Living in the age that he did, Darwin essentially proposed an evolutionary process that proceeded through natural, observable means. Today that model includes the concept of genetic mutation augmented by natural selection, and all resting upon common descent from a common ancestor. While all these elements are accepted to be correct, the ability of this model to successfully explain the complex processes that painstaking research over the last half century has brought to light appears dim.

The processes existing in even a single cell have been researched in depth, and the case for careful planning seems rather evident. Certainly the planning in building masses of cells into endocrine glands, each of which interact with other endocrine glands, and all utilizing the services of the circulatory system to communicate, is a task beyond our science today - let alone leaving it all to chance.

So, if we now consider that there is another whole world beyond the dense physical that we know, then we have an exceedingly complex matter involving the coordination of multiple forms. Further, we need to contemplate that whatever shape or form we have, it all stems from an underlying etheric framework. This model then extends itself growing its “coat of skin” which is actually built inside to out with the dense physical matter that we know.

One of the first principles of evolution as expressed here, is that new developments are continually placed upon old foundations. Everything in existence is in a state of increase, growing and developing. A second principle of the evolutionary process is that it follows a pattern based upon energy utilization and synthesis, a merging. A third principle involves the recognition that the emergence of man establishes a fundamental pattern. Above man we find branching that leads to a number of phases of an esoteric evolution.

Throughout at least the last three centuries numerous books have been written on the subject of esoteric philosophy. The earlier ones were couched in archaic phraseology and difficult to understand. In the last century, however, a series of books by Alice Bailey was a modern, in-depth approach to the subject. While they were couched in modern English usage, the revelatory nature of these books caused them to be presented “cloaked” so that they require study to organize the material, and understand what is really being said. They typically require several readings as the material brings new understanding only after an earlier reading has been assimilated. Thus each reading becomes a new experience. This new book represents an approach to this subject in terms of the evolutionary process.

An important thing we come to realize is that humans travel the evolutionary path to a point where they no longer must reincarnate into a dense physical body, and from that point continue their existence in a body comprised of only etheric matter. We learn that on the nearby worlds of Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan, the human populations already exist in bodies constructed of etheric matter. Such beings are invisible to the normal sight of most people like ourselves, and are no longer affected by the environmental effects we humans in dense physical matter are subject to.

From an evolutionary standpoint we are told that Venus is completing her 5th and final world period. Mercury is between world periods in a state of pralaya, and preparing to enter her 5th world period. At the present time both Venus and Mercury have a dense physical planetary body, but at the conclusion of their 5th world period each will enter a state of pralaya. During that period, still many millions of years in the future, each will be transformed into an astral planet, and the physical planet we see now will become a cast off shell.

The first point to notice is that all larger bodies in the solar system are essentially spherical to the eye. They vary in size from the tiny planetoid Ceres that is almost 600 miles in diameter up to the planet Jupiter that is about 88,700 miles in diameter. These planets assumed this shape during their initial formation, which was while in a molten state, or they are mostly comprised of gaseous materials. Basically we distinguish between planets and moons by calling those that orbit the Sun planets, while those that rotate around planets we call moons. Exceptions to the spherical shape exist only as fragments of collisions in which the remnant shapes are very irregular. These are typically called asteroids

Asteroids are fragments of worlds that have gone through their evolutionary process, and left a physical shell behind. That shell either ended up circling some planet or it was allowed to collide with another cast off shell. The distinction should be noted that “bodies” are alive while “shells” are what we term dead. The result at this point is an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that represents fragments of many planetary worlds. The lives of all kingdoms that were part of those worlds are now on an astral planet that was part of the original planetary scheme. That astral body, together with its life forms still orbits the Sun.

So, to say it another way, as when we humans pass through the change called death leaving behind a physical “body”, so the “body” we call a moon is simply the planetary equivalent. The Moon we see in our sky was once a terrestrial planet like our Earth. At some point more than 100 million years ago, the Moon became a failed chain, and was subsequently brought into earth orbit where it entered into a process of synthesis. During synthesis the life essence of the Moon was absorbed into our world while the form nature disappeared in that process. Dust to dust. From observations during our visit to the lunar surface years ago there did not seem to be any shortage of dust.

