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The Externalization of the Hierarchy - Section I - Introductory Remarks
The first method was strictly mental, and even today remains so; the masses, for instance, know little of Plato and his theories in spite of the fact that he has molded human [29] minds - either through acquiescence in his theories or through refutation of them - down the ages. The other method is strictly emotional and so more easily colors the mass consciousness. An instance of this was the message of the love of God which Christ enunciated and the emotional reaction of the masses to His life, His message, and His sacrifice. Thus the need of the mental few and the emotional many has been met down the ages. In every case, the origin of the work effected and the medium whereby the race has been guided has been a human-divine consciousness; the medium has been a Personality Who knew and felt and was at-one with the world of ideas, with the inner world order, and with God's plan. The result of these two techniques of activity has been the emanation of a stream of force, coming from some layer or level of the world consciousness - the mental or the emotional planes - which are aspects of the consciousness of the manifesting deity. This impact of force has evoked a response from those who function upon one or other of these levels of awareness. Today, as the integration of the human family proceeds and as the mental level of contact becomes more potent, there is to be found a powerful human reaction to schools of thought and a lessened reaction to the methods of orthodox religion. This is due to the fact that the trend of the human consciousness is (if I might so express it) away from the emotional to the mental levels of consciousness, and this, as far as the masses are concerned, will go on increasing.

The time has now come when there are enough people to be found who - having themselves made the religious and the mental approaches to truth definite factors in their consciousness in some small measure, and having established enough soul contact so that they can begin to touch the world of ideas (upon the intuitional levels of consciousness) - can employ a new technique. Together and as a group they can become sensitive to the incoming new ideas which it is intended should condition the new age that is upon us; together and as a group they can establish the ideals and develop the techniques and methods of the new schools of [30] thought which will determine the new culture; together and as a group they can bring these ideas and ideals into the consciousness of the masses, so that schools of thought and world religions can be blended into one, and the new civilization can emerge. It will be the product of the mental and emotional fusion of the techniques of the Piscean Age, and it will thus produce an eventual manifestation upon the physical plane of the plan of God for the immediate future. This is the vision which lies behind the experiment being carried on in the new seed groups.

Looking at the whole problem from another angle, it might be stated that the effort of the past has been to raise the consciousness of humanity through the pioneering efforts of its foremost sons. The effort of the future will be to bring down into manifestation the consciousness of the soul through the pioneering efforts of certain groups. It has therefore, as you will readily understand, to be a group effort because the soul is group conscious and not individually conscious; the newer truths of the Aquarian Age can only be grasped as a result of group endeavor. This is relatively a new thing. In the past, a man had a vision and sought to materialize it with the aid of those whom he could impress and influence to think as he did; a man sensed an idea or intuited an idea and then tried to give it form, later calling in the help of those who saw his idea as an ideal; a man had a great ambition which was, in reality, a dim grasping of a part of God's general plan, and he then became a group leader or a ruler, with the assistance of those who succumbed to his power or to his right to guide, lead and dominate them. And so, progressively, the race has been led from point to point and from stage to stage of unfoldment until today many are seeing the vision, sensing the plan, and dreaming dreams which they can work out together. This they can do because they recognize each other, because they are beginning to know themselves and each other as souls, because their understanding is united and because (and this is of prime importance) the light of the intellect, the light of knowledge, the light of the intuition and the light of understanding is [31] evoked within them; it enters not from without; and in that light, together, they see Light. It is a group activity, a group recognition, and the result of group at-one-ment.

All this is, however, so new and relatively so rare that these groups remain as yet in an embryonic stage. We call them the seed groups of the new age. There are many such, as I told you before, but all as yet so small and so undeveloped that the success of their effort remains for the future to decide. This applies also to the groups which I began to build in 1931 (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I and II).

It will be apparent to you therefore why it was necessary for the initial or first group to lay the emphasis upon telepathic rapport, because upon that rapport, understandingly cultivated and developed, the success of these seed groups must depend. It does not mean that their success depends upon the established success of the first group, but upon the comprehension by all the groups of the meaning and purpose and techniques of telepathy. (See Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle).

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