[AAB�s reading of the Tibetan�s new article, �The New World Religion,� on May 7, 1943 was still fresh on everybody�s mind, so this meeting followed a different format. Rather than presenting a discourse and thereby establishing a theme for further discussion, AAB allowed the conversation to take its own course, perhaps expecting that this would be the group�s opportunity to respond to the ideas contained in the article.]

AAB: One of the things that impresses me is how we have been guided in the work of the School as to our place of emphasis � our emphasis on alignment, upon Soul contact, upon discipleship, and upon the fact of the Hierarchy.

WM: The idea of discipleship itself is evolving. The things that a disciple knows now as a disciple are things that formerly disciples did not know.

AAB: They are the things an initiate would know. 

FB: The same thing is true of initiates and Masters. Even adepts and Masters of the present time are more perceptive.

WM: This is the evolving process.

AAB: I don�t believe that in any of the esoteric books anything has been given out about the relation between Monad and personality apart from Soul. It is far ahead of the achievement of anybody in the School. I think the function of a group like this is that it can vision the possibility of a thing that is new, and through thought bring into being the thing that will later be everybody�s knowledge.

HR: Would you call it anchoring?

AAB: No, nothing can be anchored until it is given physical form. It has to exist in physical plane form before it can be considered anchored.

RK: That is the picture in its biggest sense. We have to be working out alignment directly.

AAB: You have:
Humanity            Hierarchy            Shamballa
Antahkarana          Soul                 Shamballa

Hierarchy and the Soul drop out of the picture, but that is a long time away, so I want to hang on to my Soul, and I do not want to get rid of the Hierarchy yet.

WM: Isn�t it always well to have your eyes on a goal? Work toward the highest you can vision, even though you fall below it.

AAB: What I think is in the back of the Tibetan�s mind is the goal for disciples in the world today, people like ourselves; it is not the Monad. That is the vision unattainable. The goal is complete Soul contact and the third initiation.

WM: We familiarize ourselves with what lies beyond.

AAB: The Tibetan has told us that after the third initiation consciousness does not apply to any state of being that we may register. It doesn�t mean a thing, but just indicates a vision we will achieve when we have full Soul consciousness, and Soul consciousness is as far beyond the consciousness of the average person today as the Master is beyond that of the third degree.

RK: Here is an entire sphere � the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. That sphere is a closed sphere. People like us and the Hierarchy are within that sphere, and all the changes in quality appear as tension (like heat in an egg), intensified within the sphere, and our effort to use the mind and stimulate each other creates tension and increases the power. As far as appearances go, an egg will always look like an egg until the chicken comes out, but there are drastic changes going on. That is what is happening. We are inside the egg.

WM: Isn�t it possible that the ability of the disciple in the Atlantean Age to think and to visualize has made it possible for us to be on a higher turn of the spiral in this age?

AAB: Absolutely, but they didn�t think. They were the ones who brought vision. They were the mystics, and we went on from there. What are we going to do with the vision?

WM: Maybe we will make it possible for the next ones to achieve Monadic consciousness.

AAB: Not Monadic consciousness � states of registration for which we have no name.

RK: Only men and Logoi are creative, as those who studied occult law will recall. We create through thinking because creativity is bringing an idea through and objectifying it. We think. If Logos also creates, doesn�t He on His own level think, although it isn�t with our type of brain cells?

AAB: The value of The Secret Doctrine to the average student is that it stretches his mind, and he becomes more inclusive, and his abstract mind begins to function. Perhaps on this higher turn of the spiral we have also to begin stretching and find that which is the equivalent to us of The Secret Doctrine.

JL: Somewhere in the third volume of The Secret Doctrine HPB says in answer to a question, �I didn�t say that.� Apparently even the inner circle didn�t understand.

WM: I can understand Cosmic Fire better than I used to.

AAB: There is a vision presented by that book. It is convincing and makes you feel that you understand it. It is perhaps the most abstract of all the books.

LM: You get little bits of understanding, like medallions.

WM: Isn�t there something there about the etheric vehicle? I had to write a paper on the etheric vehicle, and I used both White Magic and Cosmic Fire, and I thought I understood it.

AAB: In dealing with the etheric body you were still on the physical plane. Nothing abstract about the etheric plane. These things are too big for us, but the very fact that we voice our ideas about them and push back into the deeper realm does something to us. I think it brings brain cells into activity that have hitherto been quiescent.

