Shadow Against Substance By Ophiel

Shadow Against Substance

By Ophiel

The little vignette following deals with a very different subject, the subject
of reality, or what is real and what is unreal.

The subject is by no means exhausted in these few pages but some ideas are
offered.

As is usual, the understanding of this complex subject hinges upon the Knowledge
of several basic Occult concepts--the Astral Light, the Elemental Forces, the
Planes, the Caballa Tree of Life, theMagic Mirror, and others.

Some ideas on these things were given but it is now apparent to me that seperate
vignettes will have to be written about each. I can't get all these concepts in
one place, but I'll do the best I can. Look for the others to come; I hope you
like them.

We are now here on a place which no one will deny is a "hard" place. Most of
this place is immovable--inert. To metaphysicians, this earth place is
identified as the Physical Plane.

After a man has begun to think deeper thoughts than the ordinary shallow kind of
usual thoughts, he begins to wonder if there is anything existing other than
this Physical Plane.

There has always been the potent question--what happens to the dead after they
die? Do they continue to live in some other kind of world/plane/place? If so,
what is that place really like? These and many other questions of similar ilk
arise in the thinking man's life as he progresses in living. Let us see if we
can get a glimpse into this stone wall, at least as far as anyone else can.

Most all the world assumes that this Physical Plane World is "real."

Is the Physical Plane World really real?

This brings us again to the stone wall. What is real, and conversely, what is
unreal?

Consider: if you put a solid object in front of a light the solid object will
cast a shadow. There are those who consider and have said that this physical
plane is but the outer, unreal shadow cast by an inner reality. How could such a
situation come about in a case like this? We understand how, on this plane, a
"solid" article in a light does interupt the light and this interuption does
create an image against and on a background. But how can this physical plane be
a cast shadow? From whence comes, and what is, the originating light?

WHAT REAL REALITY (?) INTERUPTS THE LIGHT? Why, if this is true, do we (the
world) accept the shadow as substance instead of the innermost as reality?

These are all very different questions about a very different subject. In view
of the things we know now about the Inner Plane Forces therein, can we construct
a theory that would allow our minds to grasp a conception that could explain the
unrealness of the apparent real?

In previous vignettes, we studied the series of Planes "up" from this outer. We
studied the Elemental forces. We studied the Astral Light. We studied the
demiurge, the half-God idea. (I just noted in the dictionary this deftinition--a
Gnostic subordinate deity who is the creator of the material world! Also here is
another deftinition--a Platonic subordinate deity who fashions the sensible (?)
world in the light of eternal ideas.) Surely some kind of a theory can be
constructed out of this known inner material and its known inner
characteristics.

There is one more analytical foray we must make before we can proceed with the
development of this theory.

In our previous lessons, books, and vignettes, we mentioned the elemental force
of Akasha. Previously we had no occasion to elaborate upon the qualities of this
Elemental Force due to the fact that it was a strange Force and different from
the other Elemental Forces in many ways. The actions/functions of the Elemental
Forces of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth were rather simple and easily
understandable but, up to now, Akasha didn't seem to me to have a simple, easy,
understandable working function until i came to the subject of this essay, and
now I seem to see, in a blinding flash of illumination, the function of Akasha
in the chain of actions which could explain this shadow world, or at least
understand how its existance could come into being.

The main working function of Akasha is said to be the characteristic of change.
AKASHA CHANGES INTO ALL THINGS and in its original form also exists BETWEEN all
changes. This instrument then sounds like the ideal medium upon which to build a
working theory of the creation of this shadow world.

Let us proceed. I assume that you have some basic knowledge about the Caballa
tree of Life diagram. For the purpose of this vignette, assume that the Astral
Light enters at the top and goes down the Tree and stops at the bottom. The
bottom is solid matter and the top is non-matter.

For the purpose of an "understanding" theory, we can consider the Tree of Life
as a piece of machinery (Dion Fortune once referred to the "Machinery of the
Universe") that manufactures "solid Matter" out of "non-solid" Light.

This is certainly very much of a simplification, but please, in your future
studies of the Caballa, meditate upon this idea about the Tree.

However, i would now like to return to our theme--Shadow against Substance and
set up another different kind of theory.

This vignette may seem to you to be rather ragged and disjointed, but please
keep in mind that this subject is one terrific big Idea and can't really be made
simple and plain in this small a place. Also it will be necessary to write a
number of others to supplement this first single presentation. So disregard the
apparent disjointedness and study the main ideas as given and get them firmly in
your mind.

To resume: we said that the Light, the Astral Light (my favourite name for the
demiurge) comes into this Physical Cosmos at the top of the Tree of Life as the
Astral Light.

Now the Tree of Life pattern is already there. (We are not here referring in any
way to the original beginning or any original beginning and up from "below" come
PICTURES--DESIRES--IDEAS which reach the archetypal plane as desires, perhaps
you could call them prayers. (I have recieved no knowledge about how
people/persons/individuals figure in this set up as yet, so, without denigrating
myself, I say I don't know about what relation persons have to the half-God AND
NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE. Don't worry about it now; get what is available.)

These prayers originate here "below" on the Physical Plane and "ascend," "up" on
through the intermediate planes until they reach the "top" archetypal plane and
there they cause a "strain" of some kind to occur. (I wonder if any man will
ever know the exact process.) And thereupon, this "strain" causes a matrix to
form--the matrix being the archetypal pattern of the prayer/object/image.

This matrix/pattern is composed of Astral Light "material" which is changed from
Astral Light to the first of the Elemental Forces, Akasha, and starts on its
"downward" trek into Physical Plane Matter, later to appear here on the Physical
Plane as fully formed objects--objects heretofore desired and existing only as
prayers or, as one occult author-teacher said, as demands made upon the idea of
whatever kind of God the demander had in mind when he voiced/pictured his
demand.

There is another tremendous subject for study here at this point which i will
have to make the subject of another vignette. This other subject concerns the
manner-agency in which the other Elemental Forces function in this descending
ladder from archetype to final form and will take another lesson to merely
scratch the surface. But please, you do some work on it, some meditation, and
contemplation.

Now, with all these previous ideas stated and out of the way, we can return to
the idea of shadow and substance.

Remember that the Knowledge just given to you was greatly unknown in the dark
ages past; hence, when a dark age philosopher did conceive the idea of a shadow
and a substance he did not have the benefit of Knowledge about the Caballa, the
Tree of Life, and the half-God, as there was no printing, more than 90 per cent
of the people could not read or write; even if the material had been printed,
which it never really was even to this day put down completely and clearly. You
can believe as you please but you are getting occult dynamite in these writings
that is available nowhere else.

So now you should be able to see clearly that this Physical Plane World is truly
a/the shadow cast upon your perception--a shadow cast from the Astral Light, the
half-God, shining on the archetype Akasha, which (matter) shadow then comes down
the planes until it reaches you, the final recipient and determinant. In this
understanding, the Physical Plane truly is an "unreal" shadow only and the TRUE
SUBSTANCE is the Inner Plane Matrix--the Archetype only.

It is my desire that after each of these vignettes you are to draw a Tree of
Life, indicating on your drawing the place that the subject matter in the
vignette pertains to.Some of these Tree of Life indications are not too clear,
but do your best. As you progress and find that you were not correct in the
first attempt, change the indications as you learn more.

Mark the place of concern of this vignette--all phases of it.

(There is a small diagram of the Tree of Life drawn below the above writing by
Ophiel).