The Capricorn Festival 2023

THE CAPRICORN FESTIVAL 2023

6 JAN 2023

© Malvin Artley

“We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our fears.”

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Topics (linked to paragraphs): Capricorn and ambition Esoteric Capricorn The full moon Ninety years ago J.S.P. – some background Tomira Zori Three-year cycle The three doubts Prophesy unfulfilled Missed opportunities Every third Wesak Regarding the press Peace, however, will come

Happy New Year Everyone!

Welcome to the Year of the Black Rabbit, or Water Rabbit. Both New Years, Western and Chinese, start in January this year. We will have a look at the latter in the annual Chinese New Year letter in a couple of weeks. But for now, we turn to matters Western. I trust you all had a safe and joyful holiday season with loved ones, or alone if that was your choice. It was a relatively quiet season here, except for New Year’s Eve. We spent that evening playing hide-and-seek looking for dogs in our closets and in hidden areas of the house as people celebrated with fireworks outside. In all, it wasn’t too bad, though. People were out in force in that night, celebrating also the end of COVID restrictions (New Years’ celebrations here have been dead the past few years) and an unusually warm evening for this time of year. Here in Rovereto we are getting ready to celebrate the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, the 12^th day of Christmas, which also coincides with the full moon this year. That also ends the Christmas season here. As far as that goes, it wouldn’t bother me at all if I never heard “Felis Navidad” again.

The Epiphany celebrates the revelation (theophany) of God incarnate as Jesus Christ. The Three Wise Guys (Three Kings, Magi or High Officials) are celebrated as the official recognition (as if one needs official recognition to be God incarnate) of a Great Soul returned to human physical form. Are we not all potential Great Souls? There is something to that ‘official-ness’ and the need for recognition, though, to which we will return a bit later here.

The Christmas season is always marked in the Protestant world with the northern winter solstice, or Thanksgiving if you are an American, the latter day marking the start of America’s biggest day of conspicuous consumption. It is not so here in Italy, thankfully. But that materialism is also a mark of something else – the lower aspect of Capricorn. And it is Capricorn that marked the start of this decade and all the changes coming with it, starting with the Saturn/Pluto eclipse in that sign, with events accelerating rapidly from that point. That year also marked the start of a particular cycle, which will be addressed in this posting, later. All this being said, this letter will be a departure from my normal letters because of two factors – the discovery of some lost or forgotten writings, and the early start of the Chinese New Year this year. The former will be addressed here, the latter being addressed, along with the political and societal overview for the year in about a week After the Chinese New Year letter the normal format for these letters will return. There is much to consider going forward. For now, though, we start with Capricorn.

Capricorn and ambition: In the natural zodiac, Capricorn rules the 10^th house – the culmination of one’s ambitions, one’s reputation in the public eye, governance in mundane charts – in other words, ultimate achievement and the consolidation of gains made. The orthodox ruler of the sign is Saturn, as is its esoteric ruler. Saturn rules ambition, the slow steady progress towards an outcome. In that double rulership we have a departure from the normal progression through the rulership levels of each sign, with different planets ruling each level in most signs. There is something ‘Saturnine’ to be seen in both the everyday (orthodox) and esoteric (more spiritual) aspects of this sign, and both of them apply toward ambition and steady effort.

Esoteric Capricorn: In its esoteric application, Saturn starts first with what we might call ‘spiritual ambition’: Performing one’s practices in order to gain liberation and superhuman powers instead of seeing that practice as a means to become more available in terms of service. In Buddhism it is the difference between Hearers (Shravakas) and Solitary Realizers (Pratyekabuddhas), contrasted with the Mahayana tradition, the latter stressing service and enlightenment ‘in order to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment’. Hearers and Solitary Realizers approach practice on their own and with the aim of self-enlightenment, with service coming only after the fact. Hearers in Buddhism practice what is known as the ‘lesser path’, with Solitary realizers being on the ‘middling path’. In both of those traditions, ambition is the root cause for taking on the practice, and as such they are seen as being selfishly motivated. This is what we might call ‘spiritual selfishness’. Both of those paths can produce stupendous results, but they stop short of full enlightenment. They can attain to the level of the 4^th initiation – liberation from the wheel of life and death (samsara), but until they see service to all sentient beings as the ultimate goal – the goal of our solar system – and embrace group work, they remain bound to Earth, legend has it sometimes spending aeons in a state of nirvana, yet unable to go further and unwilling to come back and embrace service.

