The general effect of these clashing ideologies and the result of the war among the world religions have started men thinking in every land. Men are emerging out of the mental lethargy which has characterized them for so long. The man in the street is today thinking, pondering, wondering, planning and deciding. In past centuries, it was only those who had benefited by education and those in the "upper brackets" who thought and planned. This tendency to thought indicates the coming into activity of a new and better civilization, and this is preparatory to spiritual events of major importance. The spirit of man, usually unconsciously, is driving onwards towards a more spiritual civilization and culture. I did not say towards a more religious expression of truth. A more spiritual interrelation is on its way and the establishing on a worldwide scale of right human relations indicates this. We shall have eventually a spiritual focusing which will be divorced from the present orthodox religions, but which will be in tune with the hidden, spiritual factor in all religions. Men are not, in reality, looking for the Christ to come as a religious leader; they look for Him to come to them in the field of [749] their greatest need, to point the way to resurrection and the revelation which will inevitably follow man's renunciation of the material values.

The prevalent spirit of expectancy and of a truly divine discontent are the guarantees that this second spiritual event is a real factor in our time. Many factors contribute to this awakening. In most countries, through the radio, through the newspapers, through books, magazines and travel, through lectures and forums and simplified human intercourse (to which the automobile and the airplane have greatly contributed) men everywhere are free to know and to understand. This is, of course, not true of those countries where the freedom of the human spirit is attacked. There are two ways in which that freedom of choice can be infringed: First, as in Russia, by keeping the citizenry in ignorance of world affairs, and secondly, by giving them biassed news and misinformation, or a garbled or distorted slant on world affairs, as is the case in most other countries, particularly in the United States. An instance of this can be seen in the fact that the Arabs never got a true hearing in the American newspapers or on the radio; the American people were "pressured" (I think that that is the word you use) into an acceptance of the Zionist position - the motive being oil and mineral riches.

But the mentality of man is daily developing and his ability to grasp world affairs is growing. That is one of the greatest of spiritual events and is the foundational fact which makes the life of the soul and the growth of intuitive perception possible on a large scale. This is a by-product of the clash of the ideologies, but is the true and beautiful result of the universal educational system which - faulty though it may be and is - has made it possible for all men to read, to write and to communicate with each other.