Esoteric Astrology

by Alice A Bailey

  In studying these Hierarchies, one of the most valuable lessons to be learned is the place and importance of man in the scheme. The Hierarchy, for instance, which is the essence of the intangible Life of Spirit, the principle of Buddhi, is the esoteric cause of the cosmic marriage of spirit and matter, based on the love and desire of the Logos, but each Hierarchy also expresses itself through one particular manifestation which comes to be regarded by the finite mind of man as the Hierarchy itself. This is not so, and care must be taken to distinguish between these Hierarchies.

  They are latent germs of force centres and manifest subjectively; they warm and vitalise groups of forms; they [43] flower forth and express themselves through the medium of a form, or another Hierarchy. These Hierarchies are all interrelated and are negative or positive to each other, as the case may be.

  As is stated in The Secret Doctrine, I. 238, this Hierarchy is the nursery for the incarnating Jivas; and it carried in it the germs of the Lives which achieved the human stage in another solar system, but were not able to proceed beyond that owing to the coming in of pralaya, which projected them into a state of latency. The condition of the Hierarchy is similar, only on a cosmic scale, to the condition of the seeds of human life held in a state of obscuration during an interchain period. The three other Hierarchies dealt with (first, second and third) were those who have (in previous kalpas of logoic manifestation) passed beyond the human stage altogether. They are, therefore, the arupa or formless groups, as the remaining are the rupa groups or those having forms.

  The fourth Creative Hierarchy, or the ninth, must ever be regarded in this solar system as occupying what might be considered as the third place,

  First, the Lives or the three Persons of the Trinity.

  Second, the Prototypes of man, the seven Spirits.

  Third, man or the lowest manifestation of the self-conscious Spirit aspect.

  This needs to be carefully considered and has no reference to the form aspect but solely to the nature of the Lives expressing themselves through other lives who are also self-conscious, or fully intelligent. This, certain of the Hierarchies are not.

  The four lower Hierarchies are all concerned with manifestation [44] in the three worlds, or in the dense physical body of the solar Logos. They are Those who can discard or pass through the etheric body of the solar Logos and take forms composed of either gaseous, liquid, or dense substance. The others cannot. They cannot fall into physical generation.

  Students must bear in mind that from the standpoint of the Logos, the solar Angels on the mental plane (the fifth subplane of the cosmic physical plane) are in physical incarnation, and what is called the “second fall” applies to this. The first fall has reference to the taking of a form of cosmic etheric matter, such as is the case with the Heavenly Men, the prototypes of the human jivas. In this latter case the bodies used are called “formless” from our standpoint, and are “vital bodies,” animated by cosmic prana. In the case of ourselves and the remaining groups, the forms are composed of substance of the three lower planes (that which the Logos does not regard as a principle) and, therefore, matter responding still to the vibration of the earlier system. This means that the four lower Hierarchies are links between the life of the past and of the future. They are the present. They had not finished their contacts with the active intelligent principle of the preceding kalpa, and so must continue such contacts in this. They will work out of it in this system, the four will become the three and they will then be the three higher arupa Hierarchies of the next system.

  Before continuing our consideration of the particular Hierarchies, it is necessary to point out that in these Hierarchies, certain of them are termed “dominant hierarchies” and others “subsidiary hierarchies.” By this is meant that certain of them are expressing themselves in this solar system more fully than the others, and this necessarily entails [45] the consequence that their vibration is more to be felt than that of the subsidiary groups. The dominant groups are the second, fourth and fifth, and this because:

  a. The second is the great expression of duality, of the Son as He vitalises the Sun.

  b. The fourth is the Hierarchy of human Monads who are the mediators or the synthesisers; they express the gain of System 1 and the goal of System 2.

  c. The fifth or tenth is closely linked with the five liberated Hierarchies, and is an expression of their synthesised life. It might, therefore, be said that the fifth Hierarchy serves as the representative of the five liberated groups, and the fourth is the representative group in this system, whilst the second represents (for man, or these two groups united) that which is the Spirit aspect, the Father, the Unknown.

  Hierarchy V. The fifth Creative Hierarchy is, as we know from study of The Secret Doctrine, a most mysterious one. This mystery is incident upon the relation of the fifth Hierarchy to the five liberated groups. This relation, in connection with our particular planet, which is not a sacred planet, can be somewhat understood if the history of the Buddha, and His work is contemplated. This is hinted at in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine.

  The relation of the fifth Hierarchy to a certain constellation has also a bearing upon this mystery. This is hidden in the karma of the solar Logos, and concerns His relationship to another solar Logos, and the interplay of force between Them in a great mahakalpa. This is the true “secret of the Dragon,” and it was the dragon-influence or the “serpent energy” which caused the influx of manasic or mind energy into the solar system. Entangled closely [46] with the karma of these two cosmic Entities, was that of the lesser cosmic Entity Who is the Life of our planet, the planetary Logos. It was this triple karma which brought in the “serpent religion” and the “Serpents or Dragons of Wisdom,” in Lemurian days. It had to do with solar and planetary Kundalini, or Serpent fire. A hint lies in the fact that the constellation of the Dragon has the same relation to the ONE greater than our Logos as the centre at the base of the spine has to a human being. It concerns stimulation, and vitalisation with a consequent co-ordination of the manifesting fires.

