CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Avatars and Seed Men for a New Civilization - 4

If the celestial symbol for this twentieth century is Pluto, it is a rather mysterious and ambiguous one. In my book New Mansions for New Men (written in 1935-36) I spoke of this remote planet as a cosmic symbol of the Seed. It undoubtedly may be related to various kinds of underground manifestations and to decay; but above all it represents the power that destroys all superficial glamour and all illusions. It leaves whatever it touches stark naked, void of all external attributes, but also strictly and purely what it essentially is. The whole life-species and its power of persistence and also mutation are condensed in the seed. But only what is essential is there; no superfluity can exist within the hard shell of the seed. In this sense the Plutonian century, now in its autumnal season, is a period during which many seedmen are living in whom an immense potency of futurity operates, in whatever field of activity they may perform their perhaps hidden (occult) task. One might say that, in the nineteenth century a great planetary mutation occurred in the occult world of the seed of Man, and that in this present century the transformation-in-depth has reached the level of the conscious mind in those human beings who were born ready for the focalization and formulation of the new vision and the new hope. In many people, and especially in today's young people this is still only an intuitive and difficult to express feeling-realization; but before the year 2000 something should occur to give a more tangible and evident character to the expectation of a fundamental change in human affairs, both at the level of consciousness and psychology and in terms of at least a preliminary start in social organization at a global level.(5)

In 1891-92 a new 500-year cycle began. I related symbolically the preceding five centuries to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The new 500-year series of five century units could then be said to start under the rulership of Pluto. Perhaps new and distant planets may be discovered; the existence of at least one more seems certain. What this may mean is that, with Pluto, we definitely enter a realm that is the foundation of a definite relationship with the cosmic forces and principles operating in a truly "galactic" manner. The fact that mankind's collective attention has recently been strongly focused on space-travel and unmanned investigations of the planets of the solar system now provides us with a set of publicly accepted facts and even of scientifically acceptable expectations which are conditioning our new approach to the problem of establishing a path leading from the sensation conditioned and intellectually limited world of knowledge of Western man to a transcendent realm not only of consciousness, but of actual experience.

Last century the fascinating possibility of transcending our everyday awareness of reality and contacting the "spirits" of the dead gave form to the Spiritualistic Movement; and H. P. B. and those behind her activities used this fascinating possibility to gain the public attention required for the dissemination of her message. As already stated in the third chapter of this book, one hundred years from the date of the rapid spread of Spiritualistic phenomena across the United States and the formation of groups of people involved in séances of various types, the UFO phenomena began to attract the attention of the media and a large public. The Spiritualistic Movement is definitely Neptunian in character; the UFO phenomena and the fast spreading "communications" claimed to originate in "Space people" have far more a Plutonian significance, for they deal with what is supposed to be physical beings living in material conditions in other solar systems or galaxies. The UFO flying saucers may or may not be actual facts related to galactic space or pointing to new dimensions of space-time; but at least they form the substance of a new "myth," by means of which harassed and confused modern man can release some of his subconscious or superconscious longings for some new kind of "beyond." This century that beyond is Plutonian, while one hundred years ago it was the Neptunian beyond of psychic research, astral plane experiences, and communications with "Masters" through sensitives or trance mediums.

The question almost inevitably comes to mind whether the Occult Brotherhoods, if they are indeed trying to establish a new public contact with mankind during the last quarter of this twentieth century, may not be ready to use the UFO myth for their purpose, just as they used — with quite unhappy results, alas — Spiritualistic and psychic phenomena in order to impress a transcendent kind of knowledge upon the collective mentality of our Western world, and through it, of mankind as a whole. I tentatively evoked such a possibility in the above mentioned third chapter; and at this point in our discussion the suggestion may take a slightly more definite form.

