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5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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MATTER (FEMININE)
A term for the complement of Spirit in the primal
duality of Spirit and Matter. It is that aspect of manifestation
which receives qualities and takes forms; and this it does from the
action of Spirit upon it; Spirit being replete with all potencies
and knowledges from all eternity.
"Numa is said to have consecrated the Perpetual Fire as the first of
all things and the Soul of Matter which, without it (the Fire), is
motionless and dead.” - PLUTARCH, Lives. Numa.
"It is possible to impress quality in matter, since it is without
quality, and to extend form through the whole of it." - PLOTINUS, On
Matter, § 7.
"Matter must be considered as formless prior to its variety. Hence,
if by intellect you take away its variety, its forms, its productive
principles, and intellections, that which is prior to these, is
formless and indefinite matter." - Ibid., § 4.
"The unborn state of Matter, then, was formlessness; its genesis is
its being brought into activity "(Hermetic Ex. V). - G. R. S. MEAD,
T. G. Hermes, Vol. III. p. 27.
Spirit (fire), in informing matter with qualities and forms, limits
and conditions itself within matter, which state of captivity and
spiritual death is called the Divine Sacrifice, or Crucifixion in
Matter. During the period and process of evolution, Spirit rises
from Matter and eventually discards it. Matter is almost comparable
to a sieve through which Spirit is rubbed, as it were; and in this
way, in process of evolution, the gross physical and astral matter
in the soul-vehicles is worn away; so that what happens is this, the
Spiritual energy, which is seeking expression, remains, after having
co-operated with its partner, as the complete and perfect
manifestation of that which is contained within the Life of the
Logos as the Divine Ideal, or Archetypal Man.
"Every individual soul is involved in Matter, and must gradually be
formed into Spirit. To that end it possesses many faculties or
powers, and of these the speculative faculties are the choicest, for
knowledge is the very life of the soul." - DE BOER, Hist. of Philos.
in Islam, p. 92.
This wearing away of Matter by spiritual qualities continues
through-out the whole period of evolution; but, of course,
evolution, as far as its physical expression is concerned,
culminates in the human race on this physical globe.
"There are two forms of Brahman, the material (effect) and the
immaterial (cause). The material is false, the immaterial is true.
That which is true is Brahman,-is light." - Mait. Upanishad, VI. 3.
“According to Plotinus,-Matter in the most general sense of the word
is the basis, or depth,' of each thing. Matter is darkness, as the
Logos is light. It has no real being. It is the qualitatively
indeterminate which is rendered determinate by the accession of
form." - UEBERWEG, Hist. of Philos., Vol. II. p. 246.
"The world (of matter) is not a thing that is; it is not. It is a
thing that teaches, yet not even a thing- -a show that shows, a
teaching shadow. However useless the demonstration otherwise,
philosophy does well in proving that matter is a non-entity. The
reality is alone the Spiritual." - H. DRUMMOND, Natural Law, etc.,
p. 57.
"I hold,—and the whole scientific world appears to be coming to the
same position, that there is no such thing as matter apart from
mind; it has no independent existence; the physical is but the
language of the spiritual on a certain limited plane of experience."
- R. J. CAMPBELL, Serm., The Resurrection Life.
The higher mental plane being the plane of proximate causation, the
planes below are planes of effects according to natural laws. These
effects are transient and illusory, without abiding reality.
Consciousness is neither on the physical nor the astral planes, but
on the mental. Consciousness is an aspect of spirit-the only
reality.
"Natural knowledge tends more and more to the conclusion that all
the choir of heaven and furniture of earth' are the transitory forms
of parcels of cosmic substance winding along the road of evolution,
from nebulous potentiality, through endless growths of sun and
planet and satellite ; through all varieties of matter; through
infinite diversities of life and thought; possibly through modes of
being of which we neither have a conception, nor are competent to
form any, back to the indefinite latency from which they arose. Thus
the most obvious attribute of the cosmos is its impermanence. It
assumes the aspect not so much of a permanent entity as of a
changeful process, in which naught endures save the flow of energy
and the rational order which pervades it." - T. H. HUXLEY, Evolution
and Ethics, p 50.
Energy and Order are attributes of Spirit which informs matter and
endows it with qualities and potencies to be actualised or evolved
under invariable laws.
"Although, by reason of its limitations, the cause of evil, Matter
is not in itself evil. On the contrary, it comes forth from God, and
consists of that whereof God's Self consists, namely, Spirit. It is
Spirit, by the force of the Divine will subjected to conditions and
limitations, and made exteriorly cognisable. Matter is thus a
manifestation of that which in its original condition is unmanifest,
namely, Spirit. And Spirit does not become evil by becoming
manifest. Evil is the result of the limitation of Spirit by Matter.
For Spirit is God, and God is good. Wherefore, in being the
limitation of God, Matter is the limitation of good. Such limitation
is essential to creation. For without a projection of Divine
Substance, that is, of God's Self, into conditions and limitations,
of Being, which is absolute, into Existence, which is relative,-God
would remain inoperative, solitary, unmanifest, and consequently
unknown, unhonoured, and unloved. For aught else to exist than God,
there must be that which is, by limitation, inferior to God.
Creation, to be worthy of God. must involve the idea of a No-God,
The darkness of God's shadow must correspond in intensity with the
brightness of God's light." - The Perfect Way, p. 41.
Antiochus teaches :-" There are two natures, the active and the
passive, force and matter, but neither is ever without the other.
That which is compounded of both is called a body or a quality.
Among these qualities the simple and the compound are to be
distinguished; the former consisting of the four, or according to
Aristotle five, primitive bodies; the latter of all the rest of the
first category, fire and air are the active, earth and water the
receptive and passive. Underlying them all, however, is the matter
without quality, which is their substratum, the imperishable, but
yet infinitely divisible elements, producing in the constant change
of its forms definite bodies." - E. ZELLER, Eclecticism, p. 94.
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