The Lord of the Five Rays
Author: Geoffrey Hodson
Date: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Theosophical Publishing House, Auckland

©Theosophical Publishing House, Auckland, 2021

First Published 2021
ISBN 978-0-473-62301-2

This work is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, and review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Cover painting by Elizabeth Sell.

Editor’s Foreword

This booklet was found hand bound and was originally written as a talk and has instructions to ‘talk about…here’ or ‘expound’ in some places but nothing was written down.

Due to this, references have been given, as to where you can read further information on the subject under discussion in square brackets where appropriate. Where Mr Hodson says he will talk about something but there is nothing written down, something has been added in square brackets so that the reader can continue reading. The information in this booklet was largely taken from Basic Theosophy by Geoffrey Hodson and his Seven Human Temperaments, C.W. Leadbeater’s book The Masters and the Path which Mr Hodson recommended and also Van der Leeuw’s The Fire of Creation.

Elizabeth Sell

The One, Three and Seven Officials in the Inner Government of the World

Material taken from writings of C.W.L. and others.

[The One

- The Solar Logos is the deity of our entire Solar System.

- Then comes Sanat Kumara, the Logos of our world, our planet and our spiritual King.

The One becomes the Three, the One divides into Two and their relationship creates the Third. The Three are

- The Manu on the First Ray Who is concerned with the races of humanity (our fourth Round Manu is Vaivasvata Manu).

- On the Second Ray is the Bodhisattva, the World Teacher, The Lord Maitraya Whom we know as the Lord Christ. He is charged with the spiritual development of each Root Race.

- The Mahachohan is a Third Ray Lord and is concerned with creative intelligence civilisations and culture.

After These Three then come the seven Lords of the Seven Rays.

- The Master Morya is the chohan of the First Ray of leadership, power and strength.

- The Second Ray of the teacher and healer and of love/wisdom and a sense of oneness/unity is the Master Kuthumi.

- We find the Master the Venetian on the Third Ray of creative ideation, comprehension, adaptability and penetrative interpretive mental power.

- The Master Serapis of the Fourth Ray of the Artist and of Harmony, balance, rhythm and beauty is the chohan of the Fourth Ray.

- Next we find The Master Hilarian of the Fifth Ray of Science, analytical logical mentality, patience and accuracy and a search for truth.

- The Master Jesus follows on the Sixth Ray of the Saint Server and Mystic of one-pointedness, devotion and fiery enthusiasm.

- The Seventh Ray has the Master Rakoczy as its head and is the Ray of the priest, ceremonialist and producer and of grace, precision, ordered beauty and activity.

For further information please read The Masters and the Path C.W. Leadbeater.]

The First Ray, the Ray of Atma or Will, is representative of the First Logos, the Father, and consequently is the Ray on which the work of the Manu [which concerns the races of humanity] is done.

The Second Ray represents the second Logos, the Son, and on it is done the work of the World-Teacher, the Lord Christ [who is charged with the spiritual development of each Root Race].

The Adept holder of these Offices is at the level of the Seventh Initiation, sometimes called the Mahachohan degree. He occupies His Office for one Root Race.

The Adept Founders of the Theosophical Society are at present the Chohan Heads of the First and Second Rays. They are said to be destined to become the Manu and the Bodhisattva for the Six Root Race when it comes.

The Third Ray [of the Mahachohan] in a similar manner represents the Holy Spirit and is connected with the world of the Higher Mind, the Manas in us. It is the Ray of creative thought, and it is along this Ray that we can come into direct touch with that world of the divine Mind which is the world of the Holy Ghost.

As the Mahachohan is the representative for our world of the Holy Spirit, this Third Ray comes under His dominion and is representative of Him just as the First and Second Rays are representative of the Manu and the Bodisattva for each Root Race.

The Mahachohan as the Lord of the Five Rays

There is, however, this difference, that the four remaining Rays also come under the direction of the Mahachohan, so that instead of there being one Ray on which His work is done, there are five Rays which are all representative of His work of creative Activity.

When once we understand how the different Rays are related to the planes on which our evolution takes place, we can see why the Mahachohan is the Lord of the Five Rays and not like His great Brothers the supreme Head of only one Ray.