At the time I write these pages, I personally have had no experience with flying saucers or balls of fire in the sky; and my mind is open, but not quite ready to fully accept any one of the theories advanced to explain sightings and phenomena, at least a fair number of which are based on unimpeachable evidence. It seems rather probable however, that the Unidentified Flying Objects are physical in a sense that transcends what we know on earth as strictly material. They undoubtedly can and do dematerialize. The belief in the possibility of human beings dematerializing and rematerializing is part not only of theosophical Occultism but also of the Christian tradition; only in the latter case the Christ (or Jesus) alone is considered to have been endowed with this power. Modern scientific minds attempt to explain such a performance in terms of a fourth dimension (which H. P. B. defined as that of "interpenetration") or even of multiple parallel or interpenetrating universes. In The Mahatma Letters it is stated that the several "globes" constituting the total reality of any planet, our Earth included, are in "coadunation but not cosubstantiality." This seems to mean that they form one whole, the several globes interpenetrating and perhaps (yet not necessarily) having a common center. This is the basic concept of a holistic and hierarchical universe which is now held by a number of prominent scientists.(6)

The most practical corollary of this concept is the evident fact that in order to reach galactic space a man has not to go to "heaven" or anywhere. Galactic space, as well as solar system space pervades every cell of a human being. He has not to change space physically to be in galactic — space or to be subjected to galactic forces. We live in the galaxy as fishes live in the sea. If we are not aware of this fact it is because our consciousness is earthbound; and if galactic forces are not noticeably affecting the behavior, growth, or decay of our bodies and their cells it can only be because the materials of these bodies vibrate at a rate which make them unresponsive to the much higher or faster vibrations of galactic energies. Likewise we do not see X-ray vibrations and radar waves or hear ultrasounds. Awareness depends solely on attunement, which may be blocked or altered by external

If we understand well such now evident facts, the problem of UFOs may take a different character, especially as several cases have been reported of UFO sightings and near-presence which were followed by (and may be said to have "caused") some form of physical healing or change in consciousness in the witnesses.(7) The UFOs may normally operate in galactic space, yet under the direction of the entities who built them may be able to radiate waves causing the witnesses to become temporarily attuned, or to resonate in their consciousness and even cellular-atomic rhythms to the higher galactic vibrations somewhat as we control the operations of our satellites and space-probing mechanisms; likewise a Hindu guru can temporarily arouse psychic vision in his chela. It is also conceivable that the reason for the appearance of so many UFOs is to raise the vibrations not only of people seeing them, but of the materials of our planet — in other words, to induce a slow, gradual yet basic mutation in the matter of the Earth and therefore of our bodies, and perhaps more specifically of man's capacity to consciously respond to the higher galactic forces.

This would mean that UFOs do not necessarily come from a distant "place" in the universe, star or planet — or from the hollow core of the Earth, as some people have claimed. They are here with and among us, just as Adepts and Masters are with and among us. Their appearance may involve or seem to involve a certain amount of physical displacement, yet this is more likely to mean the mere appearance of displacement in our physical plane. Various testimonies of individuals able to "travel" outside of their physical body indicate that, by merely thinking of where they wanted to be, they were there, either immediately, or what to them seemed to be immediately.

Passing from one kind of space to another may involve what, to us at least, is "no-time", but this does NOT mean that each kind of level of space does not have a time of its own. Time may be concentrated into one moment (or "instant," in a philosophical sense), just as infinite space may be concentrated in the mathematical nondimensional point. Yet if there is a sequence of moments of concentration and of dimensional expansion, there must inevitably be if not what we today mostly mean when speaking of time ("I have no time for that"), at least what H. P. B. called "infinite Duration."

What I am speaking of here is a conception of time and space which parallels the relationship between potentiality and actuality. Both polarities must be postulated as the Chinese postulated the balanced yet dynamic opposition and interaction of Yin and Yang. In a holistic and hierarchical universe, everything interacts and interpenetrates within cyclically evolving wholes of experience. The greater encompasses the lesser, yet this lesser is an integral functional part of the greater which both pervades and sustains it. As the lesser whole develops its power and its awareness of its role in the greater, what unavoidably happens in due time is that its "gears ratio" of organic existence and mental consciousness changes. And we know how a change of gears can produce harsh noises, if the driver's hand is shaking or if his mind is untrained or preoccupied.