  A clue to the mystery lies also in the relation of this fifth group to the two contracting poles. They are the five-fold Links, the “Benign Uniters” and “the Producers of the Atonement.” Esoterically, they are the “Saviours of the Race” and from Them emanates that principle which—in conjunction with the highest aspect—lifts the lower aspect up to Heaven.

  When these mysteries are carefully studied, and due application made to the lives of the greatest exponents of the at-one-ing principle, it will become apparent how great and all-important is their place in the scheme.

  It is for this reason that the units of the fifth Hierarchy are called “The Hearts of Fiery Love”; They save through love, and in Their turn these lives are peculiarly close to the great Heart of Love of the solar Logos. These great redeeming Angels, Who are the Sons of Men on their own true plane, the mental, are ever, therefore, pictured as taking the form of twelve-petalled lotuses—this symbology linking them up with “the Son of Divine Love,” the manifested solar system, which is said to be a cosmic twelve-petalled lotus, and with the logoic causal lotus, equally of a twelve-petalled nature.

  [47] We have, therefore, a direct stream of energy flowing through:

  a. The logoic twelve-petalled egoic lotus, cosmic mental plane.

  b. The solar twelve-petalled lotus.

  c. The planetary logoic heart, also a twelve-petalled lotus.

  d. The twelve-petalled human egoic lotus on the mental plane.

  e. The twelve-petalled heart centre in a human being.

  Or, to word it otherwise, energy flows direct from:

  a. The solar Logos, via three great cosmic centres:

  1. The central spiritual Sun.

  2. The heart of the Sun.

  3. The physical Sun.

  b. The heart centre of the planetary Logos, situated on the fourth cosmic etheric plane (our buddhic plane).

  c. The egoic lotus of a human being on the me
ntal plane, which is literally a correspondence to the “heart of the Sun.” The monadic point is a reflection in the human system of the “central spiritual Sun.”

  d. The heart centre of a man on the etheric plane of the physical plane, which is in its turn a correspondence to the physical Sun.

  Thus the tiny atom is linked with the great central Life of the solar system.

  This fifth Hierarchy is equally, under the law, a distributor of energy to the fifth subplane of each plane in the system, only it must be borne in mind that, in the three worlds, it is the fifth subplane counting from above downwards, whilst in the worlds of superhuman evolution, it is [48] the fifth counting from below upwards. This Hierarchy wields, as we know, the dual aspects of manas, one in the three worlds and one which makes itself felt in higher spheres.

  It is necessary to bear in mind that all these groups are (even when termed “formless”) the true forms of all that persists, for all are in the etheric body of the solar Logos or planetary Logos. This is a point requiring careful emphasis; students have for too long regarded the form as being the dense physical body, whereas to the occultist the physical body is not the form, but a gross maya, or illusion, and the true form is the body of vitality. Therefore, these Hierarchies are the sum total of the vital lives and the substratum or the substance of all that is. We might regard the subject as follows:

  a. The four superior groups are the Hierarchies expressing themselves through the three cosmic ethers, the second, third and fourth.

  b. The two lowest groups are the lives which are found functioning as the involutionary matter (organised and unorganised) of the logoic dense physical body, the liquid and gaseous, with the living substance of the four higher subplanes of the systemic dense physical body.

  c. The fifth Hierarchy has an interesting position as the “mediating” body between the higher four and those which are found on the lower three subplanes. There is a vital and significant correspondence to be found between the seven head centres and the seven groups of egos on the mental plane, and there is an occult analogy between the three head centres (pineal gland, pituitary body, and the alta major centre) and the expression of these seven groups of egos in the three worlds. This is [49] a most esoteric fact, and all students meditating upon the laws of at-one-ment must take this analogy into consideration.

  It is useful to remember the place of these Hierarchies in the scheme, and to realise that upon the sum total of these vital bodies is gradually gathered the dense manifestation which we regard as the evolutionary matter. The forms are built (from the form of all atoms to the body of the ego, from the form of a flower to the vast planetary or solar lotus) because the Hierarchies exist as the aggregate of germ lives, giving the impulse, providing the model, and procuring, through their very existence, the entire raison d’être of all that is seen on all planes.

  Hierarchies VI and VII. These sixth and seventh Hierarchies which provide the substance forms of the three worlds have a vital use and a most interesting place. From the logoic standpoint, they are not regarded as providing principles, but from the standpoint of man they do provide him with His lowest principles. They hold the same relation to the Logos as the dense physical body does to man, and all that concerns the evolution of man must (in this particular place) be studied as going on within the physical, logoic vehicle. They deal with the display of physical energy; with the working out in the physical vehicle of all divine purposes, and with the physical organisation of a certain great cosmic Life.

