Part One

For modern aspirants, an authentic spiritual quest is a perilous path with many confusing crossroads and treacherous turns.
      One of the many blind turns ahead of today's sincere seeker leads to the realization that because we are living through an age featuring unprecedented problems, dangers and opportunities, one must face inquiries, crises and transformations unknown to previous generations of aspirants.
      Indeed, to be authentic, the aspirant's approach and transformative experiences must be to some degree unprecedented, fundamentally different than those encountered during previous centuries. Yet because the essential structure of the path of transformation is invariable, one often hears that the rules of spiritual living, like "ultimate Truth," never change. Do they, really?
      A related challenge facing today's aspirant concerns how he or she deals with both the glamorous claims made by representatives of the many particular religious, esoteric and spiritual traditions and the multi-cultural mosaics modern intellectuals have gleaned from various traditions.
      It is tempting to state that such a situation exists today because traditionalists upholding a singular truth and intellectuals promoting a synthetic approach hold mutually exclusive views regarding the nature and origin of spiritual knowledge. And indeed, many gurus and religious leaders tend to imply their particular tradition is intrinsically superior to all others; while it is vogue among scholars and intellectuals concerned with religious and new age studies to take an egalitarian approach, holding that all the many traditions are of equal value and that their best tenets and features somehow add up to the perennial philosophy. Both approaches, however, have something in common—both are past-oriented.
      A fundamental or traditional approach is past-oriented because it attempts to immortalize the seed-moment originating a particular tradition, which its true believers embrace as a final and certain revelation of Truth—an approach very attractive to people longing for a sense of security, righteousness and certainty in an unprecedented age of chaos and uncertainty.
      To many liberated thinkers, however, the concept of a perennial philosophy is highly appealing. On the surface, their approach may seem new, well-integrated and appropriate for an emergent global humanity. But such an approach actually isn't holistic, future-oriented or suited to the needs of a truly global age because it is founded on the false premise that the many local traditions—which in the past gave universal principles a particular and limited formulation adequate to meet the particular needs of a particular local culture during a particular phase of its life—cycle-add up to a timeless, universal philosophy.
      What actually confuses the issue is neither the glamorous claims of gurus and traditionalists nor the multi-cultural mosaics promoted by intellectuals and new age thinkers. The real cause of misunderstanding lies rather in a lack of knowledge regarding the one planetary source of spiritual Wisdom and how its many operative aspects are periodically released and given form and transformative power according to the cyclic rhythms and exigencies of human and planetary evolution.
      Since the last quarter of the 19th century, however, definite and persistent efforts have been made to shift our attention from the glamour of the many particular traditions to their planetary source. In all her writings, for instance, H. P. Blavatsky pointed to what she called the universal "Wisdom Religion," of which the many great spiritual traditions are partial reflections. Theosophia (divine Wisdom) is a synonym Blavatsky often used in place of Wisdom Religion, which she defined in The Theosophical Glossary as "the substratum and basis of all world-religions and philosophies." And Blavatsky carefully advised her students to observe the distinction between theosophia (the Source or substratum as a whole) and the particular teachings (based on an aspect of theosophia) she and her teachers formulated and promulgated.

A century later, Dane Rudhyar—the premier philosopher of Wholeness—reformulated the core ideas and metaphysical principles underlying the many great traditions according to the holistic and planetary frame of reference he developed as early as the 1920s.(1) In Occult Preparations for a New Age, Rudhyar carefully explains the distinction between what he terms the One Planetary Tradition and its many operative traditions. The One Planetary Tradition, which Rudhyar sometimes calls the one Tradition, points to the same eonic reality Blavatsky termed Wisdom Religion, theosophia and the fountain of primeval Wisdom. It is the Wisdom and knowledge of the universal or divine Mind, which was first embodied, sustained and revealed step-by-step to humanity by promethean beings representing the seed harvest of a previous world process.

