Three Great Outpourings
General description
In the process of the development of our universe, the third member of the Trinity first exercised His portion of the divine power in preparing the world of matter; then the second Person put forth His energy, and that was the beginning of the evolution of conscious life.
Three aspects of the Logos
In his book Man Visible and Invisible, C. W. Leadbeater wrote:
Man is the resultant of an elaborate and beautiful evolutionary scheme, and that in him three streams of divine life may be said to converge. . . . Religions agree in describing the Deity as threefold in His manifestation, and it will be found that the soul of man is also threefold.
It will, of course, be understood that we are speaking now not of the Absolute, the Supreme, and the Infinite (for of Him naturally we can know nothing, except that He is), but of that glorious Manifestation of Him who is the great Guiding Force or Deity of our own solar system - who is called in our philosophy the Logos of the system. . . . As He shows Himself to us in His work the Solar Logos is undoubtedly triple - three and yet one, a religion has long ago told us.
Each of the three Aspects or Persons or Manifestations of the Logos has an especial part to play in the preparation and development of the soul of man. What these parts are we shall endeavor to make clear by the help of the diagram. The horizontal subdivisions indicate the planes, and above them will be seen three symbols belonging to the series described by Madame Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine. The highest represents the First Aspect of the Logos, and bears only a central dot, signifying the primary manifestation in our system. The Second Aspect of the Logos is symbolized by a circle divided by a diameter, showing the dual manifestation which is always associated with the Second Person of any of the Trinities, while the lowest circle contains the Greek Cross, one of the most usual symbols of the Third Aspect.
First Outpouring
In his book Hidden Life in Freemasonry, C. W. Leadbeater wrote:
The First Outpouring, typified by the Greek cross, prepares the world for the reception of life; it brings into being the material elements, but not bodies formed by their combination. We might have oxygen and hydrogen produced by this outpouring, but not their combination, water; for combination of the elements into bodies of ever-increasing complexity of organized structure and function is the work of the Second Outpouring of the divine life or power.
Second Outpouring
In his book Hidden Life in Freemasonry, C. W. Leadbeater wrote:
In the course of involution the Second great Outpouring of divine Life descends from the Second Logos into the matter already vivified by the Third Logos. Very slowly and gradually this resistless life pours down through the various planes, spending in each of them a period equal in duration to one entire incarnation of a planetary chain--a period which, if measured as we measure time, would cover many millions of years. As a whole, this life-wave is spoken of as monadic essence when clothed only in the atomic matter of the various planes at different stages of its descent. When it energizes the matter of the higher mental plane, it is known as the First Elemental Kingdom. When it descends to the lower or rupa levels of the same plane it is the Second Elemental Kingdom, and on the astral plane it is the Third Elemental Kingdom. Even when this monadic essence first comes before us, in the earliest of the elemental Kingdoms, it is already not one monad, but very many--not one great life-stream but many parallel streams, each possessing characteristics of its own. The monadic essence ensouls the matter of the sub-planes below it on each plane or division of a plane, and thus forms the Elemental Kingdoms. It is the same life that goes on into the mineral kingdom, and then begins to ascend, and proceeds through the vegetable and animal kingdoms until, upon its junction with rays from the life of the First Logos, human beings are formed.
Third Outpouring
In his book Hidden Life in Freemasonry, C. W. Leadbeater speaks of,
. . . The life from God that flashes into it [the causal body of man] in the Third Outpouring from the First Logos, at the moment of individualization, which makes the animal into a human being, not perfected yet, of course, but capable of perfection.