The Five Secrets of the Kingdoms in Nature
There is a secret anent each of the five kingdoms in nature. These secrets concern the relation of the human evolution to the whole, and they are revealed to the initiate at the five initiations. At each initiation one of the five secrets is explained to the initiate, and they are called by the following five names, which are an attempt on my part to interpret symbolically the ancient name or sign:
- The mineral kingdom – The secret of the brilliance of the light.
- The vegetable kingdom – The secret of the sacred perfume.
- The animal kingdom – The secret of the following scent.
- The human kingdom – The secret of the double path or of the double breath.
- The kingdom of souls – The secret of the golden rose of light.
The symbolic forms in which these five secrets are hidden, and so conveyed to the intelligence of the initiate, are as follows:
- The mineral secret – A diamond, blue white in color.
- The vegetable secret – A cube of sandalwood in the heart of the lotus.
- The animal secret – A bunch of cypress, over a funeral urn.
- The human secret – A twisted golden cord, with seven knots.
- The egoic secret – A closed lotus bud with seven blue rays.
Be all this as it may, certain of the seven logoic influences are at this time dominant in the five kingdoms; in four cases, two rays control; in the case of the vegetable kingdom, three rays control. It must not be forgotten that these rays are related to each other, and in the great interlacing and interlocking of the planetary and the solar forces every kingdom comes under the influence of every ray, yet with certain rays always controlling and certain others dominating cyclically. The rays determine the quality of the manifesting life and indicate the type of the appearance.
In resuming our consideration of the three divisions of the vegetable kingdom it might be stated that…
- Ray VI – determines the type, family, appearance, strength, size and nature of the trees upon our planet.
- Ray II – is the beneficent influence, expressing itself through the cereals and flowers.
- Ray IV – is the life quality, expressing itself through the grasses and the smaller forms of vegetable life, – those which provide the “green carpet whereon the angels dance.”
An important symbolic happening has been consummated at the close of this Piscean Age, which is the period of the sixth ray influence. This has been the worldwide devastation of the forests of the world. Everywhere they have been sacrificed to the needs of man. Thus have been brought under the influence of fire, those vegetable forms of life which were ready for the initiation. The major agency in the development of this kingdom has been water, and this new development, this bringing together of fire and water in this kingdom, has constituted the subjective fact which brought the steam age into being. The vast forest fires, which form such a menace at this time in different parts of the world, are also related to this “initiation by fire” of a kingdom hitherto controlled and directed in its growth by the element of water.
Similarly, the coming in of the seventh ray inaugurated a tremendous event in the mineral kingdom. This I referred to in an earlier book. Through the effect of sound and fire, the mineral kingdom has also been initiated, and in the great world war, in the steel factories and the other factories where metal is transmuted into articles for the use of man, the world of minerals, and the entity which informs that world, are passing through a major initiation. This was made possible by the personality ray of the entity, manifesting through this kingdom, subjecting itself to the initiatory fire. This is of course expressed symbolically, – the only way in which any aspect of this planetary truth can be grasped by man. It is an interesting, though quite unimportant fact, that at all the initiations of the kingdoms in nature, the planetary Logos of a particular ray always functions as the Initiator. This ray cyclically alters. In the major initiations at this time, for instance, in connection with humanity, not only is the first Initiator, the Christ, officiating, not only is the Ancient of Days, the embodiment of our planetary Logos, participating (either actively or behind the scenes), but behind Them both stands now the Lord of the fifth Ray of Knowledge and Understanding.
One point of interest might here be noted. It is known esoterically that the vegetable kingdom is the transmitter and the transformer of the vital pranic fluid to the other forms of life on our planet. That is its divine and unique function. This pranic fluid, in its form of the astral light, is the reflector of the divine akasha. The second plane therefore reflects itself in the astral plane. Those who seek to read the akashic records, or who endeavor to work upon the astral plane with impunity, and there to study the reflection of events in the astral light correctly, have perforce and without exception to be strict vegetarians. It is this ancient Atlantean lore which lies behind the vegetarian’s insistence upon the necessity for a vegetarian diet, and which gives force and truth to this injunction. It is the failure to conform to this wise rule which has brought about the misinterpretations of the astral and akashic records by many of the psychics of the present time, and has given rise to the wild and incorrect reading of past lives. Only those who have been for ten years strict vegetarians can work thus in what might be called the “record aspect of the astral light.” When they add to their purified astral and physical bodies the light of reason and illumination of the focused mind (which is very rarely found), then they become accurate interpreters of astral phenomena. Their link with the vegetable kingdom is then very close and unbreakable, and that link or binding chain will lead them through the door to the scene of their investigations. But unless the goal of a vegetarian diet is this field of service, the arguments for its following and for that form of diet are usually futile and of no real moment. From the standpoint of the eternal verities, what a man eats or wears are seen in a connotation very different to that of the one-pointed fanatic. Let me again reiterate that this whole problem of the taking of life (whether in the vegetable or the animal kingdom) is a far bigger one than we know, and should be approached from an angle different (not only in degree but in kind) to that of the taking of life in the human family. The three aspects of divinity meet in man, and with the destiny of a divine son of God no one must interfere. Where the two aspects of divinity are concerned, as in the subhuman kingdoms, the attitude can be otherwise, and the emerging truth is different to that which the little minds believe.
