Full Moon of Cancer – The Mystery of Substance

Substance is the base of Spirit

Today we celebrate the seventh of the 12 Festivals of the new world Religion, the Full Moon of Cancer, the festival aimed at asserting the Will to spiritualise Substance and at grasping and understanding, through the consciousness of the Disciple-Humanity, the Mystery of Substance. [1]

One of the fundamental postulates of the Secret Doctrine is that the Mind and the Consciousness pervade the whole of Nature. In order for a cosmogonic theory to become complete and understandable, it must take as its starting point a primordial substance spread throughout the extension of infinite space and of an intellectual and divine nature. This substance must be soul and spirit at the same time, the synthesis and the seventh principle of the manifested cosmos, and to serve as a spiritual basis for it the sixth principle is needed, its vehicle, the physical primordial matter, so to speak, although its nature must forever escape our limited normal senses. The creative impulse begins with the awakening of the cosmic Ideation, of the Universal Mental, together and parallel to the primordial impulse of cosmic substance, the latter being the vehicle of the former. The Absolute Wisdom is then reflected in its conception which, through a transcendental process superior to human consciousness and incomprehensible to it, is transformed into cosmic energy. Vibrating within the inherent substance, cosmic energy pushes it to activity and directs its first differentiations … (Roberto Hack, Preface to the Italian edition of The Secret Doctrine, 2007)

… precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature. Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its differentiation. Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is essential to the existence of the “Manifested Universe”. Apart from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that consciousness wells up as “I am I”, a physical basis being necessary to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue. The “Manifested Universe”, therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its Existence as “manifestation”. But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is “that” which links spirit to matter, subject to object. This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat. It is the “bridge” by which the “Ideas” existing in the “Divine Thought” are impressed on Cosmic substance as the “laws of Nature”. Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the “Thought Divine” transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualised and attains to self – or reflective – consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life. (Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine. Cosmogenesis)

Eternal Fire fills all bodies, and through them is unified with the higher fiery energy. In such a manner is the Universal sap worked over and over. This mysterious, ever self-regenerating substance cannot be named otherwise. Thus everything manifested serves for the renewing of the Eternal Substance. […]. (Agni Yoga Series, Fiery World II § 400)

Existence is the substance of Reality

In our Solar world, the One Existence is Heaven and the Earth, the Root and the flower, the Action and the Thought. It is in the Sun, and is as present in the glow-worm. Not an atom can escape it. Therefore, the ancient Sages have wisely called it the manifested God in Nature. (Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine. Cosmogenesis)

When humanity will come to understand the Cosmic Oneness, the cosmic construction will be affirmed. The chief task of humanity is to unite the world of matter with the world of spirit. […] (Agni Yoga Series, Infinity I § 360)

Now, immersed in the Light of this great Mystery, let us turn the gaze of our hearts to what unites Cancer to this Light.

Cancer is the door of the zodiac consonant with material nature and the mother of forms, with potential, just like the other, Capricorn, is consonant with the spirit, father of all that IS, with fulfillment.

In Cancer the impulse to express and the processes of the incarnation impose themselves.

In this Sign of birth and generation, the whole question of Rebirth is contained, that mutual magical and magnetic relationship between the form aspect of life and life itself.

Cancer conveys, in the current precessional cycle, the energies of the 3^rd and 7^th Ray, connected to active Intelligence, Order and ritual Magic; the 3^rd Ray connects it to Libra and Capricorn; the 7^th Ray connects it to Capricorn and Aries, all cardinal Signs. The zodiacal influences of these Signs pulsate throughout the created universe, since they express above all life or spirit, more than the soul (Fixed Cross) or the personality (Mobile Cross). The cardinal Cross concerns in particular that “mysterious essence which is the divinity in motion.”

The Moon (non-sacred 4^th Ray), exoteric ruler of this Sign, and Neptune (6^th Ray), esoteric and hierarchical ruler, are a symbol of the intimate relationship between the Mother of all forms and the God of waters whom, without form and without thinking about the need to react sensitively to the environment and the circumstances, the soul could never know in the three worlds, and therefore it could never know God in manifestation.

The Moon places Cancer in relation to two other signs, and a triangle is formed: Cancer-Virgo-Aquarius. The mass consciousness, the Christic and the universal consciousness are placed in close and mutual relationship, through Neptune, that the Moon veils. The collective consciousness of Cancer is sublimated into the group and universal consciousness of Aquarius, the final conquest towards which humanity is hierarchically guided by the Moon that veils Neptune.

