I have spoken of vertically transmitted and horizontally shared knowledge. I should like to conclude these pages by stressing again the fact that what has come to us during the last hundred years from Occult Sources has been in answer to the newly developed and growing possibility of using a planetary frame of reference for our conceptions. It is the time when an Occult Messenger comes, and the environmental conditions through which he or she has to operate are the surest clues to the meaning, validity, importance, and scope of the mission. One should not separate The Secret Doctrine from the nineteenth century. Only a thorough understanding of the time-space situation in which HPB's works were produced can make us evaluate within a larger and holistic frame of reference the meaning, not of the fundamental principles which The Secret Doctrine presents (these are "eonic" and inherent in the Tradition and the cosmos seen from the Earth's point of view), but of the formulation given to these principles and their effects upon the existence of Man at his various levels.

Moreover, as HPB came and worked as an emissary of one of the several Occult Brotherhoods, it should also be most important to understand what place this trans-Himalayan Brotherhood occupies in the total organism of the planet, Earth, and the function it performs — not even mentioning the even more difficult grasp of the Earth's place and function within the heliocosm, and of the latter in our galaxy. I do not see how such an understanding is possible without the realization that the Earth is indeed a cosmic organism, and that it has not only a physical globe as its material body, but also an electromagnetic "ethero-astral body," and still higher "fields of existence" in which mental and spiritual forces and dynamic centers operate.

Such an assertion is obviously undemonstrable from a strictly scientific point of view, though modern physics is now studying planetary currents of magnetism and the Earth's reactions to "solar winds" and a myriad of other atomic or superatomic energies. Yet today Occultism makes little sense without the realization that this occult world deals with planetary forces and centers rather than with mysterious personages performing actions which, to our perceptions and interpretative minds utterly conditioned by the prejudices of our local culture, appear miraculous. We can no more understand the meaning of the Occult Brotherhoods without referring them to the Earth-as-a-whole than we can grasp the rationale of yogic exercises and modes of concentration of pranic energy without accepting as a fact the existence of the chakras.

The chakras are pictured by clairvoyants as whorls of forces existing in the superphysical "etheric body," which resembles the normally invisible electromagnetic field surrounding a magnet. They are invisible to the average human eyes, but are described in some detail by Hindu yogis and by Western clairvoyants, the number of whom seem to be greatly increasing. HPB spoke of three systems of chakras: the exoteric ones which are related to and permeate some large nerve plexuses (those existing along the vertebral spine from the coccygeal region to the top of the head) and what she called "master chakras" within the head or above. More recent information concerning the chakras speaks mainly, or exclusively, of those along the spine and within the head.

If the Earth is a cosmic organism, it must also have within its total being (or "auric egg"), which may extend as far as the Moon's orbit, whorls of planetary energy, planetary chakras. Ancient as well as modern occultists have spoken of "sacred mountains" or highly magnetic centers — perhaps "holy places" — on the Earth's surface. It seems also that high mountains, some of which are apparently especially "sacred," are to be considered as the Sources of invisible currents of mental-spiritual inspiration for the cultures developing below their peaks. One can think especially of the Himalayas above India, of the Caucasus above Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor, of the Alps above Italy, of the Carpathian mountains above Austria-Hungary, of the Andes in relation to the Incas, and of some North American mountains "sacred" to Indian tribes — some of them, such as Mt. Shasta and the Tetons, having acquired quite a name in modern American esotericism. There are also high mountains in Africa, and the two branches of the "sacred" Nile flow from some of them.

It naturally comes to mind that the Occult Brotherhoods have some definite connection with these mountains. The activities of these Brotherhoods may well be related to the operation of the Earth's chakras, which in turn affect changes in the Earth's biosphere and, as a result, the evolution of human races and cultures. The idea at least seems logical and valid provided it is not materialized by thinking of our planet merely as a mass of physical matter. Its main value consists in the fact that it could reinterpret what to mystics appears totally transcendent and essentially ineffable, bringing their experience to a level comprehensible to the holistic mind for which the Earth in its total being is a vast, living, thinking organism in which all kingdoms of life perform interrelated and interdependent functions.

These kingdoms do not include merely the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms. One must add oceanic, atmospheric, and stratospheric currents, ionospheric fields and Van Allen belts, and even less perceptible forms of energy pervading the Earth's aura, for this aura exists within the vaster aura of the solar system which in turn operates in the space-field of the galaxy. One should not dismiss as fairy-tales a "deva kingdom" which seems to refer to non-individualized beings possibly related to solar forces and servants of the "will" of a planetary or solar center of consciousness. One should also speak of a superhuman (or "fifth") kingdom whose cosmic Source is the Kumara Host which gave to animal man the Fire of self-consciousness and responsible will.

All these "kingdoms" and levels of energy-release or energy-control are integral and organic parts of the Earth. Each has a definite function to perform. Humanity has a definite organic function to perform — a function probably similar to that of the three nervous systems of the human body (sympathetic, parasympathetic and cerebrospinal), or at least of the brain (old and new). The Occult Brotherhoods also have definite functions to perform, the main one at a level beyond man's normal perception. This is the level of akasha at which a "Master" has his true "mahatmic" being, if we believe many of K.H.'s remarks in The Mahatma Letters.