We might also note that in that process of synthesis millions of what are termed “human monads” came into our Earth scheme. These monads were already individualized beings meaning that each had an individual human soul. Individualization essentially means that that life is no longer part of the animal kingdom where the animal is governed by the herd instinct. In that instance there is no identification of self. On the other hand, humans distinguish between themselves and other like beings. When we come to this evolutionary milestone we pass from the animal kingdom into the human kingdom, from the third kingdom into the fourth kingdom.

While in the case above, our Earth was the recipient in that process of synthesis, this would not normally be the case since there are other planets that serve as collection worlds. Saturn is the principal planet of synthesis as might be noted from the extensive ring structure as well as the large number of orbiting moons. In this role it serves as a collection point for the life essence as well as a processing station for disposal of the physical shells.

The large number of moons presently orbiting Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune must represent what were once planetary worlds orbiting the Sun. As such they possibly represented a secondary group termed the “inner round”. Those that we see in our night sky are termed the “outer round” or “manifesting planets”. Some of these moons still show signs of a remaining physical life process, but their status is not in doubt. For that matter a human body takes some period of time up to a day after death to lose all life activity. Something as large as a planet could take millenia to become as inert as our own moon appears now.

The origin of much of the material in this section is from the book Cosmic Fire by Alice Bailey. It was first published in 1925. None of this information seems to have crept into the astronomical world, but one has to work at first extracting the information and then piecing it together.

The idea of seas drying up is not really a strange unknown concept. The paleontological record here on Earth shows a number of times that ancient marine species disappeared - only to return later. There are also several places in the Bible where the statement is made …”I will dry up the seas…”. Sometimes the context fits while other times it does not.

In evolutionary terms each of these world periods represents a new starting point for the life process which is why it is termed a world period. In this fresh start the life forms build upon what had been previously established, they repeat that earlier growth rapidly and move forward into new areas of development.

The subject of the Martian scheme development is involved with the evolutionary development of our entire solar system. Fundamentally there are seven manifesting schemes that are principally involved in the solar evolutionary process. Each of these seven schemes is referred to as a “chain”. The reason for using the term chain rather than planet is that a planet is only one part of a chain. The other parts represent matter states other than the physical that we know.

As the solar evolutionary process unfolds, each of the developing planetary schemes will successively become the special focus of attention on the part of the solar Logos, the being that started the entire process. This “special interval” is the period when the 4th kingdom, the human, is first established and then proceeds through its initial evolutionary development.

The developing chains in this process are:

First chain: No known name and no remaining trace.

Second chain: The Venus scheme is a very highly developed world.

Third chain: The Moon chain is a failed chain, the only remnant we see in our sky.

Fourth chain: The Earth chain is at present the center of Logoic interest.

Fifth chain: The Mars scheme is next to undergo development of the 4th kingdom.

Sixth &Seventh chains: This will be Jupiter and another unknown planet.

We are the 4th chain in this solar system to undergo the part of the evolutionary process that involves the development of the human kingdom. In our system the Venus scheme is the most advanced while Mercury is not far behind. There is also the planet Vulcan inside the orbit of Mercury that is similarly ahead of the development here on Earth. Even so, because Vulcan is only an etheric world, it is apparently undergoing a somewhat different evolutionary process.

The center of Logoic interest:

This is the phrase used to denote an activity through which the Earth scheme is presently being subjected to an unusual influx of energy to stimulate the development of the 4th kingdom, the human. This stimulation began at the mid point of our present Fourth round, and will continue until the midpoint of the Fifth round, more than 100 million years in the future. During previous world periods the evolutionary process involved only the lower kingdoms, the mineral, plant, and animal.

