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The Externalization of the Hierarchy - Section IV - Stages in the Externalization
Preparation for the Reappearance of the Christ

June 1947

I have much to say here as a sequence to my previous communication to you - and here I am speaking to all aspirants and disciples. The opportunity is so great at this time that I seek to face you with your choices, leaving you free to make up your own minds. What you decide will, however, affect definitely the remainder of your life activity. Herein lies your challenge. What I have to say is of a relatively simple nature - so simple that it may seem to you as [613] in the nature of an anti-climax. Yet simple as the problem may be, it is most difficult to solve. Your reaction to what I have to say will depend upon the nature of your sense of values, and not upon any capacity for abstruse reasoning. The average human aspirant and the intelligent human being are apt to emphasize the present complexity of human affairs and events; these they believe are engulfing men in every land. They thus provide - for themselves - an answerable alibi.

The emphasis of what I have to say is related to the message which I recently sent out re the Return of the Christ. That message carried its own challenge and the questions which it aroused in every sincere human heart are:

  1. How can I personally meet this challenge?
  2. What can I specifically do?
  3. What are the steps which I and every aspirant should take?

These questions mean one thing to one person and another thing to another. Some of the replies will emerge as you read what I have to say. I am writing here for people who are disciples of the Christ, but my words can convey meaning to all sincere thinkers and Christian believers.

The complexities and difficulties of this postwar period are very great. The closer an aspirant is to the source of spiritual light and power, the more difficult is his problem, and at the same time the clearer will be his understanding of the facts. Looking away from the detail of the foreground, which ever assumes undue proportions, and divorcing oneself from those details as they deluge one's daily life with perplexities and anxieties, the problem is relatively simple and twofold in nature.

First of all, the outer, physical war is only just over; two years is a short time since the firing ceased and no country has as yet recovered from its dire effects. There is no true intercourse between nations and no true understanding. Today the United States permits the raising of [614] funds in order to arm the Zionists against Great Britain, an ally and a friendly power; it is authorizing propaganda against Russia, also an allied and friendly power. There is no true effort anywhere (carried on with fixed determination and right compromise) to bring to an end those economic conditions which are the major cause of war and which are responsible for breeding hatred among nations.

Secondly (and of still more importance from the angle of the spiritual values, though less easily perceived), the Forces of Evil are still active; they may have been driven back, but they are still powerful; they are still subtly working and are still striving for a firmer foothold; they are still cleverly feeding world anxiety and world insecurity in order to create another point of world tension.

Until these two sources of world tension are recognized and correctly handled, the life of the aspirant, and still more of the disciple, is exceedingly hard. You may retort (and truly) that the life of all who suffered through the war, the fate of the starving people who are still taking the brunt of the attack in Europe - the inhabitants of Great Britain, Italy, China, Poland, and the Balkans, plus Germany and Japan, who are responsible for the difficulty, and all who are engulfed in the results of Germany's attack upon the world - is hard beyond endurance, and must therefore be shared by all aspirants and disciples. That is indeed true. But the more advanced thinkers and workers have far more than the general fate to endure. They - if they open their hearts and minds - participate not only in the difficulties confronting the mass of men everywhere, but they are also aware of the spiritual possibilities ahead, of the task to be completed in sealing "the door where evil dwells," and of the stupendous and unique circumstances which are faced by those who recognize and accept the imminent return of the Christ.

As the disciple confronts both the inner and the outer events and possibilities, he is apt to register a sense of complete frustration; he longs to help, but knows not what [615] to do; his grasp of the menacing difficulties, his analysis of his resources and of those with whom he works, and his clarity of perception as to the forces ranged against him, make him feel inclined to sit back and say: What is the use of any effort I can make? Why not let the two forces of good and evil, of the Black Lodge and the Spiritual Hierarchy, fight it out alone? Why not permit the pressure of the evolutionary current, eventually and at long last, to bring cessation to the fight and the triumph of the good? Why attempt to do it now?

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