The Birth at Bethlehem.
The Energy of Order or Universal Law.
Color is Indigo.
Our Journey to Heaven through the wheel of The Seven Rays of Life begins with the last ray, The Seventh Ray of Order and Ceremonial Magic. The Lord of this ray is Saint Germain, the great alchemist who created the Elixer of Life that conferred immortality upon all who drank of it. But what exactly is immortality? Are we not already immortal, being of Spirit? The only aspect of ourselves which is not immortal is our physical body and its daily existence on this physical plane. This physical life is temporal. It has a beginning and, at some point in time, will have an end. This fact is undeniable. There is nothing we can do to change this scenario. So if we are already immortal, what is the purpose of this temporal physical life?
It is through our physical life that we create a multitude of experiences which allow us to understand the deeper Mysteries of the Universe, such as Truth, Love, Joy, Birth, Death, Creation, Transmutation, Cause and Effect, Relationships, and Divine Union. In order for us to begin to perceive these Mysteries, we must first work on and ultimately master our ability to see what is Real. Remember, we live in a world of duality – Truth and illusion, positive and negative, good and evil. At some point in our life, we must exercise our sheer will to seek out and discover that which is only Truth. This requires a skill of great discernment, whose promptings come from our Higher Self through the Intuition. Without the Intuition, we are lost. That is why it is most important to bring the Intuition on line through listening to that small still voice instead of our logical mind. And if we listen to our Intuition, what is it that we will discover? The answer is: The Absolute Truth of All Things.
How do we begin this process? What is our first step toward Illumination of the Mysteries of the Universe? This is where The Seventh Ray of Order and Ceremonial Magic comes into our lives. Many call this ray, the Violet Ray of Transmutation but in truth, this ray is Indigo in color. It has the capacity of creating order from the chaos of duality in our lives. This ray initiates a process of sorting what is real from that which is illusion. It is only through Order that the fundamental premises of this physical life can be revealed. Through this Order, life becomes simpler and our vision becomes less obscure. We begin to see things for what they truly represent. It is then that we can begin to answer the critical questions of this life, namely:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What is my purpose in life?
The Seventh Ray brings freedom from the control of the physical body and its appetites. We are no longer driven by the desires of our five senses. Much of our activity up until this time has been spent satisfying the desires of our physical body. Our freed attention now turns to those things which are more spiritual in nature, things which are immortal, things which are Truth. When the illusions fully fall away, there remains only Truth. With this Truth, we can begin to create, for the first time, a life which has satisfying meaning, a life which is abundant in all things, a life which is full of Love and Joy, and a life which fully embraces the Divine within ourselves and others.
This is where Ceremonial Magic enters the picture. In the tarot, Card I of the Major Arcana is the Magician This is a person that has learned to control the physically based instincts in man, the emotional nature of selfish desires, and the mental nature of judgement and separation. The Magician has overcome the desire to live for self alone and lives his life for the advancement of all humanity. This unity consciousness allows the Magician to tap into the powers of this Earth and control the four elements of manifestation, namely earth, water, air and fire. It is this principal energy that the Magician wields, the Indigo Ray, that we now call into our lives to assist us in the process of overcoming our instinctual nature of selfishness and separation. This ray will move us toward a unity consciousness with both the Above and the Below. As we become One with all people and things around us, we too will move into the role as the Magician and will be able to direct the powers of this Earth to create all that is beautiful and blessed.
This incoming Seventh Ray always produces an intensified period of initiatory activity. The major effect is that we can experience the birth of Christ within ourselves and can realize that the Christ life, the Christ nature, and the Christ consciousness is ours. This “new birth” within ourselves takes place in Bethlehem (“house of bread”), an occult term signifying physical plane of existence. A new orientation to life and a new world of thought are registered by us. Overall, the standard of living will increasingly be adjusted to the Truth as it exists in the teachings of the Christ.
The life of the personality, oriented to the attaining of material and purely selfish ends, will be at war with the new and inner realizations. The “carnal” aspect will be battling the spiritual aspect within us – each aspect seeking to achieve control. In the early stages, after the “birth” and during the “infancy of the Christ-Child”, the material aspect is triumphant. Later, the Christ life triumphs. This you well know. Each step along the Path of Return indicates a stage in the growth and development of this new factor in human consciousness and expression. This growth continues until the Third Step when there emerges the “full-grown disciple in Christ”. We are then ready at the Fifth Step to register, realize, and record the long awaited revelation.
The Seventh Ray is the medium of relationship. Its major function is to bring together the negative and positive aspects of the natural processes. It brings together the two fundamental aspects of spirit and matter. It relates soul and form as well as soul and personality. In Step 1, this ray makes the disciple aware of these relationships and, through the process of merging duality, we are able to produce upon the physical plane the manifestation of the “new human”. The personality and the over-shadowing soul are consciously brought together to form a soul-infused personality. Our task is now to grow into the likeness of what essentially is.
The Seventh Ray governs the sacral center and the sublimation of its energy into the throat and into the higher creative center. This Ray is setting in motion tremendous creative activity through the stimulation brought about when soul and form are consciously related. Devotion to objects will eventually be superseded by the creation of that which will more truly express the Real as we are “led from the unreal to the Real”.
