There are one or two subsidiary points which are of interest to the esoteric astrologer and these we might briefly list in connection with these effective triangles, using the word "effective" to imply conditioning and potent in results. In this present world cycle all results are of unusual significance and also unusually emphasized in human consciousness. [442]

1. Saturn, through which energy flows from Leo, via Shamballa, to Humanity, governs two decanates in Capricorn. Hence its extreme potency today in the triangle of Humanity. Saturn breaks up existing conditions by the force of its energy impact, thus enabling the influence of Mercury to be more fully expressed. The vision can then be intuitively perceived when obstructions have been removed.
2. Leo is one of the birth signs of the zodiac; it connotes the birth of self-consciousness, as you know. Capricorn is also a birth sign, because it is also an aspect or one of the arms of the Cardinal Cross - the Cross of that which initiates or brings into being. This has a peculiar relation to Humanity. It is the birth of the two types of consciousness - self-consciousness and Christ consciousness - which are brought to the attention of humanity by the fact of this Leo force, pouring through Saturn to Humanity and thus bringing Shamballa and Humanity into a closer relation, via Capricorn, active through Mercury.

At this point I would like to pause for a moment and interpolate a word in answer to a perfectly normal question which is liable to arise in the minds of thinking students and aspirants today. Of what use is all this abstruse and abstract information to a world in agony and a world distressed? The major usefulness of this imparted information which will condition the astrology of the future lies far ahead in the period after the war when again the field of world service opens and men have time for thought and due reflection. World service is going on now perhaps in greater volume than ever before but it is restricted to the field of releasing from slavery and alleviation of pain [443] and suffering, and, therefore, to the more strictly physical forms of help. The service to which I here refer is that educational process which will produce the coming civilization and its attendant culture. This will be based on all the cultural processes of the past and of the present, but will discard all that has produced the disasters of today, as far as may be possible. That means a gradual future usefulness for the knowledge of the underlying potencies, for they can indicate the lines of least resistance to the emerging good and the developing crises which inevitably lie ahead in the period of reconstruction. But one potent good can emerge even at this time from a study of these matters, provided the student of esotericism rests not content with study (using it as an escape from the disastrous present) but parallels his understanding of the causes and conditions by a strenuous effort to be of aid in a practical and a definitely physical sense.

This is the dominant emerging fact to which air that I have said bears testimony: world conditions today - precipitated as they are by human greed and ignorance - are nevertheless basically conditioned by the will-to-good which is the primary quality of the energies and forces coming forth from the great Lives in which all that exist live and move and have their being. The Law of the Universe (and what is law but the working out of the purposes of these all-embracing Lives, of Their impulses and Their plans?) is to all eternity the good of the whole and naught can arrest this happening; for who can arrest the impact of these energies which play upon and through our planet. When I say this, I would at the same time point out that the attitude of many students, inevitably participants in world events, that "such is the Law and such is the Karma of people and nations and such is the predetermined [444] destiny" is far from right. They believe - sometimes sincerely - that all that should be done is simply to wait for results to appear and for karma and destiny to fulfil itself. Then and not till then, all will be well. But they forget that karma fulfils itself in relation to the form nature upon which it expends its energy and that where there is a static condition and a quiescent attitude, the process moves but slowly; the life then within the form fails to experience the needed, forceful awakening; inevitably then there lies ahead a repetition of the process until the time comes when activity and response is evoked. This then leads to resistance to the apparent karmic necessity and this brings about liberation. Only through resistance to evil (and in this world period and in this kali-yuga, as the Eastern teachers call it, it is an essential basic attitude) can karma be brought to an end. The law of matter still governs in the three worlds of human experience and - "fire by friction" must burn up that which veils the steadily increasing brilliance of solar fire. It is the recognition of "solar fire" - as it shows itself in a transcendental idealism and radiance - by the unintelligent idealist, and his simultaneous refusal to cooperate in this period of karmic necessity, that is prolonging the difficult and cruel situation and leading him individually to sink deep into glamor. The simplification of the world's problem in terms of matter comes through a recognition of the essential dualism underlying events. I commend this thought to all students, suggesting that they base optimism on the long range vision, endorsed by the Heavens and corroborated by the activity of the stars, and thus feel sure of the ending of this immediate tragic situation.