The Spark and the Vessel. Part II

 From the perspective of traditional metaphysics, and one might add just simple truth, the modern flattening of the sexes is a disruption of the primal duality necessary for manifestation because it attempts to resolve an inequality of value by enforcing an artificial identity of function. Thus, modern feminism does not elevate the feminine archetype which is the maternal power of incubation and giving form to spirit. Instead, it adopts a masculine standard of success by encouraging the feminine principle to abandon its true role in order to mimic the role of the masculine thereby attacking the architecture that holds the universe together.

When the contracting force tries to become the primary initiator or when the expanding force fails to uphold the law and relapses into passivity which is often the case today, the outer world becomes over-assertive, chaotic, and loud, while the inner, subjective worlds are neglected. Duality is the law of the manifested world but the two pillars must remain distinct, honouring their separate roles, if harmony and divine order are to prevail.

The One projects itself into creation in terms of a positive and negative pole. In human language, the word "negative" has a pejorative taint, but here the so-called negativity has its own proper qualities. On the one hand, it may represent privation, density and resistance, but it is also the power of receptivity and attraction, and it provides the form that allows for the revelation of beauty. Beauty needs the limitation of boundaries and contrasts. There is no beauty without form.

The Source or God in himself cannot be seen or experienced because there is nothing to oppose him. Pure unmanifest being is everything and everywhere but in order to know itself and experience its own potential it must bring a universe into manifestation and to do this it must start by creating a boundary which it does by projecting a field of limitation that also acts like a mirror. This is the Primal Subject of I AM becoming subject and object or God making matter so that the original light of spirit has something to illuminate. This matter is the primordial waters, an infinite sea of potential like the Nun of ancient Egypt or the Greek Chaos. Some systems regard that as the absolute root of being itself, seeing it as Space, Darkness or the Void from which all things come, but they miss that this state can never become anything without the divine spark from outside to awaken it into life. Non-existence can never give rise to existence, and the cosmic womb without the light of God entering it from outside would remain barren. That is why we must see root reality not as darkness but unmanifest light. Darkness does not exist until light is there to reveal it.

All is one and matter is simply spirit at its lowest, most crystallised vibrational frequency, just as spirit is matter at its highest, most refined frequency. I AM or God projects Spirit and Matter from himself, the Positive and Negative Poles, but Spirit is him in himself while Matter is his projected reflection. This gives spirit an ontological priority and means that in the course of manifestation the lower vessel must be emptied of its own personal distortions, i.e. those that derive from seeing it as real in itself, and become a pure reflection of the source of the unmanifested light that projected it. The vessel must allow the light to shine without impediment and that is what ultimately lies behind the teaching which says that spiritually the female must submit to the higher without while the male must conquer the lower within. Of course, in human terms things are not quite so clear cut as everyone has the Sun and the Moon in their horoscope, but still the woman must express this in terms of her femininity while the man must express it in terms of his masculinity.

We can sum this up in a metaphysical law which states that expansion (the positive) creates the space, but it must project contraction (the negative) to define the boundaries of that space. These are not two separate gods fighting for dominance but the right and left hands of a single Divine Will. Spirit does not fight Matter. Spirit becomes Matter to experience the joy of consciously returning home to itself.

When duality is understood as a projection of the One Life, the primary expanding impulse must assume leadership because it represents the active, outward-moving will of the unmanifested Source. If, as is the case, matter is the shadow and stepping-down of spirit, that means spirit holds the original blueprint and primary purpose. This implies a natural hierarchy in which the masculine pole of Spirit should remain pre-eminent because it, through the Logos, calls the universe into being. Matter (the feminine pole) exists to receive that command and anchor it into form. If the reflected material tries to claim pre-eminence over its source the result is a closed loop of dense materialism cut off from its divine origin. Isn't this what we have today?

At the level of the Source or God himself spirit and matter, the light and the mirror, retract back into unity. However, the hierarchical division between the two poles must exist in manifestation if God's will and purpose are to be served and the units of consciousness he sends into the world to evolve and grow are to achieve their goal of returning to the source as unique self-aware individualisations of the divine.

Now, a certain logic looking at all this in terms of abstract geometry would insist that the two polarities of manifestation must be equal because they balance each other, but if we think of them in terms of solar and lunar principles we see that the solar is the primary force while the lunar takes its light from that though it doesn't just reflect that light, it gives the reflected light its own unique quality to fit the nighttime when it reigns. The Sun represents the manifestation of Divine Will and active spirit while the Moon as the Mother of Form takes the powerful intense burning light of the Sun, which no one can look at directly, and softens it, giving it a quality unique to itself which illuminates the darkness of night. It is not just a passive mirror but an active translator. The Sun radiates its own light (expanding) and while the Moon is both receptive and reflective (contracting) what it reflects is modified by its own special character.

