Gateway of the new world, the new age
The energies of Aquarius are pouring in as the full moon approaches. A lunar cycle is 29 days or so, but the Sun is also entering a new cycle of Aquarian energy destined to last some 2,500 years. Not only is this too vast a span of time for us to visualize, but the energies of Aquarius are so subtle, yet so pervasive, that their effects are difficult to discern. Just as people living in the time of Christ, some 2000 years ago, would have found it impossible to envision life as we know it now, so it’s equally challenging to try to imagine the changes in the world that will be wrought by the time the Aquarian Age culminates. However, we do find some hints given in the writings of Alice Bailey. Universality, synthesis, and free circulation are all words which have relevance to the effects of Aquarius.
The all-pervasive, interpenetrating nature of Aquarian energy is generating changes in consciousness on all levels of life. It’s said that we now live in the Anthropocene age—a geological epoch dominated and conditioned by humanity. The biological term for man, Homo sapiens, is a Latin term which can mean either “wise human” or “clever human”. Judging by man’s impact on the Earth and the lower kingdoms, it would seem that “clever” is the more accurate term for the pragmatic motives which have driven the impact of the human species upon the other forms of life which share the Earth, a well-documented and an unfortunate testimonial to human self-centeredness. But with the Sun’s transit through Aquarius, the writings of Alice Bailey tell us that man “will eventually act as the radiating principle to all the three lower kingdoms”, for “Humanity is the divine Messenger to the world of forms”, she wrote.
Already we see signs of this destiny, most visible so far in the destructive effects human activity has waged upon the environment. More hopeful, and with the aid of science, is the research which is uncovering new dimensions to life in the lower kingdoms, particularly in plants and animals. Intelligence isn’t limited to the human kingdom alone, for science is steadily revealing evidence that intelligence permeates all kingdoms on levels appropriate for their purposes. In the past century, the efforts of science to teach various species to communicate with us are now gradually accompanied by human attempts to enter into the worlds which lower species inhabit—their umwelt or environment. The writer Ed Yong has explored this world in his book An Immense World, which concludes “We are closer than ever to understanding what it is like to be another animal, but we have made it harder than ever for other animals to be.” For ages man has inhabited a world confined to human interests and human goals, perhaps best symbolized by the goldfish swimming in its bowl, but the energies of Aquarius will increasingly break down the borders between the four kingdoms of Earth: mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. Christ, by taking on human form, introduced the water of life into the ocean of substance. Now, Alice Bailey wrote, humanity, aided by science, can fulfil its task as divine Messenger to the world of forms. Thus can the human kingdom become “a great station of light and a powerhouse of spiritual force, distributing it to the other kingdoms in nature”.
This is the intended role of humanity in the Plan, the divine blueprint for our world, but it is only “a skeleton outline”, implying that its manifestation will be determined, at least in part, by the responses and decisions of humanity, and of spiritual seekers in particular. The borders of the old world, conditioned by the past 2000 years of the Age of Pisces, are crumbling and the effects are in many ways disturbing. “The Aquarian Age will produce a dividing of the ways”, we’re told, and this can be seen in the powerful resistance of conservative forces to the thrust of the inpouring Aquarian energies. But those who can cultivate perception of the ordered purpose underlying the present crisis and turmoil can provide a spiritual poise which will maintain stability throughout this transitional era, assuring access to the “gateway to the new world, the new age” which Aquarius will bring.