UC: Is that why the Tibetan tells us to ponder on it?

AAB: Yes, you have the world of phenomena, the world of meaning (the average person is trying to understand the world of meaning), and behind the world of meaning there is life, and about life we understand nothing.

JL: Has a Master a Soul? The Soul disappears.

AAB: You cannot possibly understand until you are a Master. Not the Soul, the causal body � the Soul is there all the time. You don�t need so many forms to function through. The Soul form goes, and you are just the Monad.

LM: A Master works entirely on the Monadic plane?

AAB: No, I don�t think so. They have Monadic consciousness. I suppose under the law of correspondence we could work it out. If I have Soul consciousness, does it mean that I work on the Soul plane or on the physical plane? I am conscious of Soul as I work.

RK: I think it says the Ashram works on the Buddhic plane, and the Masters on the Atmic. I should think the Masters function in the Triad.

AAB: You can have flashes of Soul consciousness if you are doing a piece of work, but you are not working on Soul levels. The Master will have flashes of Monadic consciousness, but he will be working in the Triad.

RK: It is really the true science of the Aquarian Age, the science of life. That is why it is so difficult. It is all a beautifully planned sequence because the science of invocation and evocation is that which evokes life.

[With this reference to the science of invocation and evocation (�the keynote of the coming world religion � for which prayer, meditation and ritual have laid the foundation�), the conversation shifts to some of the ideas from the article that had been read the previous week and their potential impact on the world.]

N: I believe that is where we could train ourselves to do some practical work in the beginning of this science. Some of the statements you gave us on Sunday and here are of profound importance. I remember when I was a boy the emphasis was placed upon Good Friday, and Easter was only secondary. Good Friday is of the past; it has to do with the form.

AAB: Don�t you think that perhaps one of the things we can do in the School after the war is over and we have gathered together the students all over the world is to practice the science of invocation and evocation in April, May and June and spend the next nine months preparing for it? There is something to be done there.

VC: You have said that the three months are the period of creative power, and the other nine months are the period of gestation.

AAB: We have to work something out and take up this whole science of invocation. We hear so much about invocation on the black side. Perhaps we shall be able to do something toward producing the real incantation. The others reach the material forces.

FB: You made the suggestion Sunday that hereafter the Arcane School would have three meetings instead of one during these three months.

AAB: The only one we haven�t had is Easter. We have already made something of the June Full Moon. You see what possibilities there are in this group if we can talk and plan and think things through. We should be able to prepare the School for a climax just as people prepare themselves for a climax on Good Friday and let it extend through the three full moons. And take nine months to prepare for it.

RK: I think we have already laid the foundation for it with our group meditation �to make the spiritual work in the world successful.� Now we must take the steps.

AP: It seems a bit iconoclastic to say we are going to forget about Good Friday. How can you have the Resurrection without the Crucifixion? We just need to change our emphasis. We want to put our emphasis on Easter and not on Good Friday.

AAB: Don�t you think Good Friday is a symbol of the past?

AP: No, I think in all our crises there is a crucifixion before a resurrection.

WM: There is an ebb and flow, but shouldn�t we dwell on the flow? Destruction is only making way for construction, and you keep your eye on the constructive.

AAB: Here is a thought that I think links up. The swastika is the cross of matter. It is going out. The cross of Christ has to go too eventually. It will go much more quickly than the cross of matter. The cross of Christ is not death except in our imagination. I think it is the thought behind the thing that has to be changed. Christ said, �Death, where is thy sting?� There will be no fear of death, and therefore Good Friday will mean nothing. We are keeping the focus on the death of Christ, but there will be no death, as we understand death at present.

N: Another thing I think it would be well to ponder on is that the church has become the tomb of Christ; the stone of theology has been rolled across the sepulcher. They have rolled the stone of selfishness and separateness over the door of the heart.

AAB: Even among the members of the School there is a lot of resentment about Christianity vs. astrology vs. Buddhism, etc. It will take a great deal of tact to do it; it will have to be presented in Christian terms.

FB: There are two ways of going at this, and we will have to use a little of both. As the cycle of invocation comes to its close and Shamballa force is successfully used in its constructive influence, and we can tune in to this and use it for this purpose, what we have spoken of as forgetting about Good Friday takes place automatically. I think it will be better to stop talking about Good Friday and talk instead about Easter.