This analogy, which is actually a reflection in the physical world of a metaphysical reality, shows that there is both an equality of masculine and feminine, the Sun rules the day and the Moon rules the night, but also a spiritual asymmetry because the source of the light of the Moon is originally from the Sun.

Putting this relationship in human terms, we can say that the lower personality must become a perfectly quiet mirror (the receptive feminine) so that the primary purpose of the masculine force of spirit can be revealed and expressed in the outer world. In this way the personality ceases to be a distorted shadow but becomes a pure vessel that allows the divine light to reveal itself unimpeded in the world of matter.

Robert Fludd Image part 3

At the top of the picture emerging from the cloud of unmanifested spirit there is a hand. This is where the One commits its first act that will lead to the creation of the universe and the generation of the many. 

Pure spirit (the Tetragrammaton inside the cloud) is completely homogeneous, absolute, with no shape, boundaries or dimensions. But a cloud of itself cannot act and the emerging hand is the concrete symbol of its power of agency, direction and execution. A hand gives but it can also hold and enclose, all qualities needed to make a universe. The hand signifies the Logos in action and the point where the formless Supreme Masculine Principle purposefully steps down its own infinite frequency to create the dualistic universe. It is the unmanifested Father projecting an active instrument of Will so that the cosmic plan can be executed.

The hand acts as the initial stepping-stone into form. While it is fully part of the divine cloud, it possesses a distinct shape. By reaching out of the formless void to grip the chain that is the link to the lower worlds, the hand demonstrates that the higher planes must take on the clothing of form to govern the lower worlds. 

In the image the process goes like this. The Hand of God binds formless spirit into the chain of manifested being and sends it down the vertical axis to the Anima Mundi who uses it, the life in it, to form the worlds.

The descending hand is a refutation of the position of the Gnostics, strict non-dualists and Advaita enthusiasts because it shows that form, maya, is not an illusion or aberration but the instrument of God through which he works to bring about the multiplication of his being and the expression of his glory in the worlds of time and space.

I said in the previous post that we would explore how Fludd depicts the Trinity in his image. We should now be able to see that this hand represents Christ as the Logos, the first manifestation of form emerging from the formless Father.

The opening of St John's Gospel states that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through Him." Fludd’s engraving translates this text into visual form showing Christ as the Hand of the Father. For creation to happen, the Hidden God of the cloud must project an active, relational and creative aspect of himself. This is the Son, and the hand emerging from the cloud depicts the action of the Logos. Christ is referred to as the Right Hand of the Father, the instrument of Divine Will, and that is precisely what we see here.

But, Christ is not just the hand. He is also that which the hand holds, the vertical chain that descends from the hand down to the wrist of the Anima Mundi, and then from her down to the Earth. Christ, the Son, is the universal Mediator and the bridge that links the absolute of unmanifested Spirit, the Father, to the dense matrix of physical matter, the Mother.

The perverted ideology of modernity with its rejection of transcendence and collapse of everything to the horizontal reduces Christ, when it bothers with him at all, to an egalitarian social teacher. Fludd’s map shows the much deeper reality. Christ stands for and is the peak of the sacred hierarchy. He is the begotten not created Son of God who enters the world of matter acting as the vertical axis that upholds the entire cosmos.

So far we have seen in this picture the presence of the Father as the cloud and the Son as the hand. The Magna Mater, who is the divine form of the Virgin Mary and Queen of Heaven, is obviously present and it just remains to show how the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is depicted.

In Christian theology, the Holy Spirit is the divine breath that spreads through all creation from the transcendent above to the immanent below. When we examine Fludd's cosmological map, we see it revealed in the great burst of light radiating outward from the cloud in all directions. This is God as the Divine Fire and Light acting as the immediate agent of creation. The Father wills the plan, the Son acts as the Logos or structural blueprint and the Holy Spirit is the active, vibrating light energy that carries that down into the planetary spheres where it takes a secondary manifestation as the radiation of the sun which has converted divine light into physical heat, life and vitality for the kingdoms below. Note the similarity of the light from the sun positioned in the planetary spheres with the light radiating from the cloud.

Thus, the Father is the hidden source that wills creation, the Son imagines it so that it can be given form by the Anima Mundi and the Holy Spirit is the radiant light-breath that fills the Anima Mundi from her starry crown down to the elemental earth with divine life. The Trinity does not passively sit outside of creation watching it. It surrounds and animates the entire structure of the world, all of which is shown by the light spreading down through the chain into the Anima Mundi and thence further down to the world. The hierarchical nature of creation is plainly on display, and each of the principal actors in the drama are shown performing their special tasks.