Hearers and Solitary Realizers aside, Capricorn transmits the rays 1, 3 and 7,^[1] a combination powerful in terms of manifesting results. The three rulers are Saturn in both the orthodox and esoteric modes, with Venus relating the sign to the Hierarchy^[2] of lives Capricorn rules – the Crocodiles,^[3] or Human Personalities. What that translates to is to use will power (1^st ray), incorporating skilful means (3^rd ray) to ‘manifest Heaven on Earth’ (7^th ray). Like Libra, Capricorn can produce powerful manifestations. The power Capricorn wields is the power to manifest, so it is no surprise Capricorn rules the natural 10^th house, the pinnacle of human achievement. Ruling the human personality, Capricorn thus expresses all that is best and all that is worst in humanity. Capricorn deals very effectively with matter and thereby materialistic urges – worldly ambitions. But Saturn is said to exhaust itself in Capricorn. At some point personal ambition is seen to be a dead end and a person then turns thoughts toward spiritual matters, with the aim of getting out of the human rat-race (i.e. achieving liberation from human rebirth, samsara). Spiritual ambition supplants worldly ambition and the race is on then for spiritual attainments – siddhis/superhuman powers. Eventually even that is seen to be a dead end and finally, at long last, Saturn is fully exhausted and the Adept then ‘surrenders all that s/he has’ and returns to save those who struggle with ambition still.

In the old days, when worldly ambition was exhausted, people retreated to the caves and the jungles to strive for enlightenment, leaving all attachments behind. Saturn, being the ‘Earth Planet’ in Chinese astrology, is associated with densest matter. In the shamatha diagram, discussed under Sagittarius in the last letter, the aspirant is sitting at the base of the mountain, with the cave visible behind him. In the Capricorn phase, the would-be initiate enters the mountain (retreats to the dark cave), and figuratively ‘rolls the stone into place’, completely shutting away the world while attainments are sought during months and years of arduous meditation. A typical Buddhist long retreat lasts for three years. Such retreats are undertaken when it is seen the aspirant has exhausted ambition and is ready for the hard journey ‘up the narrow passageways’ (mastering the centers in the head) to the summit of the mountain, where ‘Light Supernal’ awaits. ‘Light Supernal’ in this case inaugurates the 3^rd Path in Buddhism, the Path of Seeing, which is also the 1^st Ground, the ‘Very Joyful’. The aspirant is then the initiate, and has taken the first step toward full enlightenment. More difficult journeys still await, but the burning desire now for the new Arya being is to bring that light just experienced back to the world. With these points in mind, there are two things to take forward in what follows: bringing light into the world, and this three-year effort, which happens to be an ongoing cycle, repeated until final enlightenment is achieved. With that, we move on to the full moon and some rather interesting developments.

The full moon takes place at 23:08 UT on the 6^th of January (on the 7^th in Central Europe and points eastward, 10:08 AEDT on the 7^th in Australia). The Moon is conjunct the stars Sirius and Canopus, the latter called ‘the Old Man’ by the ancient Chinese astronomers. These are the two brightest stars in the night sky. Canopus has been called the southern counterpart to Sirius. According to Chinese legend, “the star of the North Pole [Sirius] fixes the date of birth of the man, and the other the star of the South Pole [Canopus]…fixes the date of death…[i.e. fixes the length of life].” In ancient China it was the star of longevity. Canopus is in the old Argo Navis constellation in the ‘keel of the ship’. Canopus was a navigator for Menelaus, king of Sparta, the chief navigator of the Greek fleet that sacked Troy. Its current scientific designation is α Carinae. It has a connection with voyages of discovery, in legend, the search for the Golden Fleece. There is much we could investigate here, but this will suffice for our purposes. With the Moon conjunct those two stars, though, we have the implication that this full moon is the harbinger of something big, especially relative to the Cancer/Capricorn axis – the search for meaning, events involving ‘royal power’ (Big Power politics), and bringing the soul’s light to bear on worldly events. We need to find a way to navigate through our current events. There will be more on the latter point toward the end of this letter.

