. Even for the planetary hierarchy there is a "divine guidance". Even for it there is a "divine will", namely the Law such as it expresses itself in the worlds of the hierarchy. The hierarchy bows humbly and gratefully before the Law, because it has learnt to obey. The mindfulness of the Law increases the sensitivity to the Law, strengthens the instinct, gives better insight, understanding, and ability. Through obedience we get energy.
23Live for the hierarchy! Anyone who forgets himself, forgets the lower for the higher and has gained immeasurably thereby.
24It is not enough to have devotion for the hierarchy. Your heart must vibrate in harmony with the hierarchy.
25Those who want to overcome must keep to the hierarchy, which is the only protection against the black ones.
26Man has through his chain of triads a connection with the hierarchy; his second triad belongs to the essential kingdom, and his third triad to the first divine kingdom. It is up to man to keep this connection unbroken.
27The black ones further evolution by forcing men to seek the hierarchy. Doubt, darkness, chaos, hindrances, impotence are the work of the black ones and teach men to trust the hierarchy, however hopeless everything seems. Fear no enemies! They just do necessary work and teach men to see that the hierarchy is the only certain thing. The more the hierarchy is alive in our feeling and thought, the greater our power and joy.
28It is not enough to have passive trust, for passivity is as good as death, and the hierarchy is no undertaker.
29Anyone who wants "favours" must also demonstrate his willingness to help the planetary hierarchy, not with occasional actions but in his entire attitude to life.
30The help often comes at the last moment, when everybody has closed the door on those who require help.
31Men are traitors to the best within them and thereby traitors to the hierarchy. They never consider the fact that they counteract the hierarchy.
32Accept the hierarchy as a necessity, for it is; it is the protection of mankind.
33For anyone who lives with the hierarchy before his eyes there is no triviality, no ordinariness, but life becomes an exploration expedition.
34We do not serve the hierarchy with prayers but by lightening the hierarchy's burden.
35The hierarchy has no need of lip-service but of action. It agrees in the question of Christos: "Why call ye me Lord, and do not the things which I say?"
36The hierarchy lays down no commandments, for all such things are against the law of freedom. (The Law is the law of cause and effect in all relationships of life, known and unknown ones.) However, the hierarchy shows us what is in accordance with the laws of life.
37Without the hierarchy mankind will never find its way out of the darkness. This the black ones know and do what they can to stifle the knowledge of its existence.
38The hierarchy is Paradise. It is no Eldorado, however, no place for drones, but a place of work where men learn to perform the labours of Hercules and become heroes.
39"We who belong to the hierarchy love all beings whatever level of development they are at. We beg all men to stand up and say: All men are my brothers. My brother's wrongs are my wrongs. My sister's burdens are my burdens. What matters it if your words find no echo in the hearts of those about you?"
The above text constitutes the essay The Planetary Hierarchy by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book Knowledge of Life One by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1999 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.