Is all this true? Yes and no. It is symbolically true but the reality will go far beyond what is captured here. Nonetheless, the basic pattern is here and meditation on Fludd's image should prove instructive, especially in its colourised version which I feel sure would have been approved of by Fludd had he known of its possibility.

Robert Fludd and the Mirror of Nature

  One of my favourite images is Robert Fludd’s engraving Integrae Naturae Speculum Artisque Imago (The Mirror of Whole Nature and the Image of Art) which comes from his book Utriusque Cosmi.... or Metaphysical History of the Two Worlds which was published between 1617 and 1621. The two worlds are macrocosm and microcosm, the universe and man. Here is that famous picture in a colourised version which may appal the purists but helps to identify detail.

One is first of all struck by the female figure. She is clearly not the Virgin Mary, the usual feminine figure in Western religious art so who is she? Here I would like to examine just who and what she is, and use that as a jumping off point to look at the rest of the image in terms of the masculine and feminine poles of being because it sums up just what these are better than anything else I know. 

The image is a visual representation of the hierarchical nature of the manifested cosmos, and it shows the twin polarities of being as they are expressed in the field of creation. Here we have clearly delineated the metaphysical structure and relationship of the Transcendent Father (Spirit), the Immanent Mother (Matter), and the human being in a precise cosmic map.

There are three levels of this cosmic layout. At the apex of the vertical axis sits the Tetragrammaton (the Name of God), surrounded by a dark cloud radiating pure, unconditioned light. This is the Transcendent Source or Unmanifested Pole which represents the supreme masculine principle—the self-existent, independent root of being that sits outside and above the concentric circles of the manifested universe. It includes the formless Logos and originating Will that has its being entirely in itself.

Descending from the divine cloud is a vertical chain held by the hand of God. This chain is attached to the right wrist of a cosmic woman crowned with stars. She is the anima mundi or soul of the world who stands spanning the earthly and celestial spheres, and she represents the Immanent Feminine Principle or Nature in her universal aspect. She is not the self-existent source but the contingent reflection. Her posture embodies the sacred sequence of submission and containment. Her right hand, the vertical link, is passively raised and chained to the Transcendent Father, showing that she derives her being, authority, and life-spark directly from the vertical axis. Her left hand, which is the down stepping conduit, holds a second chain that descends to the arm of a small monkey who sits on top of the central terrestrial globe. This monkey represents human art and intellect.

Nature acts as the cosmic transformer. She takes the formless fire of the Father and uses her macrocosmic body which includes the nested concentric rings of the elements, planets, and stars, for all this emanates from her body, to shape, contain and crystallise that power of the Father into an ordered material reality. His word shapes her substance.

 At the centre of the image is the Earth, the dense and lowest point of the horizontal plane which is where the light that flows down from the Father and through the receptive womb of Mother Nature reaches the physical world. When that hierarchy is respected order and harmony prevail, but when it is neglected then disorder makes an appearance because the sacred has been disrupted.

Fludd's engraving is a pictorial rejection of modern horizontal and egalitarian materialistic flattening. It demonstrates that the vertical axis must hold structural superiority because it is the thread that keeps the material worlds from collapsing into a chaotic vacuum. Mother Nature does not try to usurp the position of the cloud. She honours her duty as the divine vessel, ensuring that the self-existent, primary law of the transcendent Father is properly held, shaped, and anchored into the fabric of space and time.

 Moving from the terrestrial centre toward the outer rim, Fludd lays out the geocentric planetary rings from the Moon to Saturn. In spiritual terms these spheres are not just the physical planets, they are the cosmic transformers of the Anima Mundi. As the supernal light of the Father comes down the vertical axis, it passes through each planetary ring, each one of which acts as a filter, slowing down the frequency, imprinting it with a specific vibration, and stepping it down so that it does not vaporise physical matter.

Likewise, for the individual soul undergoing the training of the Masters, these spheres represent initiatory checkpoints. To return home along the vertical axis, the consciousness must climb back up through these rings and pass the tests of the emotional vehicle (Moon), master analytical discrimination (Mercury), transform desire into love (Venus), achieve integration of the heart and spiritual sovereignty (Sun), understand how to use strength and the will in service rather than for self (Mars), learn wisdom, benevolence and justice (Jupiter) and endure the structural discipline, restrictive pressure and final humility of the boundary line (Saturn). The planetary spheres ensure that the path of return is an orderly, geometric ascent, preventing the soul from dissolving into chaotic, unstructured mysticism.

