This article is transcribed from an interview with Benjamin Creme by Rollin Olsen, which took place in November 1994 in Los Angeles. Share International considers that it gives an overview of the basic tenets of esotericism, and should be of particular interest to new readers.

Rollin Olsen: Every day it seems people are talking about how things are out of control — corruption ruining countries, economies in collapse, people losing their jobs, some becoming homeless, the family unit breaking down. A lot of people see no purpose in life any more. Others keep hoping for a turnaround. Do you see any hope for the future?

Benjamin Creme: Very much so. I think that before humanity lies a civilization more brilliant than anything this world has ever seen.

RO: But how, given the problems we have today? Why do you think we have that in us to do?

BC: I think these problems are really temporary. They are the result of the fact that tremendous new cosmic energies are influencing our world and creating the present — temporary — turmoil and chaos. Our innate divinity, potential in every human being, is sufficient, I believe, to show us a way out of these problems and to create the conditions which will ensure, not only the continuance of humanity, but the creation of a civilization which will fulfil our every aspiration.

RO: You say "innate divinity." Who are we, really?

BC: We are really gods in incarnation. We need to recognize our threefold constitution: We are a spark of God; every religion has postulated this and has kept the idea of our divinity before humanity for thousands of years. But it can be seen more scientifically and still correctly. Speaking as an esotericist, I would say that the divine spark is so refined in vibration that it cannot manifest directly on the physical plane. It reflects itself, therefore, as the individualized human soul. The soul, in its turn, reflects itself in the human personality, with its physical, emotional, and mental bodies. Through the physical plane personality, the soul enacts its reincarnational process, until finally the individual on the physical plane, the man or woman, reflects perfectly the quality of the soul, which is the divine quality of the spark of God.

RO: What's getting in the way of expressing this divinity right now?

BC: The main thing is that at the coarse physical-plane level there is a resistance, a limitation of expression of our divinity. Hence, therefore, the expression of selfishness by most of humanity. We then create conditions, political, economic and social, which further prevent our divinity from expressing itself. When the changes which are now under way go further, and reflect the essential spiritual nature of humanity, we will create conditions, political, economic, religious, social and scientific, which will allow the innate divinity of all people to manifest.

RO: If we're divine innately, then what is our purpose, what goal are we shooting for as a race?

BC: As a race, our purpose is to spiritualize matter. We are spirit in matter, in incarnation at this relatively low level (although from the mineral, the vegetable or the animal point of view it is a relatively high level). From the point of view of spirit, the human being, with his physical, emotional and mental bodies, is not a very clear expression of divinity. The evolutionary process, therefore, is that by which we spiritualize the matter of our own bodies, and, thus, matter itself. That is why we are here: to spiritualize matter, to inform the matter of our physical, emotional, and mental bodies with the qualities of the soul, which is perfect; perfect spirit reflected from the spark of God.

RO: I want to clarify something here. People routinely talk about their physical body, about their emotions, their thoughts. You are saying there is an actual body which is the emotions, a body which is the mind, in addition to the dense physical body?

BC: Yes, indeed. These are vehicles for the spirit aspect, working through the soul, to express itself at this level. Gradually, through the process of incarnation and reincarnation, we do, indeed, create a body through which the spirit aspect can, to every full degree, manifest. When that happens we become perfected Masters.

RO: This information that you've been giving us, where does it come from? ls this from a body of knowledge?

BC: It is the Ageless Wisdom Teaching, which is as old as humanity itself. This is the teaching of a group of men who have gone beyond the strictly human stage and have entered the next kingdom, the spiritual kingdom. They are the Masters of Wisdom and the Lords of Compassion. They are men like us who have expanded their consciousness to include the spiritual levels. There are a large number of these Enlightened men on our planet, Who have been living in the remote mountain and desert areas for countless thousands of years. From time to time They release aspects of Their teachings, in so far as we can absorb and use them, to enlighten us. In modern times the major expression of this teaching was given through Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, between 1875 and 1890. Her book The Secret Doctrine is the preparatory phase of the teaching given for the new cosmic cycle which we are now entering - we call it the Age of Aquarius. A later phase was given through an English disciple, Alice A. Bailey, between 1919 and 1949 by a Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, and this is seen as the intermediate phase of the teachings given by the Masters for the new age. Between 1924 and 1939, another body of teachings - the Agni Yoga Teachings - was given through another Russian disciple, Helena Roerich. These Ageless Wisdom teachings are the teachings by which humanity is kept informed of its essential divinity, and of its journey of evolution by which means we perfect ourselves.

RO: It seems that what you're saying is not strictly in the department of religion. Am I right in assessing it as a kind of broader view of things when I see traits of philosophy and religion wrapped up in the same thing?

BC: Indeed, it is a synthesizing teaching. The Ageless Wisdom Teaching, or esotericism as it is often called, is not a religion, it is not, strictly speaking, a philosophy, it is not an art or a science, but it has something of all of these.

RO: And do all of those things stem from this? Or is there some underpinning that all those relate to?

BC: Esotericism is the philosophy, or the science, of the evolutionary process, as it pertains to the human and the subhuman kingdoms. But it is about the evolution of consciousness, not of the physical form. If you want to know about the evolution of the physical form, turn to Darwin — he has pretty well summed up the nature of evolution as regards the form of the animal and the human kingdom. But in terms of the evolution of consciousness, you have to turn to the esoteric — esoteric only so far; that which is esoteric gradually becomes exoteric. Nothing which humanity can safely use is ever withheld, so it is up to us how much of this teaching is given at any time.

RO: Let me clarify a couple of terms before we go on. A moment ago, you introduced us to esotericism, which is often called the occult. What do those words, strictly speaking, mean?

BC: They mean "hidden." That is, hidden for a given time, not for all time — but hidden because, at this point in the evolution of the race, it is largely unknown and unacceptable to all but a relatively small number of initiates and disciples of those who give the teachings. To humanity in general it is unknown, therefore esoteric or occult. The word "occult" has been given, by various religious groups, a rather bad connotation; it is seen as something dark, evil, to do with nefarious practices, devil worship, and so on. This is a complete misunderstanding of the word occult. Occult simply means hidden, and specifically the hidden knowledge or science of the energies behind the evolutionary process. Esotericism might be seen more as the philosophy of the evolutionary process, and occultism as the science of the energies which bring that process about.

RO: When you mention energies, this of course makes a person immediately think of science, because science deals in energy. You're saying there is an energetic, and therefore scientific, underpinning even to religion?

BC: Yes, indeed. All the religions are an expression of teachings which have, down the ages, kept humanity, to a greater or lesser degree, connected to what we call God — God being, in the esoteric meaning, the sum total of all the Laws and all the energies governed by these Laws in the manifested and unmanifested universe. So God is impersonal. Nevertheless that transcendent God is manifest in every aspect of creation, including ourselves. We are not separate from that creation, therefore from God. Every human being has the potential of the knowledge, the awareness, of all in creation that we can think of as meaning God.

RO: You mentioned before that these teachings are given out periodically, and in most recent times through Helena Blavatsky and Alice Bailey. How did they get the information? Where did it come from that they could then put it down and give it to us?

BC: As far as Madame Blavatsky was concerned, she received it from a group of Masters with whom she lived for some years in the Himalayas. The Masters have gone through this evolutionary process in which we are still engaged and have learned how it works, what evolution is about. They are Masters not in any authoritarian sense, but masters of Themselves and the forces of nature. They have full consciousness and complete control on all planes of this planet.

RO: And I would assume that it's from this level of human accomplishment that the greatest teachers of the ages have come.

BC: Indeed, absolutely so. Every new cosmic cycle — we are entering a new one now, the Age of Aquarius — brings into the world a teacher. People like Hercules and Hermes, Rama, Mithra, Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Krishna, Shankaracharya, the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed — these are all Masters who have come from the same spiritual centre of the planet, called the Spiritual, or Esoteric Hierarchy, which is made up of the Masters and Their initiates and disciples, of various degrees.

RO: When you mention the spiritual centre of the planet, what are you referring to?

BC: I am referring to the Spiritual Hierarchy, the Kingdom of God, or the Spiritual Kingdom. It is also known as the Kingdom of Souls.

RO: So this is a state, as opposed to a place?

BC: Yes. Christians are waiting for the Kingdom of God to descend on the earth when we are good enough to receive it. Actually it has always been there, behind the scenes, made up of those men and women who have fitted themselves, through the expansion of Their consciousness (and therefore the demonstration of Their divinity), to be in the Kingdom of God, or the Spiritual Kingdom.

RO: This is what the scripture relating to 'the kingdom of heaven being in your midst' is about?

BC: Christ, through Jesus, said the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Don't look outside or up to heaven. It is within you. And indeed it is, as consciousness. If you have that consciousness, you are in the Kingdom of God.

RO: What about God? Who is He? Where is He? How does He relate to the Spiritual Hierarchy and us?

BC: Well, God, I have to say, is a very relative concept. We are gods but as yet we do not manifest very much of that divinity. In time, through the evolutionary process, we shall, just as the Masters do now. The Masters are God-realized, which is a very specific state, in that They have brought Their consciousness, in terms of the divine spark, the Absolute, the Self, into complete at-onement with Themselves as men on the physical plane — the personality and the divine aspect are totally integrated. That is Self-realization or God-realization. We are at some stage in achieving that.

RO: What about God who is not in the body?

BC: God is also the great Cosmic Being who ensouls this planet. This planet, for all its solidity, its cities and aeroplanes and television studios and the like, is really the body of expression of a Cosmic Being who gives it its life, and who has a plan of evolution for all the kingdoms in nature, including, of course, the human kingdom. What is really happening is that we, at our different levels, from the mineral kingdom up to the Kingdom of God itself, are carrying out an evolutionary process, which, in its summation, will make this planet a perfect expression of the thought-form in the mind of the creating Logos.

