1. It was the imminence of this "release" of energy which was one of the major subjective factors in the precipitation of this last phase of the war. This world war started in 1914, but its last and most important phase began in 1939. [492] Up till then it was a world war. After that date, and because the forces of evil took advantage of the state of war and belligerency existing on the planet, the real war began, involving the entire three worlds of human evolution and a consequent activity of the Hierarchy. Man's attention is normally focused on the externalities of living. Nevertheless, all great discoveries, such as those made in connection with astronomy or in relation to the laws of nature or involving such a revelation as that of radioactivity or the epoch-making event announced this week concerning the first steps taken in the harnessing of cosmic energy, are ever the result of inner pressure emanating from Forces and Lives found in high Places. Such inner pressures themselves function under the laws of the Spirit and not just under what you call natural laws; they are the result of the impelling work of certain great Lives, working in connection with the third aspect of divinity, that of active intelligence, and are concerned with the substance or matter aspect of manifestation. Such activities are motivated from Shamballa. This activity is set in motion by these Lives, working on Their high plane, and it gradually causes a reaction in the various departments of the Hierarchy, particularly those working under third, fifth and seventh ray Masters. Eventually, disciples upon the physical levels of activity become aware of the inner ferment, and this happens either consciously or unconsciously. They become "impressed," and the scientific work is then started and carried through into the stages of experimentation and final success.

One point should here be remembered, and that is that this phase applies to both the great White Lodge and the Black Lodge - the one dedicated to the beneficent task of purifying and aiding all lives in the three worlds of material evolution and to the release of the soul in form, and the other to the retardation of the evolutionary process and to the continuous crystallizing of the material forms which hide and veil the anima mundi. Both groups have been profoundly interested and implicated in this matter of the release of energy from the atom and the liberation of its [493] inner aspect, but their motives and objectives were widely different.