At the apex of the vertical column, inside the radiant cloud, sits the Tetragrammaton representing the First Person of the Trinity, the source of Will and Power that commands time, space and phenomenal being into existence.

Fludd and his engraver/publisher Johann Theodor de Bry demonstrate visually that the First Person cannot touch the lower three worlds directly. He remains enclosed within the sacred cloud of unmanifested positivity. His being and energy must be funnelled down the vertical chain into the wrist of the Feminine Principle or Nature who acts as the primary transformer to hold, shape, and distribute the power of God through the cosmos.

At the centre of the image, sitting on top of the terrestrial globe (Animalia, Vegetabilia, Mineralia), the small monkey holds a compass which Fludd calls Art mimicking Nature. The monkey is man and the compass stands for his creative work as expressed through the divine order of geometry. Without that compass and the higher connection it symbolises as it measures divine law into concrete form the work of man becomes destructive because it is separated from the source.

In Western esoteric thought the Anima Mundi is not an abstract concept. She is the universal being that bridges the gap between unmanifested Spirit and physical Matter, and, as such, the intermediary between the pure spirit of God in the formless cloud and the material world. She mediates his energy so that it can manifest on lower levels, and this is shown by the fact that her head touches the starry heavens while her feet rest upon the earth thereby connecting the top of the hierarchy of manifestation with the bottom. Her right hand and upper body are aligned with the heavens, chained to the unmanifested Source, showing her essence to be purely spiritual and deriving its light and life-spark directly from the Father. At the same time, as the mother of the physical world, her lower body and womb are positioned over the terrestrial spheres. She takes the formless spiritual fire of the Father and translates it into the concentric rings of the elements and planets, so organising the physical laws of nature.

When all is said and done everything is spirit. We may think of the unmanifested source as like vapour—pure, unconditioned, formless Spirit. This is stepped down to the Anima Mundi where this spirit becomes like flowing water. The Anima Mundi is the intermediate matrix that catches the vapour and carries the divine blueprints from the Logos through space to the etheric and astral planes, the fluid, psychic, and energetic levels of being where substance is not yet locked into rigid shapes but highly mobile, permeable, and constantly flowing.

We then come to physical matter where originating spirit has become like solid ice. It is not a different substance than the water; it is simply the water itself brought down to its lowest possible temperature and frozen into a dense, rigid structure which includes our familiar solids, liquids and gases, the final crystallisation of the cosmic substance. It is the time-bound realm of rigid boundaries.
The etheric plane holds the invisible, energetic grid or template upon which the dense physical ice congeals. The astral plane holds the emotional desires and cosmic magnetism that draw the atomic particles together. The Anima Mundi catches the formless vapour of pure spirit descending down through the vertical chain and from her fluid water-matrix distributes the blueprints down into the physical world.

Therefore, matter is simply the outermost garment of the World Soul. Physical matter is universal spirit operating at its slowest, most dense, and highly crystallised vibrational frequency.

The Anima Mundi is the form-building matrix. She acts as the macrocosmic womb of manifestation and as such takes the formless ideas of the Divine Mind and spins them into form, first as etheric blueprints which then congeal into physical objects, plants, animals, minerals. Matter derives its being from her and is sustained by her life force.

Returning to the engraving, we see concentric rings branching upward and outward directly above the three foundational kingdoms of Mineralia, Vegetabilia, Animalia. These show how formless spirit is gradually crystallised into physical reality in the formation of the cosmos, and we will consider them in the next post.
 

God, the World and the Soul

 The three realities of human existence are God, the world and the soul which is to say the inner subject, the outer object and that from which both of these derive. These can be seen as three points of a triangle with God at the apex. The tragedy of modern man is that the apex point is either denied or, if accepted, seen in the light of some part of the base line. In fact, this point is the only thing that can give meaning and reality to the other two points. Without not just acknowledging God but seeing him as the root of the other two, these two, Man and the World, amount to nothing but confusion and chaos, hence the nihilistic state in which we live even if we cover that up with all kinds of distractions.