      The One Planetary Tradition does not evolve, at least not during the vast "day" (manifest and objective) hemicycle of the world process.(2) As humanity evolves step-by-step during the "afternoon" phase of the great cycle of being, however, successive operative aspects of the archetypal One Planetary Tradition are released to meet new human needs and opportunities posed by unprecedented capacities and situations. But each particular operative tradition is necessarily limited and conditioned by the relatively narrow receptivity of the human minds to which it is directed.
      In throwing light on the one planetary source of divine Wisdom and how it impacts humanity, we need also consider archetype Anthropos—the total pattern of Humanity. It is in humanity as a whole and in every human being that is, was and ever will be. It holds all that is, was and, in the fullness of time, will be human. In operation, archetype Anthropos and divine Wisdom interpenetrate. They may be thought of as two aspects of a transcendent reality, the One Planetary Tradition—the seed of Humanity and all its potential faculties and the whole of archetypal Wisdom and knowledge it is humanity's destiny, function and purpose to hold and manage in accordance with the cyclic movement of the world process.
      Civilization advances through a long series of cultures. Each culture acts as a carrier-wave for an aspect of archetype Anthropos released during its birth stage and periodically realigned during its life-cycle. Each new variation on the theme Anthropos is to varying degrees interwoven with an aspect of divine Wisdom. Together they make possible new types of humanity and new qualities of mind and personhood.
      Each new type of humanity and quality of mind and personhood are at first impersonated by an Avataric personage—a divine incarnation, a supreme prototype—or by human agents or mouthpieces through whom some of the transcendent power released by the Avataric impulse flows. Esoteric tradition also speak of an "avatar of one's own divinity," which corresponds to what the neo-Platonists termed theophania. For the purpose of this short work, instances of all these variations of Avataric descent and theophania are broadly and conveniently termed Avatars.
      A series of closely related Avataric manifestations of varying magnitude constitutes a process bringing down a transformative spiritual impulse through successive levels—the archetypal, the mental, the "akashic," the socio-cultural and so on. A particular Avatar's magnitude, scope and function is linked to the cycle, subcycle or phase It inaugurates by striking a founding tone and by revealing a fundamental purpose. Additionally, the Avataric impulse may manifest through a transformative event, discovery or social movement as well as through a personage.
      In the preceding paragraph an Avatar was referred to by the capitalized neuter pronoun "It." The reason for using the neuter pronoun is that the Avataric impulse is released from a transcendent source. Spiritual Power and Compassion flows from this source through the Avataric personage like light flowing through a translucent lens. The Avataric personage's sense of will and identity reside not in the biology, sexual polarity and psychology of the body and personality, but in the mission or destiny the Avatar is meant to fulfill. It is fully Its destiny.
      Through a long series of Avatars of varying magnitude, successive aspects of archetype Anthropos are released and anchored to Earth's biosphere. Each aspect is a seed invested with a quantum of divine Compassion or spiritual power adequate for its actualization. An Avatar sows a mutant seed upon the human field. The field is a disintegrating culture nearing the close of its life-cycle. The mutant seed eventually germinates into a new culture which acts as a womb or matrix within which a new type of humanity and a new quality of personhood safely gestates.
      Only a small part of humanity, however, is ever able and ready to respond to an Avatar's vibration and seed ideas. A seed group of utterly dedicated and consecrated men and women embodying the transferable seed harvest of a disintegrating culture become attracted to and organized around an Avatar's light, power and destiny. Such seed persons resonate to an Avatar's new vibratory quality and together they act as a lens bringing the archetypes, seed ideas and principles released through an Avatar into existential focus.
      After the death of an Avataric personage's body, Its disciples or their followers eventually formulate an esoteric tradition based on the aspect of divine Wisdom and archetype Anthropos that was revealed by the originating Avatar directly to Its disciples. The Avatar's personality, character, gestures, appearance, pivotal life-experiences, tests and achievements are mythologized and interwoven into an esoteric tradition, which is preserved by a self-perpetuating line of custodians. Upon the esoteric tradition formulated by the Avatar's followers is built an exoteric religion, metaphysics and philosophy which in turn forms the foundation for the characteristic symbols and language, images and myths, rites and customs, social and religious institutions, shared values and beliefs, basic assumptions and emotional responses, psychological attitudes and modes of behavior, ideal of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, and the way of life and the particular approach to art, dance and music of a new culture.

The custodians and representatives of the many traditions, however, seldom present their particular tradition and its doctrines within such an all-inclusive context. Indeed, more likely are subtle and not so subtle innuendoes that a particular tradition actually is the one and only ancient and ageless Tradition, the repository of the One and Only Truth. This obviously creates a very confused and confusing situation which every aspirant to the spiritual path eventually encounters. In Occult Preparations for a New Age, Rudhyar states that

strong and sincere aspirants may find a line of approach leading them to individuals who still represent a truly ancient and primordial Tradition unsullied by the pride of mental achievement and the excitement of emotional cravings. But will it be, can it be, the one Tradition? Can anything that is formulated in terms of a specific culture, however ancient, and in a particular language and symbols be the one Tradition? One should face these questions in every possible manner and at almost any cost; and the way one approaches the possibility of giving them a valid answer is bound to influence the seeker's entire spiritual life and his peace of mind and soul. (pp. 17-18)

      And a few paragraphs later, Rudhyar states that

the one universal Tradition is in every great spiritual tradition. Yet if one is a weary, confused, and disappointed searcher after mysterious and exotic truths, one may long for some stabilizing, reassuring, illuminating knowledge of that one Tradition. But looking for it in any particular place, according to any special technique, and in terms of Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, Tibetan, Greek, or Hebrew is, I believe, hardly the way to find it. The moment one depends upon specific "traditional" techniques and particular words or mantrams, one is outside of the one Tradition, even though there may be direct reflections of it everywhere. (p. 19)

      Yet one often hears and reads that the conditions, methods, procedures and rules appertaining to spiritual living "always have been and always will be the same" and that esoteric teachings "never change." Individuals claiming such, however, forget that humanity evolves and is today standing at the perilous threshold of a global age. Our unprecedented world situation poses unique opportunities and special needs which both require and makes possible a more inclusive and truly planetary frame of reference. With the aid of such a holistic and planetary frame of reference, metaphysical concepts and principles comprising an esoteric tradition may be reintegrated and restated to better answer the unique and unprecedented needs of postmodern minds. Additionally, the approach to the spiritual path has necessarily to change, simply because today's aspirants start it from much different positions than did their ancient counterparts.
      This suggests that today's spiritual aspirant should not be too concerned with seeking an illusionary ultimate Truth or acting in mechanical conformity with an ancient or not so ancient formula or recipe for spiritual living. Indeed, the modern aspirant would do better to tune into and resonate to the new aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom which, although it may not as yet fully reflected itself on the existential level as an Avataric personage or event, is even now cascading tier by tier from its transcendent source.