The influence of the three rays, blended together in the vegetable kingdom, being also the three rays of even numbers, 2. 4. 6, has produced a fourfold perfection in this kingdom which is unparalleled in any other. The rays are responsible for this result, and their effect can be seen in the following analysis:
- Ray II – The result of this influence, pouring cyclically through the kingdom, has been to produce its magnetism, its attractiveness.
- Ray IV – This ray of struggle and of conflict has as its objective the production of harmony between form and life, and has brought about the synthesis and the harmony of color in nature. As we say the words, “color in nature,” automatically we think of the vegetable kingdom and its achievement of harmony in vegetation.
- Ray VI – Growth towards the light is the effect of this ray influence, plus the normal tendency of all life-forms to evolve. It has brought the latent seeds of the vegetable kingdom, inherent within the soil, to the surface. It constitutes the energy of externalization.
The united effect of these three rays, working in unison, has been to bring forth the fourth result, the perfume of the flowers, as found in the higher units of the vegetable kingdom. This perfume can be either deadly or vitalizing, and can either delight or repel. It attracts and constitutes part of the aroma of this kingdom which is sensed in the planetary aura, though unrecognized as a whole by humanity. You isolate a perfume. Yet the perfume of an entire kingdom is a well recognized phenomenon to the initiate.
Students would find it of interest to trace similar analogies in the other kingdoms in nature, remembering however that this kingdom is esoterically ahead of the others, for there are three rays participating in its perfecting. It might be stated that three rays will ultimately affect each of the other three kingdoms.
During the next subrace, ray two will begin to influence the mineral kingdom.
In the next root race, ray five will commence to pour its power into the animal kingdom, gradually stimulating the instinctual mind of the animal until it vibrates to the ray of the intellect, of knowledge. This will bring about an organizing of the animal brain, and the transfer of the power of the solar plexus center to the head center, and consequently a shift in the animal polarization and an added activity of the brain in the head.
Towards the close of this round, the monadic ray of the advanced units of humanity will be so powerful that there will be a marked pouring in of ray one, with its stimulation of the individual will. You will therefore have in this unfoldment of the will aspect of mankind the following stages, which are of psychological importance.
- Instinct.
- Emotional aspiration.
- Intellect.
- Mental one-pointedness.
- Egoic purpose.
- Spiritual will.
- Divine intent.
These stages are latent in all of us, and are related to the seven principles of man. They will express themselves in advanced humanity as “aspects of the psyche,” and therefore psychologically, during the later stages of human development. They should begin to be of greater interest to investigators and to educators who should seek to develop them in the child and the adolescent. They work out today as marked stages in the development of all disciples and initiates. They indicate place upon the Path. Hence their practical usefulness.
In the kingdom of souls, ray four will complete the work of the next two rounds, but this period is so far distant that with it we need not concern ourselves.
In the vegetable kingdom, the work of the second ray of Love-Wisdom is seen, symbolically, in one of its major consummations. Attractiveness, in the sense of beauty, of color, of form, of distribution, and of perfume, is to be seen on every hand, and had you but the eyes to vision the reality, the synthesis of life would appear to you in all its glory. But just as the last of the five senses to make its presence felt in man, the sense of smell, is as yet but little understood, and its implications are not realized, whilst its relation to the analytical and discriminative mind is not appreciated scientifically, so the “attractiveness” (esoterically speaking) of the vegetable kingdom remains uncomprehended. It is the radiant garment of the planet, and is revealed by the sun; it is the achieved expression of the informing life of this kingdom in nature, and is the effect of the manifestation of the three divine and functioning aspects of this “peculiar” son of divinity, as he works out his destiny in form and through matter.
The entire problem of magnetism is closely connected with the problem of sex. In the occult study of the dissemination of the seed life and the germs of the vegetable kingdom, and in the understanding of the part played therein by those miraculously developed organisms, – the ants and bees – and later in the investigation of the work of the etheric builders, the elves and fairies, by those with awakened vision, will come a new light upon sex and upon the function it serves in the interrelation of lives and the creation of forms. With this aspect of this deeply esoteric truth I cannot here deal, for it is the effect of activity in the solar lives of the solar system, and with these we cannot concern ourselves. It is not possible to handle the subject in such a way as to make it of constructive value to the average reader. What is not of immediate esoteric value at this time of world urgency may well be relegated to a later time.