The Rays which we have just considered are Rays which represent the divine Trinity in human beings; they correspond to the threefold world of the spirit, whereas the other four Rays are connected with the three worlds of illusion, the physical, emotional and lower mental worlds and, in the case of the Fourth Ray, with the centre of consciousness, where the world within meets the worlds without.

These worlds of outer manifestation are the result of the divine Activity of creation of which the Third Ray is representative. Thus it is from the higher mental world, with which the Third Ray is connected, that the remaining worlds are most easily reached; they, as it were, come forth through that world of the divine Mind, and the four Rays connected with those worlds belong to the Third Ray.

This is the reason why there are five Rays of development under the direction of the Mahachohan; the divine Mind is the creative Activity through which the worlds come into existence.

There is no better way to gain some understanding of the work of the Mahachohan than by studying the five Rays which come under His dominion; it is on those Rays that His work of creation takes place, differentiated in the case of each Ray according to the genius of that Ray, and the world with which it is connected.

All the Five Rays have as their common characteristic the work of the Holy Spirit, namely creative Activity, and the distribution of creative Energy to every part of the universe; and in the case of each Ray that creative work is done in the world to which that Ray corresponds.

Thus the work of the Mahachohan, who is the Director of the Forces for our world, is different on each of the five Rays which come under His dominion, and it is by seeing the work of the five Rays as one great work, that of the Holy Spirit for our world, that we can gain more understanding of that mighty part of the work of the Hierarchy, which is under the care of the Lord of the Five Rays.

The Appearance of the Mahachohan

It is hardly possible to attempt any description of the appearance of the Lord the Mahachohan.

He uses an Indian body and looks a Brahmin of Brahmins, serene and dispassionate, profound of thought and of an ascetic refinement. The face is thin and clean-shaven, the nose aquiline and the mouth of a silent determination. But what impresses one most of all in this wonderful face are the eyes. Looking into them we see the world; the Wisdom of the ages is there, knowledge of a hoary past and a dim, far-distant future. We feel that those eyes with one glance know our past and future and judge us, not in condemnation, but in a supremely serene knowledge of That which is.

When he speaks, His words are not so much commands as the irrevocable decrees of that which is to be. His is a Countenance full of love and tenderness, but at the same time of a determination and a dispassion which will carry out the divine Plan of evolution and execute the divine Decrees, whether they mean suffering or joy to the individual. It is only such divine Love that can destroy, if necessary, out of very love for that which needs to be destroyed.

In the presence of this great Lord of Creation we feel truly as if we were in the creative Centre of this universe. We are silenced by the presence of such intensely concentrated Force, such all-powerful creative Energy; the power and force we know on Earth seems but the feeble play of children when compared to that Force which is the one and only creative Power in the universe.

With the intensity of the Force, a Force truly cosmic in its magnitude, goes a feeling of utter control.

This quiet and serene figure controls the Forces of Creation, the least of which has power to create or destroy beyond any conception we may have of force here on Earth. One glance from Him is enough to judge and to know, and at the same time to direct the creative Energy necessary to fulfil the divine Purpose.

There is something in the appearance of the Mahachohan which reminds us of that of the Master, the Prince, though naturally His physical appearance is very different. Both suggest creative Fire and Energy. Both have a quiet and serene bearing which yet is throbbing with silent energy. Both convey the impression of world-forces controlled; only the impression is even stronger in the case of the Mahachohan.

His strength is as of tempered steel, flexible yet strong; His grace is that of perfectly controlled force; His countenance is one of indomitable energy and yet of supreme tenderness. Through His eyes looks the Wisdom of the ages, the dispassionate look of One who knows all, who gazes upon the Earth as from a mountain-top, and yet in His face and in the entire figure there is an element of joyous youth, of radiant vitality, of irresistible creative Fire.

Let us now consider the work of this Great Official in the Inner Government of the World, sometimes referred to as The Lord of the Five Rays.

He is the recorder in the Inner Government of the World and keeps The Golden Book, the occult progress of every advancing Ego on this planet. [The Golden Book is found in Basic Theosophy. It is a reference to The Book of the Golden Precepts and that the Mahachohan as recorder is the caretaker of the original treatises, from which this book comes, along with The Voice of the Silence, the Book of Dzyan and Light on the Path. According to de Purucker, Madam Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine is said to be based on these treatises studied by mystics and esotericists. She is said to have memorised 39 of the 90 treatises.]