      In so doing the sincere and resolute aspirant may come to the attention of Beings of spiritual Light and Fullness who in their togetherness embody Earth's spiritual-mental field, the Planetary Mind. Such Beings have entered and experienced to its culmination the path of transformation. They have taken over the function once performed by the promethean beings mentioned earlier. Each is a full realization of a unique Quality of Anthropos. In their unanimous Fullness, they constitute the Pleroma, the spiritual harvest of the current world process, which is even now being realized cell by cell.(3)
      With the unseen and often unsuspected aid of Pleroma Beings, the aspirant may be drawn to their human agents and emissaries. As a new influx of divine Wisdom cascades from its transcendent source through the Planetary Mind and "downward" toward the collective human mind, such agents and emissaries assist Pleroma Beings in giving it existential form and disseminating its message among receptive minds.
      One may ask, if such an influx is flowing from transcendent spheres into receptive and highly focused minds, how does it operate? and what formulation may it take, or even now taking?
      These questions are addressed in the following passage from Occult Preparations—

[The One Planetary Tradition has] its being essentially beyond the cultural level; it must be transcultural, in the sense that while it may operate through any culture, it is not bound to, limited by, or essentially conditioned by any one culture or by local factors. Its custodians, just because they are "universal" or planetary beings, aware of the need for a new release of their knowledge and intervention, are inwardly compelled out of love for humanity to answer this particular need in whatever way makes the answer most effectual. As this happens, what I have called the one Tradition is seen operating in the aspect which is specifically able, ready, and willing to exteriorize the spiritual-mental answer. It operates through an Occult Brotherhood. (pp. 36-37)

      But what actually is an Occult Brotherhood? Is it not a term we read much about but really understand so little of?
      Even the language of the traditional term, "Occult Brotherhood," is easily misunderstood. Today the word "occult" is usually understood to describe dark, unwholesome, even evil, activity. It provokes images of magical rites and ceremonies. The most vulgar forms of astrology, tarot and divination are referred to as "the occult arts."
      But the word "occult" actually refers to the hidden, unseen and underlying aspects of reality. And an "occultist," properly understood, is an individual able to work with unseen natural forces—either in accordance with or against the evolutionary direction of the cyclic world process.
      The word "brotherhood" has lost much of the power, appeal and certainty it held in previous centuries. Today it often brings to mind exclusive groups and secret organizations founded to benefit insiders and suppress or exploit outsiders. Additionally, a 19th century term designating the planetary occult brotherhood—"the great white brotherhood"—is easily confused with racist groups active today in South Africa and the United States.
      We have become aware of sexism in language. One may well ask if an occult brotherhood includes sisters? Additionally, the brother in brotherhood suggest a strictly biological and human foundation.
      There is a strong tendency in all of us to wish not to change our language, for we identify strongly with it. When changes are proposed, purists usually regarded them as silly and unnecessary, often because when they were young no one thought there was anything lacking, limited or uncertain about a word like brotherhood. And vanguard thinkers are often said to be trying to be different for its own sake.
      Such issues are dealt with throughout this booklet. For the present, however, it is sufficient to state that here the term Occult Brotherhood is superseded by "Spiritual Companionship."
      The choice of the word "spiritual" will become clear in the course of this work. It replaces "occult" largely because of the negative connotations associated with the word. Of greater importance is the use of the word "companionship." It is an excellent word used here because it carries the higher meaning of the more familiar word "brotherhood," yet is free of biological and gender connotations.

