The Seven Rays in Theosophy

By Victor M Fontane

The seven rays are part of a theosophical concept found in some religions and esoteric doctrines. In the West it is found in the doctrine of Gnosticism. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the seven rays appeared in a more elaborate form in the teachings of theosophy, first presented by Helena Blavatsky and later by the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul through Alice Bailey, both based on hylozoist theory (Hylozoism is the philosophical doctrine according to which all matter is alive or animated, either in itself or as participating in the action of a superior principle, usually the world-soul. The theory holds that matter is unified with life or spiritual activity). According to Theosophists, this concept was already found in the Hindu religion.

Energy and astrophysics: The hand of God creating Adam. 

The first ray incorporates technology related to power. Djwhal Khul defines the seven rays as seven differentiations of a great cosmic ray, carried out within our solar system. Such cosmic rays, he says, come from the Big Dipper and are related to the Pleiades, these being its negative pole and Sirius the central Sun that balances such radiations. Believers in the doctrines of Khul consider these cosmic rays to be in some ways similar to the cosmic rays that were discovered by Millikan (Robert Andrews Millikan was an American experimental physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect. Millikan graduated from Oberlin College in 1891 and obtained his doctorate at Columbia University in 1895). The propositions on which they base their thesis are: Each ray Life is the expression of a solar life, and each planet is consequently linked with each planetary life in the solar system. Each ray is a receiver and custodian of the energies coming from seven solar systems and twelve constellations. Electromagnetic theory gave rise to the discovery that light is nothing more than a magnetic field that alternates very quickly and travels through space in the form of waves. In 1920 several scientists, including Louis de Broglie, proposed wave-corpuscle duality. The photon would be the carrier particle of all forms of electromagnetic radiation.

The second ray incorporates the technology of religions. Every great religion that arises is under the influence of one of the rays, but it does not necessarily mean that each successive ray will result in a powerful religion. Brahmanism is said to be the last religion that arose under the influence of the first ray. Christianity and Buddhism were the result of the influence of the sixth ray. It is unknown what the religion resulting from the last period of the second ray, as well as that of the fourth ray, could have been; However, Taoism is a philosophy that postulates unification (second ray characteristic). The emergence of spiritualism is undoubtedly due to the influence of the seventh sub ray, and also a previous influence of the seventh ray in activity.

The third ray incorporates basic engineering technologies and in particular information and communication technologies. It was thanks to information theory that the concepts of channel and medium began to be differentiated, the word could be transcended and a new exchange of information began, giving way to two aspects of divine energy: knowledge and wisdom. For Howard Gardner linguistics, is the intelligence that seems to be shared in a most universal and democratic way throughout the human species. Active intelligence is the third ray of aspect, it corresponds to the Holy Spirit and incorporates in itself the four rays of attribute. Peter Senge makes a similar approach in his book The Fifth Discipline in which he proposes the five disciplines necessary for organizations open to learning.

The fourth ray incorporates archetypes of construction technology. The desire to live a creative life, through imagination, is the fourth rule to obtain control of the mind by the soul. It leads to the revelation of the world of meanings. The use of imagination in creativity and the result of effort is applied in the various fields of human art according to the intelligence of the artist. This is accompanied by the instruction and training of the brain, the hand and the voice through which inspiration must flow to accurately express and correctly externalize the internal reality.

The fifth ray appropriates the principle of knowledge. For theosophy there are six branches of knowledge mentioned in its books: gnosis (occult knowledge) would make up the seventh principle. Knowledge is that which knows its own ends and works to achieve them through experiment, expectation and experience. Knowledge is the correct understanding of the laws of energy, the conservation of force, the sources of energy, its qualities, types and vibrations. Unexpected events have occurred in two great sciences: In Electricity, the research of scientists was greatly stimulated by the discovery of radium and by the knowledge that said discovery brought regarding radioactive substances, providing great help to the development of innumerable methods for using electricity. In Psychology, the polarity of the human being became known thanks to analytical psychology, while cognitive Psychology has made great contributions to the understanding of the mental processes involved in learning.

The sixth ray personifies the principle of recognition. The history of the world is considered to be based on the emergence of ideas, their acceptance, their transformation into ideals and their timely replacement by the imposition of new ones. The main ideas of the world are grouped into five categories: 

-The authority of a leader, group or church, who represent the State.-The ideas of Nazism, fascism and communism.-The idea of democracy in which the government represents the will of the people.-The idea of a world state divided into several nations.-The idea of a Spiritual Hierarchy that would govern the nations.

The seventh ray appropriates the principle of unification. For theosophy, the law of economics is what governs the matter in terms of effectiveness. Before the 1940s, the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had already been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's approaches with the General Systems Theory that became a new scientific language. During the two decades following his death in 1972, a systemic conception of life, mind and consciousness began to emerge that transcends disciplinary boundaries, offering the possibility of unifying hitherto separate fields.

These facts can be also used to explain the mechanics of Astrology.