RO: You mentioned God ensouling this planet. Is there another God or higher level of consciousness that then goes broader than that?

BC: Indeed, there is the God who ensouls the solar system. Our planetary Logos is only a part, a centre in the body of the solar Logos, who in turn is a centre in the body of the galactic Logos. And on and on, galaxy after galaxy. There is no end to God, it is transcendent, and also immanent in every part of creation. Every aspect of God, including ourselves, has the potential one day to know all and be all of that, and to work with the energies which create that universe.

RO: Different religions present God to us in different ways. Those in the East I think present it more in one way, those in the West tend to associate it more with a figure who has a finite shape and appears more like us. Is there a validity to one extent or another in both? Is there some truth in each? Is God all that?

BC: Yes, I believe both are true. God is everything that exists, and all space between that which exists, between you and me, and around us, around everything. All of that is God. God manifests through its creation, which is made of energies at particular vibrational rates. The form depends on the particular frequency of the nucleus and the electrons of these forms. Modern science has been able to break down cellular structures and show that at the centre of every atom is a nucleus with electrons around it, vibrating at a specific rate, and that every atom in the universe is made in the same way. There is nothing but energy in all of the manifested universe. The difference between that totally scientific view and that which an esotericist would hold is that the esotericist goes further and says, indeed, all is energy, but energy follows thought, is acted upon by thought. Thought is the agency by which creation takes place.

RO: I want to back up just a moment and clarify one thing, because you're talking about God, as energy, being in and through all things. A lot of people were brought up to see God as someone who created the universe, created the world, set it in motion, and then is standing off somewhat apart from it while it goes through its cycles, while people work through their difficulties, overcome their sins, etc, etc.

BC: God is transcendent in that sense. But also immanent, in every aspect of creation. Creation itself can come to know God transcendent, and see that there is really no division between God transcendent and God immanent. We are not separate from God as we have been taught to believe.

RO: What would you say is the major benefit in understanding that energy underlies all things?

BC: It gives us control over the energies of the universe, over matter. It makes it possible, by thought, to be anywhere in the world in seconds. It makes possible modes of communication which are instantaneous, like telepathy. It is the knowledge of energy that makes all of this possible.

RO: But that sounds a bit futuristic at this point.

BC: It is future as far as the vast majority of humanity are concerned, but it already exists.

RO: So these things are not just tricks.

BC: Not tricks, no. They are the natural ability of all people, only they have to be developed.

RO: And those who have developed it are on the cutting edge of where all of us should be going?

BC: Precisely. Telepathy is a natural faculty of humanity. Most people experience it at times; a mother and a child might have a very close telepathic rapport. That does not mean that they know word for word what the other is thinking, but if something is happening to a child the mother will instantly know, she will feel that child is in danger and act accordingly. This is something we share with the animal kingdom. Animals have that same kind of emotional, instinctual, telepathic contact. This can be brought up to the mental level, and then you have direct mind-to-mind communication. A Master communicates with His disciples by telepathy; He does not usually appear physically. He could be in the Himalayas or the Andes or the Rockies or wherever, and His disciple in New York or London or Geneva, and still be able to talk moment-to-moment.

RO: I know, from having seen Kirlian photographs of the energies around the physical body, that science has made some strides in being able to demonstrate or measure these energies. What about at the levels of emotions, mind, thought? Are these the same energies that science measures? Are they able to measure them yet, or is it something we have to wait for to see?

BC: It is something which will come. But at the moment, what we are really measuring is that level of energy which science as yet has not demonstrated, the etheric levels of physical energy. Our modern science recognizes only three levels: physical, liquid, and gaseous matter. But above gas there are four further states of matter which are, strictly speaking, material, each one finer than the one below. These etheric planes of matter are the next phase of the material world to be researched and finally demonstrated by modern science. Then the etheric planes will become a reality and more and more people will be born with the ability to see the etheric planes of matter. This really has to do with a certain vitality and with a double focus: you see the physical; you change the focus and you see the etheric. Both are there. The physical is really a precipitation, downwards, from the etheric.

RO: Since the physical sciences are still in a process of developing ways to see and measure these energies, can you give me some esoteric structure that is put to energy? Is there some way that esotericism categorizes energy?

BC: The esotericist recognizes that all is energy, but these energies are vibrating at different rates, and follow thought. Etheric energy, which is kinetic energy, can be in fluenced by thought. The Great Pyramid at Giza was created by thought. The blocks of stone were actually moved by thought. It is very simple when you understand how to do it. You create a formula, like E=MC2, the great formula of Einstein which has transformed our whole concept of both energy and matter: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, the speed of light being 186,000 miles a second. That formula has transformed our physics, and so we see matter and energy as interchangeable. When you recognize this, you can create a mantram. That formula, E=MC2, can be changed into a mantram. When you enunciate the mantram in the correct way, you can move objects to wherever you want. You bring the energy of mind to bear on what is simply free etheric energy, surrounding every block of stone and every human being, every fish, and so on. All of that is a precipitation of etheric energy. The stones likewise can be made to have no weight, because the weight is to do with the inert mass and gravity. But when you create the mantram out of the formula and enunciate it, then you can move the stone from here to there. We shall do this the very near future.

RO: What about energies from, let's say, higher planes or higher levels. Does esotericism have a way of qualifying or categorizing these?

BC: Yes, there are spiritual energies, cosmic, solar, extra-planetary energy, the energy from the earth itself, and the etheric energies of which I spoke. We live in an energetic universe. Everything is energy which vibrates at different rates; the rate of the vibration determines the power of the energy. Cosmic energies, vibrating at very high speeds indeed, are very powerful; they could kill an ordinary human being if directed and focused to an individual who was not prepared in advance to receive them.

The Masters are the custodians of all the energies entering the planet. The energy of Aquarius is now being focused into our world, creating, by its impact, the breakup of the old institutions, political, economic, religious and social, which are hindering the further development of humanity. Under the impact of these energies we are undergoing a shift in focus. Our consciousness is expanding. But the institutions, political, economic and social, are crystallized; they are really reflecting the quality of the energy of the old age, the Piscean Age. These energies are now receding, and the energies of Aquarius are gaining strength. The result is a clash between these two cosmic forces, and the clash between the people who are attached to the effects of these forces: the institutions, the forms, the political, economic and religious ideas. And so we have this period of extreme turbulence. But we get this at the end of every age.

RO: You've mentioned Aquarius and Pisces. These are names we associate with astrology. How does esotericism look at astrology — as energetic truth?

BC: It depends on the astrology. If you are talking about newspaper astrology, then this is entertainment, and every newspaper column will say this is meant to be entertaining. You are not expected to take it seriously, and don't sue the paper if its prognostications don't work out or work out badly. At the basis of true astrology is the science of the energies of the constellations. Every constellation embodies great cosmic energies. These are the expression of great Lives, great Consciousnesses. You cannot call them Masters, because they have gone beyond the very concept of Masters. There are Beings who ensoul solar systems. There are Beings who ensoul constellations, if you can imagine that. It is so vast that the mind boggles. But nevertheless, in esotericism this is an accepted truth, that behind all that cosmic interplay is the relationship of great cosmic Beings who express themselves through constellations, solar systems and planets. Our planetary Logos, our 'local God', if you like, is one of them. To a cell in our body, we are a god; to that cell we are a solar system. That is the relationship of us to these cosmic Beings.

RO: Earlier you mentioned that there is a purpose, or goal, to human life. And if that goal is to become God-realized, obviously most of us are not there yet; so do we get another chance at it?

BC: The evolutionary process is based on the process of rebirth; reincarnation is the method of our evolution of consciousness.

RO: So as far as you and esotericism are concerned, this is a basic truth?

BC: Absolutely. If this is too outrageous for people to accept, let them wait until it seems less outrageous. But more and more people are beginning to realize this is so.

RO: So let's talk about the process of rebirth, or reincarnation. How does it work?

BC: Groups of souls are brought into incarnation through two great Laws, the Law of Rebirth itself, in relation to the Law of Cause and Effect. The dominating law is the Law of Cause and Effect, and this can be seen in a number of ways. Scientifically, you can say it is the Law of Action and Reaction, which are, as you know, opposite and equal. In religious terms, it is seen, in the Old Testament, as God demanding "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", very rigid and very cold and implacable, and a bit nasty. But in the Christian Gospel, the Christ — as Jesus — called it very simply the process by which what you sow, you reap. What you sow, you reap; so simple that people forget it. They might remember an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth more readily, but it is precisely as you sow, so do you reap. Every thought, every action that we have, under this law, sets in motion a cause; we are creating causes all the time. The reactions to these causes, the effects stemming from these causes, make our lives, for good or for ill. At this moment, we are making the rest of this life and our next life. We are receiving what is called karma. The Law of Karma is the Law of Cause and Effect. The effects from our previous deeds, good and bad, create the conditions of our life today, and the results of our deeds today create the conditions of the next period of life, either now or when we return in our next body.

The soul magically creates a series of bodies through which it can, eventually, really demonstrate itself as a soul. At that point we are well on the way towards the end of the evolutionary process. It takes hundreds of thousands of incarnations to that point, but once that is reached and the soul, looking at its reflection (the man or woman in incarnation), sees that it is beginning to respond to its (the soul's) quality and is becoming more divine: more unselfish, more altruistic, more concerned for other people and not just for the satisfaction of its own desires, it stimulates the vehicle, and begins a process which ends the evolutionary journey — the process of initiation.