The first thing to realize about a Spiritual Companionship is that it is bi-polar-human and supernal-and both poles are multileveled.
      Around the core of the human pole stands a group of consecrated men and women who have initiated and to some degree have experienced the long and arduous process of spiritual-mental repolarization and radical transformation known as "the Path," and more specifically the approach to it initiated and exemplified by a particular Avatar.
      At a Spiritual Companionship's supernal (transphysical, metabiological and transindividual) pole stands an unanimous Pleroma of compassionate sages, Beings of Light and Fullness who during previous ages, and through their own self-devised, self-induced efforts, pursued to its culmination a way through the path of transformation. In the Pleroma state individuality and unanimity harmoniously interpenetrate in a condition of multi-unity. It is a condition of light, in which the wave condition and the particle state interpenetrate.
      On the most inclusive planetary level, all particular Pleromas integrate into what the 19th century formulation of theosophy termed the "White Lodge." On a less inclusive and more specific level, the planetary Pleroma steps down or differentiates its white light into the colors of the spectrum. The vibratory quality of each color acts as a carrier-wave for the Light and Power of a particular Pleroma and its spiritual tradition. Each in turn further differentiate into various "lineages" or variations on a theme.
      A truly individualized person treading the path of transformation has successfully emerged out of the collective matrix of a particular culture and has began to modulate his or her center of consciousness and sense of identity from the levels of biopsychic imperatives and appetites, cultural conditioning and psychomental desires, reactions and complexes to the spiritual-mental level of Wisdom and all-inclusiveness where individual selfhood and group unanimity interpenetrate. As this process develops, the individual's mind may become attuned to the particular Spiritual Companionship, or "sub-division" of a spiritual Companionship, operating within the vibratory range (or Ray) and field of activity to which his or her unique spiritual Quality (Monad, divine Archetype, Augoeides or Letter of the Creative Word) resonates. The individual is then drawn along magnetic lines and eventually—if all goes well!—brought into contact with a representative of an Spiritual Companionship. Behind such a representative (who is, in the fullest sense, a living link between the Spiritual Companionship's human and supernal poles) stands one or more Pleroma Beings who release some of the Light and Power of the Pleroma through the lens of the human pole of the Spiritual Companionship for the purpose of helping humanity take its next evolutionary step ahead.
      The sincere and resolute aspirant may come eventually into direct contact with one or more Pleroma Beings who, within the constraints of karma, may provide help and guidance; but the aspirant must face his or her transformations as an individual. When an actualized Pleroma Being—termed a Master, Mahatma or Elder Brother in early theosophical and esoteric literature—communicates with a human aspirant, It reassumes the characteristics of the personality through which It attained Pleromahood, and appears as an individual much as light appears as a stream of discrete particles (photons) when observed striking an opaque object.

Immediately preceding and during unprecedented human situations, a number of factors operate together for the release of a new aspect of divine Wisdom (and its formulation into words, images and symbols) and archetype Anthropos (and its existential realization as new human faculties and forms of social organization) adequate to meet unprecedented human needs.
      A new aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom is released at the archetypal level before the need it answers becomes apparent. The release must occur before conditions polarizing it become well-developed because it takes time for a new spiritual impulse to gradually assume definite existential form as it cascades from the archetypal realm to the existential world.
      As a new aspect of Wisdom and Anthropos is released, a group of Pleroma Beings, whose Qualities of Will, Activity and Consciousness best suit them to respond to developing human needs, become organized around its particular Tone and Quality. These compassionate Beings of Light and Fullness embody and sustain the new aspect of Wisdom and Anthropos. They also comprise the supernal pole of a new Spiritual Companionship, a new organ in the unanimous organism of the planetary Pleroma.

      In their unanimous Mind of Wholeness, the Pleroma Beings at the supernal pole of a newly inaugurated Spiritual Companionship gradually give more definite, yet still essential, form to a new aspect or quality of Wisdom and Anthropos. Their subjective work culminates, yet by no means concludes, with the advent of an originating Avatar, toward which a Pleromic Being may contribute a reflection of Its spiritual-mental principle in a manner Blavatsky outlined in her article, "The Mystery of Buddha."(4)
      As this highly subjective activity occurs in the Pleroma Mind, a few human members of and aspirants to the many Spiritual Companionships may resonate to the new aspect Anthropos being "stepped down" and gradually particularized by the Pleroma Mind. These future-oriented individuals reconfigure, forming the human pole of a new Spiritual Companionship. At their core stands one or a few exemplary individuals who have realized a conscious, two-way relationship with at least one Pleroma Being at the Spiritual Companionship's supernal pole or with the divine principle operating through an Avataric personage.
      After the death of the originating Avatar's body, the members of the companionship's human pole give the new aspect of Wisdom and Anthropos a more definite, existential and operative form than did the originating Avatar. They do so because the Avatar's chief purpose as the prototype of a new humanity is to carry, fully impersonate and anchor the Tone and Quality of a new operative aspect of Anthropos in the Earth's biosphere, as well as to reveal Its qualities and faculties through acts performed in service to humanity and to draw around It a circle of companions to whom It reveals directly (esoterically) the seed message of a new tradition. The companions give the seed ideas revealed by the Avatar a particular, existential character by formulating them into words, images, symbols and creative acts and by disseminating its message among receptive minds. In addition to formulating, disseminating and perpetuating new images of cosmos and anthropos, to some extent they also exemplify a new variation on the theme Anthropos and, in some instances, may even perform avataric roles of lesser magnitudes.
      In a symbolic sense, the human pole of an Spiritual Companionship consists of a head (or heart) and two arms. The head is represented by the very few individuals who serve as initiators of the Companionship's activities and formulators of its new image of cosmos and anthropos. One arm represents disseminators and creative artists; the other preservers and custodians. The three functions may overlap and an individual may shift from one function to another during a lifetime.
      The work of initiators and formulators, which may initially involve a long process extending over three to five centuries, give an adequate existential form to a new aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom. Transformative processes require human initiators on the existential level because the Pleroma Beings and the Avataric impulse exist beyond culture and, after the death of an Avatar's body, lack an adequate point of contact with the collective human mind it is their function to help transform.
      Attempting to throw light on the character and mission of H. P. Blavatsky, Rudhyar writes in Occult Preparations —

