Alice Ann Bailey, also known as Alice A. Bailey was born in Manchester, England in 1880 as Alice LaTrobe Bateman. At age 15 she was sitting at home when she was visited by a Master of Wisdom who told her that she could do some work but that it would entail her changing her disposition very considerably. She moved to America in 1907 where she spent the rest of her life. It wasn't until 1915 when she discovered that her visitor was the Master K.H., the Master Koot Hoomi, a Master Who is very close to the Christ, Who is on the teaching line and Who is an outstanding exponent of the love-wisdom of which the Christ is the full expression. From then on the relationship became closer and closer until she could contact Him at will. In 1919 she was contacted by the Tibetan Master D.K., the Master Djwhal Khul, who asked her if she was willing to write some books for the public. After initial reluctance she consulted her Master K.H. who assured her that He had suggested that she help the Tibetan and that she had the opportunity of doing a really valuable piece of work. She then started her prolific work as amanuensis and secretary for the Tibetan Who dictated the books telepathically to her. In this way a series of twenty books were produced from 1919 to 1949. Additionally she has written four books herself and an unfinished biography. Widely recognised as writer and lecturer she died in December 1949.

Following are excerpts from the works of the Tibetan & Alice Bailey:

I would assert here that the great and satisfying reply to all human questioning and human need is to be found in the doctrine of Avatars, and in the continuity of divine Revelations. This is the persistent belief - ineradicable and unalterable - that (at major moments of world need) God reveals Himself through Appearances, through a Coming One.

This doctrine is found in all the basic world religions, in every time and age; it appears in the doctrine of the Avatars of the Hindu faith, in the teaching of the return of Maitreya Buddha or the Kalki Avatar, in the belief in the Western world in the return of Christ and His Advent or second Coming, and in the prophesied issuing forth of the divine Adventurer of the Moslem world.

All this is tied up with the undying belief of mankind in the loving Heart of God, Who ever meets man's need. The witness of history is that always the appearance of man's necessity has been met with a divine Revelation.

He [The World Teacher] is that Great Being whom the Christian calls the Christ; he is known also in the Orient as the Bodhisattva, and as the Lord Maitreya, and is the one looked for by the devout Mohammedan, under the name of the Iman Madhi. He it is who has presided over the destinies of life since about 600 B.C. and he it is who has come out among men before, and who is again looked for. He is the great Lord of Love and of Compassion, just as his predecessor, the Buddha, was the Lord of Wisdom.

He is the World Teacher, the Master of the Masters, and the Instructor of the Angels, and to him is committed the guidance of the spiritual destinies of men, and the development of the realization within each human being that he is a child of God and a son of the Most High.

The World Teacher gives out the keynote for the various religions and is the emanating source for periodical religious impulses. The duration of his cycles are not given out. The Buddha held office prior to the present World Teacher and upon his Illumination His place was taken by the Lord Maitreya whom the Occidentals call the Christ.

For decades, the reappearance of the Christ, the Avatar, has been anticipated by the faithful in both hemispheres - not only by the Christian faithful, but by those who look for Maitreya and for the Boddhisattva as well as those who expect the Imam Mahdi.

When men feel that they have exhausted all their own resources and have come to an end of all their own innate possibilities and that the problems and conditions confronting them are beyond their solving or handling, they are apt to look for a divine Intermediary and for the Mediator Who will plead their cause with God and bring about a rescue. They look for a Savior.

This doctrine of Mediators, of Messiahs, of Christs and of Avatars can be found running like a golden thread through all the world faiths and Scriptures and, relating these world Scriptures to some central source of emanation, they are found in rich abundance everywhere. Even the human soul is regarded as an intermediary between man and God; Christ is believed by countless millions to act as the divine mediator between humanity and divinity.

An Avatar is one Who has a peculiar capacity (besides a self-initiated task and a preordained destiny) to transmit energy or divine power. This is necessarily a deep mystery and was demonstrated in a peculiar manner and in relation to cosmic energy by the Christ Who - for the first time in planetary history, as far as we know - transmitted the divine energy of love directly to our planet and in a most definite sense to humanity.

Always too these Avatars or divine Messengers are linked with the concept of some subjective spiritual Order or Hierarchy of spiritual Lives, Who are concerned with the developing welfare of humanity. All we really know is that, down the ages, great and divine Representatives of God embody divine purpose, and affect the entire world in such a manner that Their names and Their influence are known and felt thousands of years after They no longer walk among men.

Again and again, They have come and have left a changed world and some new world religion behind Them; we know also that prophecy and faith have ever held out to mankind the promise of Their coming again amongst us in an hour of need. These statements are statements of fact, historically proven. Beyond this we know relatively few details.

