In the sign of Cancer, there are a number of related themes we can focus on, such as imprisonment, constraint, and boundaries. These themes arise because of Cancer’s special position in the zodiac, as the gateway into incarnation. In other words, it is the place where the Solar Angels, who are ourselves, complete the descent into form which They began in Aries. The forms They take on are indeed prisons, compared to the freedom They will have enjoyed on higher planes; and They accept this imprisonment willingly in order to redeem the matter of the lower planes.

There is much material in the Bailey books concerning this process of incarnation/imprisonment, and eventual release. For example, on the process of individual incarnation, we read, "the Ego [or Solar Angel] sounds the egoic note in the three worlds and prepares to manifest or to come into incarnation. The note attracts around the permanent atoms or nuclei adequate matter for the purpose of manifestation, and that matter is itself informed by some vital entity."(Letters 56) There are three permanent atoms, one for each of the lower planes. They are rather mysterious things, permanent atoms, and we’re warned not to delve too much into their nature. However, they are important, as we can see, in the process of incarnation, for they provide points around which the imprisoning forms can aggregate.

A force closely tied to the idea of descent is Gravity, which effectively imprisons our physical forms on the planet. We might wonder whether this is for our own good, or perhaps for the good of the solar system? Gravity is itself rather mysterious, being almost the "joker in the pack" of physical forces, with physicists tying themselves into all sorts of mathematical knots to try to reconcile it with the other forces. From an esoteric perspective, we read in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, that the Law of Gravitation in one aspect is "the power, and the stronger urge that a more vital life may have upon the lesser, such as the power of the spirit of the Earth (the planetary Entity, not the planetary Logos) to hold all physical forms to itself and prevent their ‘scattering’. This is due to the heavier vibration, the greater accumulative force, and the aggregated tamasic [inertia-filled] lives of the body of the planetary Entity. This force works upon the negative, or lowest, aspect of all physical forms." (Cos. Fire 1172) Elsewhere we are told that "The planetary Entity is the sum total of the forms which constitute the form through which the planetary spirit is manifesting, and therefore is the synthesis of the planetary physical, astral and mental elementals. For the purposes of our consideration, this Entity is the sum total of all physical, mental, astral and mental forms, which, blended and fused, constitute our planet."(White Magic 432)

We can assume then that this living, involutionary force constitutes not only physical gravity, but psychic gravity as well – the downward tug that is experienced in the astral and mental vestures and which we are constantly battling to overcome, so that we may scale the spiritual heights in the opposite sign of Capricorn. There are a number of ways of referring to this psychic gravity, most of which seem to fall into a threefold division that we might label the three poisons: wine, women and song, or to use the modern version, sex and drugs and rock&roll; the Christian version is the world, the flesh and the devil; the Buddhist version is anger, lust and ignorance, which can be further analysed, into, for example, the ten fetters, one of which we'll look at in more detail further on. Alice Bailey refers to three imprisoning conditions, each of which is linked to one of the three planes of the Personality: separativeness in the lower mental plane, selfishness in the emotional plane, and materialism in the physical plane.

William Blake wrote, in one of his Proverbs of Hell: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom". It ’s not certain that he was being entirely serious, as the Proverbs of Hell are in general rather provocative. However, one possible interpretation is that he's referring to the eventual exhaustion of the capacity to respond to the three poisons through taking them to excess. Down the ages, many in religious orders have attempted to take the opposite route, through physical, emotional, and mental austerities – and some have succeeded. But some also have failed initially, because they have attempted to withdraw from the temptation of the three poisons too hastily, with insufficient or incorrect motivation. (There is a parable of the hermit who spends years in a cave meditating, and when he comes out, and is preparing to teach the assembled multitude, is irritated by someone accidentally brushing against him. Fortunately for us, travelling on the Tube is excellent training in overcoming this fault!)

Some also have taken the route suggested by Blake – a more dangerous route, as it goes with the grain of matter, and it seems likely that it can only be pursued by those with a special temperament and a pure motive, otherwise the temptation towards evil will prove too great, and one ends in perverted fantasies or, worse, realities. In fact, neither lack nor excess is wrong or right in itself, but of more importance is purity of motive, which acts as a protection. However, the safest route is that of the Middle Way advocated by the Buddha, where neither luxury nor austerity is pursued – for then the deviation towards either extreme is likely to be less violent, and more easily and quickly corrected.

I am a point of light within a greater Light.
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focussed within the fiery Will of God.
And thus I stand.

I am a way by which men may achieve.
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand.
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.
And thus I stand.

And standing thus revolve
And tread this way the ways of men,
And know the ways of God.
And thus I stand.