The Work of the Mahachohan as the Director of the Forces

The Mahachohan has been described as the Commander in Chief of the Mighty Creative Forces, ‘verily the arm of the Lord stretched out into the world to do His work’. He directs the culture and civilisation of a race.

In the widest sense we may say that all the work of the Holy Spirit, in so far as it is related to our Earth and the evolution taking place thereon, is done through and by the Mahachohan. He is to all intents and purposes the Holy Spirit for our Earth.

Thus the entire work of creation which we saw as the characteristic manifestation of God the Holy Ghost takes place through the Mahachohan; it is He who receives, controls and directs the enormous forces of Cosmic creative Energy which come to Him from the Holy Spirit or Third Aspect of the Solar Logos. This is only a part of His work; but when we catch a faint glimpse even of this part, we stand amazed at the tremendous responsibility it implies and the magnitude of the task.

Great and responsible as any work on Earth may be, it is as nothing compared to the work of that supreme Director of the Forces of whom we speak as the Mahachohan. He truly is in charge of that centre of Power for our Earth from which comes all creative Energy.

A great laboratory, the misdirection of forces from the central power-house, might cause a catastrophe or hold up the work, but in this great Power-House of the world mistakes are impossible; the hand of this supreme Director of the Forces never fails; failure here would mean destruction and death to millions.

Misdirection of forces of such tremendous power to create or destroy would mean an upheaval in evolution and a world catastrophe; every force has to be directed exactly where it is needed and in the quantity in which it is needed, and anything more or less would be wrong and even dangerous.

We can now realise something of the awe-inspiring responsibility placed in the hands of the Mahachohan and of the magnitude of that Mind which is able to control, supervise and direct it all. To us it is entirely incomprehensible how one single Being, however lofty, can have a grasp of all the millions of different forms of creative activity taking place all the time in nature and in humanity. Yet it is the Mahachohan who, through His creative Hierarchies, has supreme charge of that work, and more.

The Mahachohan as the Lord of Evolution

Then again, the Mahachohan is the Lord of Evolution. We have seen how all that down here we call growth, change or evolution is our perception of the divine Mind, which is the world of God the Holy Spirit, and that it is the Mahachohan who represents that world to us. Thus it is He who controls what down here we call the beginning of evolutionary movements, the introduction of new thoughts of a dynamic character and the general direction of civilisation.

To Him truly, as it has been said, the future lies open like a book; He knows what is to come and what particular part of any cycle of evolution is to be completed at a given moment. Through the Five Rays which come under Him, as their Supreme Head, He controls the course of civilisation and inspires the changes that take place in it.

The Mahachohan as the Encourager and Inspirer

All creative effort, inspiration and enthusiasm, all idealism and all striving for purification are encouraged by God the Holy Ghost. The Mahachohan is His Representative for this Earth, and all that reaches us along those lines from God the Holy Ghost reaches us through the Mahachohan.

We can thus understand what a tremendous influence He is in our life, how He is not only the Lord of Creation in nature, but how our deepest and most sacred aspirations and inspirations are fostered by Him.

The flash of inspiration which comes to the great scientist after years of patient experimenting, revealing to them the theory or the law they tried to find; the illumination and experience of a great truth coming to the philosopher in the silence of his contemplation; the vision of beauty seen by the artist and embodied in his work; the purity of the saint and the power of the magician or priest; as also the sacred enthusiasm of the reformer – one and all are manifestations of the Holy Spirit through the Lord the Mahachohan.

Truly He is our paraclete, on Him we can call without ever having to fear that no response may come; once we have recognised the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit and His embodiment in the Mahachohan, we know that even the smallest effort on our part calls forth a response entirely beyond our merits.

When we think of the Mahachohan, we are not only filled with awe and admiration for the creative work He does, but also with a profound gratitude for the many blessings we receive from Him, even though we may be ignorant of their Source. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are many and varied; without them life would be but a desert; and it is from the Mahachohan, who for us is the Lord, the Giver of Life, that these gifts proceed.

