2. Members of the Hierarchy, whether working in the early stages or later when the true externalization takes place, will work as members of the human family and not as proclaimed members of the kingdom of God or of souls, known to us as the Hierarchy; they will appear in office of some kind or another; they will be the current politicians, business men, financiers, religious teachers or churchmen; they will be scientists and philosophers, college professors and educators; they will be the mayors of cities and the custodians of all public ethical movements. The spiritual forcefulness of their lives, their clear, pure wisdom, the sanity and the modern acceptableness of their proposed measures in any department in which they choose to function, will be so [571] convincing that little impediment will be set in the way of their undertakings.

At the present stage of preparation, the task of the disciple who is charged with laying the foundation for the New Age methods and with the labor of getting ready for the first group of Ashram members, is hard indeed. He stands for so much that is deemed visionary and impossible; the difficulties which confront him seem impossible; he teaches truths whose first effect is necessarily destructive, because he endeavors to rid humanity of old forms of religious, economic and political doctrine; his impersonality - which recognizes faults as well as virtues - enrages many and often those from whom he had expected understanding and a true impartiality; his failure to be impressed or attentive to old rites and ceremonies, to ancient and obsolete but precious ideas, and his constant warfare on conditioning glamors and illusions meet, in these early stages, with little encouragement. He works frequently alone and usually with little recognition and lacks time for his own personal hierarchical contacts; he is not necessarily connected with any so-called esoteric groups and - if he is - his task is that much harder; only advanced disciples with a full and conscious constant contact with their particular Ashram are able to work in this way. Occult bodies and esoteric groups are, at this time, the most glamored of any of the world groups; the work of any disciple in such groups is bound, in the early stages, to be destructive. The present occult groups which came into existence prior to 1919 will eventually all disappear; the members who are true and sound, broadminded and sane, and rightly oriented and dedicated, will find their way into esoteric bodies which are free from dogmatism and doctrines and which are recipients of hierarchical life.