I shall use the word Quality as expressive of the second aspect, the Son of God, the cosmic Christ incarnate in form - a form brought into being by the relation of spirit and matter. This interplay produces that psychological Entity which we call the Christ. This cosmic Christ demonstrated to us His perfection, as far as the human family is concerned, through the medium of the historical Christ. This psychological Entity can bring into functioning activity a quality within all human forms which esoterically can "obliterate the forms" and so engross the attention as to be regarded eventually as the main factor and as constituting all that is. This truth as to life and quality and form is made most clearly apparent to us in the story of the Christ of Galilee. He was constantly reminding the people that He was not what He appeared to be, neither was He the Father in Heaven, and He is ever referred [19] to by those who know and love Him in terms of quality. He demonstrated to us the quality of the love of God, and in Himself He embodied not only that which He had evolved of the seven ray qualities, but also - as do few of the sons of God - a basic principle of the ray of the Solar Logos Himself, the quality of Love. This we shall study more closely when we take up the consideration of the second Ray of Love-wisdom.

Life-quality-appearance are brought together into a synthesis in the manifested universe and in man incarnate, and the result of this synthesis is sevenfold, producing seven types of qualified forms which emerge on all planes and in all kingdoms. It must be remembered that all the planes which we, from our little point of view, regard as formless are not really so. Our seven planes are but the seven subplanes of the cosmic physical plane. We shall not deal with the planes, except in their relation to man's unfoldment, nor shall we deal with the macrocosm, or with the developing life of the Cosmic Christ. We shall confine our attention entirely to man and to his psychological reactions to the qualified forms in three directions: to those in the subhuman kingdoms in nature, to those with whom he associates in the human family, and to the guiding Hierarchy and the world of souls. The seven ray types must be dealt with entirely from the human angle, for this treatise is intended to give the new psychological approach to man through an understanding of the energies, seven in number, with their forty-nine differentiations, which animate him and make him what he is. Later, as we take up each ray [20] type, we shall subject man to a close analysis and study his reactions in these three directions.

This idea can best be apprehended if one remembers that every human being is, in his turn, an aggregate of atoms and cells built into form and having scattered throughout that form organs and centers of differentiated life which function in rhythm and relation, but which have varying influences and differing purposes. These aggregated and animated forms present an appearance of an entity or central life which is characterized by its own quality, and which functions according to the point in evolution, thus making an impress by its radiation and life upon every atom and cell and organism within the radius of immediate influence and also upon every other human being contacted. Man is a psychic entity, a Life Who, [21] through radiatory influence, has built a form, colored it with His own psychic quality and thus presented an appearance to the environing world which will persist for as long a time as He lives in form.

Let us therefore posit - as a symbolical analogy - the fact of a Central Life (extraneous and outside our solar system yet within it during the process of manifestation) Which decides within Itself to take a material form and to incarnate. A vortex of force is set up as a preliminary step and we then have God immanent and God transcendent at the same time. This vortex, as a result of this initial activity, demonstrates through the medium of what we call substance or (to use a technical term of modern science, which is the best we can do at this time) [22] through the ether of space. The consequence of this active interplay of life and substance is that a basic unity is constituted. Father and mother are at-one. This unity is characterized by quality. Through this triplicity of life-quality-form, the central Life evokes and manifests consciousness, or awareness of response to all that is eventuating, but in a degree which it is impossible for us to cognize, limited as we are by our present relatively undeveloped point in evolution.

Always, therefore, we predicate that which stands outside of the appearance and which is conscious of that appearance. This involves awareness of its material development and consequent adequacy of expression, and also awareness of its psychic unfoldment. No study of the rays is possible apart from this fourfold recognition. Our grasp of the subject will be much facilitated if we train ourselves to regard ourselves as an accurate (though as yet undeveloped) expression and reflection of this initial creative quaternary. We are lives, making an appearance, expressing quality and slowly becoming aware of the process and the objective, as our consciousness becomes more like that of Divinity Itself.