RO: We tend to see reincarnation as a concept with Eastern religions. Why didn't it get into Western religion? Why don't we hear about it as a feature of them?

BC: It did, but it was pushed out. Jesus taught it, and those around Him took it for granted. There are passages in the Christian Bible where it is quite clear that His disciples understood and accepted reincarnation.

RO: Such as?

BC: Talking about St John the Baptist, the disciples asked Jesus: "Who is John? Who is this extraordinary man who is preaching in the wilderness?" And Jesus said: "Don't you remember what I told you? He is Elias come again." Another time, when He healed a child of blindness, they said: "Who sinned, that child or his father, that the child was born blind?" In other words, was it the karma of the father, who from some misdeed in a previous life had to have a child who was blind, or was it the karma, some misdeed, of the child, in a previous life, that required him to be born blind? Many of the early Church Fathers — for example, Origen — taught about reincarnation.

RO: What happened to it?

BC: The Emperor Justinius and his wife did not like it so they forced the Church Fathers to get rid of it. In the 6th century it was taken out of the Bible except for these few instances which were overlooked. But even in the East there is a very uncertain view of reincarnation. Buddhists accept it, Hindus accept it. All the Eastern religions accept reincarnation as a fact. But they see it in a very fatalistic way. If you are born into a very poor family, if you are an untouchable in India, for example, it is because of your misdeeds in a previous life, and there is nothing that can be done about it. You are an untouchable for life, you are poverty stricken for life, we will exploit you all the more because you were meant to be poor. So it is as if there should be no change, they accept it totally as a punishment, as the result of misdeeds. It is not punishment. There is no punishment. It is the action of the Law of Cause and Effect: it is impersonal. Social change could end the poverty and suffering irrespective of individual karma.

RO: If we get these repeated chances at life to work our way up the evolutionary ladder, what happens to us in between? What happens to us upon death?

BC: It depends at what point we are inevolution. If we are not very evolved (and the vast majority of humanity are not very evolved), then we quickly come back into incarnation. The great magnet of evolution brings us into incarnation over and over again. Because we have a lot to learn, we need frequent teaching, the experience of life, over and over again, to make any progress at all. If we are rather more evolved, we come into incarnation in groups, family and extended family groups. These groups change relationship: we have all been our mother's brother and sister and child and father and grandfather and whatever, over and over. In this way we create karmic ties. These karmic ties hold the groups together, and they also allow us to work out, in a relatively restricted circle, our karmic debts — until we resolve them. When we learn to be harmless, we overcome karma. There comes a time when the soul is manifesting so powerfully through its reflection, the man or woman in incarnation, that he or she ceases to make too much karma of a negative nature, and becomes more and more harmless. We can see therefore the need for harmlessness in all human relationships. By being destructive we create negative karma, which means we have to work it off. We come in with this karma, and all the misfortune of our life, the pain, the suffering, is put down to bad luck. It is not bad luck but the direct result of our karma.

RO: You talked about the soul and the body. What mechanically happens to each of those in between these incarnations? When we die, for example, does the soul go off one place and...?

BC: Yes, the body returns to dust. Except that one permanent atom of the body remains. One permanent atom of the emotional vehicle remains; and on the mental plane, one permanent atom of the mental vehicle remains. Round these three permanent atoms the soul creates the new body, on the physical, the emotional and the mental planes. We come into incarnation at exactly the level, the rate of vibration, therefore, where we left off, which is that of these three permanent atoms.

RO: But what about in-between lifetimes?

BC: That again depends on how advanced we are. If we are not very advanced, we do not have much time out of incarnation. We are in and out rather quickly. If we are rather more advanced we have a relatively longer period in what is called pralaya. Pralaya is something like the Christian idea of paradise. Nothing happens, you do not make any advance, but it is a state of unending bliss which is interrupted from time to time as your 'number' comes up and you are called into incarnation again.

RO: If there is this process of reincarnation and the body, as you say, goes back to dust, what about the different forms of treating the body at death—burial vs. cremation vs. burning it in flames the way the Indians have done?

BC: The only scientific and hygienic way to dispense with the body is cremation, to burn it. Everybody comes into incarnation with a long history of the illnesses of humanity, and some of these go back to the very earliest times. Through the practice of burial, these illnesses, like cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis, are leached out into the earth, enter the food chain and are reabsorbed by animals and humans alike. This has gone on for so many thousands of years that these illnesses are endemic and will take several hundreds of years to overcome completely. Cremation is a first, major step in this process. We are part of the fifth root race. The first root race was the Lemurian, which lasted about six million years. That was followed by the Atlantean root race, which lasted about 12 million years. Our root race, the Aryan (nothing to do with Hitler's notion of Aryan man), has been about 100,000 years in the making, so it is in the very early stages. Each root race has the task to perfect one or other body. The first root race, the Lemurian, had the task of perfecting the physical vehicle. The Atlantean had the task of perfecting the astral-emotional vehicle. It did this so well that it is man's strongest vehicle and the vast majority of humanity today are still at an Atlantean state of consciousness, "polarized" on the astral or emotional plane.

The Aryan race, our race, has the task of perfecting the mental vehicle. We are only using the lowest aspect of the mental planes. There are four mental planes, according to esotericism. The highest of these is called the causal plane, on which is found the body of the soul, the causal body. The soul uses the causal body for most of its incarnational experience, up to the fourth initiation, when it is dispensed with. In this way, the races are brought forward, evolve, and each race has seven sub-races. The Europeans and Americans today are the fifth sub-race of the Aryan root race.

RO: Is there another category for people on other continents?

BC: Yes, there are various sub-races.

RO: And these sub-races...?

BC: Today, there are people who are really Atlantean in the physical body, like all the Mongolian type peoples, the Chinese, Japanese, American Indians, the Eskimo, South American Indians — these all have Atlantean bodies, but the people in those bodies are, of course, of the Aryan race.

RO: In the process of reincarnating, how many times do we do it?

BC: It takes hundreds of thousands of times, literally, to come to the beginning of the end process, the initiatory process. Initiation has been brought into life to speed up the evolutionary process. It is not essential, we could evolve without it, but it would take millions and millions more years to get to the point where we are today. There are five great planetary initiations to perfection.

RO: And this initiatory process is to speed us towards the goal of...?

BC: The goal is Self — or God — realization. Then we do not have to incarnate on the planet any more. All the Masters have taken all five of these expansions of consciousness (which is what initiation is), and this allows the Master either to leave the planet or to stay behind and oversee the evolution of the rest of us.

RO: There's a lot of folklore out there, I guess, about what happens to us in reincarnation — you come back as a dog if you do something wrong, or... do we switch bodies with animals?

BC: No. Transmigration of souls does not happen. The fantasy about reincarnation in the East is that you can do nothing about it. However low in life you are, you just have to accept it, there is no social change to better yourself. In the West, some people believe that you go back and forward between the animal and human kingdoms. You do not. Once you are a human being, you go on being a human being. Then you become a super-human being, a Master.

RO: But you come in either as a man, or as a woman.

BC: Everybody has incarnations as a man or as a woman. Not necessarily alternately: you might have two or three incarnations as a man, and then three or four as a woman, then one or two as a man, and so on.

RO: What about within certain of either national groups or family or extended family groups: is there a tendency to come back in those certain relationships?

BC: Indeed, precisely so. We come into incarnation in groups, and these are usually family groups. There are exceptions, of course; there are always new people coming into the family. In the reincarnational cycle, people come into families who bring in different energy, a different quality, different experience, but then are part of that family, and make karmic ties and undo karmic knots together. The whole thing is working out, within the family, the knots of karma which we have created by our selfishness, our egotism.

RO: Why don't we remember our earlier lives?

BC: We do not have continuity of consciousness. When we have continuity of consciousness we do remember, but we do not have continuity of consciousness even from the sleeping to the waking state. We might remember a few dreams, but that is really the activity of the astral-emotional body in shallow sleep. In deep sleep we do not dream at all; it is only as our sleep gets more shallow, as we are emerging out of deep sleep, that we begin to dream, and these dreams we may remember. For the most part we do not remember what happens during deep sleep. Likewise, we do not remember from life to death to life again. Eventually, we will enter the death state completely consciously, know who and what we are and why we are there and what we are doing, and then come back, equally consciously. As you become more advanced in the evolutionary process, this is what happens. At the end of the evolutionary process, the initiates of the world, who are consciously undergoing the process of evolution, eventually develop continuity of consciousness. They come in because they know the Plan of evolution, they come in to carry out the Plan, and not only because of karmic necessity — although there will be some karmic necessity.

RO: If people understand, and respect, the law of cause and effect, does that mean they can consciously change their future by what they do right now?

BC: Absolutely. That is the essence of it. When you know that every thought and every action creates a reaction which impinges on other people, and of course on yourself, then you see the need for harmlessness. When we really understand this basic law of our existence it will transform our world.

RO: So are we the ones who solely determine what our karma is going to be?

BC: No, there are the Lords of Karma, four great Lords — They are not on this planet, not in this system, even — who administer, and organize the manifold differentials of this Law of Karma for the five-and-a-half billion people who are in incarnation right now, and the other 55 billion who are not in incarnation. There are about 60 billion souls potentially able to incarnate on this planet. So this is a major work of the Lords of Karma.

RO: So there's a degree to which we can determine the future by changing our thoughts and actions, but you're saying that there are already certain things set in motion for the planet as a whole that — no matter how hard we try — we cannot undo until they are worked out. Is that true?