  Particularly is this so when we view the two Hierarchies under consideration. They are the lowest residue of the previous system, and the energy of that matter (liquid, gaseous and dense) which the vibration of the logoic permanent atom (on the plane adi) attracts to itself in the building of the divine form. For purposes of clarification [50] and of generalisation, it might be noted that the seventh Hierarchy is the life or energy found at the heart of every atom, its positive aspect, and the sixth Hierarchy is the life of the forms of all the etheric bodies of every tangible object. The function of this Hierarchy is well described in the words of the Old Commentary:

  “The devas hear the word go forth. They sacrifice themselves and out of their own substance they build the form desired. They draw life and the material from themselves, and yield themselves to the divine impulse.”

  A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, pages 1196-1207

  TABULATION III

  [51] Before continuing with the analysis of the tabulations and showing the inter-relations existing in this particular zodiacal cycle between the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve planets, there are certain things which I would like to point out here in connection with these zodiacal constellations. They are in the nature of generalisations, but the specific and the particular can be deduced from them.

  First of all, I would point out that the twelve planets, governing the twelve houses, concern primarily the physical plane expression of the man; they affect potently the personality aspect; their influence, plus inherited karmic conditions, produces those environing states and those circumstances which give opportunity for the development and eventually the control of the form side of life.

  Secondly, the twelve constellations are concerned primarily with the stimulation of the soul within the form, producing subjective activity which, in its turn, causes changes in the outer expression, through the fusion of the energy of the constellation with the energy of the planets. The effect produced falls into two stages:

  1. The first stage wherein the sun sign dominates the man and he is gradually fitted to respond to the soul. His latent possibilities for this life are unfolded. The effect of the sun sign is sometimes called “the potency of the Sun of Probability.”

  2. The second stage wherein there is increasing response to the energies, concealed by the rising sign. They evoke the unexpected and produce the hastening of the evolutionary process and the unfoldment of the inner life. The rising sign is termed in the language of esotericism “the Sun of Possibility.”

  [52] Through the effect of the energy flowing from the zodiacal signs the man is prepared for the “crisis of orientation” wherein he slowly and gradually reverses his mode of progress upon the wheel of life and begins consciously to travel back to his source. He then goes from Aries to Pisces, via Taurus, Scorpio and Capricorn, instead of moving from Aries to Taurus via Sagittarius, Leo and Cancer. The triplicity of constellations mentioned in these two great routes around the zodiac have a definite and momentous effect and are called “paramount signs of influence.” During this process the mental principle, the discriminating mind, is developed and in this specific connection (not in a general connection) the emphasis is laid upon the influence of Aries, Gemini and Libra. Under that influence the man learns to overcome desire through experiment with and experience of every kind of desire and selfish impulse. Thus gradually, and with infinite pain, the human soul learns to function first as a member of the human family, and, secondly as a spiritual entity, the divine soul.

  You will see from the above that certain positions taken by the esoteric astrologer reverse the position of the orthodox astrology of today. The reason for this is that in the descent of ideas from the plane of ideas, they become “reversed” upon the astral plane and subject to the great illusion; astrology must eventually free itself from this reversal.

  A right understanding of the effect of the various energies and forces will make it apparent that, when the conditioning planetary forces, the expanding energies of the sun sign and the driving energy of the rising sign are all being controlled and directed by the illumined spiritual man, you will then have a soul upon the very verge of liberation.

  Eventually the energies of the twelve constellations [53] and—at a final stage of experience and development—of the three great constellations which condition the solar Logos are blended with the innate energies of the seven rays or of the seven planetary Logoi. This marks a point of perfection. These extraneous energies (I refer here
to those of the major constellations) are relayed to the Earth via the seven sacred planets and the five non-sacred planets, and when there is the complete fusion of the related energies and, therefore, full expression, a great world period comes to an end. For a long time during this cycle of reincarnations and periods of manifestation, the human being is conditioned almost entirely by the activity of the non-sacred planets. These, as you know, are five in number:

  The Sun (veiling a planet)

  The Moon (veiling a planet)

  The Earth itself

  Mars

  Pluto

  Man—speaking symbolically—is the “five-pointed star and, at the fiery points, the forces of the man pour out and upon each fiery point appears a centre of reception.” This is of course pictorially expressed, but the meaning is clear. However, as man nears the Path of Discipleship the influence of the sacred planets becomes increasingly effective, until after the final and fifth initiation the non-sacred planets have no effect, though the initiate wields their energies potently as they pour into and through his vehicles of reception, of response and of expression, for all three activities and purposes must be noted.

  The energies of the twelve constellations are blended with those of the twelve planets, but their power to evoke response, and to be consciously received, recognised and [54] employed, is dependent entirely upon the type of response mechanism of the planetary Life and of the individual man. It has been rightly said that consciousness is dependent upon the vehicles of consciousness, upon their point of development and upon the ability of the individual to identify himself with the energies and impulses which are reaching him, and is not dependent only upon that which is already a recognised part or aspect of himself. It might be said that the higher response to the realities and qualities revealed and made possible by the impact of energy from the zodiacal signs is somewhat dependent upon the waning influence of the planets to hold down the consciousness aspect of the man. Ponder upon this, for it embodies a deep esoteric truth.