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5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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ADAM (HIGHER ASPECT)
A symbol of the Divine nature of humanity
,—the Archetypal Man on the three higher planes.
"The Great Androgene, the Adam Illa-ah or Adam Qadmon, which
includes in itself all the ideas, and all the content of all the
prototypes of the existences. This (First) Adam is considered as the
first distinctive beginning in the finite, and therefore is the sole
occupant of the Atzeel -atic World ." - I. MYER , Qabbalah, p. 401.
This signifies the Macrocosm, or Pleroma, which occupies the planes
of atma and buddhi ,-the world of emanation (Atzeel -atic ).
“Man, who at first stretched from end to end of the world, was
afterwards diminished by the hand of God (Ps. cxxxix . 5 ). See
Chagigah, 12a, where it is also said, that the First Adam extended
from the earth to the firmament, for it is said that he was created
upon or above the earth ." - CH. TAYLOR, Sayings of the Jewish
Fathers , p. 71.
This indicates the Archetypal Man on the upper planes ,-the
Macrocosm from which comes the Microcosm, both existing above the
lower nature (earth), the second being a diminution of the first.
“The Chaldæans and Parthians and Medes and Hebrews call the First
Man Adam. So the First Man is called by us Thōyth (Thoth) and by
them Adam, not giving His true name in the Language of the Angels,
but naming him symbolically according to His Body by the four
elements " (Zosimus). - G. R. S. MEAD , T. G. Hermes, Vol. III. p.
277.
The suggestion here is , to give to the symbol " Thoth its highest
meaning , i.e. atma -buddhi -manas , the same as " Thrice Greatest
Hermes ," and therefore Thoth stands for the Archetypal Man which
has its reflection in the lower quaternary (four elements).
“Philo's ingenious theory of the two original Adams: (1) the
Heavenly, (2) the Earthly. The former is the Scriptural first man
who was made in the image and likeness of God; he is imperishable,
an idea or a genus perceptible only by the intellect.' The latter
is man as we see him now in the races of the world, imperfect and
corruptible ." - J. ABELSON, Immanence of God , p. 75.
“The whole universe was incomplete and did not receive its finishing
stroke till Man was formed, who is the acme of creation and the
microcosm uniting in himself the totality of beings. The Heavenly
Adam who emanated from the highest primordial obscurity created the
Earthly Adam ." - Zohar , II. 706.
"Eckhart speaks of Christ as the representation of Collective
Humanity the ideal Man, in whom all men have their unity and
reality, so that when a person rises to the ground and reality of
his essential being he partakes of Christ and becomes one with Him
and So one with God: 'All creatures that have flowed out from God
must become united into one Man, who comes again into the unity Adam
was in before he fell. This is accomplished in Christ. According to
this truth all creatures are One Man, and this Adam is God (Christ
the Son of God ).' " - R. M. JONES, Mystical Religion , p. 236.
Christ Jesus is the Adam ' that the Bible talks of in Genesis i.-a
Man of a new order or kind . " - JOHN WARD , Zion's Works , Vol. III
. p. 198.
In the Clementine writings Christ is identified with the Heavenly
Adam.
"The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam is a
life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual ;
but that which is natural ; then that which is spiritual . The first
man is of the earth , earthy : the second man is of heaven ." - 1
COR . xv . 45-7.
The transposition of the two Adams is explained in the text as
referring to evolution wherein the lower gives birth to the higher.
In involution the reverse order obtains, for the heavenly precedes
the earthly, as in GENESIS . i.
"Ye have put off the old man with his doings , and have put on the
new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of
him that created him ." - COL. iii . 9, 10.
“Here, the Divine Image , the heavenly Prototype , the First Adam,
precedes the ' Adam of dust," the second Adam , as described in
Genesis. The evolution of the new man the Christ within ,-is
beautifully indicated as according to the primordial Archetype which
again is the Christ. The " New Man " is weak and little developed at
first ; but by increments of truth he is gradually renewed or
evolved after the perfect pattern of Christ his Divine Progenitor ,
until the two again become one.
"Whenever I attribute sinful properties and dispositions and
inclinations to our Lord's human nature , I am speaking of it
considered as apart from Him, in itself. As Adam was the perfect man
of creation, Jesus was the perfect man of regeneration; perfect in
holiness, by being perfect in faith ." - E. IRVING, Col. Writings ,
Vol. V. p. 564.
"It has been already established by no contemptible arguments from
Scripture , that the First Man may be properly referred to Christ
Himself, and is no longer a type and representation and image of the
Only -begotten, but has become actually Wisdom and the Word. For
man, having been composed, like water , of wisdom and life , has
become identical with the very same untainted light which poured
into him. Whence it was that the apostle directly referred to Christ
the words that had been spoken of Adam ( 1 Cor . xv. 22 ). -
METHODIUS , The Banquet, etc., Ch. VIII.
“Humanity is Divinity Self -limited. And if the divine and the
eternal imply each other, if that which is divine is that which is
uncreate, which never needed a beginning and will never have an end,
then there must be something in every human being which can only be
thus described." - R. J. CAMPBELL , Serm. , Our Eternal Glory.
"In the image of God created He man .' God made man like Himself.
The creation had made man in the image of God. Now if we can
comprehend that truth at all, it must be evident that before man was
made , the mantype existed in God. In some part of His perfect
nature there was the image of what the new creation was to be.
Already before man trod the garden in the high glory of his new
Godlikeness, the pattern of the thing he was to be existed in the
nature of Him who was to make him. Before the clay was fashioned and
the breath was given, this humanity existed in the Divinity; already
there was a union of the Divine and human: and thus already there
was the eternal Christ. See how this exalts the human nature that we
wear . In the midst of the eternity of God there bursts forth into
being the new life of man. What if the type of this life I live were
part and parcel of the everlasting Godhead? What if it be the
peculiar glory of one of the persons of that Godhead that He has
worn for ever, bound with His perfect deity , the perfect archetype
and pattern of this humanity of mine? At once is not my
insignificance redeemed? Every power in me grows dignified and
worthy, catching some of the importance of the eternal type it
represents. ” - PHILLIPS BROOKS , Mystery of Iniquity , p. 312.
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