BC: The point is that this planet is not very evolved. Not even in our solar system. It is still a "non-sacred" planet; there are seven sacred planets and we are not one of them. That is why we have all the problems. Humanity is not at a very evolved state, in terms of its future evolution. We are not very evolved in a not very evolved planet. The solar system is not all that evolved either. It is probably a quite insignificant solar system, at the edge of the galaxy. As seen from the centre of the galaxy, it probably is very unevolved indeed. Humanity, from its very inception — and this is put at 18-and-a-half million years ago in the esoteric teaching — has been creating karma, good and bad. Let me make it clear. According to the esoteric teaching, there is actually more good karma than bad karma, but we only notice the bad karma. When our karma is good, and much of it is good, we just take it as our norm, our right. When it is bad karma we think: "I don't know why I'm suffering this." But of course it is still our karma. This has been going on for 18-and-a-half million years so there is a huge planetary karmic debt. Every human being is involved, not only with his or her own karma, individually-created, but also with the karma of the human race as a whole. It is not simple. The Lords of Karma, working from their unbelievably exalted state of consciousness, can administer not just our individual karma, but our relation to world karma. The Masters act as agents in this respect. A Master can, if He sees fit and the law allows, mitigate the effects of individual karma. It is divine intervention, if you like.

RO: So correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're saying is that, with this world karma, the people who happen to be very fortunate in this life — have all the resources that they need, and who just sort of don't pay attention to the problems going on in the rest of the world — ultimately they will still have to face them.

BC: Yes, indeed, that is called complacency. That has nothing to do with karma. Complacency and good karma are two separate things. Nobody is free from the karma of the world. If you live your life, as millions today do, as if the poor did not exist, as if there were no poor nations, as if it was God's gift to the world that the developed world, the G7 nations, should live at the high standard of life that we demand and take for granted as our right, and totally ignore the fact that three-quarters of the world are living in poverty and millions are starving to death in a world of plenty, that is complacency. If we accept that, we are not living in right relationship. The next step forward for the human race is the creation of right human relationships. The Masters say we either do this or we die. We either create right human relationships, or we destroy all life on the planet. That is our choice.

RO: How does free will enter into this set of conditions with reincarnation and the Law of Cause and Effect?

BC: We have limited free will. Our free will goes only so far. Inevitably, the "cosmic magnet" draws us, pulls us, into incarnation. Occasionally people write to me, and say: "Please, Mr Creme, would you ask your Master to free me from the need to incarnate at all. I don't like it, I don't want it. I want to get out of life altogether. But I know that if I die, I'll just come back. So is there some law that will even cancel the need to reincarnate any more?" Of course, there is not, you do not have the free will to do that. When you are in life, you have the free will to continue or to end your own life, every one has that right. But you cannot do it without some reverse. If you take your own life, you have to come back and face the same situation.

RO: So you don't escape...

BC: There is no escape until you have learned to be perfect. I do not mean perfect in the religious sense: being "good" and believing this and not believing that, and doing this and not doing that. I mean being perfect in the sense that the Masters are perfect, which is having complete control of your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual nature.

RO: What's the best way to avoid making bad karma?

BC: Harmlessness. To recognize and accept that harmlessness in relation to others is the key to the evolutionary process. When we really create harmlessness, we create right human relations.

RO: But why? Why harmlessness? Does this have to do with the inner divinity that you talked about?

BC: It is because the nature of divinity is altruism. The ego is the harmful aspect. The ego pertains only to the personality. The personality needs ego, it needs the desire principle to get to a certain point. If it did not have ego, it would not get to that point, it would not create its individuality; it would be a useless thing for the soul to use. Eventually, a point is reached when the soul can really "grasp" that powerful, individualized human being, and turn it into a god — which the soul already is. The soul recreates that divinity on the physical plane as the man or woman and reflects itself through that. This can only be done when the individual personality reflects the quality of the soul, which is totally altruistic. It is the selfishness, even if, up to a point, a necessary selfishness, which in the end has to be relinquished in order to be a soul.

RO: When we incarnate, or reincarnate, do we come back in different races?

BC: We might be in the same race for a large number of incarnations, or we might have a succession of different experiences over half a dozen races. Or we might be restricted only to one race. We might never incarnate in the East if we are in the West, and never in the West if we are in the East; or we might flip between one and another for many incarnations. It is to do with individual destiny.

RO: So, you can learn the lessons, repeat the experiences or gain the experience you need to reach this point of perfection you've talked about, through any different races or racial combinations.

BC: Indeed — we are all human beings, we are all "God's children," and we all have the same potential. Of course.

RO: When you first learned about reincarnation — or, I should put this question not only to you, but to people whom you may know about — once they learn about it and develop some conviction or comfort level with it, does it have any effect upon their attitude towards death?

BC: Yes, indeed. Profoundly.

RO: How so?

BC: If you really believe in reincarnation, if it is part of your consciousness, rather than an idea which you think is reasonable to accept, if you take it quite seriously, it removes the fear of death to a large extent. You may be afraid of the final moments. But the idea of death no longer has the terror that it has for most people. Most people see death as the end of everything, they cannot imagine themselves, this conscious, thinking being, continuing. And yet after death you have an expansion of consciousness. You are the same being, but your consciousness is immeasurably expanded, because it is freed from the limitations of the physical body. Out of the body, there is freedom and knowledge, joy and experience of love, and you meet again people who had died before you. In fact it is easier to die than to be born!

RO: l was going to say, it almost sounds like being in incarnation is something of a liability.

BC: It is not a liability but an opportunity for service, for the expansion of our consciousness and the evolution of our being. But to be born is often more fraught with problems and pain than to die. I have met people who say: "I don't want to come back." They do not want to believe in reincarnation because they do not want to come back and have to do this all over again. Of course we do not do "this" all over again, we are not the same person because usually we have no memory of ourselves in the previous incarnation. So we have not got all this 'baggage' behind us, thinking: "Well, last time it was much easier," or "I'm all right! Last time was much more difficult." We do not have that sense.

RO: Is it usually true that our previous lives have been harder?

BC: No.

RO: But it's not a matter of rendering a judgement about one over another. You have to go through the next step, correct?

BC: What we have to learn is how to live together with other people without making negative karma, without being destructive, without destroying relationship. It is all to do with creating right human relationships and eventually, group consciousness. That is the next step forward for everyone.

RO: If we do something to set a negative cause into motion, is there any way to mitigate the effects of it?

BC: Yes, you can make restitution, and you can serve to an extent that will counterbalance the effect of that negativity. This is one of the great results of the Law of Service, that it "burns up" karma.

RO: Looking at that from a much broader perspective, groups of people, nations, even people of the whole world, are there certain things that we as large groups of people set into motion that affect life on the planet?

BC: Yes indeed, we do this all the time.

RO: How so?

BC: Governments do it all the time. People like Hitler, for example, set in motion wars which devastate life on the planet for years on end. The events in Bosnia today are set in motion by the head of the rebel Serbian groups and the President of Serbia. These two men have an enormous karmic debt to repay to hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Croatians who have suffered at their hands. Millions starve in the Third World through the actions of the developed nations. Some 40 wars are going on in the world as we speak. These can only continue while the rich nations sell the arms to fight them.

RO: What about altering life on the planet in other ways? Do we, through our thoughts and actions, change climate, weather?

BC: Indeed, yes. We affect the weather very considerably. Our destructive thoughts affect the elemental forces which govern the climate and weather patterns in the world. If our thoughts are, as they very much are today, in disequilibrium, these elemental forces go out of equilibrium. The result is earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, tremendous floods, and so on, which devastate large areas of the world continuously. This is our own doing. We call them acts of God, but they are not acts of God, they are acts of humanity, through its wrong thought and action, setting out of trim the elemental forces. When we eventually come into equilibrium, these forces too will come back into equilibrium, and the climates will return to their normal patterns.

RO: So there are good reasons for right actions?

BC: Goodwill 'pays off'. It is the essential nature of our being to express goodwill. If we express bad will, we reap the karma of that bad will. Goodwill is the lowest aspect of the energy of love that humanity as a whole can demonstrate. It is essential that we grasp this and spread it and manifest it as much as we possibly can. Not only that, as I say, to the individual it 'pays off' handsomely.

RO: But it sounds also like it pays of for society and the world at large.

BC: Of course, very much so. Goodwill generates goodwill; and gradually goodwill can become love. Goodwill is the first step towards manifesting love.

RO: Where is this general plan going for humanity as a whole? You've talked about what it means in terms of individual perfection. What about the world?

BC: This world is in process of change. It is going through a temporary period of extreme trouble and violence and manifested hatreds. But new energies are pouring into the planet all the time, particularly a great energy from a cosmic avatar called the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. This avatar works precisely with the Law of Action and Reaction, which we call the Law of Karma. Under this law, action and reaction are opposite and equal. Out of the present violence and discord, hatred and turbulence, we will enter an era of tranquillity and peace, mental and emotional poise, and an established harmony, which will transform the whole world — and in exact proportion to the discord and disharmony of today.

RO: Where did this plan come from? ls there some place or being or level of authority where it says "This is the plan for humanity, and here's where it's going to end up"?

BC: Essentially, the Plan issues from the Logos of our planet, the Heavenly Man who is ensouling the planet. He reflects Himself as the Lord of the World on a very high etheric centre in the Gobi Desert, called Shamballa. The Plan of God issues from Shamballa. It is brought from Shamballa to the Masters of our Spiritual Hierarchy by the Buddha. The Masters seek to carry out the Plan through humanity. They give aspects of the Plan to Their various initiates and disciples, men and women in the world, to carry out, and so the transformations take place, the Plan works out. The Masters are also the custodians of the spiritual energies entering the planet. They release them in such a way as to further the Plan. Humanity responds to these energies, even though they do not know that they exist. These energies are embodied by certain great ideas which become our ideals. As we put the ideals into effect, the plan of evolution works out, age after age, cycle after cycle.