Travelling the Middle Way requires a degree of self-discipline, or restraint. In fact, the restraining of forces and energies within a set of boundaries, a ring-pass-not, is an important skill, not just in meditation, but in life. It is a well-known phenomenon that when children reach certain ages, they deliberately test out the boundaries within which they will be allowed to operate: the two most common being toddlerhood, when the sense of self first begins to come into focus; and teenhood, when that self begins to individualise more intensely. This is just a special case of the more general point that the individual has to learn to adapt to the society within which he finds himself. Any society, with its laws and customs, is a set of restraints and boundaries. The key point is that, without boundaries, behaviour, and society, can descend into chaos. This recognition helps to explain the perpetual tension within societies between the forces of reform and the forces of conservation, often embodied in competing political parties.

The conservers wish to maintain long-established boundaries, while the reformers are usually looking for ways to expand the boundaries. Too much conservation may lead to stagnation; too rapid reform may lead to boundaries or laws being extended too quickly for the bulk of those in society – the reservoir of conscious force that is the psyche of a nation suddenly finds itself diffused more widely, and into unfamiliar territory, and this may lead to a loss of identity or sense of direction. It may be that this is one explanation for the general sense of a lack of purpose of so many institutions and nations in an era like this, where rapid change of economic and social norms is so evident. We can judge how evolved a society is by way it treats its most vulnerable - including prisoners. As Winston Churchill said in 1910, "The mood and temper of the public with regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of a country [being the] sign and proof of the living virtue in it." Those who are guilty and go to prison are those who have somehow transgressed the boundaries of society, and therefore society is responsible for finding a way to re-educate the prisoner in the need for these boundaries – to correct their view of the meaning of society. Maybe this is the best reason for calling prisons "correctional facilities". Sadly, it seems that much of the learning in actual prisons is not directed towards this high goal, but is instead focused on how to survive, or indeed, how to become a more successful criminal afterwards. There have been notable exceptions to this – one particularly successful experiment was the Barlinnie Special Unit, which accepted prisoners who were previously among the worst behaved of all, gave them significant opportunities for selfdevelopment, and produced dramatic drops both in violence within the unit, and re-offending after release. One worrying recent trend is towards privatisation of prisons, as by turning criminals over to private companies, society is arguably shedding some of its direct responsibility for re-education.

Two fictional explorations of imprisonment are worth looking at briefly. The first is a cult TV series, The Prisoner. An agent of the government attempts to resign, is drugged, and is confined to a strange place called the Village, where the ruling authorities of the Village make repeated efforts to find out why he resigned, while he seeks to thwart them, either by escape or disruptive behaviour. The series has many possible interpretations, one of which is that it is the portrayal of an individual’s struggle for freedom from the constraints of society and his recognition that this cannot be successfully achieved through destructive means – indeed, perhaps that it can never truly be achieved, except subjectively.

The other work of fiction is the famous novel, The Trial, by Kafka. In this novel, the protagonist, Joseph K, is accused of something, but he can never find out exactly what. Joseph K is never actually in a prison, but is imprisoned by the implacable operation of circumstances against which he has no appeal. As such The Trial can be seen as an allegory of the operation of blind Chance or Fate. The place of Fate, or karma, within the esoteric world-view, does not have the nihilistic quality that it acquires in The Trial, for while Joseph K can do nothing to change his fate, our thoughts and actions most definitely can affect our karma. Karma, in this sense, could be regarded as the perfectly just jailor, or the perfectly designed prison, for it is a prison of our own making, and hence one to which we necessarily have the key. But this key lies within, and indeed, Helena Roerich tells us, "we should remember that our karma is created, weighted, or eased mainly by THOUGHTS.

Precisely, thought and inner motives weave our aura, which is a magnetic field that either attracts or repels possibilities. Indeed, thoughtmotive - this decisive factor of our karma - is often overlooked by those who discuss karma. But were it otherwise, it would be impossible to break the magic circle of causes and effects. For all is karma and all is held by karma. However, when we finish one round of karma for a certain cycle, we start a new round on other planes and worlds, and so unto Infinity. When the conclusion of karma is spoken of, it means that karma is ended only for a certain cycle or planet, etc. Thus, the conclusion of a man's karma on our planet means that his inner nature has purified and transmuted its energies to such an extent that further physical life on Earth can no longer give him anything; precisely, all the elements or energies which formed his being have reached that state of perfection which was the limit for this planet. Such a spirit, depending upon his mission, either stays in the higher spheres around Earth or leaves for the higher worlds. Thus, thought is the primary cause and the crown of all creation. Thoughts rule the world, consequently they rule karma" (Letter 7, Vol.II)