The Avatars most easily known and recognized are the Buddha in the East and the Christ in the West. Their messages are familiar to all, and the fruits of Their lives and words have conditioned the thinking and civilizations of both hemispheres. Because They are human-divine Avatars, They represent what humanity can easily understand; because They are of like nature to us, "flesh of our flesh and spirit of our spirit," we know and trust Them and They mean more to us than other divine Emergencies. They are known, trusted and loved by countless millions.

The nucleus of spiritual energy which each of Them set up is beyond our measuring; the establishing of a nucleus of persistent energy, spiritually positive, is the constant task of an Avatar; He focuses or anchors a dynamic truth, a potent thought-form or a vortex of magnetic energy in the world of human living.

This focal point acts increasingly as a transmitter of spiritual energy; it enables humanity to express some divine idea and this in time produces a civilization with its accompanying culture, religions, policies, governments and educational processes. Thus is history made. History is after all only the record of humanity's cyclic reaction to some inflowing divine energy, to some inspired leader, or to some Avatar.

Humanity needs love, understanding and right human relations as an expression of attained divinity. It was this need which brought the Christ to us before as the Avatar of Love.

The Christ, that great human-divine Messenger, because of His stupendous achievement - along the line of understanding - transmitted to humanity an aspect and a potency of the nature of God Himself, the love Principle of Deity. Light, aspiration, and the recognition of God Transcendent had been the flickering expression of the human attitude to God, prior to the advent of the Buddha, the Avatar of Illumination.

Then the Buddha came and demonstrated in His Own life the fact of God Immanent as well as God Transcendent, of God in the universe and of God within humanity. The Selfhood of Deity and the Self in the heart of individual man became a factor in human consciousness. It was a relatively new truth to man.

However, until Christ came and lived a life of love and service and gave men the new command to love one another, there had been very little emphasis upon God as Love in any of the world Scriptures. After He had come as the Avatar of Love, then God became known as love supernal, love as the goal and objective of creation, love as the basic principle of relationship and love as working throughout all manifestation towards a Plan motivated by love. This divine quality, Christ revealed and emphasized and thus altered all human living, goals and values.

The reason He has not come again is that the needed work has not been done by His followers in all countries. His coming is largely dependent, as we shall later see, upon the establishing of right human relations. This the church has hindered down the centuries, and has not helped because of its fanatical zeal to make "Christians" of all peoples and not followers of the Christ.

It has emphasized theological doctrine, and not love and loving understanding as Christ exemplified it. The Church has preached the fiery Saul of Tarsus and not the gentle Carpenter of Galilee. And so, He has waited. But His hour has now come, because of the people's need in every land and because of the invocative cry of the masses everywhere and the advice of His disciples of all faiths and of all world religions.

It is not for us yet to know the date or the hour of the reappearance of the Christ. His coming is dependent upon the appeal (the often voiceless appeal) of all who stand with massed intent; it is dependent also upon the better establishment of right human relations and upon certain work being done at this time by senior Members of the Kingdom of God, the Church Invisible, the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet; it is dependent also upon the steadfastness of the Christ's disciples in the world at this time and His initiate-workers - all working in the many groups, religious, political and economic.

To the above must be added what Christians like to call "the inscrutable Will of God," that unrecognized purpose of the Lord of the World, the Ancient of Days (as He is called in The Old Testament) Who "knows His own Mind, radiates the highest quality of love and focuses His Will in His Own high Place within the center where the Will of God is known."

When the Christ, the Avatar of Love, makes His reappearance then will the
"Sons of men who are now the Sons of God withdraw Their faces from the shining light and radiate that light upon the sons of men who know not yet they are the Sons of God. Then shall the Coming One appear, His footsteps hastened through the valley of the shadow by the One of awful power Who stands upon the mountain top, breathing out love eternal, light supernal and peaceful, silent Will.

"Then will the sons of men respond. Then will a newer light shine forth into the dismal, weary vale of earth. Then will new life course through the veins of men, and then will their vision compass all the ways of what may be.

"So peace will come again on earth, but a peace unlike aught known before. Then will the will-to-good flower forth as understanding, and understanding blossom as goodwill in men."

In any acceptance of the teaching that Christ will come, one of the difficulties today is the feeling that the teaching has been given for many centuries and nothing has ever happened. That is a statement of fact, and here lies a great deal of our trouble. The expectancy of His coming is nothing new; in it lies nothing unique or different; those who still hold to the idea are regarded tolerantly, or with amusement or pity, as the case may be.

A study of times and seasons, of significances, of divine intention or of the will of God, plus a consideration of the World situation, may lead us, however, to believe that the present time is unique in more ways than one, and that the Christ is confronted with an unique occasion. This unique opportunity with which He is presented is brought about by certain world conditions which themselves are unique; there are factors present in the world today, and happenings have taken place within the past century which have never before occurred; it might profit us if we considered these matters and so gained a better perspective.