RO: How do the scriptures of the world figure in this evolutionary plan?

BC: The scriptures relate to it but they are usually (although not always) given in a more exoteric manner, in a way that can be understood by the least educated, the simplest of humanity, in a very direct way. They have mainly an emotional appeal for the masses. Over and above that emotional appeal is a very mental and spiritually oriented body of teachings given by the Masters specifically for the initiates and the disciples of the world, which acquaints them with the Plan, with their possible part in that Plan, and invites them to take part in the implementation of the Plan.

RO: Because at some level, in addition to the simple ways in which certain aspects of it are put, people argue endlessly about the interpretation of scriptures, obviously there is something at very deep levels given through them.

BC: Yes, but often in a symbolic way. The scriptures, if taken literally, very often make a kind of nonsense. But understood in their more esoteric or symbolic meaning, as metaphor and symbol, then, of course, the scriptures of all the religions keep trust with humanity, keep that relationship between what we call God, the Logos of our planet, and His expression: humanity and the lower kingdoms. They keep us informed that there is a relationship, that there is a plan of evolution, that this is not the end, that we will go on until we create perfection on the planet — perfection being the total working out of the Plan of the Logos, in all of its varied manifestations. Another problem with these ancient scriptures is that they have all, more or less, become distorted in their slow dissemination over the centuries.

RO: I think one thing l had behind that question about scriptures is the sense that his evolution must be happening in certain steps. Is that correct?

BC: Indeed, very much so.

RO: And that each step has some new revelation behind it?

BC: Yes.

RO: So is that what explains the necessity for periodic revelation to occur?

BC: Indeed, there is a continuity of revelation. Some teaching, like that of Christian groups, does in fact state categorically that Jesus came and gave the top teaching, the end of all the teaching, which revealed suddenly the nature of God to humanity. They leave out of the picture this continuity of revelation, which has continued from the very earliest days of humanity's existence on the planet, and will continue until we are perfected. I believe it is a misunderstanding on the part of the Christian groups to assume that kind of superiority vis-a-vis the other religions. .

RO: Evolution is a term that most of us tend to associate with Darwin and physical change. In esotericism, are you talking about evolution in a bigger context?

BC: I am talking about the evolution of consciousness. We take for granted that Darwin has shown the evolution of the form aspect of nature, the physical body of the animal kingdom, out of which grew the human kingdom. The human being is not simply an animal but is the point where spirit and matter meet. The individualized human soul has taken incarnation, 18-and-a-half million years ago, according to the teaching, to enable a higher aspect to manifest.

Each kingdom grows out of the kingdom below it. First is the mineral kingdom, the densest. From that grew the vegetable kingdom. From the vegetable grew the animal kingdom. From the animal kingdom has grown the human kingdom; we owe our body to the animal kingdom. Out of the human kingdom has been growing another kingdom (which we do not even recognize, unless we are an esotericist), which is the spiritual kingdom, made up of the Masters and initiates of that kingdom, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Souls — you can use any of these terms. The spiritual kingdom, or Kingdom of Souls, is the kingdom immediately above the human kingdom; you enter it through the human kingdom. As you evolve to a point where the soul really begins to demonstrate itself through its reflection, the man or woman on the physical plane, the man or woman enters the spiritual kingdom through the door of initiation. There are five "doors" through which you pass to become a Master. All of the Masters have achieved these five initiations.

RO: These are steps we all take.

BC: Eventually everybody will become perfect in that same way.

RO: And what are the five steps?

BC: The first step is the birth of the Christ principle. The whole thing is re-enacted in the Gospel story, the life of Jesus symbolizing this path of initiation. (Of course, it is much older than Christianity, it is almost as old as humanity itself, and it has been presented to humanity over and over again, in different ways, in the past.) In the gospel story, the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem is the symbol for the first initiation, which is called "The Birth at Bethlehem," the birth of the Christ in the cave of the heart. That takes the man or woman into the Spiritual Hierarchy for the first time, and demonstrates control over the physical body.

The second initiation is called "The Baptism," and is symbolized by the baptism of Jesus at Jordan by John the Baptist. This demonstrates control over the emotional astral vehicle.

The third initiation is called "The Transfiguration," and is symbolized by the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount of Olives, and this for the initiate is the culmination of the lower process that integrates the three lower vehicles, physical, astral, and mental From the Masters' point of view this is really the first initiation, because it is the first soul initiation.

Then you go on to the fourth initiation, which is symbolized by Jesus dying on the cross. It is called "The Crucifixion". In the East it is called "The Great Renunciation", where everything is renounced, life itself, if necessary, to demonstrate the lifting of the initiate out of matter into the radiance of the light of Spirit. Jesus went through it on the cross to demonstrate it for us, physically to set this great experience of renunciation before the world.

This is followed by "The Resurrection." The resurrection of the body of Jesus on the third day symbolizes the Resurrection initiation in which the man, now a Master, is freed from the pull of matter for ever. The Master is in a body which is totally resurrected. It is a body of light. Every initiation confers on the initiate more and more energy of sub-atomic particles. By the time he or she is taking the fourth initiation, three quarters of that body is literally light. It looks perfectly normal, just like anybody else's, but seen occultly, esoterically, it is radiating light; only one quarter of that body's atomic structure is truly atomic, the rest is sub-atomic. This is completed at the fifth initiation. The Master stands free from the physical planet, He no longer has to incarnate, He is now in a body which is totally transfigured and resurrected in the esoteric sense of the word. Many Masters do, in fact, stay on the planet to oversee the evolution of the rest of us, but many go on to higher planets, or even out of this system altogether.

RO: What are the prerequisites for beginning the initiatory process?

BC: The soul sees that the person is beginning to reflect its qualities on the physical plane, the emotional-astral plane and the mental plane, and is becoming more altruistic, that its actions are no longer totally governed by his or her personal desire. The personality becomes negative to the soul, and seeks to carry out soul purpose, even though it might not know it is a soul, perhaps has not heard much about being a soul, but has gone through the process of ensoulment, whereby the soul really is manifesting. Then we see a beneficent person who is rather altruistic, who is really looking for, and working towards, the betterment of humanity; he will have some mode of service, and puts others, evolution, and society as a whole, somewhat higher than his or her own self.

RO: How long does it take to ascend to this point of Mastery, once you begin the process?

BC: It takes hundreds of thousands of incarnations to come to the first initiation. Once that is taken, it can take anything from two to 15 or 18 lives between the first and the second initiation. The average is around six or seven lives. Once the second initiation, which is said to be the most difficult, is taken, showing the control of the astral or emotional elemental which is so powerful in humanity, the whole thing speeds up, and you could take the third initiation in the same life or the immediate next life, the fourth in the life after that, or even the same life, and the fifth in the life after that, if that is your destiny. There are certain conditions which are too abstruse to go into, but generally speaking the last few incarnations quickly finish the evolutionary process.

RO: And at the finish, a person becomes, as you said, a master of themselves, masters over life.

BC: Yes. With consciousness on all planes, and control on all planes, which is another thing altogether. We all have consciousness on the physical plane, it is a reality to us, but few people have control on that plane. There are five and a half billion people in incarnation at the moment, and around 85O,000 people in incarnation who have taken the first initiation and therefore demonstrate control.

RO: That's not a lot.

BC: NO, not very many. About 240,000 people in incarnation have taken the second initiation, and about 2,300-2,400 have taken the third initiation. About 450 only, of those in incarnation, have taken the fourth initiation.

RO: How many have taken the fifth?

BC: Connected with the human evolution, there are 63 Masters. But there are many more Masters, Who are working with the sub-human evolutions, the animal, the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms. And also, with the angelic or Deva evolutions, which are vast in numbers, many Masters are involved.

RO: And what is their relationship to us?

BC: They are our elder brothers. They have gone ahead of us, and having finished the evolution on which we are still engaged, have taken upon Themselves the responsibility of overseeing our evolution. They know the way, the hazards, the possibilities. They know the steps which are the best to take, because there are many blind alleys, many pitfalls on the path, and They teach the correct way. The correct way is the way of selflessness, lack of ego. This is the hard way. It is slow because we are all so egotistical.

RO: Do any of these Masters have names that we'd recognize?

BC: One of them everybody knows, the Master Jesus. Jesus in Palestine was a very advanced disciple, a fourth-degree initiate, just short of a Master. He took the fourth initiation, the Crucifixion, openly, on the outer plane. Normally you are not expected to die on a cross if you take the fourth initiation. He did that to symbolize for us, dramatically, that great experience of renunciation. He is now a Master, becoming a Master in His immediate next life as Appolonius of Tyana who opened an ashram in North India, where He is buried. From that fact has come the legend that somehow Jesus did not die on the cross, that He was secreted out of Palestine and went to India and is buried there. It is the Being who was Jesus but in His next incarnation as Appolonius. Jesus is now a very advanced Master. In the seventh to eighth century He went to America and taught the Indian populations, then went out into the Pacific and taught the Polynesians. They all have the legend of a white man who came and taught, and the names are all related to the word "Jesus." He taught that another great teacher would come from the East, who would teach the Indians again, and of course when the Spaniards came, Cortez and his men, they were welcomed with open arms by Montezuma and his people, who were slaughtered for their pains, as we know.

RO: You mentioned Jesus. Any other names that might be familiar?