The Seventh Ray energy is the energy needed to bring order out of chaos and rhythm to replace disorder. It is this energy which will bring in the New World for which humanity awaits. It will restore the ancient landmarks, indicate new institutions and forms of cultures which human progress demands, and nurture the new states of consciousness which advanced humanity will increasingly register. Nothing can arrest this activity. All that is happening today as humanity searches for the new ways, for organized unity and peace, is being implemented through the incoming Ray of Order or Ceremonial Magic. The manifestation of right human relationships through Truth, Love, Peace, Right Conduct, and Non-violence cannot be stopped. It must inevitably demonstrate effectively because the energy of this Seventh Ray is present. And in the end, as Jesus the Christ foretold so long ago, each of us will love thy neighbor as thyself.
The Attributes of the Seventh Ray
“I seek to bring the two together. The plan is in my hands. How shall I work? Where lay the emphasis? In the far distance stands the One Who Is. Here at my hand is form, activity, substance, and desire. Can I relate these and fashion thus a form for God? Where shall I send my thought, my power the word that I can speak?
I, at the center, stand, the worker in the field of magic. I know some rules, some magical controls, some Words of Power, some forces which I can direct. What shall I do? Danger there is. The task that I have undertaken is not easy of accomplishment, yet I love power. I love to see the forms emerge, created by my mind, and do their work, fulfill the plan and disappear. I can create. The rituals of the Temple of the Lord are known to me. How shall I work?
Love not the work. Let love of God’s eternal Plan control your life, your mind, your hand, your eye. Work towards the unity of plan and purpose which must find its lasting place on Earth. Work with the Plan; focus upon your share in that great work.
The word goes forth from soul to form: ‘Stand in the center of the pentagram, drawn upon that high place in the East within the light which ever shines. From that illumined center work. Leave not the pentagram. Stand steady in the midst. Then draw a line from that which is without to that which is within and see the Plan take form.’ “
The task to be carried out and the nature of the work to be done by us is to produce those forms on Earth which will embody the spirit of God and, in our particular time, this necessitates the building of new forms. We must create an alignment with the Above and the Below (with spirit and matter) which will result in a tremendous inflow of power, of energy from both the aligned points, from both directions, converging upon us, as we stand in the midway place. We must stand steady at the center within the pentagram, and there suffer until the light in the East rises upon our darkness, discovering us still at the midway point. Then comes the revelation of the Plan, for this has ever to be the motivating power of the Seventh Ray disciple.
We work on earth, upon the outer plane of manifestation, with the construction of those forms through which the Divine Will can express itself. In the field of religion, we work in collaboration with the second and sixth ray disciples. In the field of government, we labor, building those forms which will enable the first ray activity to be expressed. In the field of business, we cooperate with third ray energies and the executives of the Plan. In the field of science, we aid and assist fifth ray workers. We are the expression of the builder, and the creator, bringing into outer manifestation God’s Plan. We begin, however, with ourselves and seek to bring into expression the plan of the soul into our own setting and worldly situation. Until we can do this, we are unable to stand in the East within the pentagram.
It is occultly said that the pentagram is open and a place of danger when we know not order within our own life, and when the ritual of the soul is not imposed and its rhythm not obeyed. The pentagram is closed when order is restored and the ritual of the Master is imposed. If we enter through the open pentagram, we die. If we pass over into the closed pentagram, we live. If we transmute the pentagram into a ring of fire, we serve the Plan.
Special Virtues Strength, perseverance, courage, courtesy, extreme care in details, self-reliance.
Vices of the Ray Formalism, bigotry, pride, narrowness, superficial judgments, self-opinion over-indulged.
Virtues to be acquired Realization of unity, wide-mindedness, tolerance, humility, gentleness and love.
A disciple on the Seventh Ray is absolutely determined to do the right thing and say the right word at the right moment; hence great social success.
The Direction of the Seventh Ray
“Under an arch between two rooms, the seventh Magician stood. One room was full of light and life and power, of stillness which was purpose and a beauty which was space. The other room was full of movement, a sound of great activity, a chaos without form, of work which had no true objective. The eyes of the Magician were fixed on chaos. He liked it not. His back was towards the room of vital stillness. He knew it not. The arch was tottering overhead….
He murmured in despair: ‘For ages I have stood and sought to solve the problem of this room; to rearrange the chaos so that beauty might shine forth, and the goal of my desire. I sought to weave these colors into a dream of beauty, and to harmonize the many sounds. Achievement lacks. Naught but my failure can be seen. And yet I know there is a difference between that which I can see before my eyes and that which I begin to sense behind my back. What shall I do?
Above the head of the Magician, and just behind his back, and yet within the room of ordered beauty, a magnet vast began to oscillate…. It caused the revolution of the man, within the arch, which tottered to a future fall. The magnet turned him around until he faced the scene and room, unseen before….
Then through the center of his heart the magnet poured its force attractive. The magnet poured its force repulsive. It reduced the chaos until its forms no longer could be seen. Some aspects of beauty, unrevealed before, emerged. And from the room a light shone forth and, by its powers and life, forced the Magician to move forward into light, and leave the arch of peril.”
Know where we stand? Do we realize what we have to do? As we strive to enter into Light, let us count no price too great to pay for that revelation.