The human body operates in a hierarchical manner. Not only does it originate from one fecundated ovum, which through a series of subdivisions produces the trillions of its cells, but it operates under a very rigid system of controls along a hierarchical line of command. Similarly, the esotericist, speaks of a "planetary Hierarchy" with an equally definite line of command, or at least control. There has been a tendency of esotericism to glorify — or at least glamorize — the Masters. But if one reads The Mahatma Letters one gets a very different impression of what the members of an Occult Brotherhood are like. K.H. repeatedly stresses his total obedience to his Master, the Chohan, and his inability to use more than a certain amount of "occult power" in his dealing with the members of The Theosophical Society unless authorized by the Chohan, who apparently is the Head of the Brotherhood — of this particular trans-Himalayan Brotherhood, let us not forget.

It would be attractive to be able to correlate the three main chakras, the much publicized "Rays," and the regions of the Earth; but as already stated, a higher type of knowledge would be required. It may nevertheless seem possible, or likely, that the trans-Himalayan Brotherhood corresponds to the Ajna center back of the human forehead which synthesizes the operations of the "lower" spinal centers, and perhaps directs them somewhat as the pituitary glands direct the activities of other glands by releasing powerful hormones. One might also suggest that the fabled Shamballah may correspond to either the heart chakra or the "Sahasrara" chakra above the head, and imagine a pulsating connection between the Shamballah center in central Asia (the Heartland of the Earth?) and the Himalayan center. If so, and if it is true that most of the highest members of the trans-Himalayan center have moved to the Andes, might this not indicate a relatively imminent (which may mean decades or even centuries away) shift in the polar axis readjusting the relationship between perhaps immovable ethero-astral whorls of energies and continental localities at the surface of the lobe?

These are only speculations. What may be more significant to discuss is the existence of a certain amount of confusion in the minds of esotericists between what they call "the planetary Hierarchy" and "the White Lodge." One can think of the Hierarchy in terms of divine or quasi-divine "Beings" to whom names and specific characteristics are given; this is the mythological, and also the "atomistic," because individualizing approach. If a human being enters into relation to this Hierarchy he will presumably do so in terms of a contact, at whatever level it may be, with some mysterious personage who may remain an ever-present influence and guide. But one may also think of the Hierarchy as a progressively more complex pyramidal series of "offices" or of centers of activity having a functional character in the existence and evolution of the planet, Earth, and of Man as an organic part of the planet. This is the "holistic" approach in which process is the most essential factor, even though evidently each phase of the process can be personified into a great being who has become identified with it. From this point of view Masterhood is primary; the individual human being who, as a Master, manifests the power and activity of this Masterhood is secondary. Fire is the essential reality, even though its existence implies flame after flame. And it is in that sense that the one Tradition exists through and within every great Occult tradition formulated by a particular Occult Brotherhood.

If one thinks of the Hierarchy as a planetary web or field forming the innermost structure of the dynamic astromental body of the Earth, one will at once realize that the great beings who "manage" these offices must have reached a basic high level of planetary consciousness; at that level they operate — at least in their "Mahatmic" condition — in a condition of essential unanimity. They constitute therefore a "pleroma" of beings — the omega state of the cyclic evolution of the Earth. It is a state of multi-unity. This pleroma state of multi-unity IS "the Great Lodge." It is a state of consciousness and power. On the other hand, the Hierarchy is a spiritual-mental organization of offices or planetary functions. Every member of the Hierarchy must be able to operate at the level of consciousness which is the Great Lodge, but every member of the Great Lodge need not be a member of the Hierarchy.

It is said that Gautama, the Buddha, "reorganized" this Lodge. This has puzzled many students, but presumably it means that, being what has been called a "sixth-Rounder" he brought to the planet the potentiality of manifesting the cosmic vibration of Number 6; whereas the Kumaric Mind vibrates essentially in a fivefold rhythm, and self-conscious Man is the Pentagram, the five-pointed star.

In The Mahatma Letters definite references are made not only to Gautama and Sankaracharya as "Sixth Rounders," but to Gautama (and after him Tsung Ka Pa, reformer of Buddhism in Tibet) having been the first human being able to penetrate beyond the "Ring-Pass-Not" of the solar system.(2)

Mention is made also of "Fifth-Rounders" who are divided into three classes (The Mahatma Letters; p. 117): "The natural-born Seers and clairvoyants of Mrs. Anna Kingsford and Mr. Maitland's types — the great Adepts of whatever country — the geniuses, whether in arts, politics or religious reform." These terms, Fifth-Rounders and Sixth-Rounders, may seem very mysterious to a person unacquainted with the apparently complex system of Schemes, Rounds, Root Races, Subraces, and Family Races taught by K.H. to A.P. Sinnett in long letters appearing at the beginning of The Mahatma Letters — a system on which the English writer based his book, Esoteric Buddhism. But these terms simply refer to divisions of time — just as seconds, minutes, hours, days, years do. Time is the structuring power which divides the universal world process into wholes within wholes within wholes; or as a modern thinker, Julius Stulman, expresses it, "fields within fields within fields . . . "