The form and the lower psychic nature produce the battle ground whereon these two “face in the final conflict” their higher correspondence, the soul and spirit, for matter is spirit at its lowest point and spirit is matter at its highest. In these words you have the true clue to the Cancer-Capricorn relationship. When to these potent influences is added the force of the seventh ray (producing a synthesis of expression upon the physical plane) and of the third ray (producing intense activity in matter) you will note how in this sign all the energies concerned tend to bring about the incarnation of the soul in the three worlds of experience and human expression.

Collective sensitivity and identification with form and forms are the first characteristic of Cancer. The building of adequate forms and the use and control of form are essential if there is to be wise and right cooperation with the Plan of God… The form aspect and the psychic nature reach an eventual concrete perfection in Capricorn to become again in Cancer the perfectinstrument of service which the initiate wields as he seeks to render mass service instead of being involved and lost in the mass. 

The keynote of this sign can be expressed in the Biblical phrase “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”… 

In Cancer, God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. In these words, you have established the relation which exists in the mind of God between spirit (the breath of life) the soul (consciousness) and man (the form). (Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology, pp. 340-313)

The animating principle of Life is Breath. The alternation of the Breath triggers the Motion, the spiral of Life from which originates that Vortex or fiery helix through which the Spirit penetrates the Substance. The power of the Spirit is thus centred in the Germ, the vital embryo.

When we speak about Spirit and Matter, we should have in mind the higher meaning of Matter. But speaking about the liberation of Spirit, we refer to those manifestations which can be called material life units. It must be known that in speaking about these unifications under various forms a downfall of the spirit is understood. For the spirit, being made manifest in matter, must aspire to the higher functions together with matter. Matter is impelled to creativeness which gives rise to forms of life. And the spirit must know specifically how sacred is the sojourn in matter… It is difficult to dissociate Spirit from Matter. (Agni Yoga Series, Fiery World III § 304)

[…] People want to see matter in everything, and they are right, but only if they acknowledge its many states and properties. The very word “matter” is a good one and is akin to the great concept of Maternal Matter. At present, in the age of the Mother of the World, one should pay special attention to all that is related to this magnificent Foundation. Besides, it should be understood that it is this concept of matter that includes all possible properties of the substance out of which all is born. It is said that matter is crystallized spirit, but one can also say it differently, because everything, starting with the subtlest energies, is matter. It would be a great limitation for one to deny the principle of the one fundamental energy, for by doing this he will also deny matter. What then would such an ignorant person have left? It is time to return to the word “matter” its true meaning… Indeed, it is wonderful to study matter and its relation to the evolutionary process. This is the only acceptable scientific approach. […] (Agni Yoga Series, Supermundane § 638)

The elements are spatial substance, which can neither be weighed nor measured, and semi-amorphous crystals when they take the form of so-called elemental manifestations. The essence of the unmanifested spirit saturates the substance of space. It is said of a person that he is born and he dies. About an elemental spirit one can say that it flashes forth and goes out. The consciousness of a manifested spirit pierces the substance of the elements like an arrow, and like a magnet it gathers that molten substance… the state of the substance of space, which is being permeated by combinations of new rays, is making it possible for the New Era to begin. Everything that is Good should be gathered. (Agni Yoga Series, Leaves of Morya’s Garden – Illumination § 232)

In Cancer we are pushed to rise from the mass in which instinct holds us back and to develop intuition instead, which will enable us to ascend. Spiritual intuition is that extension of consciousness, that highly developed sense of awareness that gives the disciple the vision of new fields of relationship and opens up a new world of being. The problem of all disciples is to use their instinct correctly, as well as to use their intellect well, thus putting themselves in relationship with the world of human ideas and research. They must repeatedly learn to finally bring this ability to the “temple of the Lord” and see it transform into intuition there, thus becoming aware of the things of the spirit and of those spiritual realities that neither instinct nor intellect can reveal to them.

