CHAPTER FIVE
The Four Crucial Phases of the Cycle of Being - 4

From Sunset to Midnight
Evidently it is impossible to say anything objective and concrete about this quarter of the cycle of being, because whatever "is" has a predominantly subjective character. In relation to human beings as we know them today, this section of the total cycle of being refers to the postmortem state, which is a state of increasingly subjective being, yet which also must have some kind of objectivity because the principle of Multiplicity is still relatively strong, though waning. I shall deal with the postmortem state and the concept of reincarnation in Part Three, chapter II.
       From a planetary and cosmic perspective, this quarter begins with the Pleroma, the Communion of the more or less large minority of human beings who have reached the state of Illumined Man. The latter is expected at the Gate of Silence — the brief instant of the cycle of being in which the principles of Unity and Multiplicity are in perfect equilibrium — through which these perfected, spirit-radiating individuals pass. This state of illumination polarizes the cycle's other moment of perfect equilibrium between Unity and Multiplicity — the Gate of Sound through which the creative Word was uttered by the Creator-God in whom all the creative Hierarchies operating between the symbolic Midnight and Sunrise were unified.
      The image of the Pleroma that forms in my mind is similar to, if not identical with, what the founder of the modern theosophical movement, H. P. Blavatsky, sought to convey by the term "White Lodge."(3) But sadly, this appellation has been abused and materialized. A Pleroma is essentially a Communion of individualized yet unanimous beings of "Light." The qualificative "white" applies because such a Communion totally reflects the originating "solar" vibration of the creative Word that was in the beginning, yet which remains pulsating throughout the entire cycle it opened. During the long process of multicultural development, "Lodges" (secret brotherhoods) are formed, each of which can be symbolized by a particular color of the spectrum of light (Blue Lodge, Green Lodge, and so on). The Pleroma is "white" because it is the harmony of all colors and all cultures — of all "Rays," as occultists are fond of saying.
       Pleroma beings are still "individuals" in the sense that each is the actualization in concrete form and specific modes of activity of one of the myriad "Letters" of the creative Word (the Logos). They are their fulfilled individual dharmas. But a Pleroma being is fully conscious that an individual dharma constitutes but one note in the immense chord of the planetary Commonsoul. The chord as a whole resonates through each individual who, using his or her past identity as a modality for action among persons who are but human, performs "transpersonal" acts not only for the whole but as the whole. A Pleroma being is humanity acting through an individualized mode of response to a human and planetary need particularized by a definite time and place. Deeper still, he or she is Wholeness-in-act.
       The Pleroma is a planetary reality. It can be considered the "illumined Mind" of the earth, while present-day mankind constitutes the planet's concrete mind — a concrete mind born out of the complex relationships human beings live through in the biosphere and to which they give meaning in terms of their various cultures. In this sense, we can assume that some kind of human beings exist on any planet able to give birth to and sustain highly developed forms of life; that these beings are "human" in the sense that they have developed some kind of mind able to give meaning to the activities taking place in the life-field of their planet; and that toward the close of the planet's cycle of objective being, a Pleroma emerges out of such a "humanity." It emerges into an increasingly subjective and inclusive state of consciousness and one-ward activity. In that state, it finds itself related to the Pleromas of other planets, be they in our solar system or in other systems within the Milky Way or any other galaxy.
       Astronomers now speak of groups of galaxies and metagalaxies, but the preconceptions and empirical limitations of modern science compel them to deal only with the level of the cosmos to which our senses and instruments can react; these reactions are then interpreted intellectually according to the rationalistic postulates of logic and mathematics. The picture I am presenting is also an interpretation; but it is based on a different kind of consistency and logic. It postulates a relationship between the subjective and spiritual aspects of galaxies, and the possibility of cosmic Pleromas. These cosmic Pleromas represent states of predominantly subjective being close to the condition of nearly absolute unity I have defined as the Godhead state — a state of nearly pure consciousness and utterly simplified and condensed subjective being.
       After Sunset the Movement of Wholeness proceeds from the planetary to the interplanetary, galactic, and cosmic Pleroma states of increasing unification, simplification, and concentration. This process polarizes the period during which a series of ever more complex and objective cosmic, stellar, planetary, and biological forms of existence were produced after the symbolic Sunrise. Thus, during these two quarters of the cycle of being (Sunrise-to-Noon and Sunset-to-Midnight), the Movement of Wholeness proceeds in opposite but complementary directions. One of these directions leads to Natural Man (at Noon), the other to the Godhead state (at Midnight).

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3. The term Lodge undoubtedly was inspired by the tradition of Freemasonry, which was so important during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  Return