AAB: I do not think you can prevent it. I think there is a great deal of fear in everybody�s mind that we are going to hurt people, that we are going to take away something. It will provoke resentment. If you look back into your own life you will see periods when you lost faith. It was the best thing that ever happened.

HR: You were strong enough to stand it, but if we take security away from the average person we have to give them something in return.

AAB: You are taking from them what for them are the realities. I once spoke before a Baptist group about the living Christ, and an old man got up and said, �You are taking Christ away from us.� And Mary said at the tomb, �They have taken away our Lord.� You will take away something, and if people come within the range of our influence, I am not going to protect them from opportunity. I don�t think we have the right to shield people too much. If they can live through the war, they can live through this change.

LM: The thing I have in mind is what are we going to give. We can�t give them what we have.

AAB: We have to give them what we have in words they can understand. We need to get this article by the Tibetan into the hands of more people, into the hands of the church. The reaction of people will guide us in what we should do.

WM: Don�t you think that at the end of the war people will be willing to think in terms of resurrection?

AAB: At the end of a war the world becomes spiritualistic. The whole of Russia, Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries all went spiritualistic after the last war. There are more people in spiritualistic churches today in England than there are in the established church. That is perhaps why the Tibetan comes out at this time with this presentation. I think five percent of spiritualism is right and true. If you concede the five percent, you concede the whole story. We have to see how we can handle it.

WM: I think people will be more ready to concentrate on the Resurrection.

LM: May it not be that science will demonstrate the fact of survival after death?

AAB: I think the fact of survival is proved, but not the fact of immortality. Survival is one of the great contributions of spiritualism.

HR: The great scientific discovery that will prove the reality of the Soul will not come until enough people have the consciousness of the Soul. Will it work out that way?

AP: I think it is going to be definitely proved just as the Curies proved the violet rays, which are the Soul of the mineral kingdom. It was the coming together of the Third, Fifth and Seventh Rays that did it, and this will be the same thing.

AAB: Suppose they do prove it scientifically. They are only proving something that everybody knows.

ES: In different places, including some places in Cosmic Fire and in other writings of the Tibetan, including �The Next Three Years,� the Tibetan gives definite dates that prove the fact of the continuity of life and dispel the fear of death. I have seen statements in more recent writings that put off all those happenings until the next century.

AAB: The war has intervened and caused delay.

JL: I have tried out the idea of immortality upon people and find that if they can satisfy themselves as to survival they accept immortality. The moment you get beyond the physical plane they think they are immortal. It is all one to them; they don�t know the difference. The spiritualists as a group believe they are immortal.

AAB: Among intelligent mediums you will find the word immortality very seldom used. Survival occurs all the time.

WM: I think we should concentrate on the meaning of discipleship between now and the fall if we are going to assume so great a work. If each of us builds as we should, we will know what we ought to do.

FB: When it comes to a proposition of putting it across, we have to show value. We dug in as probationers because we thought there was value in it. The public buys what it thinks has value. If we can show human value in this new presentation of religion, people will come for it.

RK: The truth lies within ourselves, and we have to open out a way �whence the imprisoned splendor may escape.� You don�t have to put anything in. You clear the way. If we do it for ourselves, we will do it for the group. In the Catholic Church you put on vestment after vestment. In the East you take them off. Look at Gandhi. So we have to do a striptease on religion.

H: Ishtar the Queen has to pass through seven gates and part with a garment at each gate until she reaches the midmost hall, and then she is completely renewed.

N: There are possibilities in this idea of showing values. Christians all like the word �prayer.� In the new religion we have invocation and evocation. If we could work from prayer over to invocation and evocation, I think we might show value.

WM: Isn�t invocation and evocation a form of prayer?

AAB: What word would you put in place of invocation and evocation? Our problem is to show value in them. In the early stages we have to start with words they understand and give value to them and new life.

RK: The last time I spoke of invocation and evocation I recalled that it wasn�t anything new at all. It is the same as, �Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.�

AAB: It is a retranslation.

HR: It is there and we don�t have to frighten people with something new.

FB: The point we must keep in mind is that we must not discourage anyone. We need to take the new truths as we get them and then express them using any appropriate words in the dictionary.

AAB: I don�t think it matters what words we use as long as we express the meaning. If you wrestle with the Tibetan�s writings as I do sometimes �.

RK: A strong subjective life is the best safeguard.