Otherwise, the Sun is conjunct Mercury, parallel to Pluto and trine to Uranus, indicating sudden and more fortunate turns of events – which may or may not be the case according to one’s sentiments. For the East those turns will be more fortunate, not so much for the West. The gist is a shift in power bases to enable more favourable conditions for the advancement of humanity. Given the current media firestorm we are seeing and have seen for the past few years, the more favourable advancement for humanity would appear to be pie in the sky thinking. But such is the case as Asia continues its rise and the West goes through a period of needed readjustments. We have looked at these topics many times in recent letters. But the indications with this full moon fall in line with the general forecast for the Capricorn quarter and the year in general. We will be examining Capricorn more closely in the next letter, waiving the usual look at world events in this letter, because the lunar New Year – Chinese New Year – starts at the new moon of Aquarius in a couple of weeks. That letter will come out in about a week from now and is the main look at geopolitics for the year. As a teaser, though, we will be looking at Brazil, Musk, developments in the Middle East (West Asia), possible developments in the US, financial developments, and so forth. Suffice it to say there is quite a bit happening in world events and at an accelerated rate. For now, though, there has been another recent development that has relevance to today’s events – a ‘blast from the past’, shall we say?

Ninety years ago: The past couple of weeks I have had the great pleasure to translate what amount to lost writings from one of the disciples in the Discipleship in the New Age (DINA) books of Alice Bailey. The reason those writings were lost is because they were written in Polish in the 1930s, at a time when world tensions were very high, when Europe was in the grips of the Great Depression, with rising fascism, all leading to the catastrophe that was WWII in Europe. Esoteric writings ‘went underground’ during the fascist phase of Europe. The disciple in question had the initials J.S.P. – “Joy, Stability, the Plan.” Her name was Tomira Zori, a Romanian, born in what was Bessarabia in 1880 on May 25^th. Zori, as we will call her here, was a Gemini, and thus one born with communication skills. ‘Zori’ is a nom de plume, (Zori) meaning ‘morning’ or ‘sunrise’. Her birth name was Tomira Cotvici-Ghilevici. She contributed mainly to two Polish monthly esoteric magazines – “Hejnal” and “Lotos” – ‘The Bugle Call’ and ‘The Lotus’, resp. – from 1932 to 1939. Her instructions from the Tibetan continued until 1939, as did her writings, after which it was said she was ‘lost in the chaos of the war’.^[4] Romania was overtaken by fascist forces in 1940. We can only guess at what happened to Tomira Zori. However, there is a wrinkle – her writing again appears in “The Lotus” in 1947. Whether or not she was still alive then is unknown. It would seem those post-war postings were reprints of previous articles of hers, though I have not had the time to fully investigate the matter.

The writings of Zori I have translated thus far can be accessed HERE. By clicking on the title, the posting opens as a web page, which can be translated into any language via the auto-translator in one’s web browser. Alternatively, you can download the PDF in English from the link beside the title. These are short articles, except for the one book she wrote, The Hidden Power of Music. I make no claims on these texts. They are free to share far and wide, which I encourage everyone to do. There is nothing earth-shattering in them, but it is useful to find The Tibetan’s ‘note’ in them. The PDFs do not bear my name, in distinction to the web pages. And for the record, I do not speak or read Polish. These are machine translations, which I have cross-checked across several platforms. Whatever mistakes there may be will hopefully be corrected by Polish-speakers eventually. But for now, the gist of her writings is there. Some of those articles bear a striking resonance to today’s events, too, which will become clear as you read through them, if you choose to do so. There are some pertinent things to note from those articles, too, which we will outline after a bit of background, for the sake of clarity, arguments and acknowledgements.

