We have looked at the Third, the Moon Chain of our Scheme in some detail, as what started to occur on this chain makes more sense to us in our evolution through the Fourth, the Earth Chain. Through the preceding three chains, there was a gradual descent into materiality, as least materiality as we know it. Every plane is material but it is only when you get to Plane-49 that you finally hit the buffers and can descend no further. The reasons for this have already been explained in earlier presentations in the Adventures of the Monad. Let us now summarise the last three presentations on the Third Chain. This will allow us to discuss certain points in more detail and arrange what we know about the classes of monads that evolved through and exited from this chain. There will be the usual complement of diagrams and tables to help in this endeavour.
We will start by first describing the main classes of entities who emerged from the Moon Chain, and then proceed to detail their sub-divisions and ramifications. The list is as follows:
A. The full successes of the chain – Arhats, 46-selves.
B1. Moon-Men of the First Order; sub-divided into five grades.
B2. Moon-Men of the Second Order, have basket-work causal bodies.
B3. Moon Animal-Men, possessing line causal bodies.
C1. Moon-Animals of the First Class.
C2. Moon-Animals of the Second Class.
C3. Moon-Animals of the Third Class.
D. Moon Vegetables.
E. Moon Minerals.
F. Moon Elemental Kingdoms III, II and I.
Let us consider these main classes in detail, with their various sub-divisions.
A. Arhats (46-self). You will remember that the level set for human attainment on the Moon Chain was the Arhat Initiation (i4). Those who reached this level were, therefore, the ”full successes” of the chain, having achieved the purpose of the Logos. Succeeding in this manner, they were free to take one or other of the Seven Paths, which is always open before the perfected humanity of each chain.
It is not known for certain whether these Seven Paths are the same as those that open before the Adepts of the present Earth Chain, but at least one of them shows a decided resemblance. Some of the Earth Adepts (45-selves) will remain in close touch with the succeeding chain, the fifth, and incarnate in it to help its inhabitants in their evolution. One of the seven classes of the Arhats (46) from the Moon, or Lords of the Moon as they are often called, stayed to help the Earth Chain. The members of this class are called in, The Secret Doctrine, the Barhishads, or Barhishad Pitris. They are known also as ”Sons of Twilight”, celestial men, Sons of the Moon and Progenitors. Another name is the Cubes because, on the Moon Chain, they conquered matter in its quaternary or four-fold form. They brought that matter with them for its further evolution in the Earth Chain.
There are 4 classes of the Barhishad, Lunar, or Rûpa Pitris, as they are variously called. The first, from Globe G, had their causal body as their lowest envelope or vehicle and presided over the first round of the Earth Chain. The second class had the mental body for their vehicle and worked in the second round of the Earth Chain. The third used their emotional body, working in the third round of the Earth Chain and the fourth were clothed in their etheric envelope and presided over the fourth round of the Earth Chain. This designation is hardly surprising as each successive globe was on a denser plane of matter and required an envelope made of the material from that plane. However, what this is also telling us is that the Pitris involved were of a higher grade in the earlier rounds. Why? Because the work of forming the globe at its early stages requires the most amount of energy and knowledge.
Just to make things more interesting, each of the 4 classes listed, had seven sub-classes, called arûpa and rûpa, distinguished by differences in evolution. In case you are interested, “arupa” means formless and “rupa” means form, so you know where in the triads these monads would focus their activity. There are thus 28 sub-classes of the Barhishads in total, 7 working in each round of the Earth Chain. These are sometimes known as the ”seven classes of Pitris”. They must not, of course, be confused with another seven-fold classification, which includes the Barhishads, the Agnishvâttas, and others. Confused. Don’t worry, most people are. The term “pitris” means “father” in Sanskrit. The Barhishads are one of the two classes of Pitris in Theosophy. They are the lunar spirits who are more closely connected with Earth and became the creative “Elohim” of form or the “Adam” of dust. Just in case you were wondering, in Theosophy, the “Elohim of form” refers to a class of beings who are the spirits of the seven creative hierarchies or the seven planetary spirits. They do not have causal bodies. They are beyond needing them and do not use them to function effectively. We are told they possess “creative fire”; take this to mean they are 45-selves and can use atmic energies. So to summarise, in case you are still confused, the Barhishads are a class of Pitris who are lunar spirits, while the Barhishad Pitris are a class of Pitris who are our solar ancestors and creators of the first ethereal race of Humanity. There, confusion dispelled.