the release of occult knowledge has always to conform to the nature of the general mentality of the potential students of that knowledge. For this reason, nothing can be transformed except by someone who has been and at least externally remains a part of that which requires transformation. This is why a great Adept who is a member of an Occult Brotherhood cannot directly and publicly operate in a society in need of spiritual transformation, especially one as materialistic and individualistic as our Western society . . . Someone who to some extent belongs to the two realms of knowledge (occult and cultural) must serve as an intermediary or channel for communication. This must be an individual able to withstand both the downflow of occult power through his organism, and the scorn, indifference, or attacks of individuals and institutions of the society in which he was born, but which his consciousness and will have emerged in at least relative freedom. Only such a person can serve as a link between an occult Brotherhood and the collectivity whose time for transformation has come, according to some planetary cycle. (pp. 40-41)

      Around the formulators and initiators gather a group of disseminators and creatives who help weave new images of cosmos and anthropos into the fabric of the collective mentality and way of life of the age. They do so by restating, elaborating upon, practicing, dramatizing and simplifying the formulation's core principles, images and symbols in terms of the many fields of human knowledge and activity—philosophy and social organization, the arts and literature, psychology and education, science and medicine, and so on.
      There is yet a third function performed by members of an Spiritual Companionship's human pole—preservation. A group of human preservers work to keep the message and its formulation intact and free of centrifugal elements. Their work largely figures after the formulators, or at least after a generation of formulators, have concluded their part of a larger work. The activities and personalities of preservers and disseminators, however, sometimes conflict because the former are concerned with forever preserving a past formulation in its pure and original form, while the latter work to disseminate a new message to the widest possible and most varied audience.
      Preservers sometimes stand in the way of and may even oppose the work of newer generations of formulators aligned with their particular Spiritual Companionship. And when a new aspect of divine Wisdom is being first formulated and disseminated, a few members of the many traditions may obstruct and challenge the work and message of a newly formed Spiritual Companionship. They do so because they have, in their utter devotion and dedication to a particular tradition, immortalized the time and conditions of the seed moment that inaugurated their particular Spiritual Companionship and its tradition, and they may tend to see their originating Avatar not as an Avatar but as the Avatar. Additionally, initiators of new esoteric or occult activities have a destructive aspect, because in breaking outmoded mindsets they need expose the limiting factors inherent in obsolescent teachings and traditions. Preservers therefore often view them as iconoclasts and heretics.
      Regarding the past-oriented features of preservation, Rudhyar writes in Occult Preparations—

One of the problems that meets the knowledgeable seeker, once the first phase of enthrallment is past, is that a claim is nearly always made that this Tradition is the original one, more real and effectual than any other. Such a claim may be inevitable because, by temperament as well as because the character of their work, the Custodians of the pure ancient Tradition must be conservative and to some extent dogmatic. They embody a form of spiritual inertia, because they have resisted all attempts at introducing changes in the past "Revelation." H. P. Blavatsky spoke of "the inertia of spirit." This means that the original impulse at the beginning of a large cycle of existence has to be maintained during the progress to outer growth in which an immense variety of relationships are bound to induce centrifugal types of thinking, feeling, and behavior. The divine alpha state has to be reproduced in the spiritual harvest of the omega state. The seedhood has to remain invariant during growth. If there is to be a mutation it can only be during the winter period of the seed . . . (p. 25)

