Meaning
Bailey writes Love-Wisdom with a hyphen, and the hyphen matters: it is one quality, love and wisdom together, not two. In her teaching the second ray includes, attracts and understands; she calls it the ray of the Buddhas and of the great teachers of humanity, and, in a book of 1922, the fundamental ray of our solar system. It is the second of her rays of aspect and heads the line of even rays, 2, 4 and 6.
Under her rule for the bodies it is one of two rays that normally govern the emotions, with the sixth. The soul and the personality may be on it, and it is one of the three rays a monad can have.
In our own words, it is the ray of understanding through warmth: the person who wants to see clearly and to help others see, and whose risk is to retreat into study, to turn cool, or to become so careful that nothing is risked. Whether anyone is on this ray is theirs to say, not a chart's.
Her keynote for the ray is Unification, and Vision is the keynote she gives it for humanity now; the aspect of the will is the will to unify. Its word of power is on page 516 of The Rays and the Initiations, cited and not quoted.
Bailey's three lists
In our paraphrase of Esoteric Psychology I (pp. 202 to 203), where she gives each ray a short summary she calls "necessarily imperfect":
- Special virtues: calm, strength, patience and endurance, love of truth, faithfulness, intuition, a clear intelligence and an even temper.
- Vices: being too absorbed in study, coldness, indifference to others, and contempt for the mental limits of others.
- Virtues to be acquired: love, compassion, unselfishness and energy.
The list of vices is short, and every item is a kind of withdrawal. Several lists that circulate online add self-pity and over-caution; neither is hers.
In a birth chart
Bailey's table sends the second ray through Gemini, Virgo and Pisces. Her sacred second-ray planet is Jupiter and her non-sacred one is the Sun, which she says veils a hidden planet; our chart shows the Sun with that note and substitutes nothing, because she leaves the choice to the astrologer. Through its rulers the ray also reaches Sagittarius and Pisces in her orthodox set, Aquarius in her esoteric set, Virgo in her hierarchical set, and Leo, which the Sun rules in all three.
A Sun in Gemini or a strong Jupiter therefore indicates second-ray energy acting on a person, by her tables. It is not a finding about the person's own rays.
A note on the source: scholars have criticised racist and antisemitic passages in Bailey's writings; nothing on this page draws on them.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Bailey's descriptions
- The ray of the Buddhas and of the great teachers (Esoteric Psychology I, p. 203); the fundamental ray of our solar system (Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 213) sourced
- Rulerships in Bailey's three sets
- Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces (orthodox), Aquarius (esoteric) and Virgo (hierarchical); the Sun rules Leo in all three sets sourced
- Bailey's colour
- Indigo, one of the two names she says match their hidden meaning (Letters on Occult Meditation, pp. 213 to 214) sourced
- Other colour lists
- Other lists differ, and none is the tradition's disputed
- Colour in our chart
- A blue-violet of our own, shown only beside the numeral our construction
- Planet in an older Theosophical list
- Older lists, which Bailey reprints without endorsing, give other planets disputed
- Wood's type (1925)
- The philanthropist sourced
- Leadbeater's table (1925)
- Wisdom as its characteristic; raja yoga as its magic; Buddhism as its last religion sourced
- Head of the ray
- Bailey taught (1922) that the Bodhisattva, whom she calls the Christ, heads the second ray, and that the Masters Koot Humi and Djwhal Khul are on it. sourced
How the schools read it
- Bailey (1922 to 1951)
- Love and wisdom as one energy that includes and understands; the ray of teachers.
- Wood (1925)
- The philanthropist: the type who seeks unity through sympathy.
- Leadbeater (1925)
- Wisdom, with raja yoga and Buddhism in the table he said a Master gave him.
- Ascended Master teachings
- A separate later stream with its own colour and head for the second ray; not Bailey's, and not what we show.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as the ray of understanding through warmth, whose risk is turning cold, absorbed or over-careful.
Claims about it
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Bailey lists self-pity and over-caution among the vices of the second ray.
falseWhat the record shows: Neither is in her table (Esoteric Psychology I, pp. 202 to 203). Our old engine added them.
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A Sun in Gemini, Virgo or Pisces makes a person a second-ray type.
falseWhat the record shows: Bailey treats the signs' rays as energies acting via the Sun, not as a person's rays.
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The second ray's signs are the signs Jupiter and the Sun rule.
disputedWhat the record shows: Bailey's own table of transmitting signs gives Gemini, Virgo and Pisces.
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The Master Koot Humi is the owner of the second ray.
told as loreWhat the record shows: A teaching about an unseen hierarchy, given here as Bailey's, with Leadbeater's and the later streams' lists differing.
