VBA Study Center

On the number 21,688,345

TWM: The Sun was in Sagittarius when the first human tendencies struggled to the fore ... The figures for the first [Page 441] date (though exactness is not possible in a system of mutation such as ours) are 21,688,345 years ago. These figures are useless at this time for they can neither be proved correct nor incorrect. Later investigation will prove their usefulness, when the nature of time is better understood. [JB: On p. 413 of TWM, DK refers to a meeting of the Masters related to the founding of the NGWS "about seventeen years ago." If the NGWS was founded in 1925, the 21,688,345 figure may have been recorded by AAB in or about 1942 but this is unlikely given that TWM was first published in 1934 and written between April 1928 and April 1933].

"About seventeen years ago the Masters met and came to a momentous decision. Just as it had been decided at the earlier conclave to gather out of the inchoate masses of men, groups of workers along various lines, and set them the task of elevating humanity and expanding the human consciousness, so now it was felt wise to gather out of the many groups, a group which should contain (as does the Hierarchy itself) men of all races, of all types and tendencies." -TWM 413

If "exactness is not possible in a system of mutation such as ours" and we are advised to wait until "the nature of time is better understood" to ascertain its usefulness, what was DK's purpose in giving the precise "figure" of 21,688,345 in the 1930s? May it have a symbolic meaning?

For now, we just want to share the "discovery" that 21,688,345 is not a prime number (the closest prime number is just 2 years less: 21,688,343) and that it can be factorized (in terms of prime numbers) as:

5 x 7 x 17 x 36,451 = 21,688,345

The significance of the "hidden" prime number 36,451 may be worth researching (so close to the figure 364.25: the current average duration of a year on Earth).

The significancance of 5 x 7 x 17 = 595 may be found in the 5th and 9th signs of the zodiac, so closely related to the individualization of humanity.

The significance of the figure 17 is explored in the quotes that follow.

***

TCF 879: ... the mystery of the three who become the sixteen—united or synthesised by the seventeenth—a correspondence upon cosmic levels of the seven with the eighth sphere. This must remain practically an insoluble mystery to man at present.

TCF: The energy of Path IV reaches us from Sirius via the Sun. This must be understood as a blind behind which one of the signs of the zodiac veils itself.

The hierarchies concerned with this specific type of [Page 1260] cosmic force hide themselves under the numbers fourteen and seventeen. This will serve as a complete blind to the average reader, but will carry to the pledged chela the hint needed to produce illumination.

LOS: ... sixteen means of perception and activity in the phenomenal world are channels for the real thinking man; they demonstrate his active reality and are the sum total of the physical facts relating to every incarnated son of God. Similarly [Page 158] in their cosmic connotation, they are the sum total of the facts demonstrating the reality of a cosmic incarnation. "The Word is made flesh" both individually and in a cosmic sense.

TSR III: A steady recollection of the twelve basic energies [Page 85] (five major and seven minor which are in reality, and apart from astral reversion due to the Great Illusion, seven major and five minor) will be of value. These work out into human expression via the Lords of the twelve signs and the twelve planetary Rulers. These twelve basic energies emanate from the seven stars of the Great Bear (transmitted through seven stars of the Little Bear); two of them come from Sirius and three from the Pleiades. This set-up (if I may use such an unorthodox term) will be the condition of the major solar sphere of influence at the end of the Great Age of Brahma, as it is esoterically called. In the "interim or interlude of evolution" (which is the inadequate translation of an occult phrase given to a world cycle in the Masters' Archives) these energies are stepped down into forces and are literally sixteen all told—from the angle of manifestation, I would remind you—and make literally: 7+7+2=16=7. In these numbers the mystery of our evolutionary process lies hid. "

TWM 87: "The sacral centre and the throat. In this there comes a union between the twelve Creative Hierarchies and the quaternary, and the secret of the sixteen petals of the throat lotus is seen."

TSR II: ... seventeen degrees prepare the man for the fourth [Page 153] or fundamental degree, taken by a man who is a Master Mason. [JB: further developed into the number 18: eighteen laws, eighteen subplanes, eighteen degrees in Masonry, eighteen centres of force.]

TWM: It was decided about seventeen million years ago (the coming of the Hierarchy and the founding of Shamballa being about eighteen and a half million years ago) to have on the dense physical plane an organization and a headquarters for the mysteries, and to have a band of Adepts, and Chohans who would function in dense physical bodies and thus meet the need of the rapidly awakening humanity.

[Page 379]
6. The first outpost for the Shamballa Fraternity was the original temple of Ibez and it was located in the centre of South America, and one of its branches at a much later period was to be found in the ancient Maya institutions, and the basic worship of the sun as the source of life in the hearts of all men.

TSR II: I earlier gave a hint upon which definite astrological [Page 64] computation could be based when I gave the time of the "Great Approach" of the Hierarchy to our planetary manifestation when individualisation took place and the fourth kingdom in nature appeared. I placed that stupendous event as happening 21,688,345 years ago. At that time the Sun was in Leo. The process then initiated upon the physical plane and producing outer physical events took approximately 5,000 years to mature and the Sun was in Gemini when the final crisis of individualisation took place and the door was then closed upon the animal kingdom.

It has been stated that Sagittarius governs human evolution, as the Sun was in that sign when the Hierarchy began its Approach in order to stimulate the forms of life upon our planet. Sagittarius, however, governed the period of the subjective approach.

The Sun was in Leo when physical plane individualisation took place as a result of the applied stimulation.

The Sun was in Gemini when this Approach was consummated by the founding of the Hierarchy upon the Earth. This is one of the great secrets which the Masonic Rituals typify, for the symbol of the sign, Gemini, is the source of the concept of the two pillars, so familiar to Masons. (written between June 1939 and May 1942 according to Stephenson's Prophecy on Trial, p.23)