Further, at the present time the Earth scheme constitutes the midpoint of a systemic triangle with Venus and another unnamed planet being the other two points. This “forcing configuration” will remain in place until we complete this evolutionary phase at the midpoint of our next world period. There will then be a new configuration formed in which Mercury and Earth will constitute two points of a new systemic triangle and Mars will be at the midpoint. This will result in the development of a humanity in the Martian scheme.

From the images of the present surface of Mars returned by the Mars Rovers, it should be possible to see that an evolutionary process previously existed on Mars. That probably would have made it look like some Earth landscapes at the time. Evidence of earlier erosion by water is visible in the images, but the surface otherwise looks like it has been in the present state of pralaya for some millions of years. We can also see that Mars is presently in a state where all the large bodies of water have dried up between the world periods. While no life is in evidence, most likely that will change at some point before we enter our next intermediate pralaya in perhaps ten million years.

Even in our Earth scheme, after emerging we must still complete our present evolutionary phase during our fifth round. Only then can we undertake our role in the next systemic triangle to be formed. Similarly, Mars must also reestablish and progress the life process so as to be ready. While the world periods of both schemes are comparable, they are also staggered and timing is an important factor.

We are told that there are three successive solar systems that represent the life of one solar Logos. These three systems are expressed through the lives of three types of stars. In the first system the Red Dwarfs constitute almost 90% of all stars in the universe. In the second system there are stars belonging to the Main Sequence like our own Sun. In the final system the few Blue Giants comprise about 1% of the universe. So, in this case each life appearance of the solar Logos is roughly an order of magnitude less in duration. To put this another way, the greater the population for a given type of star the greater the characteristic life span.

The first system will be a small low energy star as exemplified by a Red Dwarf. The solar mass will be in the range from roughly 0.1 to 0.5. This will be a very long lived star with planetary systems having the objective to develop the life process through the lower kingdoms up to the point of individualized man. As such it is described as a third ray system which establishes the manasic principal. Looking at it another way, this achievement establishes the fourth or human kingdom. When this type of star has exhausted its supply of Hydrogen it will become a burned out shell.

The second system will be one belonging to the Main Sequence, in which case the solar mass will vary from 0.5 to 5.0. The path of this system leads through the stage termed a Red Giant, and ultimately this star ends its life as a White Dwarf. The objective of this system is to retrace the evolutionary process up through individual-ized man, and ultimately to monadic consciousness. The earlier part of the evolutionary development is now part of the “universal mind”.  So, a human monad seeded into this system will have brought an individualized being up to His level of existence. This system at its completion will have also retraced the evolutionary process of the first system, brought further evolutionary progress, and in that activity brought about a merger or synthesis of the third ray with the second ray.

The third and final system will be a Blue Giant, and will have a rather short life compared to the two previous systems. At the beginning of this system it will be seeded with beings having the level of monadic consciousness, the objective is unknown. The solar mass of this system will vary from 5 to over 100. The end of this system will come with the merger of the 2nd ray with the 1st ray, and the star will experience a shattering explosion, a nova. The remains will be a neutron star. These three systems represent the same process of synthesis on a solar level just as with our human evolution on the physical plane when completed.

The Seven Solar Systems

Our entire solar system is contained within what is termed a “solar sphere”, the physical Sun being at the center. This solar sphere came into existence as the initial step in the creation of this system. This sphere apparently has a life of its own for it has a rotation that is independent of all movement within the sphere. The period of that rotation is about 100,000 years.

Following the path of evolutionary development beyond our solar system we have the Seven Solar Systems. Where there are seven planetary schemes in our system so this greater system now has seven star systems as a correspondence. Again the seven star systems are not the sum total of what is involved, just as there are more than seven planetary schemes in our system. These seven will be the major systems that are necessary for this to be a balanced power structure that involve the seven rays. It should be noted that many smaller solar systems will also be present, and these will typically be Red Dwarfs. Thus the system as a whole will have younger members that will develop to fill out later system requirements as well as filling the lesser present requirements of the greater system. We can see a correspondence in our own human constitution with its 21 minor centers as well as 49 tertiary centers.

