According to Bishop Leadbeater, the Church was part of a new thought current from the Master of the Seventh Ray, the Ray of ceremonial work: "The future is with the Church, for the Seventh Ray... is beginning to dominate the world... the Lord Himself, who founded the Church, is coming to visit it once more; may He find it ready to receive Him, full of activity, devotion and love."

The changes are especially taking place on a deep level and world-wide in respect to the spiritual and social roles of women and men, as it seems Bishop Leadbeater was beginning to be aware. One need think only of the renewed worship of goddesses, the recent authorisation of the ordination of women in mainstream Protestant and Anglican churches and the growing number of women enrolled in theological schools. In the secular world, in the late twentieth century women have entered business, the professions, and government alongside men in growing numbers. Those attuned to esoteric truth will say, in the words of Geoffrey Hodson, that the World Mother is the personification of matter itself as the "womb wherein all worlds gestate, from which all are born and to which all will return", honoured and worshipped in the exoteric religions as "a Goddess, an Archangel Mother of universes, races, nations, and men" and that Her influence is now growing in the world, in accordance with great cycles of spiritual energies

This realisation goes back to the time of Leadbeater, Besant, and Hodson. Theosophical teachings in the 1920s, such as "The New Annunciation", a sermon given by Annie Besant at The Liberal Catholic Church in Adyar in 1928, announced a new emphasis on the feminine role in the inner government of the world. President Besant then declared March 24, the traditional Feast of the Annunciation, to be World Mother Day. All this suggests that the World Mother is, in the twentieth century and after, awakening to new levels of consciousness. Fresh energies stemming from her are being reflected in those pilgrims in this world sensitive to that flow of force, both women who recognise new feminine power in themselves and men with the inner clarity to sense it and be receptive to it. To be sure, the exact meaning and intention of energy-flows from the inner planes can and often are distorted and misunderstood on the ego level of our minds, bound as they are by ignorance, desire, and karmic responses. Yet it would be folly to deny that something very big is happening, and that it is connected to the spiritual evolution of the world.

Evolutionary changes related to the spiritual role of gender is nothing new. The world has passed through immense cycles of masculine and feminine pre-eminence on the level of spiritual symbol, energy and roles before. The Neolithic age of archaic agriculturists (c. 10,000 - 1,000 BC) was in many ways a time of feminine centrality in religion. The Earth Mother or Mother Goddess, always important in farming societies, was widely worshipped. Many societies were matriarchal or matrilineal, priestesses and shamanesses were religiously important and sometimes even rulers. That pattern was replaced roughly during the last millennium before Christ in what has been called the "patriarchal revolution", when males seized control of religion and the social order. This revolution is behind virtually all of the so-called "great religions" of the world - Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - with their male gods, saviours and founders. Their scriptures were almost exclusively written by males, their leadership or priesthood male and they sanctioned hierarchical social orders in which males dominated. Now we may be seeing the first signs of another turning of the wheel, in the realm of the spirit as well as in the social order, as these patterns are being looked at with an increasingly questioning and critical eye.

Nothing can excuse the terrible oppression of women that not seldom occurred in the patriarchal era in all societies, which reached the extent of such unspeakable practices as widow-burning and foot-binding. These abuses were caused by simple human ignorance and evil will and were certainly facilitated by social structures, which gave one gender great, sometimes near total, power over the other. At the same time, from the evolutionary perspective it may be said that eras of female and male spiritual centrality can be viewed as complementary rather than necessarily in opposition one to another, and may be leading to a higher synthesis - only dimly realisable now - when the full spiritual gifts of each will be able to exist in harmony for the profound enrichment of both. It may be noted that the beginning of the new cycle and even an early presentiment of the synthesis, may be reflected in the work of the great women of Theosophy, including Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant, who worked so closely with Bishop Leadbeater and The Liberal Catholic Church.