BC: One, very well known, is the Master Djwhal Khul, the Tibetan Master who gave the Alice Bailey teachings to the world. Between 1919 and 1949, He dictated, by mental telepathy, a series of books, 24 in all (of which five were written by Alice B ailey herself). These 19 very profound, and to my mind very practical, teachings are the intermediate phase of the teachings given out by the Masters for the new age of Aquarius now beginning. The Secret Doctrine was the preparatory phase of the teachings, given through Madame [Helena] Petrovna Blavatsky. Madame Blavatsky actually worked and lived with, for some years, a group of Masters in the Himalayas. One of them was the Master Morya, her own Master, and another the Master Koot Hoomi, both very advanced Masters. These two Masters are deeply involved with humanity, and, with the Master Jesus, will be the inaugurators of a world religion which eventually will develop: a very scientific religion based on the process of initiation which we have been talking about.

RO: These names you've mentioned of Masters are all men. Are there no women Masters?

BC: There are no Masters in female bodies at the present time.

RO: Why is that?

BC: The Masters, in a sense, are neither male nor female. They have brought both of these aspects into total equilibrium. On the soul plane, there is no sex, no male or female. There is simply one energy with two poles, one positive, one negative, as in electricity. They are the same energy in polarity. The Masters are perfected souls, so They have brought both into equilibrium, but when They take a physical body (which not all do; some two-thirds of the Masters today, that is about 40, are in dense physical bodies), They take a male body at this time to anchor powerfully, in the world, the energy with which They are so strongly endowed, the male or spirit aspect, to relate to the much greater matter aspect as it manifests in the world today. This is to do with the point in evolution reached by this planet. In about 350 to 400 years this will change, and then Masters will come in female bodies until there is a balance between Masters in male bodies and Masters in female bodies.

It has nothing to do with any kind of bias against women, or the female aspect. On the contrary, the Masters are the stimulus behind the women's liberation movement. They see it as essential that women take their full place in total equality with men in this new age, the age, as it will come to be known, of the Tara, the Mother. The Age of Maitreya is the age in which the Mother aspect manifests. The female is the Mother, the nourishing aspect; it nourishes the child, the family, the civilization. Nations are also male or female, and nations which are female may become the seat of a civilization. And so it is essential that women play their full part with equal status in the life of humanity. In the West this is becoming very largely a fact, but in large areas in the Eas this is sadly very far from being the case Women are often seen as little more than chattels. A great change has to take place. That is why the women's liberation movement was inspired by the Masters.

RO: How does a Master's body compare to our physical bodies? Is He different?

BC: He looks the same—better-looking— but His body is perfect, it is a body of light and He can disappear and appear again at will. He can walk through walls and travel instantaneously by thought.

RO: Disease-free?

BC: Disease-free, absolutely. They do not die, They do not grow old. A Master can be thousands of years old, in the same body. People will soon see the Master Jesus, Who is in a body over 650 years old. Some are in the bodies in which They became Masters. Others are in bodies which are literally thousands of years old. They do not sleep or eat. They live directly off sunshine, from prana, energy direct from the sun. They are spotles in Their robes, or if They wear Western clothes, very well-cut suits. But they create them by thought.

RO: The clothes too...

BC: The clothes too. They do not go in the bazaar buying cloth; They can create it.

RO: How does humanity fit into the overall idea of hierarchy? You've talked about Masters, and some are in bodies, some not —where do we fit in relation to Them?

BC: There are three great centres, and I have mentioned two of them: the centre which I called Shamballa, a great etheric centre in the Gobi Desert. That is the centre where the Will and the Plan—the plan of evolution— of the ensouling Deity is known. That works out through the agency of the second centre, the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters and initiates, the centre where the Love of God is expressed. The third centre is humanity itself, the centre where the intelligence of God manifests. They are separate today, but through the evolutionary process they will be united. Just as the spark of God, the "monad" in theosophical terminology, reflects itself as the soul, which again reflects itself in the human personality, which are both reunited by the evolutionary process, so in the outer scheme of things humanity will unite with Hierarchy. When humanity is ready, when there are enough disciples in the world creating a link with Hierarchy, the centre which we call humanity will be one and the same, eventually with the centre where the Love of God is expressed, the Spiritual Hierarchy. That will be united eventually with Shamballa, the centre where the Will of God is known. The Masters are aiming to link up with Shamballa, as we, whether we know it or not, are aiming to unite with Hierarchy. Eventually all three will be linked together. The evolutionary process will be complete.

RO: Some people would say that intelligence is not expressing itself very well through humanity.

BC: It is not lack of intelligence but a lack of spiritual will. We have great ideals, but we tend to think that having the ideal is enough, that somehow it will implement itself. We have to do it.

RO: So you're talking about intelligence in application, not just intellectual...

BC: It is applied, practical spirituality. For the last 2,OOO years we have had many ideals: of brotherhood and sisterhood, a recognition that we are all God's children, a desire for peace on earth, goodwill to all men, and so on. We enunciate it every Christmas, once a year, and repeat it at Easter, perhaps. But in fact, in our day-to-day life, we are as corrupt as we can be. This is because we have only a notion of spirituality. The religious groups are largely to blame for this. Their task has been to teach and to heal. They have taught, to my mind, very badly, and healed practically not at all. And this has separated humanity from its true nature.

RO: In some cases dividing?

BC: Oh, very much so, dividing humanity. This has separated us from our own spiritual nature. The Master Djwhal Khul, who gave the Alice Bailey teachings to the world, says categorically that one of the greatest triumphs for the forces of evil, the forces of materiality, is the fact that the religious groups have monopolized the idea of spirituality: whatever is religious is automatically spiritual (whether in fact it is or not) and everything else can be as corrupt as we like. Business is corrupt, politics is corrupt, economic systems are corrupt. But religion is thought to be exempt from this corruption; that is 'spiritual' . We have to understand that the word spiritual means the active betterment of life for all people, for the most people. Spiritual is anything which brings a man or woman to a higher state of life, whether that is on the physical, the emotional-astral, the mental, or on the spiritual or soul plane. Anything which is towards the betterment of humanity is fundamentally spiritual; it is not only a religious thing. The religious path is only one path. So we have to create structures, political, economic, and social, which are fundamentally spiritual in intent.

RO: So would you say that the essence of all religions is teaching living rightly, as opposed to deification of some figure?

BC: Absolutely. That is what the simple teaching of the Teachers has always been. Every teacher has come, given His teaching to a small group, then has apparently disappeared from the planet. He has been put up in heaven, or nirvana, well out of the way, separated from humanity, and that has left us under the control of the priests. They have interpreted (or misinterpreted) the teaching to keep themselves in power, for the most part. They are the interpreters, they are the link between man and God. Well, man does not need these links. Man has God within him. They have always taught that God is "up there," and you have to watch what you say and do because God is listening. Whereas in fact, the God within is the God that really counts, the God who is taking you forward on the path of evolution, and which you have to learn to demonstrate in Its real nature, which is altruism, love, generosity, caring, and so on.

RO: Do the Masters work independently or as a group? Do They have a leader? How is Hierarchy structured?

BC: They share a consciousness; They have no separate consciousness as personalities. They can never say "I," because They have no sense of I. They are a group with group consciousness. At Their head is the Master of all the Masters, whose personal name is Maitreya. He was foretold to come now by the Buddha: 2,500 years ago Gautama Buddha made a prophecy that at this time would come another great Teacher, a Buddha like Himself, Maitreya by name, who would inspire humanity to create a new and brilliant, golden civilization, based on righteousness and truth. There are 60 Masters, and three Great Lords, as They are called. Maitreya is one of these three. Maitreya holds the office of World Teacher, and embodies the energy we call the Christ Principle or Consciousness, the second aspect of the Christian trinity. Two thousand years ago He overshadowed His disciple Jesus for three years and Jesus became Jesus the Messiah, or, translated into the Greek, Jesus the Christ. The Christ Himself is Maitreya. His consciousness, from the baptism to the crucifixion, manifested through Jesus and inaugurated the Piscean age which is now coming to an end. Maitreya has come back into the world now to carry on what He began through Jesus, and will complete in the age of Aquarius which is now beginning.

RO: You mentioned Maitreya and Jesus. What is the relationship with the other teachers through history that we've known, like Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, to mention only a few.

BC: Jesus taught through Mohammed; as Maitreya had taught through Him, so He taught through Mohammed. The Buddha taught through the Prince Gautama and Mithra, and Maitreya also taught through Krishna and Shankaracharya at previous times.

RO: So these are inspiring Beings who stand behind a Master or almost-a-master, give the teachings out, and then that person comes up through the initiatory process and becomes a Master and part of the Hierarchy. So it's all like one spiritual family, is the impression l get.

BC: Yes, They are all brothers; They call it "The Brotherhood."

RO: How would you compare the Christ as He actually functions, with orthodox religious views?

BC: The orthodox view is that He is the one and only Son of God. Actually, there is no such person; there never has been and never will be such a person. Every single man, woman and child in the world is a son or daughter of God. Every one of us has, in potential, that divinity. There is only one divinity, and we all share it. The only difference between the Christ and ourselves, the Buddha or Krishna and ourselves, is that They have manifested Their divinity. They know that They are Sons of God, and They demonstrate it. We do not know that we are sons of God. We are taught otherwise by the churches: we are taught that we are born in sin and only through the agency of Jesus can we know God. In fact God can be known by anyone, moment to moment. You do not have to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Muslim to know God. You can know God whether you are religious or an atheist, whether you believe in God or not. It has nothing to do with belief, but with direct experience. Because you are God, because you are divine, whatever your belief or nonbelief, you can know God as an immediate experience in your life—in the way every child automatically, instinctively, does when it comes into the world. Without having heard that it is born into a Christian or a Buddhist or a Moslem or a Hindu family. It is not concerned with that but with its experience. God is not concerned with whether you are a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Christian. These are temporary manifestations in time and place, and the accident of birth—where you happen to be born. If you are born in the West you are more likely to be Christian. If you are born in the East you are more likely to be Hindu or Buddhist. If you are born in the Middle East, you will probably be Jewish, or Moslem. The more fanatical exponents of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, of Judaism and Buddhism, and so forth, have made these totally artificial separations in the world. This has hindered the evolution of humanity. It holds us back. It prevents the creation of right human relationships. Right relationship is the next step forward for humanity, so anything that holds it back is not something to be welcomed.

