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Man is the initiating factor here, and to man is committed the task of leading the animal kingdom towards liberation—a liberation into the fourth kingdom, for that is the sphere of its next activity. The vegetable kingdom is liberated into another evolutionary process altogether, and its lives pass into the so-called Deva, or angel, evolution. Hence the wind and the insect world are its agents, just as man and the agency of water are the initiators of the animal world.
In the Fourth Kingdom, the emerging quality is that aspect of synthetic love or understanding which is the intuition. This intuition is a quality of mental matter and of the "chitta" or mind stuff. Man is also intended to be radio-active; the incense or the perfume of his life must ascend, and thus attract the attention of the initiating factors which wait to lead him to liberation. These factors are the fire and the members of the fifth kingdom in nature. The growing purpose of his animal form must give place to the dynamic will of the Spiritual entity, released from form limitations by the fire of life and of initiation. Thus he harmonises in himself all ways of approach and of release, and all achievements, and synthesises in his life the aspirations of the other three kingdoms.
In starting upon a consideration of the relation of the Rays to the seven kingdoms I shall refer to the seven kingdoms on the upward or evolutionary arc, and not to the seven kingdoms as they can be enumerated on the involutionary or downward arc. This latter (according to the Theosophical literature) includes three kingdoms—nebulous, relatively formless, and unexpressed—and the four kingdoms as enumerated by modern science. With the involutionary arc we have nothing to do. The understanding of it is well nigh impossible to the finite mind of the average reader. Though these three involutionary kingdoms exist, and though the little known about them in the West has received written form, any real comprehension of the implied truths is entirely lacking. This is quite unavoidable. Their comprehension lies hid in the capacity to "recover" the past and to see that past as a whole.
The kingdoms which we shall consider in connection with the Rays may be enumerated under the following terms:
1. The Mineral Kingdom VII
2. The Vegetable Kingdom VI
3. The Animal Kingdom V
4. The Kingdom of Men IV
5. The Kingdom of Souls III
6. The Kingdom of Planetary Lives II
7. The Kingdom of Solar Lives I
These kingdoms might be regarded as differentiations of the One Life, from the angle of:
1. Phenomenal appearance, objective manifestation, or the externalisation of the Solar Logos.
2. Consciousness or sensitivity to the expression of quality, through the medium of the phenomenal appearance.
Certain of the Rays, as might be expected, are more responsible than certain others for the qualifying of any particular kingdom. Their effect is paramount in its determination. The effect of the other Rays is subsidiary, but not absent. We must never forget that, in the close interrelation of forces in our solar system, no one of the seven possible forces is without effect.
All of them function, qualify and motivate, but one or other will have a more vital effect than the rest. The following tabulation will give the major effect of the seven Rays and the result of their influence upon the seven kingdoms with which we are concerned:
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