What words can describe that Mind, one with the divine Mind itself, living in the supreme realities of divine Thought which is the world of the Real, having in His consciousness knowledge of Past and Future, having in His power the control of the creative Forces, for an entire world?

It is only when in meditation we succeed in contacting that great Consciousness that we obtain some glimpse of the greatness of the One we call the Mahachohan.

Let Us Now Consider the Work of the Five Rays:

The Work of the Third Ray

In many ways the Third Ray is most characteristic of the work of the Holy Ghost or that of His great Representative, the Mahachohan. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the human being is what we call Manas or the Higher Mind, and the Third Ray corresponds to that principle in humans as also to the higher mental world, the world of creative thought in which we are conscious of the divine Mind within us. It is along this Third Ray that the approach to the world of the divine Mind, the world of the Real, or archetypal World, can be made, and in consequence the knowledge of this world is the gift of the Third Ray. It is the Ray of metaphysics, the Reality behind the outer activity; it is the Ray of living Truth, the Ray on which we experience things-as-they-are, whereon we can come into touch with that abiding Reality in which the entire evolution of any creature or movement is known from beginning to end. Thus again it is on this Ray that we come to know the cyclic Law of Evolution, the manifestation of the one great Rhythm of creation in the many smaller and greater cycles corresponding to the Yugas of Hindu philosophy. The science which traces this cyclic Law in the movements of the heavenly bodies, the science of Astrology, is typical of the Third Ray; by its aid we can gain that insight which shows us how all created things, even the very smallest, form part of the great cycles of creative evolution, which are manifest to us as the movements of heavenly bodies. Thus naturally astrology enables us to foretell the future by the knowledge of the cyclic Law, though it is a degradation of true astrology to make of it merely an art of fortune-telling as is so often done.

Characteristic of the Third Ray is the dynamic view of the universe, in which we never see a thing, detached or by itself, but always as part of an evolutionary process. Thus every institution, movement, nation or race is understood in its relation with the past that produced it, and as the cause of the future which it will in turn produce. This view of the universe enables us to gain a far deeper understanding of any subject under consideration, because it is always seen in relation to all that produced it instead of by itself.

The Head of the Third Ray

At the Head of the Third Ray stands the great Chohan whom we call the Master the Venetian. But little is known of Him, yet His work is of the utmost importance in our lives, for He, as the Head of the Third Ray, directs the creative Energy at the levels of the Higher Mind and His is the work of creative Thought which in our world governs evolution. The great cyclic Law of Evolution, in which the millions of different evolutionary cycles are as wheels within wheels, is His science, Astrology His magic, the Vision of things-as-they-are His wisdom, and the unveiling of the future in Prophecy His Power. It is on His ray that we can gain that particular vision of things in which an entire movement, or a group of people, is experienced as one living Being, and in which entire periods of history or evolution are known as living Realities containing within themselves, both past and future.

The Master the Venetian, at His exalted level, deals with what we call cultural movements as they exist in the world of the divine Mind. He directs the creative Energy coming to Him through the Mahachohan so as to control the starting and fostering of such movements within the different cycles and periods of evolution. Thus the culture of civilisation is under His direction at the level from which He works, the world of the divine Mind.

[The work of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Rays.

Please refer to The Seven Human Temperaments, Sharing the Light Vol. 1–3 and Basic Theosophy for further information.

The work of the Fourth Ray or Artist and its future development may be found in Mr Hodson’s book Sharing the Light Vol. 2 ‘Theosophy for the Artist’ and in The Seven Human Temperaments among others.

The Fifth Ray or Scientist is the Ray of Science and the search for truth and accuracy. Some material can be found in Science of Seership by Mr Hodson.

On the Sixth Ray of devotion, the server and the mystic, information can be found in many of Mr Hodson’s books including Sharing the Light Vol. 1–3, The Initiate Life and many others.]

