Firm claims on this subject are easy; sound judgement is harder. Below we gather the relevant indications in Bailey's books and invite readers to weigh them with their own intuition.
A teaching given once a century
Discipleship in the New Age II states that, usually once a century after their Conclave at the close of the first quarter, a more advanced body of teaching is imparted. At first it is recognised by only a few of the foremost disciples, but it becomes the ordinary form of occult teaching during the next cycle.
- 1875H. P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine: the preparatory phase.
- 1925A Treatise on Cosmic Fire: in Bailey's words, the psychological key to The Secret Doctrine and the most advanced teaching given for the twentieth century.
- 2025The further teaching that the Tibetan says will be given through an initiate early in the new century.
Esoteric astrology and 2025
At the end of Esoteric Astrology the Tibetan says the concepts he gives may lay a foundation for future teaching around 2025. He describes how all revelation comes: a thought is given, a symbol described, an idea portrayed; as human minds ponder it, the seed thought ripens and the revelation bears fruit.
He asks his students to safeguard this presentation of truth during this century and to keep the books going out steadily on their mission, until they are superseded in the next century by a newer and more adequate teaching.
The astrological key and the fourth fundamental
In the Proem of The Secret Doctrine Blavatsky gives three fundamental propositions. According to the Tibetan, true astrology will later reveal a fourth. At the start of Esoteric Astrology he says that "space is an entity" and that esoteric astrology deals with the life, energies, cycles and seasons of this entity. There is an astrological key to The Secret Doctrine that cannot yet be given in full; hints carried in the consciousness of illumined astrologers may enable one of them to discover it.
A whole then emerges: Cosmic Fire gives the psychological key to The Secret Doctrine, while Esoteric Astrology carries indications of the astrological key.
The three fundamentals of The Secret Doctrine
To see why a fourth fundamental matters, recall the first three. The Tibetan restates them at the opening of Cosmic Fire:
- IOne boundless, immutable Principle. One Absolute Reality that precedes all manifested being and lies beyond the reach of human thought.
- IIThe Law of Periodicity. All manifestation, from a solar system to a human being, is cyclic: birth, life and death. Knowledge of the cycles involves knowledge of number, sound and colour.
- IIIAll souls are identical with the Oversoul. Brotherhood is a fact in nature, not an ideal. The Law of Correspondences is the interpretive law that explains God to man.
In Letters on Occult Meditation the Tibetan says these fundamentals are in fact seven; the fourth is emerging through psychology and mental science, and the other three will appear in later rounds.
The Law of Cycles
The astrological key is thought to include knowledge of all time cycles, the ray cycles and the ancient Hindu cycles among them. According to the Tibetan, full knowledge of the mystery of cycles belongs only to the perfected adept. One who masters this law can work with the higher mathematics of the solar system, compute the relation of a unit to the greater whole, read the akashic records of the planet and judge karmic effects in time and space. This standard is a useful reminder to treat claims of having "discovered" the astrological key with caution.
One more indication is worth noting: according to Cosmic Fire, the highest flowering of mind in this round may be expected during the next five hundred years. Adding five hundred years to 1925, when the book was published, gives 2425, exactly a thousand years after 1425, a turning point for the Hierarchy.
A spiritual climax in the West
Bailey writes that in the time of the Buddha there was a great spiritual climax in the East. Since then the tide of spiritual life has flowed westward, and a corresponding climax was expected in the West between 1965 and 2025. These dates should be read not as a calendar of prophecy but as signs of a law followed by the united Masters of East and West.