Finding The Centre

Dear friends,

I may have caused some confusion in my previous article 'She Thinks, Therefore I Am.' I said that the four elements do not interact directly but only by means of the Quintessence at the centre. In a sense it is true but in a sense it is not. There is a subtle principle in Madrian philosophy called the transposition of symbols. What this means is that the same thing can look different from different angles. This solves a problem which you often hear debated without agreement. Is there an objective reality with unchangeable laws or are all truths relative and suited to different individuals? The answer is yes in both cases. Reality is objective and unchangeable but there are many permutations from which we can select. There is a limit to how far you can take this. You cannot change a potato into an onion, but there are many ways of cooking a potato.


It is true that the four elements are contained in the Quintessence. The reason for this is that the Quintessence is a vertical reflection of the Spirit into manifestation. At the centre of the spiritual world is the Mother who contains every possibility and from whom all things come. Her perfect Essence is reflected into the material world by the perfect Form of the Daughter who maintains the lower as a reflection of the higher.


This is symbolized by the Celtic Cross in which the circle is a radiance of the centre. All material things exist and act as a reflection of this Form. A material thing can only happen in so far as it reflects the centre. However, the centre contains each Idea and all its logical relationships of which the outer manifestations are a reflection. From this perspective the elements can be seen as interacting directly but on this level they are not actually the elements. There are four elements but there are only three primordial archetypal states; Absolute Life or Wholeness which contains all things in potential, Light or Essence which contains all force, energy and knowing, and Form which contains all love, beauty and will. This last may seem an odd combination of qualities but if you bear in mind that it takes effort to maintain the form of an action and to bring a work of art to a perfect form it seems less odd. To act with love means you attach importance to everybody except yourself and if you can do that without effort you will not have much trouble with anything. It is because of these three principles that three is the number of perfection.


In the Spirit there is no change but all things express all their possibilities all the time. In the manifest world a thing can only express one aspect of its true nature at a time. This

causes things to change through the whole range of their possibilities which creates time and is the fourth principle of the manifest world. Four symbolizes the material world and is represented by the square. The Holy Name of God is not the Tetragrammaton but the Trigrammaton IHV.


The purpose of fire is to maintain correct archetypal activity. On the highest level war is simply correction. The only thing that can be destroyed is falsity which never really existed in the first place. The apparent destructiveness of fire is due to the fact that there is so much false in us that purifying it destroys a large part of us. The origin of Hell fire is due to the fact that after death we go closer to the Quintessence which makes us more like our true selves. Some people have to go through Hell for that. For a soul close to perfection fire heals.


Fire is, therefore, present at every stage of Creation and every stage is, therefore, an expression of fire. At the highest level it is the Solar centre containing all Essence and is a
symbol of the Mother as source of Creation. It is the actualising force to which substance conforms. The conforming is governed by the aspect of fire generally associated with the name Mars but should really be associated with Nike. Latin words with the root mar- generally do not refer to fire or war. The element fire is therefore only an aspect of Solar fire and it is on the Solar level that the interaction of air and fire takes place.


I have been attempting to prove that the manifest world does not reflect true reality but, so far, have not explained why it does not. The reason is in the nature of Creation. Idea is reflected onto primary substance which conforms and this is reflected in the qualities of
water which both reflects and conforms in shape to whatever contains it. When you look at a reflection on a lake surface the first thing you notice is that everything is upside down. That which is highest seems lowest. The reason is that Creation starts with the idea of existence and develops through every possibility to the perfect Form of the Daughter Who is conscious of every possible Form. The Daughter is last created. It is the completion of Form which makes it possible for each thing to perfectly reflect its own essence so there is a tendency for each thing to reflect the reverse of its creation. These concepts are not easy to understand (they are not easy to explain either) but if you meditate on them they become clearer. Meditation is more important than reading books. What use is a book if you do not meditate on it?


There is a second, more subtle, quality about the reflection on the lake. What is it you cannot see reflected on a lake? The lake itself. You cannot find the lake within the lake. There is a reason why anti-rationalism has a fascination. We can also see why those arch
anti-rationalists, the Buddhists, are preoccupied with being calm. They are trying to be lakes. The reason why they think nothing can be understood is because they cannot see the lake within the lake and do not understand how the lake works. How can you be logical about water? It is shapeless and dissolves, yet even water has its laws because otherwise it could not be
water.


The perfection of each created being is maintained by the perpetual contemplation of the Idea which created it. There is a tendency for them to contemplate the reflection instead of the Idea and when they do that they dissolve into formlessness. Now you see that the belief that all problems are solved by love, which seems so pure a belief, is, in fact, a dangerous one. It overlooks the fact that our greatest love, to which we maintain an unswerving devotion through all trials and doubts, is for ourselves. When we discover this love we turn round and contemplate substance which we have been doing since the beginning of time.


We know that spiritual development is not easy because it is the last thing we will ever do. How can something be so hard that we take so long to do it? The hardest thing to do is that which requires the greatest possible change and the greatest change possible is to make everything the opposite of what it is. We are not starting from a state of complete reversal because when you reverse all principles you turn harmony into conflict and existence into non-existence. The lake may seem peaceful but it is the peacefulness of having nothing to do. The lake is not the whole even of water but an aspect of it. The solution is to find the true Idea of all things and follow the logic of every thing to discern its true state. We follow all things
through to their origin in the Divine Image or the Mother of All Things and hold to that Image.


The error that is made by mystics is to mistake Psyche for Spirit. Psyche is the realm of the pure Form of the Daughter on the surface of substance. It is the intersection of Spirit and matter and partakes of both. This makes it a tricky and dangerous level because it is a level in which matter can seem like Spirit and lead into chaos and dissolution. It is particularly dangerous for magicians if they pursue magic without cultivating an awareness of the higher archetypal meanings of their practices.


The Spirit is symbolized by the solar circle which is the radiance of a point and the Psyche by the lunar crescent. The dark side of the moon represents the chaos side which is the

dissolution of all forms. Directly below this is the Metic symbol of crescent, circle and cross. Mercury is an incorrect name for this because the name comes from 'merces' meaning 'pay'. Mercury is the god of the academic grant and the highest principle governing academic publication but not the quintessential state of which intelligence is the human manifestation. 'Metis' comes from 'metron' meaning 'measure' and 'meta' meaning 'with'. It is by means
of the intellect of Metis that we pass through illusions to the pure archetypal state. Freud's and Jung's interpretation of the word 'Psyche' may be the one that is well known but a mystic cannot compromise on the meaning of words. Freud was not a psychologist. He was a sublunarist.


You cannot go further down when you reach rock bottom and this is the purpose of stability. At the lowest level earth and water combine to renew life. When water flows into earth it becomes possible to create forms. This does not make water male under all circumstances. What it means is that an aspect of maleness resembles this particular activity of water. The earth cannot be seen as the whole of the Mother principle and earth worshippers are denying a large part of feminine qualities. The flexibility of symbols is an important part of their interpretation and makes human adaptability possible. The final union remains the Divine centre where all things are united pure consciousness.


May She be with you,

David.