The Ceremonial Ray

The last Ray which comes under the Mahachohan’s direction is the Seventh Ray, and on it takes place the direction of the creative Energy of the Holy Ghost in the physical world. This is done in many different ways, and when we come to study the work of the Chohan of this Ray, the Prince Rakoczy, we are struck by its amazing variety. Thus He is not only the Head of all ceremonial work, closely connected with the Angelic Hosts, but His work is also that of international politics and the culture of the nations which come under His dominion. When once we understand that His work is the direction of creative Energy on the physical plane, these apparently divergent activities can be reconciled. Thus His work in international politics means such adjustment of the creative forces as will bring about the desired changes in the nation for which He works at the moment.

For us, who so often believe in the outer world alone as real, it is hard to understand how thus, by the outpouring of creative Energy, the fate of nations can be influenced, but yet it is so. Thus when, in the eighteenth century, the Master, then known under the name of the Comte de St Germain, travelled about Europe, closely connected with influential people in the countries He visited, His work was not so much that of politics in the outer meaning of the word as that of directing the forces which determine the fate of nations by His presence in a particular country. It is for this reason that He still travels a great deal and that He also uses His pupils in the countries where He needs to pour out Force.

As the Angelic Hosts are the Agents for the distribution of creative Energy to all parts of this physical world, the work of the Master the Prince is naturally closely connected with that of the Angels, both in so far as they influence nature as in their work in connection with humanity. It is, however, in ceremonial work, in ritual, that we find the closest co-operation between human beings and the Angelic kingdom, and it is in this work that the Seventh Ray can be best understood. In ritual work we not only assist in the great work of creation by pouring out our force, small as it is, and contributing it to the divine Energy, but we also bring down and distribute the forces of creation to this physical world. In ritual we create a form through which for the moment the divine Powers can manifest themselves and affect this physical world, and the great lesson of all ritual is that our entire life should become a ritual, that is to say controlled action, directing force exactly where it is needed. Thus that ceremonial of daily life, which is expressed in courtesy and dignity of behaviour, is one of the manifestations of this Ray, and one of the great qualities in its Head.

Of Him, as of the Mahachohan Himself, can be said that in His presence is the Fullness of Life; we are thrilled by the creative Energy of which He is the Channel, there is in Him the strength of tempered steel and yet the grace of utter control of Force.

The virtue of the Seventh Ray is expressed as Ordered Service; we might say that it is the perfect adjustment of creative force in this physical world by which all action, all work, is transmuted by the Force of the Holy Ghost so that it becomes more than outer work, so that it becomes ordered service – the ritual of daily life.

The Seventh Ray is to become the predominant Ray in the near future, just as the Middle Ages, in which devotion reached such unparalleled heights, were under the domination of the Sixth Ray. Thus in the coming reign of God the Holy Ghost we shall see a greater prominence of all ritual and ceremonial work, and we may also look forward to an ever increasing conscious co-operation between humanity and the Angelic Hosts.

Lord of the Five Rays

Thus, when we come to understand something of the work of the five Rays, which are under the dominion of the Lord the Mahachohan, we feel more than ever a profound reverence and awe for the tremendous work and responsibility in the hands of that great and impressive Figure, who for our Earth is the Embodiment of the Holy Ghost.

Not only is He in supreme charge of the great work of Creation for our Earth, but in addition to that work He is the supreme Head of all that pertains to the five Rays of development we have just considered. His is the vision of truth of the philosopher, His the ideal of beauty of the artist, the patience and self-sacrifice of the scientist, His the fiery devotion of the ascetic and the splendour of the ritualist. Truly the Mahachohan is a great and mighty influence in our daily existence; there is hardly a department of our life where we do not come into touch with His work.

Through Him our world is blessed by the manifold gifts of God the Holy Ghost, of whom He is the Representative in that Brotherhood which rules the world, it is through Him that the creative Energy is outpoured by which our world exists, by which it is maintained.

Table of Contents

- Copyright

- Editor’s Foreword

- The One, Three and Seven Officials in the Inner Government of the World

- The Mahachohan as the Lord of the Five Rays

- The Appearance of the Mahachohan

- The Work of the Mahachohan as the Director of the Forces

- The Mahachohan as the Lord of Evolution

- The Mahachohan as the Encourager and Inspirer

- Let Us Now Consider the Work of the Five Rays:

- The Work of the Third Ray
- The Head of the Third Ray
- The Ceremonial Ray

- Lord of the Five Rays