Man can only know himself through interaction with the world of objective existence. In his early stages he remains embedded in nature and does not know himself as a free agent. He is still in the arms of the Mother, subject to her moods and seasons. It is the great achievement of Western man that he broke free of Nature and began to master it. The initial phases of this are recorded in myth as the hero fights various monsters, many of these symbolic of the devouring mother that would drag him back down to the pre-conscious state of non-individuality. The rupture with nature brought freedom but also separation and loss. What humanity has achieved is extraordinary but it comes at a cost. When Odin, who can be said to represent Western man, memorably in his guise as Wotan as depicted in Wagner's Ring Cycle, sacrifices his eye in return for wisdom, this signifies the closing down of clairvoyant faculties as the intellectual mind starts to awaken and the free individual asserts himself in subjective consciousness. This is a necessary and vital stage in the evolution of the soul and it was achieved by Western Man more than any other grouping of human beings. However, although it is an evolutionary advance, it leads to eventual calamity, the Gotterdammerung suffered by Wotan and the gods, as individuality goes too far and mastery of nature leads to destruction. Man has conquered the world but lost himself in the process.

We are at that twilight of the gods stage now and all the remedies proposed are useless because they come from within the system. Remaining where we are is alienation and death, but restoring past religion is no good either because it was religion for the herd not the full individuals we have become.  A return to nature is not feasible for the self-conscious beings we now are, and if we try that it will be fake, performative. We cannot go back to the mother and the embryonic bliss of unselfconsciousness. We cannot go back, we cannot stay where we are, we must go through and on. The only solution is to reach for transcendence which means to acknowledge God, but this acknowledgement needs to be twofold. We must see God as the transcendent Creator but also as the ground of our own being and we must align our individual self with that ground. In this way, we eventually become gods ourselves. Not in the way promised by the serpent which offered the temptation of the perfectibility of the separate self, but in and through Christ who raises the self sacrificed in his name up to his own divine state.

The world as we know it is coming to an end. The soul can follow the world or it can follow God. It can identify itself with the world and take the path the world is taking or it can start to identify itself with God and so move out of this world into divine being. This is the choice of our time.

Inner Religion

 Many people who think they believe in God actually believe in a projection of their own mind. On the other hand, there are those who do perceive something of the reality of God within themselves and these are the only true believers because they believe in a reality not an idea. Consequently, their approach to the divine will inevitably take on something of a personal nature. It must and, what is more, it should.

Human beings exist on many levels but the great majority are focussed on physical, emotional and mental planes. They are conscious on those planes but not higher ones. A minority, though one that is growing, is awakening to higher levels and these people will often not be satisfied with an outer religion. They will seek to know God for themselves. They may make mistakes in the course of their search, and they may also be condemned by those who feel that all authority must derive from an external body, an official religion, but the law of life is growth and there is only so much spiritual growth you can obtain if you rely on outer things, whatever they are. Christ wanted us to become Christ-like ourselves, and if we talk about Christ being born in us what else can that mean other than we must seek him within? No doubt in the course of that search we will stumble and fall into illusion many times, but this is all part of the growing process. To risk going in the wrong direction is better than never to move.

It is not necessary to reject religion but it is important not to be bound by it. That is especially true for modern people who have evolved a greater sense of individuality. This is in line with God's will for his creation. We cannot become gods ourselves, which is our destiny, if we remain submerged in the group. At the same time, to be an individual in isolation is what caused Lucifer's downfall. We must grow into individuality but we must then grow beyond it, bearing in mind that each new stage includes and contains the previous which is not destroyed but incorporated in the new.

Every follower of a religion must ask himself the question, what is more important, my religion or God? Because they are not the same. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the religion that we give ourselves to often ends up possessing us if we are not careful and that is even more problematic now when all religions are husks of their former selves so their spiritual light does not shine directly but, as it were, through reflection. Just as those who feel they have gone beyond the need for a religion and can approach God on their own must be extremely attentive to their thoughts, feelings, motivations, egotistical impulses and prejudices so the religious must carefully discriminate between what in their religion is of God and what is of man. And there is an awful lot of man in every religion.

We follow Christ to become Christ not to remain a follower. That means that at some point on the journey we must take full spiritual responsibility for ourselves. Otherwise we will remain outside the temple. Ultimately, every man must become his own pope. There is no other way.

The Living Image of the Eternal

Truth is beyond form and expression but for religion to be comprehensible it must be grounded in form. Religious forms can take many varieties which approximate to that which they are trying to express to a greater or lesser degree. Some forms capture something of the reality behind them while others distort it, sometimes unacceptably so. The question then arises. What is the best form, the one that comes nearest to revealing the truth that lies behind all genuine religion?

Before answering that, we must accept that different forms suit different people. That is to say, people of different temperaments and from different cultural backgrounds. It would be unrealistic to think that the whole world should follow one particular form any more than that they should speak one language, and it is probably not a good idea either as different forms can express different aspects of truth. None express the whole, even all together can't express more than a tiny fraction of the whole, but they can complement each other by their particular focal points. This may not be necessary from the purely spiritual perspective, but it can be helpful.