We are also told that our Sun as well as the nearby Sirius system are important members of this greater system. Looking at some of the nearby reaches of space we could list other likely stars to be a part of this system. All of these stars will in turn orbit a common point in the heavens, and this point in turn will have its own trajectory.

Other candidates located nearby include Alpha and Beta Centauri. Both of these star systems are actually binaries. Both are also quite close to our system at this point, being only 4.3 light years away. Still other candidates include Procyon in the constellation Canis Minor, Tau Ceti in the constellation Cetus, and Epsilon Eridani. These later three are 10 -12 LY away, and may be seen in the night sky. The last two are also Main Sequence type stars that could well have planets with civilizations like our own while the first three would have civilizations beyond our comprehension.

So, in addition to the matter we know in the states called solid, liquid, and gas, we have forms of matter beyond gases that we term the four ethers. These ethers have no mass, are unaffected by gravity, and inter-penetrate our solid matter. These ethers are, however, similarly energized like the physical matter we know with its changes of state, and the ethers in turn may be excited into various discrete levels of activity. We call these levels “planes”. Thus we come to have a physical plane that we know, as well as an astral plane and mental plane that we are not aware of consciously. We could view these planes as successively higher energy levels. These planes are also what some people view as “different dimensions” or sometimes in science fiction writing as “a parallel universe”.

Further, man also has a separate body of consciousness on each of these planes, and for the most part those bodies are built of that etheric substance. So, it is not like we are discussing something that is totally alien to ourselves. The etheric, astral, and mental bodies that are a part of us also have their corresponding forms throughout the planetary worlds. So the Earth also has an astral body as well as a mental body, and in a way they are all a part of us - or more accurately we are a part of the Earth and its different mansion worlds.

Because these bodies, comprised of etheric matter, are not perceived by most people, the tendency is to ignore their reality. Now, consider the person that has a medical problem, and must go into the hospital to undergo an operation. Once under anesthesia they suddenly become conscious again, but strangely they find themselves up floating in mid air near the ceiling. Even more disconcerting they can see their own body on the table below and the first thought is they must have died. No one below seems concerned however, and the monitors are beeping normally. In short the person is still alive, but separated from their own physical body.

The person soon realizes that their full waking consciousness is with them, and they are now in a different form. The question then is what should we think about this matter? Is it not evident that there is more to us than just the physical body, and more to the point, our real consciousness does not reside in that physical form. Ponder that!

Until our science acknowledges the existence of the etheric, and undertakes active investigation of these worlds we will remain mired in 20th century orthodoxy. This also means no real progress in the new fields such as Astrobiology or other fields of exploration.

Only after eight years of reading and study followed by five years of writing did I finally understand what I had been writing about.  Once I came to this realization the real objective emerged.  I then had to discard about half of what I had written, and largely rewrite the rest.  Mostly the book will reflect the Bailey presentation and terminology so as to provide an easy bridge to the Bailey references.  In some cases I retained a particular word or phrase thereby reflecting the original color of the writing that some might label as direct or controversial.  Altogether it took sixteen years of writing before it reached the publisher.

As for myself: being a Control Systems Engineer by profession makes me a hybrid between a Mechanical and an Electrical Engineer.  My field is largely instrumentation.  Starting in 1956, I worked as a test engineer in Military Research and Development.  A few years later this was called Aerospace.  Then as an Application Engineer I worked at Beckman Instruments with process type analytical instrumentation.  Finally as a Bechtel Design Engineer I worked in the design, construction, and operation of Nuclear Power Plants.  The last five years before my retirement I worked in Design Engineering on the nuclear waste cleanup program at Savannah River.

With this kind of background I am used to figuring out how things work, and how they work together from a systems standpoint.  I tend to keep working on something until it makes sense to me.  The problem I have faced all along is that the material in this book challenges so many of our long accepted “scientific” beliefs.

My pursuit of this work will probably continue to occupy me until I get ready to leave.

All are welcome!

Entries should be signed with some identifying name, pseudonym, anagram or whatever you choose.