On this day of the Full Moon, [2] ideally united with all those who in every time and in every place strive to attain the ‘beauty of elevation in the core of the Spirit’, we invoke and evoke the

Will to spiritualise Substance

which, through the esoteric ruler Neptune, expands in the consciousness of the Disciple-Humanity:

The Mystery of Substance

Indeed all sub-divisions (spirit, soul, higher or lower Manas) are in reality only various qualities of the same fundamental energy of fire, life or consciousness—the highest aspect of which is psychic energy. Therefore, in order to attain the Fiery World—the world of the higher spirituality—we have to transmute or sublimate the fires of our nerve centers up to their seventh state… The whole of cosmos is built upon the septenary principle, therefore, each energy, each manifestation includes in itself its septenary scale of tension and refinement. (Letters of Helena Roerich § September 3, 1935)

Sublimation is the spiritualisation of substance

This sublimation of the lower life into the higher is one of deepest moment to the individual and to the race. Once the individual disciple, and humanity as well, symbolising the world disciple, have mastered the process of transference in this respect, we shall see the new order of individual service and of world service established, and therefore the coming in of the awaited new order. (Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Healing, p. 127)

In this sense, the evolutionary, is not the emotional body itself but a sublimation of the etheric, as that in turn is but the sublimation of the inorganic chemical? As we progress on the Path of Return, do we not but successively “gather up our bodies within us”, raising each into the Light of the next one above, and is not this the meaning of culture, education, refinement, purification? Is not that the personal work we should constantly be at, and is it not what is symbolised, in Roman Catholic Doctrine, by the Assumption by the Christ of the body of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, into Heaven? (Alice A. Bailey, Discepleship in the New Age II, p. 622)

[…] The objective forms exist for the use (and experience) of the spiritual man. By meditation upon this, arises the intuitive perception of the spiritual nature.

[…]  the purpose of form is simply to enable the self to contact worlds otherwise closed to it, and to develop full awareness in all parts of the Father’s kingdom, and thus demonstrate as a fully conscious son of God. Through the form, experience is gained, consciousness awakened, faculty is developed and powers are unfolded.

[…] as this fact is grasped intellectually and meditated upon interiorly, awareness of one’s identity with the spiritual nature and one’s distinction from the form is developed. One knows oneself in truth to be, not the form but the indweller, not the material self but the spiritual, not the differentiated aspects but the One alone, and thus the great process of liberation is carried forward. One becomes what one is, and one accomplishes this through meditation on the intelligent soul, the middle aspect, the Christ principle which links the Father (spirit) and the Mother (matter).

[…] The one who experiences, who incarnates and who achieves divine expression through the medium of form is the soul, the self, the spiritual conscious man, the Christ within. When through this experience he has achieved maturity, he reveals the Father or spirit and so fulfills the words of Christ, when He said (in reply to Philip’s question “Lord, show us the Father”), “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John XIV). (Alice A. Bailey, The Light of the Soul, pp. 320-321-322)

Thou, spirit, striving to the Creator of Cosmos, turn to the Mother of the World. Proclaim what thou seest. Space is revealed as manifesting the utmost creativeness. The immensity of Space and the inalienability of the cosmic forces enrich the kernel of our being. The levers of evolution are the finest energies which may become the possession of men… When you will understand how to fly in the kernel of the spirit, then you will communicate with the higher worlds. Learn to understand all the grandeur of flight in the kernel of the spirit! (Agni Yoga Series, Infinity I § 22)

Beyond the strata of earthly thoughts flow the currents of the sun’s wisdom, and in these realms begins the great Teaching ordained. We call you to the encompassment of the Universe. But it is only the instrument of consciousness that will make possible new experiments that blend spirit and matter. (Agni Yoga Series, Leaves of Morya’s Garden, Illumination §105)

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[1] In this year 6.1, the first of a septennium dedicated to the Idea of ​​a New World Religion, we intend to celebrate the dates of the full moons, the sacred “doors” of alignment and synchronization between the three celestial symbols of manifestation, human (Sun/Soul, Earth/Personality, Moon/Bodies) and planetary (Planetary Hierarchy, Humanity, lower Kingdoms), associating them with 12 Mysteries and Ideas/Formulas, corresponding to the causal energies of each Sign of the Zodiac, by virtue of the fact that, according to the esoteric perspective, the Heart of Heaven is the Great Master of Masters.
“The sequence of the Mysteries which each of the signs of the Zodiac embodies will be clarified for us by the Christ, because the public consciousness today demands something more definite and spiritually real than modern astrology, or all the pseudo-occultism so widely extant.” (A. A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, p. 127).

[2]  Today there is also the conjunction, according to the heliocentric perspective, of our solar Angel Venus, Lord of the Golden Relationship and of the Mind, and Uranus, the Initiator to the Mysteries and Lord of Order, that unites the highest with the abyssal, in Taurus, the Sign which holds the secret of the Light that reveals the Sound. And from this encounter a powerful impulse arises which leads to the sublimation of substance through the perfection of Form.