No doubt everyone thinks his own religion is best, and it may be for him. On the other hand, it may not. It may simply be a religion one is born into or one that suits one's strengths or weaknesses or prejudices or preconceptions. Over the course of my spiritual life (pompous phrase, but it can't be helped in this context), which is now some 47 years, I have investigated many, I am tempted to say most, spiritual paths. Not as a follower but by reading about them and exploring their forms and practices. It's fascinating to see how human beings have approached the numinous. So many similarities and so many differences. While recognising the validity of many, I have my favourites but there are also some I think are inspired from lower levels, either originally or through infiltration over the years. Some are even a mix of the true and the false. Quite a few are, in fact.

However, there is one clear winner, (I know it's not a competition, but in a way, it is). Obviously, that is Christianity and not so much because of the religion or religions that have arisen in Christ's name but because of him. Christ is the face and form of God, God revealed in a human being, God embodied. And, while we're at it, let us point out that the image of God himself is another form that encapsulates hidden truth. As God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this image draws the mind and heart up to the realm of pure spiritual light in a way that lesser images do not. The very word 'God' brings together amorphous ideas and feelings and intuitions in the human head and heart, and moulds them into something tangible, something that the mind can latch onto, to which it can respond and with which it can engage.

Jesus Christ is the perfect spiritual form, the one above all others. First of all, because he is a living person, and spiritual reality is personal before it is impersonal - the opposite to what the sophisticated believe. And secondly, because he is the only spiritual figure totally without flaw, without sin as it is said. He reflects the spiritual world without any corrupt influence of this world. You can say that about no one and nothing else. Certainly, there are many other inspiring spiritual figures and philosophies from before the time of Christ and after him. But he is without peer and incomparable in his truthfulness. I do not doubt that non-Christian spiritual approaches can bring their followers to God, and, for that matter, many ostensible Christian ones might fail in that, but Christ is and remains the Way,  the Truth and the Life. He is the revelation of what this excellent essay calls the single, supreme, eternal creator deity or first principle, born into the Jewish race but come for all people.

Adam and Eve are the Microcosmic Equivalents of Spirit and Matter

 Eve was born from Adam's side as he lay in deep sleep just as matter is born from unmanifest spirit. In the pre-creation state spirit and matter are one but this does not mean there was unexpressed spirit and unexpressed matter. All was spirit which then projected forth matter as its reflection, or that in which it may see itself, in the dualistic world. Duality means the bifurcation of subject and object and is necessary for creation to come about since pure oneness is being empty of form and therefore unknowable existence. God is conceived of as masculine because he is spirit, all spirit before manifestation and the spirit polarity once manifestation has occurred. In terms of creation, the masculine is the active and the feminine that which is acted upon, as the Logos imprints form on substance, but from their union arises the soul which is the evolving consciousness.

This whole universe and space itself is the body of the Mother. The life in the universe is from the Father and time is the movement that drives the process of growth. Here feminine space represents the field of being and masculine time that of becoming so again we have the active and passive poles operating together though we must remember that passive does not mean empty or without quality as it is the fecund ground of potentia. Who would have thought that the sexual act and its fruits contain the clue as to how the universe came into being? On the other hand, why would this not be so? The greater is reflected in the lesser and the same principles operate throughout creation. This is one way we can enter into the mind of God. By seeing how he acts in the world we can start to know him. It is said that God is unknowable. That is not true. He is in us and we are in him and he is very knowable but he is not fully knowable. His being is inexhaustible and there will always be more to discover but we can start on the journey of knowing him here and now.

Table Talk by Coleridge

The excerpts below are quotes from Table Talk by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which consists of recollections of his conversations published after his death by his nephew Henry Nelson Coleridge. I came across the first one recently and thought it very pertinent to our present time, particularly with relevance to the reaction during the recent health scare. So I looked through an online version of the book and found it full of similar pithy observations, a few of which I reproduce here with an occasional comment in italics

 

 There is the love of the good for the good’s sake, and the love of the truth for the truth’s sake. I have known many, especially women, love the good for the good’s sake; but very few, indeed, and scarcely one woman, love the truth for the truth’s sake. Yet without the latter, the former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of persecution of the truth – the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry.

One should add that the real good is the same as the real true so it is the apparent or even the false good that people, especially women, prefer to the real good, and this is because it makes greater appeal to their feelings or to their desire for comfort, safety and general 'niceness'.

The true key to the declension of the Roman empire — which is  not to be found in all Gibbon's immense work — may be stated in  two words : — the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation. 

