Category
Seven Rays
7 entries. Click any to see everything it connects to.
The seven rays are a Theosophical scheme in which seven types of energy or purpose are held to underlie all life, each with its own colour, planet and characteristic virtue. The system appears in H. P. Blavatsky's work and was expanded at length by Alice Bailey in the twentieth century. It is a modern synthesis drawing on Indian terminology rather than an inherited tradition.
Facts
Overview
- Entries in the Atlas
- 7
- Size of the Traditional Set
- 7 rays 1
Contested Use
- Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
- Theosophical, not Vedic. The scheme uses Sanskrit vocabulary and appeals to an Eastern lineage, but it originates in Blavatsky's and Bailey's own writings and has no basis in Indian scripture; the borrowed terminology is part of the movement's claim to authority. 1
Origins
- Origin Period
- Late nineteenth to mid twentieth century: present in Blavatsky's writing from 1888, systematised by Alice Bailey between 1936 and 1960 1
- Place of Origin
- The modern Theosophical movement, the Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875, later centred at Adyar and London, and its post-Theosophical offshoots 2
- Creator / Originator
- H. P. Blavatsky, in whose writings the sevenfold scheme of rays first appears 2
- Creator / Originator
- Alice A. Bailey, who made the seven rays a complete system in A Treatise on the Seven Rays (five volumes, 1936-1960) 1
Structure
- Structure
- Seven types of energy or divine purpose, will, love-wisdom, active intelligence, harmony through conflict, concrete knowledge, devotion, ceremonial order, each with a colour, a planet, a virtue and a field, held to govern souls, nations and disciplines. 1
Learn More
The seven rays
The seven rays are a Theosophical scheme in which seven types of energy or divine purpose are held to underlie all life, each with its own colour, planet, and characteristic virtue and field: the ray of will or power, of love-wisdom, of active intelligence, of harmony through conflict, of concrete knowledge, of devotion, and of ceremonial order. Every soul, nation and field of activity is said to be governed by one of the seven.
The system appears in H. P. Blavatsky's writing and was greatly expanded by Alice Bailey, who made the seven rays central to her voluminous account of the spiritual constitution of humanity and the cosmos.
A Theosophical cosmology
The seven rays belong to the modern Theosophical and post-Theosophical tradition rather than to any ancient source, and they draw together astrology, colour, psychology and cosmology into a scheme of seven fundamental energies. The atlas treats them as a modern esoteric system with named authors, describing the scheme without endorsing it.
The atlas gives each ray its quality, colour, planet and virtue. The rays are grouped with the largest esoteric cycles under Cosmic Cycles, and connect to the planetary and colour correspondences treated elsewhere.
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