RO: You mentioned the "next step forward for humanity. " Does that have something to do with why Maitreya is here now?

BC: Yes, very much so. It is a new age that we are entering, the Age of Aquarius, and of course this is an astronomical, not an astrological event. It is to do with the relationship now being formed in cosmos between our solar system and the constellation of Aquarius. For the next 2,500 or so years we will be absorbing the cosmic energy of Aquarius, which will transform all life on the planet. That is a synthesizing energy: it draws together, fuses and blends together, while the energy of Pisces, of the age now ending, has separated and divided the world. This process will go forward for 2,500 years, and, gradually, humanity, growing together, will understand the reality of its spiritual nature.

This has enabled the Masters to begin to come into the world. It is due to the fact that so many disciples are nearing the first initiation, and therefore entering the Hierarchy, that sets up a magnetic pull, a conduit, through which the Masters are magnetically drawn into the world. They have been ready to do this for over 500 years; the only question has been when would it be possible. It was thought probable that it would be another 12 or 13 hundred years. But in 1945, at the end of the war, Maitreya announced His intention to return at the earliest moment and to bring His group, the Masters, into the world with Him. That is what is happening now.

RO: We've never seen the likes of it before. We've heard through religions, to a lot of us it's almost legendary by now, it's an incredible thing to imagine teachers like this, not just one but many, being among us. Why are They all coming out at this point?

BC: We have reached the end of the age, an age in which humanity has become so divided but has taken a big step forward. We have developed individuality, we have an idealism which, correctly developed, can take us far forward in evolution. Also as I said, so many have become disciples and are drawing the Hierarchy into the world. But essentially, They have come to an end of a cycle in Their own evolution, quite apart from the human, which requires their return to the world. Each Master has done this individually, but now They must show, in group formation, Their ability to function simultaneously on all planes, from the dense physical to the highest spiritual.

RO: Now that the Masters are coming out, and the wisdom of the ages no longer needs to be interpreted through various people and handed down, what becomes of religions?

BC: They will go on, but purified. It is obvious that, with the return of the Masters to the world, a transformation in consciousness is taking place and will continue to take place. The emphasis of religions will change. Essentially they are nurturing stations, to keep alive the reality of the spiritual behind everyday life, and to protect young souls, so that they are kept on a spiritual path. They allow, in that way, a measure of control and of self-regulation of individuals who can, having established that discipline in their own lives, enter the esoteric path and continue their evolution more consciously, as conscious disciples.

RO: Will there be new religious forms or structures with the coming in of Maitreya and the Masters?

BC: The Master Djwhal Khul, who gave the Alice Bailey teachings, has predicted a future world religion which will be very scientific, as I mentioned. It will be based on the esoteric process of evolution, of initiation as central to that path, and the first two initiations will become the goal for the mass of humanity. There will be mystery schools in which preparation for initiation will be made—it is not something you can teach— which will enable people to take the first and second initiations. Maitreya is the initiator at the first two initiations, and will go around the world initiating hundreds of thousands of people into this deeper aspect of our life. Every initiation confers on the initiate a deeper insight into the mind of the creating Logos, so that you become aware of more and more of the plan of evolution. If you are aware of the plan, and of your part in that plan, you can act much more consciously and therefore much more effectively. And so the service aspect of the disciple is reinforced.

RO: If Maitreya is the Christ, then who or what is the anti-Christ?

BC: There is a tremendous misunderstanding about the anti-Christ, certainly among Christian groups. They expect the Christ "at the end of the world." Actually, He came at the end of the age, not the end of the world. At the end of the world, when the whole world is disintegrating, they expect Him to come down on a cloud into Jerusalem. They think He is sitting up in heaven but the Christ has been no nearer "heaven" than the high Himalayas, 17,500 feet up, for the last thousands of years. And it is from there that He comes into the world, not from this mythical heaven. Heaven is a state of being. The kingdom of heaven is within, as Jesus Himself taught. It is the Spiritual Hierarchy of which He is a member.

The anti-Christ is not a man, as Christians believe, who will come out before the Christ, and could even be mistaken for the Christ. The idea comes from Revelations of St. John: the beast, 666, is unchained for a time, and then chained down for a time and half a time. This refers to the release of the energy we call the anti-Christ. It is not a man but an energy, a destructive force which is deliberately released to break down the old order, the old civilization. It was released in John's own day through the Emperor Nero, to bring about the end of the Roman dispensation, to prepare the way for Christendom. It was released again in our time through Hitler, a group of equally evil men around him in Nazi Germany, together with a group of militarists in Japan and a further group around Mussolini in Italy. These three groups, the Axis powers in the war from 1939 to 1945, embodied the energy we call the anti-Christ. That destructive force was released to prepare the way for the return of the Christ to the world now. And it was, indeed, in June 1945, precisely at the end of the war, that Maitreya announced His intention to return at the earliest possible moment, and this time to bring His group, the Masters of the Spiritual Hierarchy, back into the world; in Their case for the first time for some 95,000 years. The anti-Christ is behind us, it has been, it has gone, it has done its destructive work. Now it has to be "chained down for a time and half a time". This means sealed off to its own domain for the Age of Aquarius—that is "the time"—and half the following age, the Age of Capricorn, when it will be released again. In the middle of the Age of Capricorn the "beast" will be released once more, there will be another great war, this time fought out on the mental planes. That will be the third phase of the manifestation of the anti-Christ. It was the war between the forces of light and the forces of evil, as we call them (the forces of materiality as they are called by the Masters), which destroyed the ancient Atlantean civilization some 100,000 years ago. For the last 100,000 years that war has been going on on the astral planes. It was precipitated onto the physical plane in 1939 by Hitler and his group, with the Italians and the Japanese groups, thus manifesting, for this time, the anti-Christ. Now it has to be sealed off to its own domain.

The forces of evil have a role to play: the upholding of the matter aspect of the planet. If only they would do that there would be no evil involved. But they do not restrict their activity to the involutionary arc, which is their natural sphere of activity. Their work overflows onto the evolutionary arc where we are and is inimical to our spiritual progress; it has, therefore, to be countered. The anti-Christ forces are sealed off to their own domain by lifting humanity above the level where they can be used, contacted, influenced, by these materialistic forces. That is the work of the Christ and the Masters in the Age of Aquarius which is now beginning.

RO: In popular culture, and certainly to a degree in religions, the anti-Christ, Satan, Lucifer, are personified. It makes for great drama, of course. But what is the esoteric view of Satan, Lucifer?

BC: Satan is what we call the anti-Christ. I just mentioned the forces of materiality. These have the role of upholding the matter of the planet.

RO: But is there a devil?

BC: There is not an individual who is the devil. You could say the opposite of good is the devil, and that is in every one of us. It is just the selfish, greedy personality expression of individuals. But in esoteric terms, deeply, profoundly, the devil, or the forces of evil, or the forces of materiality, have the role of looking after the fires of the planet. This planet is a living, breathing entity. These fires are controlled scientifically, otherwise they would explode and the planet would be destroyed. The whole thing works under law. The lords of materiality, having the role of upholding the matter of the planet, work with the subhuman devic evolution, the elementals on the involutionary arc, to carry out that work. They are not content with that but overflow onto the evolutionary arc, and that is where the evil comes in.

RO: So, does Hierarchy have to deal with them?

BC: They have to deal with them, and They do deal with them.

RO: How do they do that?

BC: By protecting humanity from too great an overflow of evil which we could not deal with. We are well protected. As for Lucifer, Lucifer is seen by Christian groups as the devil. It is nothing of the kind! Lucifer is really the name of the great angel who ensouls the human kingdom. Every human soul is an individualized part of one great oversoul. The name of that great oversoul, which is divine, is Lucifer.

RO: How did this get so misinterpreted?

BC: Because of the symbolic nature of its presentation in the Bible story of Adam and Eve. Early, animal man, not quite truly human, but no longer simply animal, somewhere in between, had reached a certain point in his evolution, with a strong, coordinated physical body, a sentient or feeling astral body, and the germ of mind, an incipient mind that would later form the nucleus of a mental body. When that point was reached 18-and-a-half million years ago, the human souls, waiting on the soul plane for just this moment in evolution, incarnated for the first time in these early animal men. That is the "fall from paradise" of Adam and Eve.

RO: It was a metaphor.

BC: It was a metaphor, the whole thing is a metaphor. It was not a fall from grace but a deliberate part of the plan of evolution, that the human souls had to give up "paradise", living in pralaya, a wonderful paradisaical state of endless bliss, and "eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge"—take incarnation on the physical plane in these as-yet-animal men. That is what happened, and that has been misinterpreted as a fall from grace: that Lucifer was a great angel but he rebelled against God and thought he was as good as God, and so was put out of heaven. It is a story, only a story, and totally misinterpreted. It is really the story of the incarnation of the human evolution.

RO: Where does this information come from? What is its origin?

BC: Much of it comes from the Theosophical teaching, which was introduced by Madame Blavatsky between 1875 and 1890. Her major opus, The Secret Doctrine, embodies the preparatory teaching given to the world for the new age which is now dawning. The Alice Bailey teachings are the intermediate phase. Maitreya Himself brings the next, the Revelatory, phase.