This is not exactly two words but one can see what he means, and it could be said to be what is happening to the West now.

 

Kant assigns three great races of mankind. If two individuals  of distinct races cross, a third, or tertium aliquid is invariably produced, different from either, as a white and a negro produce a mulatto. But when different varieties of the same race cross, the offspring is according to what we call chance ; it is now like one,  now like the other parent. Note this, when you see the children of any couple of distinct European complexions, — as English and Spanish, German and Italian, Russian and Portuguese, and so on. 

I have noticed this in people of my acquaintance.

 

There are two principles in every European and Christian state: Permanency and Progression. In the civil wars of the seventeenth century in England, which are as new and fresh now as they were a hundred and sixty years ago, and will be so for ever to us, these two principles came to a struggle. It was natural that the great and the good of the nation should be found in the ranks of either side. 

Many of the present problems are caused by the abandonment of what Coleridge calls the sense of Permanency.

 

Either we have an immortal soul, or we have not. If we have not, we are beasts; the first and wisest of beasts, it may be; but still true beasts. We shall only differ in degree, and not in kind;  just as the elephant differs from the slug. But by the concession of all the materialists of all the schools, or almost all, we are not of the same kind as beasts — and this also we say from our own consciousness. Therefore, methinks, it must be the possession of a soul within us that makes the difference. 

Bring back the use of the word 'methinks'.

 

This is not a logical age. A friend lately gave me some political pamphlets of the times of Charles I and the Cromwellate. In them the premises are frequently wrong, but the deductions are almost always legitimate; whereas, in the writings of the present day, the premises are commonly sound, but the conclusions false. I think a great deal of commendation is due to the University of Oxford for preserving the study of logic in the schools. It is a great mistake to suppose geometry any substitute for it. 

You could apply this to our age in the sense that reasoned discourse stripped of ideology is becoming rarer, but I suspect that could have been said of many other times too.

 

St. John's logic is Oriental, and consists chiefly in position and parallel; whilst St. Paul displays all the intricacies of the Greek system.

The mystic and the philosopher.

 

The first three Gospels show the history, that is, the fulfilment of  the prophecies in the facts. St. John declares explicitly the doctrine, oracularly, and without comment, because, being pure reason, it can only be proved by itself. For Christianity proves itself, as the sun is seen by its own light. Its evidence is involved in its existence. St Paul writes more particularly for the dialectic understanding; and proves those doctrines, which were capable of such proof, by common logic. 

A proof of Christianity lies in the fact that it offers us more than we could have ever hoped for or imagined.

 

St. John used the term Logos technically. Philo-Judaeus had so used it several years before the probable date of the composition of this Gospel; and it was commonly understood amongst the Jewish Rabbis at that time, and afterwards, of the manifested God. The Jewish Church understood the Messiah to be a divine person. Philo expressly cautions against anyone's supposing the Logos to be a mere personification, or symbol. He says the Logos is a substantial, self-existent Being. The Gnostics, as they were afterwards called, were a kind of Arians; and thought the Logos was an after-birth. They placed the Abyss and Silence before him. Therefore it was that St. John said, with emphasis, “ln the beginning was the Word." He was begotten in the first simultaneous burst of Godhead, if such an expression may be pardoned, in speaking of eternal existence. 

To assert that God is a Person is not a childish projection but the most advanced religious doctrine.

 

The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich than have a right to be so.

It certainly has and even more so today.

 

Pantheism and idolatry naturally end in each other; for all extremes meet.

As now when completely incompatible ideologies unite to contest the real.

Plato's works are logical exercises for the mind. Little that is positive is advanced in them. Socrates may be fairly represented by Plato in the more moral parts; but in all the metaphysical disquisitions it is Pythagoras.

It's a pity we know Plato by his nickname or we could talk of Aristocles (his real name) and Aristotle. Apparently he was given this nickname, which means broad as in broad-chested, by his wrestling coach. All philosophers should have a wrestling coach.

 

In fact, there are the popular, the sacerdotal, and the mysterious religions of Greece, represented roughly by Homer, Pindar, and Aeschylus. The ancients had no notion of the fall of man, though they had of his gradual degeneracy. Prometheus, in the old mythus, and for the most part in Aeschylus, is the Redeemer and the Devil jumbled together. 

An interesting insight.

"Most women have no character at all," said Pope, and meant it for satire. Shakespeare, who knew man and woman much better,  saw that it, in fact, was the perfection of woman to be characterless. Everyone wishes a Desdemona or Ophelia for a wife, — creatures who, though they may not always understand you, do always feel you, and feel with you.