      The life-cycle of any tradition passes through four phases, corresponding to the seasons. The seed ideas of a tradition and its transformative new message—which is transformative because it is new and uniquely suited to answer unprecedented situations and needs—germinate during the symbolic spring. During the summer phase the message flowers into a cultural movement. A transferable seed harvest is released during its symbolic autumn and the tradition and its culture experiences decline, decay and disintegration during the winter phase.
      A seed splits as it germinates during spring. Likewise, a tradition experiences during the spring and summer of its life-cycle (or sub-cycle) a differentiation of its originating impulse and seed ideas. Each differentiation or variation on a theme becomes a foundation for one of the many lineages operative within a particular Spiritual Companionship, each meeting the particular needs of a particular type (or subtype) of personhood. The disseminators who originally give variations their particular form shift function, becoming the initiators and exemplars of a Spiritual Companionship's many lineages.
      By the time the winter period is reached, the tradition has exhausted the quantum of creative spiritual power that infused its originating aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom. As the originating power is spent, it is replaced by the collective psychism of generations of adherents and devotees. Its esoteric tradition is largely replaced by the ancient yet exoteric images, symbols and doctrines of the popular religion and social institutions long ago founded upon the tradition's seed ideas. During a tradition's autumnal and winter phases, those performing the three functions discussed above—formulation, dissemination and preservation—also assume a different character.
      As a tradition's winter phase (or subphase) approaches, most of the custodians still in touch with its living power withdraw, reconfigure or die. They are replaced by past-oriented individuals who, usually out of deep-seated insecurity, become so locked into a crystallized and institutionalized mindset that they mistake the form taken by a tradition's originating seed ideas for the One and Only Changeless and Absolute Truth, and work to preserve and uphold the supremacy of that form. In other words, they mistake particular forms and formulas for the whole of divine Wisdom.
      Having also lost touch with their tradition's living power, the disseminators of the cycle's close merely repeat an often cleverly disguised official doctrine, usually expressed in the simplest possible terms and aimed at the lowest common denominator. The creatives are replaced by "neo-classicists" and producers of clichéd propaganda.
      During the autumnal and winter stages, the function of inspiring and initiating activities is taken over largely by the group who replaced custodians, who now hold or imply that no new message will be forthcoming because the doctrines and formulas of the particular tradition they uphold are somehow a final, certain Truth to be forever repeated. Indeed, having replaced earlier generations of custodians, these past-oriented, dead-letter worshippers—who desire desperately to be correct and to align themselves with a tradition providing security and certainty—eventually usurp the functions of initiators and disseminators, thus dominating and determining the activities of the crystallized shell left behind by a once vital Spiritual Companionship. Assuming the role of enforcer, their "rules for spiritual living," which by this phase are strictly moralistic and lacking a rational basis, become the criterion of a subtly enforced conformity.
      There are, nonetheless, individuals who periodically attempt to produce innovative and up-to-date renditions or explanations of a tradition's official doctrines in the clichéd words and fashionable images of the popular culture and its mass mind. But these individuals have lost hold of—or never held—the living power that once inspired the minds and lives of earlier formulators and exemplars with new images of cosmos and anthropos. Lacking vision and the capacity to resonate to a new aspect of Wisdom and Anthropos, they instead follow the lead of the rabble. Reduced to pandering, the first becomes the last.

In view of the above, it is easy to understand why a certain kind of discrimination is needed to successfully tread the path of transformation. For the difference between success and long delays may rest in the aspirant's ability to distinguish authentic transformation and spiritual living from the seductive attraction of glamorous claims and spiritual regimentation.
      Ultimately, the aspirant is on his or her own. Spiritual friends may provide help when needed, but the aspirant must possess the commonsense and discrimination necessary both to recognize and accept true friends and exemplars, and to avoid false friends, sham teachers and destructive associations.
      Although every situation is unique and each aspirant must learn to recognize what experiences and activities are required at each phase of the process of transformation, a few precautionary hints may be useful in distinguishing a living, vital and truly transformative spiritual companionship from the decadent remains of one in its closing phases.
      First, it is necessary to remember that we live in an accelerated age. Time has condensed. Not so long ago, centuries passed with little or no advancement in social conditions or human knowledge. A spiritual tradition's life-cycle spanned thousands of years. Today an entire cycle may be realized not in five-thousand years, or even in two-thousand years, but in a century.
      Indeed, every major phase and general situation experienced in the course of a spiritual tradition's life-cycle may be seen in the first one-hundred years of the modern Theosophical Movement, the "grandmother" of today's new age movement. A study of the Movement's role, history and lineages, and the psychology of its leaders and members, provides valuable insights which are transferable to almost any spiritual or esoteric group the aspirant is likely to encounter.
      In addition to a sense of cyclicity and history, it is necessary to question everything, to take nothing for granted, and to expect and demand reasonable explanations from teachers and accountability from leaders.
      Inauthentic and decadent esoteric and spiritual groups, however, almost always demand slavish obedience and submission. A profound and sincere questioning of doctrine, dogma and rules is subtly or not so subtly discouraged. Doctrines and policies are not expected to be rational, but they must be accepted and obeyed, preferably without question.
      To question is usually taken as an indication that "something is wrong" with the questioner, who is therefore "not yet ready" to accept "spiritual authority higher than his own ego."
      Another indication of the degree of living power inspiring a group and its members can be seen in how well words and doctrines are translated into action. Usually, the more one talks of brotherhood and performing good deeds, the less brotherly one acts. To compensate for a lack of living power, effete and decadent groups fill the gap with fascinating descriptions of psychic powers and experiences, posed meditations and seldom affectations, glib talk of angels and devas, and an addiction to the child's play of empty ritualism, secret meetings and meaningless rules.
      A group's social organization also provides insights into its current status and how well it suits the needs of modern individuals living at the threshold of a global society. Decadent and inauthentic esoteric groups are strictly organized around a hierarchy of command, a pyramid with the least merited and qualified often occupying elevated positions. All political power is held by a small, ultra-secret inner group.
      The key features of fascism may be seen operating within a false or effete esoteric group: a dominate "leader" demanding submission and obedience; a small power group below him that merely executes the "leader's" wishes; the glorification of a golden past; the violent expulsion of alien elements; and the ruthless suppression and elimination of all criticism and opposition.
      Yet fascism is the darkside of the highly focused attitudes and conditions necessary for a new tradition to initially develop, and for this reason fascist policies are almost always thought correct, justified and necessary by its promoters at the close of a tradition's cycle. The important difference is that at the founding of a tradition, its members are in resonance with and organized around the originating impulse of the Avatar. By the closing phases, the quantum of divine energy that infused the once new aspect of Wisdom and Anthropos has been spent and replaced by the collective psychism—accumulated psychic energy—of generations of devotees and religious believers who have grown increasingly out of touch with the living power that once vitalized the tradition. No longer in touch with the tradition's living power, the dominant heads of effete esoteric groups must use fascistic methods and policies to bind the group together and to maintain their position of unquestioned authority.
      Authority and group cohesion is also reinforced through often repeated rituals and ceremonies, which provide a means to tap the collective psychism accumulated over the ages by their frequent performance. Contact with collective psychism places the participants in a euphoric state providing the illusion that one has touched authentic spiritual, creative power.
      At their best, such groups provide secure and comfortable shelter for those lacking the courage and self-reliance to pursue the path of transformation. In them a new message never welcomed. But if they can be seen operating, then amid the autumnal decay of once great traditions, a mutant seed carrying a new aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom is being released.