J.S.P. – some background: I was made aware Zori’s writings even existed through a Facebook group, The Alice Bailey Archives, which I recommend you to visit. There was a post in that group by a colleague calling on Polish speakers to translate the Zori book on the power of music. There is a PDF there in Polish of the complete book. That post having aroused my curiosity, I decided to have a shot at the translation. Using OCR (optical character recognition) and various translation programs, the results can be seen in the previous links. Having done the book, my curiosity was piqued further and I did a deep dive into a search for anything else she may have written. It turns out there were at least a dozen articles, some of which appear on the linked page, previous. There will be more to come when I have time. This brings in the first point to be made: There is no excuse these days, when using the internet, to avoid foreign text, articles and the like because they are not in one’s native tongue. One need only go into the settings for the web browser one uses and set up the translation tool. If you don’t know how, ask someone to do it for you. A new world of information will be opened to you. Trouble yourself to do so. You will be glad you did, if you don’t already. Many of the articles linked in these letters are from foreign language sources. If we really want to know what is going on in the world, being able to translate languages is a ‘must’.

With the preceding background in mind, there are some considerations of value to take from Zori’s writings and from Bailey’s DINA books. In fact, Zori did translations of some of Alice Bailey’s material into Polish, two of which can be seen at the link, previous – “Modern Esoteric Movements” and “The Coming Three Years”. Just who was Tomira Cotvici-Ghilevici, then? She was nobody we knew. She wasn’t famous. She was not newsworthy. To do web searches on her, little shows up, even with her birth name. But she was a disciple of one of Western esotericism’s best known Teachers, a Master/Lama. The thing is, notoriety is not part and parcel of being a disciple, nor is being published, nor is being recognized. The truth be known, many millions of disciples from the humblest to the most accomplished Masters have lived among us without us even knowing. Yet, they have what we might call ‘occult cred’, i.e., they are known and accepted by the world’s great Teachers on the inner planes. They walk as souls among us. They add to our wisdom by the very nature of their being here. For the major part, except for exceptional cases, worldly accomplishments are not a part of what it means to be a disciple. And for the West, that means having enough to live, being able to function in the world (but ‘be not of it’) and to otherwise appear as your average citizen. Most of DK’s disciples in the Blue Books, from the standpoint of worldly ambition, were nobodies. Yet, they had power. More than that, they had wisdom, to greater or lesser degrees.

Tomira Zori was well-thought of by The Tibetan. So again, who was she? Well, she liked to play chess, or at least appreciated the game. She wrote about topics like Wagnerian opera, breathing practices, clairvoyance, the akashic records, numerology, the rays, the power of music and the alphabet. Keep in mind while reading her articles they were written for a Central/Eastern European audience, at a time when there was a dark cloud of war looming over that part of the world. In fact, we only know of Zori through her writings and the fact she appeared in the DINA books. Her initials there – J.S.P. – tell us nothing about her, and that goes to the point: The importance of what appears in those books and in her writings is the necessity of practice and for seeing the hidden meaning behind all events. And her soul ray (2^nd ray) shows through, in that every observation and experience can and often is used as a teaching tool. All souls carry that capacity, being the 2^nd aspect of the human continuum (and thus expressing a kind of 2^nd ray quality – love and wisdom), and each soul on every ray does so in their own way. But the 2^nd ray soul has a special capacity for teaching, for ‘getting the Word out’ into the world. Zori’s Gemini Sun greatly aided her in that respect. Her writings also show her to be a rather well-educated and cultured person.

I recall another colleague, recently passed on, who travelled to Russia just after the Soviet Union collapsed, in his effort to get The Word out. At the time he said it was amazing how inventive in culinary practice people could be with potatoes and cabbage, pointing to the collapse of the society at the time. It was yet another period of great turmoil in that nation, with memories of WWII – their ‘Great Patriotic War’ – still fresh in people’s memories, with virtually every Russian family having lost a loved one in that war. He said people in Russia were hungry for the Ageless Wisdom. We might expect it is so across the planet. His experience, along with that of Zori, reflect a truth – times of crises present potent spiritual opportunity, times when the soul can shine through more fully if we choose to allow that to happen. In this year we have another such opportunity presented, because the world is yet again in crisis. In one of the articles translated by Zori, one by Alice Bailey, this brings in a point pertinent to this year. The article is “The Coming Three Years”. See what follows to be in the nature of a review and reminder of our ongoing spiritual development as humanity and as individuals.