As mentioned, the Barhishad Pitris belong to the Seventh Creative Hierarchy and have under them vast hosts of nature-spirits, who are the actual builders of forms, the Pitris themselves being more analogous to architects, giving the plans or models, which are worked out by their subordinates. The Barhishads are evolutionary products of the human stream, the builders are the devas, here called the nature-spirits.
Now we get to the various classes of Moon-Men:
B1. Moon-Men of the First Order. Below the preceding class comes a large and diversified group known as Moon-Men of the First Order. It includes:
(1) Some who were on the lower steps of the Path, though below the Arhat (46) level;
(2) Some who had not yet reached the Path, but, were approaching it;
(3) The ”failures”, who had dropped out of the lunar humanity at the great separation, or Day of Judgement in the middle of the sixth round, together with the most advanced lunar animals. These animals had succeeded in fully forming their causal body, having individualised in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds.
We can now add some further further information about these classes of Moon-Men of the First Order.
(1) The first group are those who were already on the Path and had, like the Lords of the Moon, long ago attained Adeptship and passed away altogether and we need not consider them further.
(2) The second group are those who were approaching the Path and had individualised in the fourth round of the Moon Chain. This group had also had, by this time, attained Adeptship (45), or gone still further. Among them are the present Chohans Morya and Koot Hoomi, the future Manu and Bodhisattva of the sixth Root Race on the Earth. I , personally, am not sure if this last statement is accurate, but this is what Leadbeater reported, so I am just passing on the good news. Also in this group were most of those monads who became Arhats (46) under the influence of the teachings of the Lord Buddha.
(3) The next class of Moon-Men were the ”failures” and the animals who had attained a fully-formed causal body. We can divide this group into three sub-classes, according to the round in which they individualised. One sub-class individualised in the fifth round of the Moon Chain. They are now the most advanced of our present humanity, the really distinguished people, whether the world accepts them as such or not. They are now either on the Path or approaching it, or they are great saints or Humanity of especially high intellectual or artistic achievement. In our five-fold classification, they are 4. Compassionate souls, focused on their 47:4 permanent molecule. So, being a “failure”, does not brand you forever. You end up becoming successes in the next chain by the simple fact that you have already worked on your envelopes for many rounds before you exited the last chain.
(4) The next sub-class is individualised in the sixth round of the Moon Chain. This is a fairly large group of monads. Arthur Powell amusingly describes them as people today who are “distinctly gentlemen, persons of refined feeling, with a high sense of honour, and rather above the average in their goodness, intellect, or religious feelings. Typical examples are country gentlemen and professional men, clergy, officers in the army and navy, etc.” This is a view of Humanity that thankfully is in the rearview mirror. Anyway, this group had strength but was by no means free from the possibility of using their power wrongly. It would be naive to always consider such monads as being ”respectable,” in the conventional sense of that term, but they are unlike to be “monsters”. I would place them at the 3. Cultured stage, being focused in their 48:1 permeant atom, but conscious in the higher subdivisions of this envelope.
(5) The next sub-class was individualised in the seventh round of the Moon Chain. The members of this group did not differ greatly from those of the preceding sub-class, except that they were somewhat middle of the road when it comes to describing their character. They focused their intelligence towards material ends, perhaps as city merchants. They represent what is commonly known as the upper middle class in the early 20th Century. Notice here that we are talking about monads who presently are in the Fifth Root Race, not the bulk of Humanity who are Fourth Root Racers.
All these sub-divisions of the first order of moon-men melt into one another by almost indistinguishable gradations, so that the lowest personas of any one of them differ little from the highest persona of the next class below. Not only are the lines between them not clearly marked but there is even a good deal of intermingling. As they say in India: ”In these days castes are mixed.”
Let us leave it there for today. What is the main take-home concept from this presentation? It is that many of us started our human journey on the Moon and not the Earth Chain. Depending when we started that journey has largely influenced where we are today. We will finish off looking at the Moon-Men and the remainder of the categories of life on the Moon Chain, in the next presentation.