What does all of this mean for the future life of the church, especially The Liberal Catholic Church? Does it mean that women should be ordained to the priesthood of our Church? Bishop Leadbeater commented, in a few significant and well-known lines, that "The forces now arranged for distribution through the priesthood would not work effectively through a feminine body; but it is quite conceivable that the present arrangements may be altered by the Lord Himself. It would no doubt be easy for Him, if He so chose, either to revive some form of the old religions in which the feminine Aspect of the Deity was served by priestesses, or to modify the physics of the Catholic scheme of forces that a feminine body could be satisfactorily employed in the work. Meanwhile we have no choice but to administer His Church along the lines laid down for us."

Some may regard these prophesies as even now being fulfilled, certainly the first about the revival of priestesses of the old religion, who today are all around us; the second as certainly suggested by the growing acceptance of women clergy in mainstream churches. Yet this new spiritual world in which we now live may not necessarily entail the ordination of women to the priesthood of The Liberal Catholic Church as it is now constituted, nor their elevation to the present manner of leadership exercised by bishops in the apostolic succession. We would need to have some sign that the specific change mentioned by Bishop Leadbeater had in fact taken place. Until there is a clear indication of the will of the Lord for us, The LCC would be justified in considering whether its calling is to go along with the growing pattern in mainstream Protestant and Anglican churches, or whether it might have another sort of calling in this matter.

One point of contrast is that the eligibility of women for the ministry or priesthood is, as I understand it, considered by those mainstream churches who have ordained women, to have always been the case, but the churches did not realise it until recently; whereas Bishop Leadbeater's view is actually quite different: it is that women up to now have not been and are not physically (including the physics of subtle matter) suitable vehicles for priesthood, but that this could easily by changed by divine will at some point in present or future time. We would need, therefore, some clear sign of this inner change. It may be noted that the mainstream view that the ordination of women was actually always proper but no one knew it until now, seems to indicate a rather poor view of the ability of the Holy Spirit to preserve His church from major error and maintain its institutions in good order; whereas Bishop Leadbeater's words suggest a Lord of the Church who is its active Head, directing it through the ages and maing important changes when it is His will to do so.

However, the ordination and consecration of women in the mainstream churches is quite understandable in view of their more charismatic, less technical view of ministry than ours, even in those churches which have apostolic succession. Undoubtedly many women called to those ministries have wonderful gifts for teaching and pastoral work and are exercising them well; their work is surely to some extent a sign of the new dispensation radiating from the World Mother. Yet the Liberal Catholic view of priesthood is dependent on a perception that it involves the careful channeling of divine energies through the inner planes into the world. Part of what must be considered in working with the inner planes is the way in which there are distinctive currents of male and female energy and energy-channels.

By most accounts, whether theological, esoteric, or clairvoyant, the Liberal Catholic rites and priesthood as understood by the church, as a technical channeling of energies through the sacraments, has been in a reciprocal relation to male energies and so depends upon the traditional male priesthood, until there is a divine sign of a change. Ordination of women to that priesthood would till then not be the appropriate way, in The Liberal Catholic Church, to channel the new feminine spiritual energies now arising from the World Mother. In a real sense, those forces are too vast and mighty and widespread for such a limited though excellent vehicle. It would be putting new wine in old bottles. Rather, let the traditional priesthood stay into the new age as a continuing presence of the past, lifting us out of the one dimensionality of the present and channeling Christianity's past graces along with the new.

It may be noted that an understanding of spiritual gender differences is actually also reflected in some of the new age spiritual movements themselves, indeed by the new priestesses of the old religion. Many women worship the Goddess more than God precisely for this reason. Some new religious groups, both neo-pagan and Christian, have both priests and priestesses, with separate but complementary ritual roles believed to utilise respectively the spiritual powers distinctive to each gender. Some women now worship only with other women in what are called Dianic covens in Wicca, or woman-churches in Christianity, understandably believing that now is a time when it is important for women to discover and recover the feminine energies latent in religion and that this is best done by spending some time with them exclusively. It may be that the Spirit is moving more in the direction of a new discovery of different but equal and complementary spiritual energies, than in seeking to "modify the physics" of what is now spiritually as well as physically two genders to make them into one undifferentiated sameness. Perhaps there is more to be learned and gained through a deeper appreciation in love of difference.