Three-year cycle: In the article just linked mention is made of the three-year cycle important for the work of the New Group of World Servers (NGWS). That cycle is also important in terms of individual development. The article was posted in 1934. It was a translation of a pamphlet sent out in that period by Alice Bailey, called The Next Three Years.^[5] The following quotes from Zori’s article were reprinted in 1936 in Alice Bailey’s Esoteric Psychology I^[6] and expanded upon, but they still have relevance today and are worth reviewing. 1933 marked the end of a three-year cycle and the start of a new one, ongoing for every three years since then and before. In the article she (Bailey) talks about the “dictatorship of organized business in the US”, also of a dictatorship in the UK and its (then extant) empire. “Extremely important experiments” were ongoing in Italy and Turkey at the time. We will look at the political aspects in the upcoming Chinese New Year letter in a week or so. But the dictatorships in the US and UK underpin many of the world crises we are seeing today. Then, there was this prophecy:

“[The next three years will involve]…the preparation of the ground for the reception of a revelation so wonderful that its details have not yet been mentioned. The recognition of the truth of these words depends on the inner development of consciousness; and this development will be accelerated in the next 3 years. A torrent of light will descend upon humanity, which will change the conditions of life, change the fundamental beliefs of man, and usher in a new era of cooperation and synthesis, and the development of mental faculties so that the mind can function with equal ease in two directions. One will be able to act externally in the world of manifest forms, and internally in the world of spirit. Life will take on a meaning and value previously unknown. We have spoken of certain doubts that must be removed from the mind of man. There are three kinds of these doubts; with their dissolution only a new epoch will come.”

The three doubts: We still await that ‘torrent of light’. It was offset by the lack of focus by the World Servers, by materialists then and by materialists at the close of WWII. The ‘three doubts’ are the problems of ideas (which we have examined in these recent letters), of God and of immortality. Regarding ideas, the following was stated:

“He who has the gift of eloquence, who can play with words and juggle ideas, who is a juggler of statistical data and who knows how to awaken primitive instincts will always find listeners and imitators.”

Does that sound vaguely familiar? This will go to a summation to be made shortly. But the main theme for that quote was that the storm of ideas and conflicting data was intentionally introduced by humanity’s Teachers in order to stimulate thought and discrimination amongst the public. That stimulation was also commandeered by selfish interests to promote their own narrow interests and agendas. We are seeing success regarding public awakening, yet the elites still steer public thinking along the lines those elites choose to a great extent, rather than toward the truth in any matter. He who controls the narrative controls public opinion. It is a sign of success that growing numbers of people question media talking points, while yet there is still a ways to go. Regarding God, we have the following:

“In the coming years, the fact of God’s existence will be recognized by all; any questioning in this regard will disappear. It will not be a belief in the God of race or nation; belief in God of Christians, Buddhists or Brahmanists. There will be faith in God Who is the Essential Life of the Universe, the Synthesis of all energies, as well as the spirit of man. He will be immanent and transcendental. Electricity, light and life are a synthesis of divine power. And if we feel and embrace the Unity of this trinity, we will know God. The electrical aspect of divinity is currently being explored and made aware. The aspect of light will soon be revealed through a proper understanding of electrical phenomena. Here lies the key that opens the New Age, the age of light and enlightenment. Occultists will understand what I mean and what these words conceal.”

Prophesy unfulfilled: Obviously, this ‘New Age’ refers to the Aquarian Age. There again, we still have a ways to go. Then there was this regarding immortality and science, part of which was left out of Bailey’s Esoteric Psychology, an indication the work of the three years and thereafter had not been entirely successful. We have the following:

“Within the next 15 years [up until 1949], the continuity of an individual’s life through thousands of years will become a fact recognized by science. There will be no doubt in human minds that the rejection of the body at the moment of death is the end of man’s existence as a conscious being. The life of man beyond the physical equation will be a truth investigated and proven in various ways. The development of the force hidden in the organs of vision will reveal the existence of the etheric body. Individuals using the power of the “third eye” will see a person rejecting the etheric body, both physical and psychically, at the time of death.

