Volume 2, Number 4, Fall 2006 Editorial Articles
Poems and More Featured Artist
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An Esoteric History
of Political Ideas - Part 1 Politics is conventionally considered to be the use of power and authority in human affairs. Esoterically speaking, however, politics is a subjective concept and has an important role to play in establishing global peace, plenty, and unity. Addressing those servers working in the political field, the Master D.K. noted that this group communicates the “quality of imposition.” Secondly, it embodies the method whereby the Divine Will works out in the consciousness of the races and nations. Finally, it functions as a channel of communication between the department of the Manu and the race of men. We must first start with definitions. What is meant by the quality of imposition? A dictionary definition of imposition is to establish, apply, or impress something. “Impression,” we are told, “is the subtlest reaction to the vibratory mental activity of some other mind or group of minds, of some whole, as its radiatory influence affects the unit or aggregate of units.” 1 What is impressed is an idea. We are faced with the question, what is an idea? To paraphrase Plutarch (as noted in the Alice Bailey books), an idea is a being incorporeal, which has no substance in itself, but gives form to material substance and becomes the cause of manifestation. 2 When an idea has been seeded in human consciousness it germinates a pattern of thought-forms, which condition the mental field of receptive groups or individuals, which are then realized as ideals. It could be said therefore that ideals are modified ideas. Ideals then undergo a further process of crystallization on the lower mental plane. Weighted down as they are by various aggregates, and subject to frequent modifications, these devitalized ideals are then presented in a more simplistic and distorted form so they can be comprehended by the masses of humanity, in whatever way they may be defined at any given point in time. With respect to ideas it must ever be borne in mind that humanity is not a free agent. When an idea has been presented, and impressed in the consciousness of an individual or group as an ideal, then humanity can freely accept or reject it accordingly. Given that an idea is a being or spark of life energy held in a point of tension and then directed, it is therefore related to the will aspect. The will is not, as is commonly believed, a forceful expression of some intention, or a fixed determination to do something. Rather it is the energy that directs the divine purpose or intention into human affairs. It is therefore an expression of the Law of Sacrifice. 3 The working out of the divine plan in human affairs is the cause behind the effect, which is revealed through history. We can define history, esoterically, as the record of the effects of energies or radiations as they play upon humanity in its varying stages of evolutionary development.4 More particularly, history reflects the interplay of ideas as they act upon the human kingdom in rhythmic fashion and humanity’s responses to the ideals based on these ideas. The relation between impressed ideas (channels of divine energies seeded in human consciousness by the Hierarchy) and ideals (ideas reduced into thoughtforms so they can be presented to the public) is essentially the relationship between culture and civilization. We should remind ourselves that culture relates to the quality of imposition, or the impression of ideas, corresponding to the Divine Plan (or purpose) at any phase of an historical cycle, whereas a civilization is humanity’s reaction to the ideals resulting from these imposed thoughts. Seen from another perspective, culture relates the world of meaning to the realm of appearances, while a civilization is the externalization of a particular level of consciousness. Insofar as politics is technically the expression of the will aspect in human affairs, it is contingent upon the evolutionary development of human consciousness. It is for this reason that politics and education are closely related. As a manifestation of the will aspect, those disciples and initiates in the field of politics working along first ray lines are generally found within the ashram of the Master M. It is the work of this Master to carry out the plans of the present Manu. In so doing he inspires the statesmen of the world so as to bring about those synthetic conditions that will further racial development. At any given point in time it is those political leaders who have a vision of the greatest good for the greatest number, who are, consciously or sub-consciously, responding to ideas formulated in the department of the Manu.5 Ashramic activities within the departments of the Hierarchy are of a highly esoteric nature, and about such work little can be said or is known. Our task in setting forth a few thoughts in this article is to provide an historical context for considering the role of politics, with respect to the quality of imposition and the relationship between culture and civilization, based upon our limited understanding of the Divine Plan at this point in time. The Involutionary Cycle of Political Ideas History, esoterically understood, is but the record of man’s cyclic reaction to some inflowing divine energy, to some avatar, or some inspired leader. 6 The great cycles of time, cosmic, solar, and planetary, within which we live, move and have our being could be said to be an idea, generated by a logos. Within our planetary sphere, human evolution is said to undergo a world period covering millions of years, which is just one of seven rounds of an earth chain. This round of human history is, in turn, sub-divided into seven parts known as root races. From the point of human individuation, which is said to have occurred during the Lemurian Age when the solar angels implanted the faculty of manas in human consciousness, a form of culture and civilization can be said to have emerged. We are told that the first earthly government was established with the coming of the Hierarchy and the founding of Shamballa on the planet eighteen million years ago. Initially, so it has been written, members of the Hierarchy themselves guided the affairs of these incipient human societies. This was considered necessary given the infant state of man’s mental equipment. The Adepts and Chohans charged with overseeing the affairs of fledgling humanity took upon themselves the task of awakening the spark of mental activity in human consciousness. As a means of educating the more evolved members of the race, various mystery schools were established, which provided a rigorous program of occult training for those willing and able to pursue the higher path of initiation. From these Temples, the mystery schools of Chaldea, Egypt, and Greece later developed, which gave rise to a whole lineage of mystery schools. The withdrawing of the Hierarchy from direct control over human affairs in Atlantean times, led to the rule of priest kings, which can be documented in the earliest historical records, dating from approximately 12,000 BCE. We know very little about the earliest known human societies prior to this date. A number of the most ancient civilizations, according to Geoffrey Hodson, included the Cro-Magnons who settled in Western Europe, the Toltecs, who formed the root of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Turanians, who evolved into the Chinese race, the Semites who were the forerunners of the Jews, and the Mongolians, from which sub-race sprang the Magyars, Japanese, and Mongolians. All these civilizations are said to have emerged during the twelve million year Atlantean root-race, known as the geological age of the Pliocene. 