RO: You were talking about 18-and-a-half million years ago as a time when something happened with man. Animal-man had progressed to a certain point, and what was that something that happened? What really happened in terms of changing man from an animal to a spiritual being?

BC: The human souls waiting on the soul plane for that particular time incarnated in these early animal-men and -women for the first time, and the evolution of humanity began from then. The individualization of man took place. That was a climactic, initiatory experience for humanity. The energy of Mind was brought to bear on animal-man's incipient mind and men—"the sons of mind"—began their long evolutionary journey.

RO: So there were souls in waiting.

BC: There were souls in waiting, yes.

RO: And animal-man was there, but what were the souls doing all the time they were waiting?

BC: They were in pralaya, in a state of unending bliss, waiting for an interruption of that bliss when the call would come that the first group would have to go down and "eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

RO: So this was the beginning of humanity?

BC: Yes, this is what it is all about, it was the evolution of humankind beginning from that time. Not a "fall" from heaven but a deliberate descent.

RO: Is there anything we can do as individuals, ways of thinking that help us move through evolution faster?

BC: Well, of course, there is meditation. Evolution is speeded up through meditation and service. These are the two levers of the evolutionary process. Nothing moves you forward faster than correct, scientific meditation and powerful, altruistic service to the world.

RO: We've heard for a long time that service is a good thing, it's almost kind of a cliché, but you're saying it's the absolute truth.

BC: Yes. That is why we are in incarnation at all. The soul comes into incarnation in the first place to serve the plan of evolution. It is aware of the plan of the Logos of the planet and it seeks in every way to carry out that plan. The major aspect of that plan is the spiritualization of matter. The soul does this by entering into incarnation, which of course is a limitation for the soul. It is perfect on its plane but the soul in incarnation has to go through all the limitations of our miserable lives: the selfishness and greed, the misshapen thoughts that we project around us that create the Bosnias, the Rwandas, and the terrible situations in Africa—starving millions in a world of plenty.

RO: What does meditation do that propels a person forward?

BC: It co-ordinates the vehicles and it brings you into contact with the soul. Meditation is a method, more or less scientific, depending on the meditation, of bringing a person into contact with his or her own soul; and eventually into total at-onement with the soul. It is given for this purpose. Once that is established, the person uses meditation as a means of going higher and deeper into the nature of the soul. Because the soul is really threefold. It is a reflection of the spark of God, which has three aspects: atma, buddhi and manas. The manasic focuses the intelligence aspect; the buddhic, the love-wisdom, and the atmic, the will aspect. Gradually, through meditation and service, the intelligence, the love-wisdom, and finally the will of God is contacted and known, and becomes part of the nature of the disciple.

RO: What's the relationship between meditation and prayer?

BC: Prayer is often a largely emotional supplication for help but at its highest is a heart communion with deity. Meditation is the method, more or less scientific, of contacting the soul and achieving union with the soul. There is no emotion involved.

RO: Ah, that's the difference then. So, is there any way to elevate prayers?

BC: Prayer eventually will change and become invocation. God will be seen as consciousness demonstrating as energy which can be invoked. This will be central to a new, world religion, which, the Master Djwhal Khul said, will gradually evolve. People will move away from strictly emotional appealing into the scientific invocation of what we know to be God: the energies, the spiritual nature of God, which is then demonstrated in the world.

RO: Is there anything we can do, moment to moment during our waking hours, to elevate our consciousness, to cultivate our spirituality?

BC: Meditation, of course.

RO: Well, I'm talking about every day, are there certain ways we can think or certain attitudes we can put forth?

BC: Goodwill, harmlessness, is the essential thing we should seek to inculcate, and from a technical point of view the holding of the attention at the ajna centre between the eyebrows will bring the consciousness up and out of the emotional morass which is focused through the solar plexus. It helps to keep the attention at this directing centre, where a much more mental attitude and, finally, polarization, is achieved, by means of which the soul can illumine the life; the soul works through the mental body.

RO: What does Maitreya say about cultivating spirituality? How do we step it up?

BC: He says to cultivate three things: honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit, and detachment. These sound easy, but they are very difficult, otherwise we would all do them, of course. We all think one thing, say something else, and do something else again; we have little honesty of mind. We have to inculcate, and practice, honesty of mind. This allows us to become detached. Practice detachment and that allows us to have honesty of mind. It also involves sincerity of spirit. Hardly anybody is who they are. We imitate all the time. We want people to think that we are this rather than that, that we are nice, that we are good, that we are honest, that we are whatever are the ideals we seek to present to the world. It is rare to find people who sincerely and honestly are who they are. This produces a state of speaking from the heart, heart to heart. That is direct, and in this way the spiritual nature of a person can be conveyed to somebody else, and they can respond. It is a heart to heart relationship which you seek to establish. Then you are who you are. It is like registering and expressing your own identity, sincerely and totally. Again, this produces detachment. These three work together: detachment produces honesty and sincerity; they produce more and more detachment. Maitreya says: "The Self alone matters" (the Self meaning the divine aspect, the Lord). "You are that Self, an immortal Being." And, He says, our pain, our suffering, our problems, are due to the fact that we identify with everything and anything other than that Self. He says, ask yourself "Who am I?" If you do so, you will find you are identified with this physical body as the Self, which it is not.

RO: Or with what you do.

BC: Well, in the first place with this physical body, the person you see. But it is not the Self. You are not the physical body which lasts only for one life at a time and is renewed successively, so it cannot be the eternal Self.

Or you identify with your emotions, your feelings, your energy sensations, which are transient—one day you feel one thing, another day you feel another. They are not the Self. Or you identify with the constructions of the mind, with your beliefs, ideology, whether you are Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever, and with all the traditions that go with that. It does not matter to the Self for one instant whether you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu, or of no religion at all; what matters is that you register yourself as the Self, that you identify with the Self, which is the same as God. Self-realization is God-realization. If you practise right identification and detachment, you come inevitably to Self-awareness which leads to Self-realization. Maitreya says that is the goal of all life. It is not a belief, not a religion, not an ideology, but something which benefits all people, and is in fact the goal of life.

RO: You say people also develop spiritually through service. Is there a right form of service that people look for?

BC: The right form of service is that which you can do to your utmost at the given moment. Of course there are different levels of service. Mother Teresa serves day in and day out, helping the poor and dying in Calcutta and elsewhere; others serve as prime ministers and presidents of great nations, either well or badly, but they serve; others serve as religious advisers, as counsellors; others serve as teachers, as artists, and so on. There are many forms of service, but they are all to do with altruism. Service is not service unless it is altruistically undertaken.

RO: Would you say that there's any form of service more important than any others?

BC: Essentially, no. All service that you can do is worth it.

RO: You yourself have brought something into the world known as Transmission Meditation, which you have said is both meditation and service combined. How so?

BC: My Master introduced Transmission Meditation in March 1974 when the first group was set up in London, where I live. There are now hundreds of groups all over the world. It is designed to give to the modern, busy, active disciple, with little time for either service or meditation, a field of both service and meditation which, in its effect on the world is very powerful, even with a little amount of time and energy spent on it.

RO: And how does it work?

BC: The Masters are the custodians of all the energies entering the planet. Many of these are cosmic and if They were to send them directly into the world as They receive them, they would be too high and would simply bounce off the mass of people. So Transmission Meditation groups have been set up through whom to send the energy in the first place. This steps down the energy. The energies are sent through the chakras, the force centres in the spine of the individuals in the group. This automatically transforms the energy to a level where it can be absorbed, really used, by humanity. These are the great transforming energies which change the world as humanity responds to them. This is done in such a way as it gives the disciples a field of service, powerful, effective, but requiring very little time and energy; and at the same time it stimulates the evolution of the disciples. It is not possible to have these powerful cosmic and solar energies scientifically transmitted through the chakras without the chakras being galvanized by them. So that when you enter a Transmission Meditation group you are entering a kind of hothouse, a forcing process, which speeds up the evolution of the individuals concerned.

RO: Tell me a little bit about what changes you see ahead in the future, and how they're going to be brought about.

BC: There will be a new technology called "the technology of light." We will begin to use that light directly from the sun. All forms of power used today will become obsolete. The new energy, direct from the sun, will supply every energetic need of humanity. And of course it cannot be cornered by any individuals or groups. It is everywhere, free to all, and is endless in its ramifications. It will also have medical application, in connection with a more advanced aspect of the genetic engineering in which humanity is already engaged. Whole organs will be recreated. Instead of having heart, liver, kidney transplants, you will simply go to the clinic for a few hours and with this genetic engineering technique and the technology of light, a new organ will be built into the body without opening up the body. I do not know how many times, but perhaps once or twice per life. Transport will become so apparently motionless, so silent, vibrationless, that fatigue will disappear and we can go on long journeys without feeling tired.

RO: Are you talking about a magnetic means?

BC: I do not know the actual method but it will emerge in the not-too-distant future. Also, a time is coming when humanity, just by thought, as the Masters do now, will be able to place themselves anywhere in the world. So if you want to go to Australia, think yourself there and back again.

RO: Do we have to do something, as people, to "deserve" all this?

BC: Oh, indeed.

RO: What?

BC: We have to become decent human beings and recognize that we are one, brothers and sisters of one humanity, and therefore that the food, the raw materials, the energy, the scientific knowledge, the technology, the educational systems, the healthcare of the world, belong to everybody, and must be redistributed more equitably around the world: so that we create the reality of the one humanity, the brotherhood of man. And, in this way, create the right conditions to deserve all these technological advances.

This text above has been taken from the Share International magazine. Their website is: http://www.shareintl.org

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