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Esoteric Psychology I - Section Two - III. The Rays and Man
The Human Kingdom

Influences:

Two rays of divine energy are peculiarly active in bringing this kingdom into manifestation. These are: [320]

  1. The fourth Ray of Harmony, beauty and unity, attained through conflict.
  2. The fifth Ray of Concrete Knowledge, or the power to know.

The fourth ray is the ray par excellence which governs humanity. There is a numerical relation to be noted here, for the fourth creative Hierarchy of human monads, the fourth ray, in this fourth round, on the fourth globe, the Earth, are extremely active. It is their close interrelation and interplay which is responsible for the emergence into prominence of humanity. In other rounds, humanity has not been the dominant evolution or the most important. In this round it is. In the next round, the dominant evolution will be that of souls on the astral level, and the deva kingdom. Humanity now walks in the light of day, symbolically speaking, on Earth, and these two rays were responsible for the process of initiating the human evolution in this major cycle. Our objective is the harmonizing of the higher and the lower aspects, or principles, both in the individual and in the whole. This involves conflict and struggle, but produces eventually beauty, creative power in art, and synthesis. This result would not have been possible had it not been for the potent work of the fifth Ray of Concrete Knowledge which - in conjunction with the fourth ray - produced that reflection of divinity we call a man.

The human entity is a curious synthesis, on the subjective side of his nature, producing a fusion of life, of power, of harmonious intent and of mental activity. The following should be noted, for it is of profound psychological interest and import:

  • Rays I, IV and V
    predominate in the life of humanity and govern with increasing power man's mental life and determine his mental body. [321]
  • Rays II and VI
    govern potently his emotional life and determine the type of his astral body.
  • Rays III and VII
    govern the vital physical life and the physical body.

Here you have, if you note carefully, a summation of the rays which govern and differentiate the life of the personality forms, and therefore bring in other factors which psychologists will have to consider as time goes on. You will see therefore that:

  1. The human soul or ego is found on one or other of the seven rays, in one or other of the seven ray groups.
  2. The mind nature and mental body are governed by the Rays of Purpose, of Harmony or Synthesis, and of Knowledge.
  3. The emotional nature and form are governed by the Rays of Love-Wisdom and of idealistic Devotion.
  4. The vital life and physical body are governed by the Rays of Intelligence in matter and of Organizing Power.

But in the midst of this complexity of rays and forces, the third and fifth rays hold paramount place, and govern the major cycles of the individual. He is controlled not only by his own ray cycles (determined by his egoic ray) and by the lesser cycles of the personality, but he comes also under the influence of the major and minor cycles in the ray life of humanity as a whole.

Results:

Through the active work of the two rays above discussed, we find the fourth ray producing eventually in man the appearance of the intuition. The fifth ray is responsible for the development in him of the intellect. Here again we find appearing in man his great gift of synthesis and his prerogative [322] of unification, for - as earlier said - he blends in himself the qualities of three kingdoms in nature, including the one before and the one after his own.

  1. The kingdom of souls - Intuition.
  2. The human kingdom - Intellect.
  3. The animal kingdom - Instinct.

Hence his problem, and hence his glory. We might also say that through the union of the positive intuition and the negative instinct the intellect is born, for man repeats in himself the great creative process as enacted in the universe. This is the inner creative side of consciousness, just as we have the outer creative side in the creation of forms.

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