7 There is ample evidence that cultural ideas underscoring the great civilizations passed from East to West. We know that in antediluvian China there were a series of emperors who ruled by divine right. 8 The notion that kings were divine by nature, or were representatives of the Gods, related back to an earlier period when the Hierarchy ruled on earth. The civilization of China evolved and survived over a longer span of time than any other sub-race. This was due to the fact that the oriental structure of kingship, which was the model for statecraft for many thousands of years, was the higher expression of the fourth ray, the ray of humanity and the soul ray of the eastern hemisphere. As such it gave form to the harmony aspect of this ray. (Harmony in this context represented order, the anecdote to chaos). The importance of maintaining order and stability, as an anecdote to chaos was later articulated by Confucius, one of China’s greatest teachers. He believed that the goal of human society was to harmonize the way of man with the way of heaven. It was the king, or the son of heaven, who acted as an intermediary between the two. The coming of the fifth root-race marked the commencement of recorded history. Subsequently, in this historical cycle each of the evolving sub-races (or civilizations) was inaugurated by a world teacher, who put forward a divine idea. For instance, the Vaivasvata Manu, the initiator of the Indian (or first) sub-race of the fifth root-race, set forth the Dharmashastra, a code of law that established the principle of dharma and the caste system that formed the basis for a new social order as well as a system of education.9 During the ancient Egyptian civilization, which followed on from that of India, the next great world teacher, Hermes Trismegistus, projected into human consciousness the principle of light as the essence of divinity. Understandably, the rulers of Egypt identified with Ra, the sun god, and dedicated their temples to this luminous deity. The principle of light manifesting in darkness was carried over into the next sub-race, centered in Persia. Zarathustra, founder of the Zoroastrian religion, provided a synthesis of the major thought-currents up to that time. In developing the idea of purity, which is freedom from all limiting factors, Zoroastrian thought posited the way to final victory over evil, or darkness. This lineage of the previous civilizations reached their culmination in the teachings of the Buddha, who in articulating the four noble truths and the eight-fold path defined the plight of the human condition and the way to liberation. In presenting a full-blown doctrine of compassion and wisdom, the Buddha established a link, for the first time, between the planes of buddhi and manas, which pointed to humanity’s further evolution. The spread of Buddhist teachings throughout Asia represents, in its pure form, the light of the East, which has subjectively shined forth across the centuries. Politically, the legitimacy of kingship rested not only on the supposed divinity, or quasi divinity of the ruler, but also on his embodiment of the ideals derived from the idea put forth by some world teacher. Politics at this stage of human evolution existed largely in a pre-state condition, and was based on a tribal consciousness. In India the ruler bound his people together through a strict adherence to the caste system. The pharaoh in Egypt, a “god himself,” linked mortal men to the eternal by holding the keys to the afterlife. His eternal life within one of the great pyramids was seen to radiate a sense of peace and well being to every Egyptian subject.10 In keeping with the synthesis of thought underscoring the Zoroastrian religion, the Persian kings of the fifth and sixth centuries BCE created a sophisticated social system, which was brought about through economic and political unification that made the Persia, up to that point, the greatest empire of the ancient world. The flowering forth of Greek and Hellenic civilization, which was the fruit of the fourth root-race--flowing from third ray and fourth ray energies--was a response to new ideas that arose from the Orphic mysteries and the teachings of Pythagoras. Essentially, the ideas that were articulated as ideals during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE dealt with the nature of reality and the principle of harmony. Prior to this period men conceived of the world and the universe as something static. Greek thought introduced the idea of change, which germinated into the thought of progress and evolutionary development. Revelations as to the nature of sound, number, and syntax laid the basis for an understanding of harmony, which is predicated on the nature of relationship. Out of harmony there developed a system of education known as the seven liberal arts. Ideals based on these new ideas led to an important evolutionary step in political thought and structure. The diverse world of the Greek city-state provided a stage for experimentation in diverse forms of government. Greek democracy, which emerged in Athens during the fifth century BCE, represented a convergent point of ideas, creativity, and new forms of civic virtue that had not hitherto been seen. The implantation of democracy as a form of government was an ideal based on the archetype of Hierarchical Democracy, derived from the principle of love (integration and fusion). This esoteric archetype was sensed by enlightened minds and has been passed down throughout the ages, but has never fully been realized. It is interesting to note that the American form of government is based on the reincarnation of the Greek model, though in a distorted form. The extension of Greek ideas throughout the ancient Near East carried with it an interest in learning and the seeds of the mysteries. The Hellenistic age was brought to an end by the conquest of Rome, which began as small city-states in the Italian peninsula and spread all over the Mediterranean region. The wave of Greco-Roman civilization, wrote the historian Arnold Toynbee, functioned “as a movement in a spiritual medium--an emission of spiritual energy--which wells up from a spring of original inspiration in Greece and radiates its influence outwards from Greece in all directions in concentric waves.” 11 Roman culture copied that of the Greek and Hellenic branch race, but unlike the Greeks, they developed a society that was highly materialistic. The Roman Republic gave way to the Empire, which was sustained on conquest, organization, and material possession. It was the Roman Empire that provided the form and structure for the Catholic Church, which emerged as its successor. (to be continued) Endnotes
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