The world to which He will come is a new world, if not yet a better world; new ideas are occupying people's minds and new problems await solution. Let us look at this uniqueness and gain some knowledge of the situation into which the Christ will be precipitated. Let us be realistic in our approach to this theme and avoid mystical and vague thinking. If it is true that He plans to reappear, if it is a fact that He will bring His disciples, the Masters of the Wisdom, with Him, and if this coming is imminent, what are some of the factors which He and they must take into consideration?

First of all, He will come to a world which is essentially one world. His reappearance and His consequent work cannot be confined to one small locality or domain unheard of by the great majority, as was the case when He was here before. The radio, the press and the dissemination of news will make His coming different to that of any previous Messenger; the swift modes of transportation will make Him available to countless millions, and by boat, rail and plane they can reach Him: through television, His face can be made familiar to all, and verily "every eye shall see Him."

Even if there is no general recognition of His spiritual status and His message, there must necessarily be an universal interest, for today even the many false Christs and Messengers are finding this universal curiosity and cannot be hidden. This creates an unique condition in which to work, and one which no salvaging, energizing Son of God has ever before had to face.

The sensitivity of the people of the world to what is new or needed is also uniquely different; man has progressed far in his reaction to both good and evil and possesses a far more sensitive response apparatus than did humanity in those earlier times. If there was a quick response to the Messenger when He came before, it will be more general and quicker now, both in rejection and in acceptance.

Men are more enquiring, better educated, more intuitive and more expectant of the unusual and the unique than at any other time in history. Their intellectual perception is keener, their sense of values more acute, their ability to discriminate and choose is fast developing, and they penetrate more quickly into significances. These facts will condition the reappearance of the Christ and tend to a more rapid spreading of the news of His coming and the contents of His message.

Today, when He comes, He will find a world uniquely free from the grip and hold of ecclesiasticism; when He came before, Palestine was held in the vicious grasp of the Jewish religious leaders, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees were to the people of that land what the potentates of the church are to the people in the world today. But - there has been a useful and wholesome swing away from Churchianity and from orthodox religion during the past century, and this will present a unique opportunity for the restoration of true religion and the presentation of a simple return to the ways of spiritual living.

The priests, the Levites, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were not the ones who recognized Him when He came before. They feared Him. And it is highly improbable that the reactionary churchmen will be the ones to recognize Him today. He may reappear in a totally unexpected guise; who is to say whether He will come as a politician, an economist, a leader of the people (arising from the midst of them), a scientist or an artist?

It is a fallacy to believe, as some do, that the main trend of Christ's work will be through the medium of the churches or the world religions. He necessarily will work through them when conditions permit and there is a living nucleus of true spirituality within them, or when their invocative appeal is potent enough to reach Him. He will use all possible channels whereby the consciousness of man may be enlarged and right orientation be brought about.

It is, however, truer to say that it is as World Teacher that He will consistently work, and that the churches are but one of the teaching avenues He will employ. All that enlightens the minds of men, all propaganda that tends to bring about right human relations, all modes of acquiring real knowledge, all methods of transmuting knowledge into wisdom and understanding, all that expands the consciousness of humanity and of all subhuman states of awareness and sensitivity, all that dispels glamor and illusion and that disrupts crystallization and disturbs static conditions will come under the realistic activities of the Hierarchy which He supervises. He will be limited by the quality and the caliber of the invocative appeal of humanity and that, in its turn, is conditioned by the attained point in evolution.

It was these various unique conditions which the Christ faced during the years of war when the need of humanity forced Him to decide to hasten His coming. The unhappy state of the world as the result of centuries of selfishness and of the world war, the unique sensitivity which men everywhere were showing (as a result of the evolutionary process) the unique spread of knowledge about the spiritual Hierarchy and the unique development of group consciousness, showing itself on every hand in the multiplicity of conferences, confronted Christ with His unique occasion and presented Him with a decision which He could not avoid.

Today, humanity stands at a peculiar and unique middle point, between an unhappy past and a future which is full of promise if the reappearance of the Christ is recognized and preparation for His coming is undertaken. The present is full of promise and also full of difficulty; in the hands of human beings today and in the immediate present, lies the destiny of the world and - if it may be reverently said - the immediate activity of the Christ.

The agony of the war, and the distress of the entire human family led Christ, in the year 1945, to come to a great decision - a decision which found expression in two most important statements.

