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Preface
5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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YMIR, THE GIANT
A symbol of the Archetypal Man, the consummation
of the process of involution.
“From the twelve rivers of Niflheim which flow from the fountain
Hvergelmer, and are called Elivogar, meantime were dropping the
poison-drops into the abyss of Ginunga, which froze into rime-frost,
blown by the winds and rain from the north, and then melted by the
heat from Muspelheim in the south, and shaped itself into the giant
Ymer. While he slept there grew under his right hand a man and
woman, and from his feet a giant with six heads. From these singular
developments proceed not mankind, but the Rimthursar, or Giants of
the Frost" (Prose Edda). - HowITT, Literature of North. Europe, Vol.
I. p. 40.
From the twelve stages of the cycle of manifesting life on the lower
planes (Niflheim), which proceed from relativity or illusion (Hvergelmer),
the inverted reflection of the higher, there came the astro-physical
functionings (poison-drops), which being perfected in involution
disappear, as it were, below (abyss), to appear above on the mental
plane, and be transmuted to the buddhic (Muspelheim), and so
complete externally the Archetypal Man (Ymer) in potentiality. Then
in preparation for evolution there were formed renewed planes of
higher-manas (man) and buddhi (woman), and beneath these, the
lower-mental, astral, and physical planes, each dual in
manifestation (six-headed giant). The “heads refer to the mental
plane, the plane of origin and of the lower consciousness. After the
planes are formed, then the primal powers and qualities (Rimthursar)
begin to operate upon their own plane.
“Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve, having commenced their reign,
killed the giant Ymer, and made the world of him. Of his flesh they
made the land, of his blood the sea, trees of his hair, the heaven
of his skull; of his eyebrows made they Midgard for the sons of men,
and of his brains the clouds."-Ibid.
The Divine Will, Wisdom and Action in the new cycle, now evolve from
the potential (Ymer) the actual. And so the lower nature
(flesh-land) of the soul (world) is formed, with its life of desire
(blood-sea), its aspirations (trees-hair), its higher nature
(heaven-skull), its mental-nature (eyebrows-Midgard) for the egos,
and its buddhic nature (brains-clouds).
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