There will be an extremely significant and interesting discovery in the field of photography, which will confirm the life of man after so-called death. This will be covered in the framework of an experiential learning. Certain events in war will help to draw aside the veil that separates the world of the invisible from the visible. A new form of radiation will also be discovered at this time; this discovery will shake all mankind, because it will enable seeing through solid bodies, thereby proving the truth of the existence of the 4th dimension of space. The fear of death will disappear between 1936 and the next three years, and to a lesser extent the following nine years, will be the scene of an event of such unexpected consequence that the present day will be regarded as an age of darkness compared with what will happen. Knowledge will penetrate deeply into the realms of the invisible and will operate instruments and hitherto unknown. The release of atomic energy will be the beginning of a real scientific revolution.”

Needless to say, events did not quite work out that way. Unfortunately the release of atomic energy was developed in order to manifest a weapon of mass destruction, rather than being used for humanity’s good. Unfortunately, too, domestic politics, ancient hatreds, special interests and various and numerous opportunists swept in after the war and to a large extent offset the work of goodwill between nations. We see the effects of that working out today with the monstrous hatred that has been foisted up Russia, China and other nations via the media. The effort of the three years failed because, “…there were not enough people spiritually interested to take the needed steps to stem the tide of hate, evil and aggression which threatened to engulf the world. The war broke out in 1939 in spite of all the efforts of the Hierarchy and Their workers, and the goodwill work fell naturally into abeyance.”^[7] Can we imagine how the world would be now had the work of the World Servers succeeded? In that development of atomic weaponry we also see one reason why, perhaps, the 5^th ray was withdrawn prematurely, atomic energy only being later developed for the public good. But that weapon remains a threat to human existence to this day.

Missed opportunities: To summarize the preceding, then, we missed a great opportunity in the 1930s to prevent the terror of WWII. ‘Peace for our time’ was only a ruse and bought time for Germany to more fully arm, much like we saw with the Minsk Accords in Ukraine, discussed more fully in the next letter. Powerful interests were working behind the scenes, subverting good intentions and promoting their own interests in the ‘30s, such as arms manufacturers and the ‘dictatorships’ in Western powers – much like we see today. A dictatorship can either be overt or it can work behind the scenes, while still controlling the marionettes who are paraded before us as our leaders. This gross materialism is the worst trait of Capricorn and it is still very much alive today. Yet now, people are starting to realize what is at play, especially in the US, where ‘War is a Racket’, benefitting only national elites, while the public is made to suffer austerity and the horrors of war for ‘God and Country’. But mention was made of the three-year cycle. What of it? We have the following:

“The New Group of World Servers must work in these three year cycles and the foundation of cyclic attainment must be laid. This cyclic rhythm will release from strain and yet enable the workers in the Group to feel that there is no failure. It is impossible to do good work where a sense of failure or lack of attainment is found.”

Every third Wesak: Those cycles start and end at the full moon of May^[8], Wesak. The results can be seen before or slightly after the end of each cycle, dependent upon the potency of the work and the opportunities presented. There is something to this. If we trace the three-year cycle from 1936 we see there have been distinct manifestations in those years, all of which represent points of crisis and precipitation for humanity in one form or another, across the spectrum of human life and wherever those crises are needed.