He announced to the assembled spiritual Hierarchy and to all His servants and disciples on Earth that He had decided to emerge again into physical contact with humanity, if they would bring about the initial stages of establishing right human relations;

secondly, He gave to the world (for the use of the "man in the street") one of the oldest prayers ever known, but one which hitherto had not been permitted to be used except by the most exalted, spiritual Beings. He used it Himself for the first time, we are told, at the time of the Full Moon of June, 1945, which is recognized as the Full Moon of the Christ, just as the Full Moon of May is that of the Buddha. It was not easy to translate these ancient phrases (so ancient that they are without date or background of any kind) into modern words, but it has been done, and the great Invocation, which may eventually become the world prayer, was pronounced by Him and taken down by His disciples. It has been translated as follows:

From the point of Light within the Mind of God Let light stream forth into the minds of men. Let Light descend on Earth. From the point of Love within the Heart of God Let love stream forth into the hearts of men. May Christ return to Earth. From the center where the Will of God is known Let purpose guide the little wills of men - The purpose which the Masters know and serve. From the center which we call the race of men Let the Plan of Love and Light work out And may it seal the door where evil dwells. Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

Its extraordinary potency can be seen in the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are already using it day by day and many times a day; it is (1947) translated into eighteen different languages and used by people in all those languages; in the jungles of Africa, groups of natives are using it and it can be seen on the desks of great executives in our major cities; it goes forth over the radio in Europe and in America and there is no country or island in the world where its use is unknown. All this has taken place in the space of eighteen months.

Christ is the world Healer and Savior. He works because He is the embodied soul of all Reality. He works today, as He worked in Palestine two thousand years ago, through groups. There He worked through the three beloved disciples, through the twelve apostles, through the chosen seventy, and the interested five hundred... Now He works through His Masters and Their groups, and thereby greatly intensifies His efforts. He can and will work through all groups just insofar as they fit themselves for planned service, for the distribution of love, and come into conscious alignment with the great potency of the inner groups.

Using, therefore, human terminology in order to interpret the divine reactions of the Christ and His disciples, it must be realized that the point of crisis which is responsible for hierarchical tension and for the eventual appearance or the emergence of the Christ, lies behind the Christ; it is in the field of long past experience.

The consequent point of tension is now controlling the affairs of the spiritual Hierarchy and its many groups of workers. The "point of decision," as it is called in all hierarchical circles, was reached during the period between the Full Moon of June, 1936, and the Full Moon of June, 1945. The point of decision covered, therefore, nine years (a relatively brief time); it resulted in the decision arrived at by the Christ to reappear or return to visible Presence on Earth as soon as possible, and considerably earlier than had been planned.

This decision was necessarily made in consultation with the Lord of the World, the "Ancient of Days" of The Old Testament, and the "One in Whom we live and move and have our being" of The New Testament. He is the Custodian of the Will of God. It was also made with the full understanding and cooperation of the Masters and the senior initiates. This was inevitably so, because Their participation and help were imperative. They also necessarily had to be with Him in thought, and cooperating mentally, because His reappearance connotes a great hierarchical approach to humanity and a great spiritual event.

The decision was, nevertheless, the decision of the Christ and marked not only a point of crisis in His experience but a point of climax in His expression of divinity. With all reverence and within the bounds of our human understanding, it must be remembered that there is nothing static in the entire evolutionary process of our planet or of the cosmos; there is naught but process and progress, a moving on, an increasing attainment and a mounting achievement. To this great law of the universe, even the Christ Himself is subject.

In all reverence again, let it here be pointed out that He too has moved on in His experience of divinity and is (if it may be so expressed) closer to the Father and to the One Universal Life than ever before. His comprehension and His apprehension of the Will of God is deeper and His fulfilment of that Will is more in line with the divine Purpose than it was in Palestine two thousand years ago. There has necessarily been (on the part of Christ) a growing perception of the intention of the divine Mind, as it is embodied in that Identity to Whom we give the name of God.

No longer need Christ, in agony say, "Father, not my will but Thine be done"; He has today no personal will but only the will of His Father animates Him and the ability to make decisions which are a full expression of that divine Will. It is difficult to express His achievement in other words.

Commentators have sought to explain away and gloss over the Gethsemane experience of the Christ, and to attribute what appears as weakness to an upsurging of Christ's humanity and, consequently, to a temporary submergence of His divine nature. They have been forced into this position because of the prevalent theological dictum as to Christ's divine perfection - an absolute, sovereign and ultimate perfection to which He Himself never made the slightest claim.

He is today nearer that perfection than He ever was when before on Earth. It was this divine unfoldment which made it possible for Him to make right choice, not only for Himself but also for the spiritual Hierarchy, during the years of decision, prior to June, 1945.

Under the divine will, He had to reappear on Earth in visible Presence. He had to preside over the materialization of the Kingdom of God on Earth, and He had to reinstitute the Mysteries of Initiation in such a form that they would prove the basis of the new world religion. Above all, He had to reveal the nature of the will of God. ... This is a great step onward in orientation and will lead eventually to a change in consciousness.