Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - The Externalization of the Hierarchy - I

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The Externalization of the Hierarchy - Section I - Introductory Remarks

The founding upon the inner planes of a school of telepathy to which humanity can become sensitive, even if unconsciously so, is part of the task which the first group, the Telepathic Communicators, has undertaken. They are the custodians of the group purpose, and work on mental levels. The second group, the Trained Observers, has the objective to see clearly through the use of the intuition; they serve on astral levels. The third group, the Magnetic Healers, has the objective of working with forces on the physical plane. The other six groups will be mentioned later.

You have become somewhat accustomed to the concept of these groups. The novelty is dying out and you are apt to ask yourselves whether there is, in the last analysis, anything really new in them. I will give you further on three reasons for the fact of their being a step in advance of anything hitherto possible on the physical plane. This may re-establish their importance in your minds and enable you to carry forward your work with fresh ardor. I have stated [32] that these groups constitute an experiment and that they are connected paramountly with the work of the new age as it will express itself through the coming civilization and the future culture. It might be of value here if I pointed out the distinction which exists between a civilization and a culture.

A civilization is an expression of a mass level of consciousness as that consciousness works out in physical plane awareness, physical plane adjustments, relationships and methods of living. A culture is essentially an expression of the intellectually and vitally mental significances and the state of consciousness of the mentally polarized people of the race, of the intelligentsia or of those who constitute the link between the inner world of soul life and the outer world of tangible phenomena. In those words the raison d'être of the mental plane is concisely stated. Its function in this connection will be increasingly understood during the next few decades.

The masses are negative to the plane of desire and of feeling, and the civilization of any age is largely the exteriorization of that particular level of consciousness. The intelligentsia are positive and their positive mental orientation produces the culture of their time, or their race or their community. We have therefore in the human family:

Masses - Negative - responsive to desire - Civilization

Intellectuals - Positive - responsive to mind - Culture

In these you have the two poles which distinguish the race, and it is through the interplay between these two that human activity, progress and development is generated and carried forward.

There is another grouping which should not be overlooked. The spiritually minded people of the world are negative to the higher spiritual world as it expresses itself through or calls forth the higher type of desire which we call aspiration. This produces those exponents of the spiritual nature who constitute - in the aggregate - the Church of Christ or the world religions in the exoteric sense and in any [33] race or time. Positive to this group and giving them the keynote of the culture of their particular age on this higher turn of the spiral are the esotericists and aspirants throughout the world. These are responsive to the mind aspect. In this way the spiritual culture and the resultant civilization comes into being and to it the lower becomes responsive. You have, therefore, the masses and the intellectuals together negative in their turn to the positive impression of the deeper civilization and culture as it is expressed through the religions of the world and the groups of idealistic esoteric seekers after reality. These latter are the glory of every age and the positive germ of the subjective unfolding impulse which is basically the source of all current phenomenal appearance.

This group of religionists and esoteric aspirants in their turn constitute the negative pole to the positive impression and energy of the planetary or occult Hierarchy. Consequently, we have:

Negative Groups - The Masses - The Churches and religions - The Esotericists, in their turn

Positive Groups - The Intelligentsia - The Esotericists, aspirants and occultists - The Planetary Hierarchy

Broadly speaking, these groups divide themselves into the extroverted groups and the introverted groups, into the objective and the subjective levels of consciousness, and into the major divisions of the phenomenal world and the world of spiritual realities.

The problem before the Hierarchy at the beginning of the new or Aquarian Age was how to fuse and blend these two distinct groups, attitudes or states of consciousness so that from their fusion a third group could emerge which would be exterior in its activity and yet consciously alive to the interior values; they should be able to function upon the outer plane of appearances and, at the same time, be equally awake and active upon the inner plane of reality and of spiritual living.

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