We recognize many of the end/start years for this three-year cycle – 1939 (start of the war in Europe), 1942 (turning point for the war leading to the defeat of Nazism/Fascism), 1963 (assassination of JFK and a real turning point for the US and the ‘Free World’), and later 2008 (the financial collapse), 2011 (Arab Spring), 2014 (Ukraine/Crimea), and now 2020 (pandemic and lockdowns) and to the present year, 2023. All these years are listed below with the key events:

• 1939: The precipitation of WWII in Europe
• 1942: The turning point of WWII, leading to the defeat of the Axis powers.
• 1945: the defeat of the Axis powers, the release of atomic energy, the founding of the UN
• 1948: The Marshall Plan, creation of Israel, partition of Berlin, Big Bang theory
• 1951: Korean War, invention of the transistor, 2^nd Red Scare, birth control pills, first experimental nuclear power plant
• 1954: Latin Union is created, desegregation in the US, creation of the Bilderberg Group, 1^st commercial transistor radio, 1^st Indochina war ends (partitioning of Indochina)
• 1957: Sputnik I&II, European Common Market created, the ‘Beat Generation’
• 1960: JFK elected in the US, Trieste deep dive, the U-2 spy plane incident
• 1963: Assassination of JFK, “I have a dream” speech, US/UK/USSR sign nuclear test ban treaty
• 1966: Cultural Revolution in China
• 1969: the 1^st Apollo moon landing, Woodstock
• 1972: SALT I and ABM treaties, recombinant DNA (bio-engineering), Gadhafi coup in Libya, Watergate
• 1975: Microsoft founded, end of Vietnam War, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Helsinki Accords, Whitlam government dismissed in Australia
• 1978: Camp David Accords, the first GPS satellite launched, uprising against Shah in Iran
• 1981: Gulf Cooperation Council created, 1^st recognized cases of AIDS, Iran-Contra is authorized, 1^st test tube baby
• 1984: Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong
• 1987: Single European Act signed (revision of the Treaty of Rome), 1^st Intifada
• 1990: German reunification, collapse of the Soviet Union, Perestroika, Hubble Space Telescope, 1^st Gulf War, 1^st known web page, the Chunnel
• 1993: Chemical Weapons Convention signed, Maastricht Treaty takes effect, NAFTA, GATT talks (globalization)
• 1996: Dolly the sheep (cloning), Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,
• 1999: The Euro currency is established, NATO expands to the east, Putin approved as PM, Kosovo war, ISIL founded
• 2002: African Union formed, Homeland Security Act, build-up to the Iraq War
• 2005: Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, London terrorist bombings, EU abandons plans for a constitution (federation knocked back)
• 2008: The 2008 financial collapse (austerity for the Western public, wealth transfer to the rich)
• 2011: Arab Spring uprisings
• 2014: The Maidan coup in Ukraine, Crimean secession
• 2017: Art. 50 of Brexit triggered, the Trump administration and US exits from international treaties and organizations, increasing divisions in the US
• 2020: The COVID pandemic, Soleimani assassination
• 2023: ???

There is not the time or the space here to go into the meaning and ramifications of these events, but it would make a fascinating study. With the above points in mind, what are we to make of 2023, then? There will be much to overcome in these next three years. The most crying need is for the massed people of the West to know the truth about a great many things. The world outside the West already has a pretty good idea of what is going on. Europe and the US especially face a grand disillusionment, regarding ideas and ideals, about facing and overcoming old hatreds – mainly fostered by the elites of those nations (the public has no such animosities where they are properly informed). Millions of Ukrainians, having been steeped in a hard-right even neo-Nazi propaganda for a generation have flooded into Western and neighboring Eastern European nations, nations where they are increasingly unwanted. This will require very careful handling, and probably years of debriefing. In short, we need to step up, better inform ourselves and hold our own individual light steady, in the face of the fearmongering being foisted upon us by our media. This applies mainly to the West. Saturn rules fears, too, one of the bases for ambition.

The work of the East will accelerate and go on unabated, despite the efforts of certain Western powers to scuttle that progress. Economic uncertainty and resulting unrest will crescendo this year and the next, forcing political changes the likes of which we have not seen in a generation. Already we see dramatic shifts in West Asian nations, and increasing fracturing of European and trans-Atlantic unity. The latter is not altogether a bad thing, but is rather in the nature of a needed readjustment so long as it is carefully navigated.