If the highest state of matter is to reflect spirit perfectly you can see what he means here.

The man's desire is for the woman ; but the woman's desire is  rarely other than for the desire of the man. 

A generalisation but not without substance.

 

I cannot say I expect much from mere Egyptian antiquities. Everything really that is intellectually great in that country seems to me of Grecian origin.

Sometimes he gets it wrong. On the other hand (and see below), the Greeks did make rational what the Egyptians seemed only to understand intuitively.

 

There was, I conceive, one great Japetic original of language, under which Greek, Latin, and other European dialects, and, perhaps, Sanskrit, range as species. The Japetic race separated 

into two branches; one, with a tendency to migrate south-west, — Greeks, Italians, &c. ; and the other northwest, — Goths, Germans, Swedes, &c. The Hebrew is Semitic. 

Japetic means descending from Noah's son Japheth and seems to refer here to Indo-Europeans.

 

I more clearly see that the doctrine of Trinal Unity (that is to say, the Trinity) is an absolute truth transcending my human means of understanding it.

 

The result of my system will be to show that, so far from the world being a goddess in petticoats, it is rather the Devil in a strait waistcoat. 

More true than ever today.

 

The controversy of the Nominalists and Realists was one of the greatest and most important that ever occupied the human mind. They were both right and both wrong. They each maintained 

opposite poles of the same truth; which truth neither of them saw, for want of a higher premise. 

I see what he means but I would still place the Realists above the Nominalists. The latter could be said to be the origin of modern materialism.

A Fall  of some sort or other — the creation, as it were, of the non- absolute — is the fundamental postulate of the moral history of man. Without this hypothesis, man is unintelligible; with it, every phenomenon is explicable. The mystery itself is too profound for human insight.

The doctrine of the Fall makes sense of so much.

A woman's head is usually over ears in her heart Man seems to have been designed for the superior being of the two; but as things are, I think women are generally better creatures than men. They have, 

taken universally, weaker appetites and weaker intellects, but they have much stronger affections. A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but a corrupt woman is lost for ever. 

The tragedy of feminism which poses as a liberator but actually corrupts.

The Trinity is the Will; 2. the Reason, or Word; 3. the Love, or Life. As we distinguish these three, so we must unite them in one God. The union must be as transcendent as the distinction. 

If a man's conduct cannot be ascribed to the angelic, nor to the bestial within him, what is there left for us to refer it to, but the fiendish ? Passion without any appetite is fiendish. 

Demons exist.

The best way to bring a clever young man who has become sceptical and unsettled to reason, is to make him feel something. Love, if sincere and unworldly, will, in nine instances out of ten, bring him to a sense and assurance of something real and actual ; and that sense alone will make him think to a sound purpose, instead of dreaming that he is thinking. 

We must distinguish between feeling and feelings.

 

Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason and imagination, rarely or never.

 

I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country. But language, religion, laws, government, blood, — identity in these makes men of one country. 

Immigration without proper integration is a disaster. This is why it should be kept to reasonable limits, limits which it has far exceeded in Western nations in recent years.

 

The Pilgrim's Progress is composed in the lowest style of English, without slang or false grammar. If you were to polish it, you would at once destroy the reality of the vision. For works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. 

 

Party men always hate a slightly differing friend more than a downright enemy. I quite calculate on my being one day or other holden in worse repute by many Christians than the Unitarians and open infidels. It must be undergone by everyone who loves the truth for its own sake beyond all other things. 

It's more important to be on the right side than to believe exactly the same things.

People may say what they please about the gradual improvement of the Arts. It is not true of the substance. The Arts and the Muses both spring forth in the youth of nations, like Minerva from the front of

 Jupiter, all armed: manual dexterity may, indeed, be improved by practice. 

The difference between inspiring impulse and execution.

I hold all claims set up for Egypt having given birth to the Greek philosophy to be groundless. It sprang up in Greece itself, and began with physics only. Then it took in the idea of a living cause and made Pantheism out of the two. Socrates introduced ethics, and taught duties; and then, finally, Plato asserted or reasserted the idea of a God the maker of the world. The measure of human philosophy was thus full, when Christianity came to add what before was wanting - assurance. After this again, the Neo-Platonists joined Theurgy with philosophy, which ultimately degenerated into magic and mere mysticism. 

Egypt probably did not have an intellectualised philosophy as such but it did have a highly developed knowledge of mysticism and magic. Otherwise this is not a bad history of religion in the West.

 

This is just a small selection from the first half of the book. I may do another post on the remainder but it serves to remind us that Coleridge was much more than just a romantic poet.