But the coming of a new spiritual age does not mean that the old is totally abolished and must disappear. Rather, since the ultimate vision is of complementarity and synthesis, it is vitally important to keep both sides alive. Something of the masculine era of Jesus and the other founders of the "patriarchal" religions must continue, though in a gentle and understanding way, to bear witness to its own kind of validity and to be part of the whole. During the patriarchal age, the feminine in spirituality remained alive, as Leadbeater and Hodson recognised. Hindu goddesses, shamanesses in China, Japan, and elsewhere; women saints in all faiths; the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Christianity, all gave expression to the World Mother as consort of the Holy Spirit behind the scenes and on the margins of the great faiths over the last two thousand years. In the same way, I expect that the traditional male priesthood will have a place, one deeply valued by Liberal Catholics and I trust by others too, as it keeps alive in a new and different overall spiritual world what was and is a valid channel for the energies released into the world through Christ.

To say this is not to pass judgement on the changing policies of other churches: It is not our business to do so. It is not to say that God does not work in countless marvellous ways in the world through people of both genders and all sorts and classes, priests and laity, believers and unbelievers. The Liberal Catholic priesthood may be only a small part of the totality of divine work in the world. Yet we believe that it has a place, and its maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to those of us who have found our way to this tiny communion.

It seems to me that The Liberal Catholic Church - which, despite the name, seems in some ways led by the Spirit to be conservative as well as liberal - has a particular and positive vocation to preserve certain authentic forms of worship: Those of the traditional Eucharist or Mass and other sacraments and services together with their priesthood, that have been drastically changed in most other western Catholic rites. This is an important role, and one that may well be shown to have been important on the Day when the hidden things of time and space are unveiled. It is a role of which we should be proud and to which we should firmly hold, not only for spiritual reasons but also for historical, aesthetic, and cultural reasons. But the main reason is that for us these particular rites and priesthood channel divine energy in a very effective way. We can only humbly accept what experience tells us works for us, because we know that the more divine grace we receive the better we, though unworthy, can bring the Love of God and the example of Christ to the world in all that we do with our lives.

How then shall we respond to the new feminine energies, in their ultimate origin from the World Mother, which are surely coming and are part of the spiritual evolution of the world? First, I would say that despite manifold signs of the impending evolutionary development, we are as yet seeing only the morning star and the first colours of dawn. The full shape of the new has not yet truly revealed itself. It would be premature, therefore, to prepare a detailed agenda. Perhaps there will be a new World Teacher. Perhaps a corporate channelling of new graces, with new rituals or forms of spirituality will emerge, no doubt among women. We can, at present, only maintain genuine faith and openness and continue to receive all the grace we can from the means at hand. We should increase our devotion to the World Mother in the form of Our Lady to make us truly "channels of Her wondrous tenderness, agents of Her ever-ready help". We should honour and learn from all women saints past, present and to come. We should honour and practise the equality of the genders with their distinctive spiritual pathways everywhere, in the world and in the church. We should be very attentive to any indications that the Lord has indeed changed the gender patterns of His work: In the way Bishop Leadbeater suggested would be easy for Him so to do, or has done so in some new and totally unexpected way.

One day, I believe, a new temple/church will appear in the world. In it the old priesthood and a new priesthood will be both honoured and their rites will harmonise with each other like the right hand clasping the left. Neither will be greater or lesser than the other. In it the Kingdom of Heaven will be like unto a householder bringing forth out of his treasury things old and new (Mt. 14: 52). Against that day, let us remain faithful, like the wise virgins watching and waiting with singleness of heart, now for the bride as well as the bridegroom.

References
The Theosophist, August, 1917, p. 672.

Geoffrey Hodson, The Kingdom of the Gods. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1952, pp. 242-43.

The New Annunciation, The World Mother, May, 1928.