Ray 6, Devotion or Idealism: the ray of wholehearted loyalty

Meaning

In Bailey's teaching the sixth ray is the energy of devotion to an ideal. It aspires, and it gives itself wholly to whatever it loves or believes in. She writes that it has coloured the age now ending, while the seventh ray comes into power. It belongs to her rays of attribute and closes the even line that runs 2, 4, 6.

Under her rule for the bodies it is one of two rays that normally govern the emotions, with the second. The soul and the personality may be on it; the monad never is.

In our own words, it is the ray of wholehearted loyalty: the person who will stand by a cause or a person through everything, and whose risk is partisanship, jealousy and a quickness to judge whoever stands outside. Whether anyone is on this ray is theirs to decide.

Her keynote for the ray is Causation, and Idealism is the keynote she gives it for humanity now; the aspect of the will is the will to cause. Its word of power is on page 518 of The Rays and the Initiations, cited and not quoted.

Bailey's three lists

In our paraphrase of Esoteric Psychology I (pp. 208 to 209):

• Special virtues: devotion, single-mindedness, love, tenderness, intuition, loyalty and reverence.
• Vices: selfish and jealous love, leaning too much on others, partiality, self-deception, sectarianism, superstition, prejudice, over-rapid conclusions and fiery anger.
• Virtues to be acquired: strength, self-sacrifice, purity, truth, tolerance, serenity, and balance and common sense.

It is the longest list of vices Bailey gives any ray. Some words often added to it online belong to her separate list of the ray's glamours, which she treats as illusions of feeling rather than faults.

In a birth chart

Bailey's table sends the sixth ray through Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. Her sacred sixth-ray planet is Neptune and her non-sacred one is Mars, which several modern lists wrongly give to the first ray. Through its rulers the ray reaches Cancer through Neptune in her esoteric and hierarchical sets, and Pisces, which her text gives to Neptune though her table keeps Jupiter; through Mars it reaches Aries and Scorpio in her orthodox set, Scorpio again in her esoteric set and Sagittarius in her hierarchical set.

A Sun in Pisces or a strong Mars indicates sixth-ray energy acting on a person, by her tables. It does not make anyone a sixth-ray person.

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.

Rulerships in Bailey's three sets

Neptune rules Cancer (esoteric and hierarchical) and, by her text, Pisces, beside the Jupiter of her table; Mars rules Aries (orthodox), Scorpio (orthodox and esoteric) and Sagittarius (hierarchical) sourced

Bailey's colour

Withheld: red or blue, which she does not yet assign (Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 213); elsewhere she writes of "the blue ray of devotion" (Esoteric Psychology I, p. 121) sourced

Other colour lists

Rose, sky blue, violet and indigo all appear; no two lists agree disputed

Colour in our chart

A sky blue of our own, chosen because it stays distinct for colour-blind readers, shown only beside the numeral our construction

Wood's type (1925)

The devotee sourced

Leadbeater's table (1925)

The incarnation of deity as its characteristic; bhakti as its magic; Christianity among its last religions sourced

Head of the ray

Bailey taught (1922) that the Master Jesus is on the sixth ray. sourced

How the schools read it

Bailey (1936 to 1951)

Devotion to an ideal, the energy of the age she said was passing.

Wood (1925)

The devotee: the type who seeks goodness in the world.

Leadbeater (1925)

Bhakti and Christianity, in the table he said a Master gave him.

Ascended Master teachings

A separate later stream with its own colours and head for the sixth ray; not Bailey's, and not what we show.

EsoTerrier

Read here as the ray of wholehearted loyalty, whose risk is partisanship and jealousy.

Claims about it

• The colour of the sixth ray is rose (or sky blue, or violet, or indigo).

  disputed

  What the record shows: Bailey withholds it. Each colour in circulation comes from a different school, and our own is a convention chosen for legibility.

• A sentence about seeing and reaching goals is the sixth ray's keynote.

  false

  What the record shows: It is Bailey's word for the sign Sagittarius (Esoteric Astrology, p. 654), not for the ray. Her keynote for the sixth ray is the single word Causation.

• Bailey lists intensity and narrow-mindedness as sixth-ray vices.

  false

  What the record shows: Neither is in her table; similar words appear in her separate list of the ray's glamours.

• Mars carries the first ray.

  false

  What the record shows: In Bailey's table Mars is the non-sacred planet of the sixth ray.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Ray 2, Love-Wisdom the other ray of the emotions; shares Virgo and Pisces
• Ray 4, Harmony through Conflict the ray before it on the even line; shares Sagittarius
• Ray 7, Ceremonial Order the ray Bailey says follows it into power
• Natal Chart where Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces, Neptune and Mars are placed