The grating noise of mankind's present change of gears is indeed very harsh and frightening. If we could concentrate on the movement producing the change, rather than on the successive positions which the gear-shifting operation requires, we would be far more likely to effectuate the change in a smooth and easy manner. But the hand and the foot controlling the gear-changing apparatus (mankind has not yet reached the stage of "automatic" change!) are not only unsteady; they are afraid and emotionally attached to the position they have held for a long time. Mankind it seems, is just learning how mentally to drive, and sooner or later the result might be near-catastrophic if man fails to rely on what may well be his "instructor's" guidance.

It would be most unwise here to speculate on what the near-results of the present crisis might be; but at least to my mind the end results should be thought of as positive and exalting, even though we certainly cannot predict the concrete forms they will take. Did Jesus actually know and visualize the slow roasting of Protestants attached to spikes turned over a low burning fire during the wars of religion of the seventeenth century — this being done "in His Name" to save the souls of the unfortunate dissidents?

It is probable that during the stay of Pluto "within the orbit" of Neptune and especially around 1989-91 when a massing of six planets repeatedly occurs in the sign of Capricorn (in Sanskrit, Makara) (which, according to The Secret Doctrine, has some connection with the descent of the Kumaras) world-events of major importance will take place; but the level at which they may occur cannot be safely determined, in spite of often conflicting psychic predictions. A change in the orientation of the Earth's polar axis does not seem impossible; but no one can definitely say what this would mean or physically produce.

What seems evident is that a repotentialization of man's collective consciousness is already occurring, slow as it evidently is, and harsh and possibly disastrous as the resistance of the holders of social privileges and possessors of wealth (and of the frightened masses) might be to any radical and widespread transformation of our society. Whether the Second Coming of Christ which many yearn for and confidently expect will occur, and if so what form it may take, is not for me to say. Glowing expectations of a millennial all-spiritual Aquarian Age appear naive and unrealistic, unless they be limited to small relatively isolated sections of mankind; and such an isolation would require at first some kind of world-catastrophe and a much smaller world population.

The vision of a seed remnant of human beings who are guided to safety and allowed to re-begin mankind's history in at least relative peace under "divine" inspiration should not be difficult to accept by minds familiar with Biblical tradition; yet it is not at all certain that we have to expect a new Deluge, be it of water or fire and atomic radiations. A relatively smooth transition to a New Age may be a possibility. This possibility, however, would require a repotentialization of the consciousness of at least a large minority of human beings in positions of influence, and a persistent, steady and unalterable willingness by these people to assume collective as well as individual responsibility for the transition, in the clear realization of what this may entail in terms of everyday living and relationship with the masses of mankind. The idea that any revolution is "popular" makes little sense. The masses provide the necessary conditioning without which any large-scale collective and social change is impossible; but only a few individuals ever become the focusing agents for the mutation whose time has matured. And maturity here means that the possibility of the transformation has been deeply felt and clearly — even obsessimgly — imagined by the self-consecrated few as having reached the momentum required for the actualization of a new quality of mind and feeling, of a new sense of interpersonal and intergroup relationship, and new principles of social organization.

Imaginators with a clear, powerfully visualizing and unprejudiced mind are needed today, but also human beings whose egos have become purified and whose biopsychic emotional drives have been transmuted in the alchemical fires provided by life-experiences unreservedly and uncompromisingly open to the potential of transformation. The keynote is repotentialization. Man's attention has to be focused on potentiality rather than actuality. What is possible is today far more important than what now is, in depleted, past-worshipping, utterly concrete and sellable actuality. What is has to be known and evaluated, but known and evaluated in the perspective of the advance of new and untried possibilities. To gain such a perspective in clarity of mind and determination of the purified will, this is the task for all seedmen. Upon them rests the avataric responsibility for the future of Man.

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5. Astrologers speak of the "great mutation" of the year 1842, when Jupiter and Saturn were conjunct in an "earth" sign. Such mutations, however, occur about every 200 years.  Return

7. cf. the book Hierarchical Structure (Elsevier, N. Y. 1969) edited by L. L. Whyte and Albert and Donna Wilson. The concept of level of organization is also discussed in this book; this was the result of a symposium under the sponsorship of the Douglas Advanced Research Laboratories and the University of California at Irvine which was "to bring together scientists, engineers, designers and others interested in the function of hierarchical structures in nature, concept and design."  Return

6. cf. The already mentioned article of Jean Vallee in Psychic magazine.  Return