Each of the seven sacred planets (of which our Earth is not one) is an expression of one of the seven ray influences. These seven planets might be enumerated as follows, and the rays working through them are accurately given. The student however must remember three things:

1. That every planet is the incarnation of a Life, of an Entity or Being.
2. That every planet, like a human being, is the expression of two ray forces, - the personality and the egoic.
3. That two rays are therefore in esoteric conflict in each planet.

I but indicate one of the rays, and I do not tell you whether it is the egoic or personality ray of the particular planetary Logos. Too much accuracy and too detailed information is not at this time good for humanity, which is yet too selfish to be entrusted with it.

Sacred - Ray

1. Vulcan - 1st ray.
2. Mercury - 4th ray.
3. Venus - 5th ray.
4. Jupiter - 2nd ray.
5. Saturn - 3rd ray.
6. Neptune - 6th ray.
7. Uranus - 7th ray.

Non-Sacred - Ray

1. Mars - 6th ray.
2. Earth - 3rd ray.
3. Pluto - 1st ray.
4. The Moon (veiling a hidden planet) - 4th ray.
5. The Sun (veiling a hidden planet) - 2nd ray.

I deal here with the major ray cycles and not with the minor cycles. Two rays, you will note, are apparently not expressing themselves through the non-sacred planets, the seventh and the fifth. There are only five non-sacred planets. But the reason which makes a planet sacred or not is one of the secrets of a certain major initiation, and I may not further [336] elucidate here. Suffice it to say that the sacred planets are seven in number, making a totality of twelve planetary manifestations. It will be obvious to the observant reader also that certain sacred planets and certain non-sacred planets have a close relation with each other through the rays which influence them. These are:

• Ray I - Vulcan - Pluto.
• Ray II - Jupiter - The Sun.
• Ray III - Saturn - The Earth.
• Ray IV - Mercury - The Moon.
• Ray VI - Neptune - Mars.

You will note therefore how peculiarly this Earth on which we live is suited to the development of the incarnating sons of God. Man comes forth, as do all lives within the radius of influence of a solar system, upon the inspiration of love, expressed in wisdom. Love is not a sentiment. Love is the great principle of attraction, of desire, of magnetic pull, and (within our solar system) that principle demonstrates as the attraction and the interplay between the pairs of opposites. This interplay provides every needed grade or type of unfoldment for consciousness. Conscious response is first made to the most potent and to the densest kind of attraction in matter, that of the mineral kingdom. Dense as it is, and heavy as is that type of vibration, it is nevertheless an expression of embryonic love. Response again comes, with greater facility and more true awareness and sensitivity, in the next kingdom, and the consciousness of the vegetable world emerges. But this too is love. It responds more freely and reacts to a far wider range of contacts in the animal kingdom, and the basic instinctual desires emerge and can be recognized. They, in due time, become the motivation of the [337] life, yet still it is only the love of God which is manifested. It is love between conscious life and conscious form; it is love between the pairs of opposites, leading to an eventual synthesis or marriage; it is relationship between the basic dualities; it is not sentiment but a fact in a great natural process. Always there is the emerging glory and radiance of a growing love, until we come to the human kingdom wherein love enters another plane. Then responsiveness and sensitivity and human sentimental reaction develop into a rudimentary mind. The consciousness of loving and being loved, of attracting and of being attracted, enters through the door of the intelligence and expands into the human state of awareness. Pleasure and pain become definite factors in unfoldment, and the long agony of humanity commences. Love then is seen in its naked selfishness, but also its potential glory can be sensed. Love or attractive desire then attracts to itself that which it feels it needs, but later, that is changed into what it thinks it should have, and this, in time, is transmuted into that which it knows is the divine non-material heritage of a son of God. Ponder on these last few words, for in the true understanding of love as feeling, love as thinking, and love as aspiration will come a clarification of man's problem and his liberation from the thralldom of the lower loves into the liberty of love itself, and into the freedom of the one who possesses all things, and yet desires nothing for the separated self.

The magnetic pull of that which is desired is modified on our planet by the personality ray of our particular planetary Logos. This is the Ray of Active Intelligence, and of selective Adaptability. Just as every cell and atom in the human body is modified and conditioned by the egoic ray and the ray of each of the inner bodies, so every cell and atom in the body of the planetary Logos is conditioned and modified [338] by His outstanding ray influence, in this case, His personality ray. In this conditioning influence is found a clue to the distress and agony and pain in the world today. The planetary Logos of our Earth is primarily conditioned by a cosmic ray, to be sure, but not by His egoic ray. Perhaps in this condition may be found the reason (or one of the reasons) why our Earth is not one of the seven sacred planets. On this I need not enlarge, but it was necessary to call attention to this great determining factor, the third ray, which is the personality ray of our planetary Logos.

This ray brings in the factor of discrimination through mental activity, and this, in its turn, balances the so-called love nature, and it is in truth the cause of our evolutionary growth. The life in forms passes through discriminative and selective activity from one experience to another in an ever widening scale of contacts. It is this Ray of Intelligent Activity which dominates man at this time. Human beings are largely centered in their personalities; they are "egocentric," in the terminology of the psychologist, which recognizes the integrating principle of the ego (in many cases) but does not yet recognize the over-shadowing ego or soul, except under such a vague term as "the superconscious." We have therefore a humanity engrossed by a tremendous activity and demonstrating everywhere a vital discriminating and intellectual interest in all types of phenomena. This tendency to be active will go on increasing and intensifying until the Aryan race will merge into the coming major root-race, for which we have as yet no name, though we recognize that in that race the intellect will serve the intuition. Human activity is now regarded as having reached an incredible speed and intensity of vibration, yet from the angle of the world Knowers it is only just beginning to express itself, and is relatively feeble as yet. The growth of the tendency to vital speed can [339] be noted if history is studied, and the pace at which man now lives, and the complexity and the many dynamic interests of his life, may be compared with those of the average man two hundred years ago. The last twenty-five years of man's history have shown a tremendous speeding up as compared with conditions fifty years ago.

The reason for this increase of intelligent activity and rapidity of response and contact is to be found in the subjective fact that humanity is with great speed integrating the three aspects of human nature into a unity, called personality. Men are steadily becoming personalities, and unifying into one expression their physical, emotional and mental aspects; hence they are more able to respond to the ray of the integrated personality of the One in Whom they live, and move, and have their being.