Because our next evolutionary step ahead features true individualization and full emergence out of cultural matrices, one may well ask if gurus, spiritual teachers, esoteric groups and secret teachings have a place in the future.

      If collective humanity succeeds in stepping into a truly new age, gurus, spiritual teachers, secret teachings, esoteric groups and rules and regiments for spiritual living will become passé. They will because in such a world there will be no secret or esoteric knowledge. All letters will be unsealed, so to speak.(5) Indeed, since the dawn of the nuclear age, all knowledge that was once occult or esoteric has been revealed. There will be new kinds of knowledge, but they will not be concealed because they will not need concealment when humanity "comes of age." Until that time, however, it will not be so-called esoteric knowledge that will require restricted access but some of the operations and applications of scientific knowledge.
      Future-oriented individuals today do not need gurus and spiritual teachers. The spiritual cannot be taught, it must be realized. Today we need to become self-reliant and realize our own "inner guru." Spiritual friends may help by directing our attention to such a need and by shedding light on the path, but we must tread that path ourselves, under our own power. Spiritual friends who have realized union with their transpersonal spiritual Quality wish not for us to orbit them like dark planets dependent on their solar radiance. They instead want us to join them in the starhood of the Galactic Community.

      The spiritual companionships of the new aspect of Anthropos and Wisdom will not operate in secret because they will not need to, unless we stumble and fall into a new dark age of fascism. Living in mechanical conformity to a spiritual regiment is not an adequate substitute for resonance, nor can spiritual conformity, submission and obedience bestow a faculty of spiritual resonance. Neither will sitting with gurus who exemplify a cultural and therefore local, past-oriented tradition provide such a faculty. Nor can a true spiritual friend give us the power to resonant. A relationship with an exemplar of a new variation on the theme Anthropos, however, may help though something akin to sympathetic resonance. Yet such exemplars will not cast themselves in the role of gurus or spiritual teachers because they realize true individuals need not gurus and spiritual authorities but spiritual companions.(6)
      Unlike gurus, who are representatives of a particular culture and its spiritual tradition, spiritual friends of the new aspect of Anthropos will not teach or practice a particular culture—based spiritual tradition, regiment or technique developed in the past to meet the particular needs of a particular local cultural during a particular phase of its development.
      The new ways are no longer cultural but individual. The new type of Anthropos will not be a cultural type but a new type of human individual. The global humanity in the making is not multi-cultural but multi-individual. It will not emerge out of a collection of local cultures but will be realized through a new type of global individual. The sum of all local cultures does not make a global humanity because a sum is a quantity, not a new quality.
      The planetary society of harmony and fullness which awaits us when we take our next evolutionary step ahead will be made not by nations and cultures which are by definition local, but by true individuals who have experienced Wholeness and who have realize they as individuals are inseparable from humanity as a whole and from Earth as a whole.

Much has been made in the preceding pages of a new message, but what features should characterize the new seed ideas making possible a new interpretation of reality and a new form of social organization adequate to answer the needs of the 21st century?
      Because humanity today stands on the perilous threshold of a global age, we need a truly planetary (and, in a larger sense, galactic) approach to and formulation of esoteric ideas and metaphysical principles. This in turn requires an explicitly holistic foundation because only a mind of Wholeness can help humanity as a whole shift its focus from egoism, individualism, nationalism and the private agendas of the many separate classes and self-interest groups to the Earth as a whole. For it is only by viewing the Earth holistically that humanity as a whole can realize and fulfill its purposeful planetary function.
      In terms of esotericism and metaphysics, the shift from an atomistic to a holistic worldview should, among other things, enable us to take a new look at doctrines assigning absolute individuality to spiritual "monads." As a corollary of absolute monadism-personal individualism taken to cosmic proportions—modern esotericism usually depicts evolution in highly individualistic and personalistic terms and images. One often reads how, according to "the esoteric tradition," the spiritual monad is a lonely pilgrim traveling up a hierarchical ladder from lower forms to a human being, to a "planetary logos," to a "solar logos" and so on. In the course of its long evolutionary journey, the lonely pilgrim seems always to preserve a glorious and highly personal sense of achievement and absolute individuality.
      Similarly, esotericists have written much giving the impression that an "Adept Hierarchy" is a graduated chain of command and authority headed by an "Occult Hierarch" resembling a powerful pontiff, an emperor or the CEO of a vast and powerful multi-national corporation. Such images of spiritual individualism are deceptive and stand in the way of the more inclusive images of cosmos and anthropos humanity now needs. Such pictures, however, might have been necessary for a 19th century mind conditioned by atomism and its corollary egoism, individualism, materialism, formalism, nationalism and imperialism. More realistically, Pleromas and Spiritual Companionships are holarchies—unanimous hierarchies of interrelated and interdependent wholes within wholes within wholes integrated by the holistic organizing principle of containment rather than bound together by the dictates of command.
      Another feature inherent in all past esoteric, philosophical and metaphysical formulations is the negation and denial syndrome. The new formulation and worldview humanity now needs will feature what Rudhyar terms "a total affirmation of being," because a truly holistic worldview does not need to deny any experience taking place at any particular moment in the cyclic world process. And because a mind of Wholeness sees and experiences every phase of the great Cycle of Being and its contents for what they inherently are, a philosophy and metaphysics of Wholeness is free of the language of negation. Terms like non-being, non-manifest, non-existence, timeless, changeless and the Absolute confuse more than elucidate. They need to be replaced by meaningful terms of affirmation.