One of the main factors imprisoning the Solar Angel or Ego is a wrong identification of what constitutes the self. There is a little quote that is probably from a Buddhist source, along the lines of: "Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9% of everything you do is for your self. And there isn’t one." Thus, Buddhist teachings tend to be sceptical about the existence of a permanent self. Indeed, belief in an individual self is listed as the first of the ten fetters, ten conditions that bind the individual to the wheel of rebirth. The approach to dismantling this sense of self is to recognise that all things are impermanent, everything is in flux, and this is particularly true of the self, which alters in its perceptions from moment to moment, and in its memories and habits over longer time scales. This analysis is not unique to Buddhism – the philosopher David Hume also talked about it. There does, however, seem to be a degree of controversy over how to interpret this observation – whether it means there is truly no self, or whether there is some deeper underlying self that experiences all these changes. From an esoteric perspective, perhaps we can simply answer "both", for that which is identified as the self shifts through time, from the Personality to the Soul to the Monad, each of which endures for longer time periods. The three formulas of "I am", "I am that", and "I am that I am", express this shifting identification, as we move from identifying the self with Matter and Form, to identifying it with Soul qualities, and finally to identifying it with Life.

One thing is clear – this process requires continual learning and intensifying self-discipline, so that wisdom can be distilled from experience. A notable milestone occurs at the fourth initiation, when we read "…the initiate is the recipient of the essential quality or qualities which form has revealed and developed, and which the soul has absorbed. At this particular crisis, the initiate within the Ashram or "on His way of glory to the Place where dwells the Lord" (Shamballa) summarises or contains within himself all the essential good which was stored in the soul prior to its destruction at the fourth initiation. He epitomises in himself the knowledge and the wisdom of aeons of struggle and of patient endurance. Nothing further is to be gained by adhering either to the soul or to the form. He has taken all they had to give which throws light on the spiritual Law of Sacrifice. It is interesting to note how the soul becomes at this point simply the intermediary between the personality and the initiate of high degree.

But now there is nothing more to relate, to report or to transmit, and— as the Sound reverberates—the soul disappears, as testimony of response. It is now but an empty shell, but its substance is of so high an order that it becomes an integral part of the buddhic level, and its function there is etheric The principle of life is renounced and returns to the reservoir of universal life.

I would have you take notice of the importance of form activity. It is the Form which shatters the connection (the usually despised, belittled, frustrated form is that which performs the final act), bringing complete liberation. The "Lunar Lord" of the personality has achieved his goal, and those elements which have composed his three vehicles (physical, astral, mental), together with the life principle, will constitute the atomic substance of the first body of manifestation of some soul seeking incarnation for the first time. This is closely related to the abstruse subject of the permanent atoms. It marks a moment of high initiation for this Lunar Lord when he shatters the connection and severs all relation with the hitherto informing soul. He is no longer just a shadow, but has now those qualities which make him "substantial" (in the esoteric sense) and a new factor in time and space." (Es. Healing 691-2)

This glorious release of the energies and forces of the Soul and the Personality at the fourth initiation remind us of the keynote of Cancer, "I build a lighted house and therein dwell". The lighted house may eventually be consumed by the fire of Spirit: but when the conflagration has ended, the house yet remains, for the disciple can now build a form using the Will, for the express purpose of leading other souls out of imprisonment. This is the message of Cancer's opposite, Capricorn, whose keynote is, "Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back." This great sacrifice is no more than has already been offered by the Lord of the World Himself, for we read:

"Under this Law of Sacrifice, Sanat Kumara (to express the idea in occult terms) 'must turn His back upon the Central Spiritual Sun, and with the light of His Countenance irradiate the path of the prisoners of the planet.' He sentences Himself to stay for as long as may be needed, 'acting as the Sun and light of the planet until the Day be with us and the night of pralaya descends upon His finished task.' Thus and only thus can the light of the Central Spiritual Sun begin to penetrate the dark places of the Earth; when this happens all 'shadows disappear'—an occult reference to the all-embracing radiance of the Monad as it absorbs both its reflection, the soul, and its shadow, the personality. The initiate, on his tiny scale, achieves a paralleling expression of the Law of Sacrifice; he eventually turns his back upon the courts of Shamballa and upon the Way of the Higher Evolution as he retains his contact with the Earth and works as a Member of the Hierarchy for the extension of the will-to-good among men, and therefore among all the lesser evolutions." (Discipleship Vol II 287-8)

With the inspiration of this eventual goal in mind, let's now turn to our work of meditation, using the keynote, "I build a lighted house and therein dwell."

Dominic Dibble

Festival in Cancer
London, June 2007