Regarding the press, manipulation of the press is an old story, as old as propaganda itself, and it has been pushed to extremes these past few years. In keeps even people who would otherwise be considered well-educated and informed from seeing the truth of our present situation. This is particularly true in the US and also in the UK, and it has had quite a deleterious effect on human consciousness and progress. Especially badly affected are Europeans at present, but it is building also in the United States and Canada. Consider the following, emphases added:

“For long these evil forces have used psychology in order to reach the ends they had in view, and have used it with amazing success; they are still using it, and can be depended upon to employ its methods to the uttermost. They use the press and the radio [and now the internet] in order to distort human thinking; they present half-truths, impute false motives, rake up past grievances, foretell (with foreboding) imminent difficulties; they foster ancient prejudices and hatreds, and emphasise religious and national differences. In spite of much shouting, demanding and proposed organisation, there is no truly free press anywhere; particularly is it absent in the United States, where parties and publishers dictate newspaper policies. The main reason why there is no really free press is based on two factors: first, the fact that humanity is not yet free from its predetermined reasonings, its basic ignorances of factual history, or of nations and their psychology; humanity is still controlled by racial and national bias and by prejudice. Secondly, the fact that all this is nurtured and kept alive by the forces of evil, working upon the inner side of human affairs and dealing mainly with the psychological angle because it is so exceedingly potent… they will seek to offset the work…to hamper the activities of the New Group of World Servers and to cloud the issues involved to such a degree that the people of goodwill everywhere will be bewildered and will fail to see the clear outlines of the factual situation or distinguish between what is true and what is false. Forget not, the forces of evil are exceedingly clever.”^[9]

Regarding that quote, published in 1957, we see not much has changed in terms of media. We all have to use our own discernment and common sense. If anything, media coverage of world affairs in the US is the worst I have seen it. But this brings up a very pertinent and topical matter – the use of social media to shape public opinion and to reinforce ‘The Narrative’. It is this ‘Narrative’ that is contributing to much of the suffering and ill will we see today. In particular, it fosters hatred between nations and groups, who otherwise were simply going about their business and wanted to be left in peace. It is this we must face and call to account if we are to see positive changes going forward, with increasing sovereignty for nations.

Peace, however, will come, but this three-year cycle in particular, from now through 2026 will be the peak time for us to come to terms with what we are being told and what is the actual state of affairs. Read widely, with foreign sources included. We have all the tools we need. The Teachers on the subjective planes always emphasize the need for all people spiritually inclined to maintain their practices, and in times of crisis, to increase them. Silence is needed to know the truth, because in those silent moments the soul’s voice can be heard. We are seeing some of the worst traits of humanity being displayed at this time – gross materialism, profit at the cost of human suffering, vast accumulation of wealth by a select few while the mass suffers, manipulation of truth and facts to suit selfish ends, and on and on…but we can and must rise above it. Sitting in one’s ‘cave’ and meditating is all well and good, but when those around us need our help, we must emerge and be available. True to the esoteric motto of Capricorn, paraphrasing, we may be lost on the light supernal, but on that light we must turn our backs^[10] and come back to earth, so to say, and serve the immediate need. If you have an epiphany – a recognition of the voice of your soul, your own inner Master – in the months to follow, by all means share it with whomever will listen. We need all the all truth we can access, and it needs to be shared far and wide. And it is perhaps no surprise the articles by Zori have reappeared in these days, and from Poland at that, another country that sorely needs to hear and tell the truth, as do we all.

These letters are sent as a service. If you wish to be added to or deleted from the mailing list, let me know. Feel free to pass these on, but do so without charge of alteration.

1. Bailey, Alice A., Esoteric Astrology, (1951) Lucis Publishing, NY, NY, p.86 ↑
2. Ibid, p.68 ↑
3. Ibid, p.153 ↑
4. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age I, pp. 662 – 670 ↑
5. Ibid, p. 31, cited in the 1944 publication of that book. ↑
6. Starting on pg. 170 of that book ↑
7. Bailey, The Unfinished Autobiography, p. 251 ↑
8. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age I, p. 165 ↑
9. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 451 ↑
10. “Lost am I in Light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back.”, Esoteric Astrology, p.174 ↑