      Those who formulate new images of cosmos and anthropos, and those who disseminate its seed message to receptive minds, will not try to convince us that the new formulation is the one and only ancient, certain and absolute Truth. They will instead attempt to show its value and validity in terms of the present, unprecedented needs it answers, pointing out that as humanity evolves step-by-step, new aspects of archetype Anthropos and divine Wisdom are periodically released and passed down to help humanity take its next evolutionary step ahead.(7)
      And exemplars of the new aspect of Anthropos will not demand or expect our submission and obedience. Because they are true spiritual friends, their duty toward younger companions is to help and encourage them toward self-reliance, toward the exercise of self-devised, self induced effort leading to the full realization of one's unique spiritual Quality. A true spiritual friend will not act, cannot act, as a sun to a group of dark planets dependent on his radiance. Such friends want only for us to join them in the reality that is our evolutionary destiny.

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1. Rudhyar's early formulation of a holistic and planetary worldview were published in the 1920s in Hamsa and during the 1930s as a series of articles in Will Levington Comfort's little magazine The Glass Hive.
      More mature and developed presentations of the philosophy and metaphysics of Wholeness may be found in Rudhyar's Planetarization of Consciousness: From the Individual to the Whole (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Aurora Press, 1970); Occult Preparations for a New Age (Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1975); Rhythm of Wholeness: A Total Affirmation of Being (Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1983); and The Fullness of Human Experience (Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 1985).  Return

2. See Part Four, The Cycle of Being Epitomized for an outline of the cyclic world process.  Return

3. The word Pleroma is Greek, referring to spiritual fullness.  Return

4. The article "The Mystery of Buddha" may be found in Blavatsky's Collected Writings, Volume 14.  Return

5. The Aquarian Age, which may commence around the year 2060, begins with the last degree Aquarius. Its polar opposite, 30° Leo, refers to the individual human features of the beginning the Aquarian Age, while 30° Aquarius refers to its collective features. The Sabian Symbol for the last degree of Leo reads, "An unsealed letter." In An Astrological Mandala Rudhyar gives the degree the keynote of "The realization by the individual that all thoughts and all messages are inevitably to be shared with all men." He goes on to state, "Nothing can be hidden, except superficially and for a brief time. What any man thinks and deeply realizes becomes the property of any man."  Return

6. One of the chief questions facing today's seeker is: Are you ready and willing to accept self-responsibility, to accept a spiritual friend rather than "spiritual" authority? Are you ready to participate fully and creatively in a spiritual companionship?
      Over a century ago H. P. Blavatsky presented a similar question. During the first years of her mission to "change the mind of the 20th century" she introduced to the public spiritually realized beings she termed "the Brothers." But her followers didn't want brothers or companions on the path, and "the Brothers" morphed into powerful "Masters." Which will we demand?
      Along similar lines, in 1919 the great theosophist B. P. Wadia, who was Rudhyar's special spiritual friend, wrote in "The Inner Ruler" that in "spiritual life definite and precise rules cannot be laid down for all. It is not possible. In the old days, when the teacher took from ten to twelve pupils only . . . it was not possible; far less so now. The spirit of the age is against it. Human beings are far too evolved to receive orders and carry them out . . . Slavery is bad, and spiritual slavery is the worst of all slaveries."  Return

7. The etymological source of the word "tradition" is the Latin traditio, meaning to "hand over" or to "pass down." It is closely related to the words "traitor" and "betrayal."
      In a sense, to hand down an "esoteric tradition" expecting others to accept it merely on the authority of its representative is a great betrayal. It is so because the "esoteric" must be experienced directly. No tradition which is passed down from generation to generation can be authentically "esoteric," though in the spring and summer stages of a culture's life-cycle the form assumed by its "esoteric tradition" holds power capable of provoking an transformative "esoteric" experience in aspirants ready and able to resonate to it.  Return

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