The tension in the world today, (written in April 1947) particularly in the Hierarchy, is such that it will produce another and perhaps ultimate world crisis, or else such a speeding up of the spiritual life of the planet that the coming in of the long-looked-for New Age conditions will be amazingly hastened. I would have you consider carefully what I have said here, remembering what I have told you in the past anent points of tension. This present tension constitutes a major problem for the disciple in training, and therefore our particular theme in this instruction is peculiarly apposite.

There is a great deal of glamor in the world today and a great deal of that glamor is concentrated in Russia, owing to the youth and the basic political inexperience of that people. The United States of America is also young and inexperienced, but not to the same extent as are the Russian people. Today, the Russians are suffering from the glamor of power, the glamor of planning, the glamor of what they consider a great ideal (and such it is), the glamor of prestige and the inevitable - but ephemeral - glamor of totalitarianism. It is this same totalitarianism which also constitutes their weakest point, because it leads inexorably to a revolt of the human spirit. That human spirit is to be found in Russia to exactly the same extent as it is to be found in any other country in the world.

Freedom is an essentially spiritual attribute, underlying the entire evolutionary process; this should always be remembered as a strengthening and conditioning reality by all men everywhere. It has survived aeons of opposition from the principle of enslaving selfishness and is largely responsible, at this time, for the struggle in which we are all participating.

In the hands of the United States, Great Britain and Russia, and also in the hands of France, lies the destiny of the world disciple, Humanity. Humanity has been passing through the tests which are preparatory to the first initiation; they have been hard and cruel and are not yet entirely over. The Lords of Karma (four in number) are today working through these four Great Powers; it is, however, a karma which seeks to liberate, as does all karma. In the coming crisis, true vision and a new freedom, plus a wider spiritual horizon may be attained. The crisis, if rightly handled, need not again reach the ultimate horror.

I would have you bear these points in mind while you investigate the world picture. This picture is taking shape and warrants recognition. It involves the Jews (who are not a nation but a religious group) the Near East and Russia. In the maps which are to be found in the Archives of the spiritual Hierarchy, the entire area of the Near East and Europe - Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Palestine, the Arab States, Egypt and Russia - are under a heavy over-shadowing cloud. Can that cloud be dissipated by the right thinking and planning of Great Britain, the United States and the majority of the United Nations or - must it break in disaster over the world? Will it present a task too hard for correct handling by that inexperienced disciple - Humanity?

In what I have written above you have the picture of the true situation; it is one which finds Great Britain temporarily weakened and ineffective (except for the clear thinking of her people and her political maturity); it finds the United States, unused to power, somewhat arrogant, with a strong superiority complex, inexperienced and yet at the same time exceedingly well-intentioned and fundamentally sound. It is the mass of the people who are sound in their thinking and not their representatives in Congress.