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The Goddess Sekhmet
The Way of the Five Bodies
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Way of the 5 Bodies
The Sekhmet Project
Robert Masters
-- Neurospeak
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According to an extremely ancient tradition,
distorted variations of which are a part of many religious, spiritual,
magical and occult systems, the human being has five bodies, all interactive,
but each one having a dimension or reality in which it lives and functions
and which is of the same substance as that body. These bodies, and realms,
in order of subtlety, are the (most subtle) Spiritual Body (Egyptian:
SAHU); and, after that, the increasingly less subtle:
Magical Body (KHU); Shadow (HAIDIT);
Double (KA); and Physical Body (AUFU).
"The Way of the Five Bodies" requires a consciousness which simultaneously differentiates each of the five while, at the same time, all of the five are functionally integrated. There is a metapsychology and a methodology for achieving this ideal and, as well, an underlying metaphysic. The Way is practical and realizable, although extraordinarily demanding. It can explain much and lead to accomplishments which would otherwise be impossible. If it is humanly valid, then it is not just "Egyptian", although its known source is the magico-spiritual Way of the Goddess called Sekhmet by the Egyptians. I will discuss the metaphysic briefly, the metapsychology, which can be tested, in considerably more detail. According to this Way there are two primordial, co-existing, interactive and absolutely antagonistic realities: Cosmos (the Powers and Principalities of Order) and Chaos (the Disordered Powers and Principalities).
Press to see enlarged image The essentially irrepresentable Powers are functionally represented by Neters, or beings experienced by humans as Gods and Goddesses, angels and demons, and others known to religion and mythology. These Powers, in their Principalities, and for us, are hierarchical and, in our terms, good or evil. They are locked in a thus far perpetual struggle, each seeking the other's transformation. They are indestructible, but subject to such transformation, so that a final resolution would be the transforming of Chaos into Cosmos, or that of Cosmos into Chaos. Out of this conflict, sometimes called The War in Heaven, have arisen "intermediate" realities including the human. The whole of reality has substance, but is neither "material" nor "spiritual", and it is more or less subtle in varying degrees. Much of it is altogether inaccessible to and unknowable by humans. Some of it can be glimpsed or revealed, but not participated in by human beings. Within an exceedingly narrow sector of the whole of reality is the dimension of the human. The present situation may be very roughly described in the following manner, with references to positioning in space understood as a convenience and not essentially veridical. At the "TOP" is Chaos, a realm of such subtlety that it could, if experienced, be misunderstood as Void or NonBeing, also Darkness. In terms of The War in Heaven this realm and the existences natural to it are the "Place" and the "UrGods" of Evil, working with absolute intensity toward the transformation of Cosmos into Chaos. To human reasoning the fact of such "Forces" itself implies a kind of order. But that is not true, and the "order" is a fabrication of minds which cannot grasp the mystery. Primordially contiguous to Chaos is Cosmos, the "Place" and "Forces of Order, Good, Light, Creative Harmony, and the Cosmic UrGods". Implacable as Chaos, Cosmos unwaveringly and with absolute intensity pursues the goal of transformation. Cosmos and Chaos are of the same degree of subtlety and only their subtle substance is completely and eternally real. Yet it is as if there have come to be, in a "space" between Cosmos and Chaos, dimensions of Being which most fundamentally are the arenas of conflict in which the struggles of the Forces take place. These arenas, and conflicts and combatants, have substance of varying degrees of subtlety, but more fundamentally they are appearances, imaginal constructs, functional representations of the essentially irrepresentable Powers and Principalities. The so-called "material" and "spiritual" worlds, including humans and their world(s), are such appearances and representations -- something like "particles of mind," temporarily given differing kinds of existence and, in some instances, degrees of autonomy. These mysteries also go beyond human understanding, although Mystery Schools can impart a measure of understanding. What is important to really know and to fully believe is that man and his world(s) are not at all what they seem to be; that the apparent reality is far more malleable and subject to directed transformation than we are taught that it is or it seems to be; and that those belief systems which sustain such illusions as immutability and objectivity are also subject to alteration, all "Laws of Nature" amongst them. "Above" Chaos is the created and already-imaginal realm of the Demonic Metaeidolons: Evil Gods, Demons, and other Chaotic entities. Correspondingly, "below" Cosmos is the realm of the Divine Metaeidolons: Gods and Goddesses, angels, demons, and others. This realm, too, is created and imaginal, and it is the Metaeidolons, whether of Cosmos or Chaos, which interact directly with the human dimensions. A few -- the most potent -- of these great Metaeidolons represent the UrGods of the two primordial realities. "Above" the realm of the Metaeidolons of Chaos is the disordered "material" realm of the "subatomic particles", "matter" with chaotic, not just unpredictable, positions and velocities. This is the reality which is referred to by the second law of thermodynamics, predictive of the eventual triumph of Chaos. Similarly, "below" the realms of the Metaeidolons of Cosmos, there is the realm of "spirit", and equally potent and seemingly irrefutable "laws" of teleology predictive of evolution of consciousness and eventual transformation of "matter" into "spirit." It is also, however, an imaginal realm, without true immutable laws and is part of the transient, created arena, the "space" between Cosmos and Chaos. It is also called the realm of Evolutionary Order. Next, limiting discussion to humans and their world(s), there are five human realities, each of them potentially knowable by man, who is able to participate in them by means of the five bodies he/she possesses. These are the "gross" and "subtle" bodies encountered in all major spiritual traditions and systems of magic and occultism. The understanding of them is distorted, however, and some systems, for example, subcategorize, while others lump together, thus arriving at three, seven, nine, or some other number of bodies and their respective realities. The five human dimensions or worlds are a "midpoint" between the realities of chaotic "matter" and evolutionary "spirit." The "gross material or physical body, " or just "physical body" (AUFU), is the body of anatomy and physiology, and it is what most people think they mean by "my body." This body, however, has a brain but no mind and is therefore not the body of most experience, as will be explained more fully later. The second, more subtle body is the Double (KA), and it is the body usually experienced by the mind of that body; it is a body image, coincides more or less with the AUFU, and its sensations also are images or, more precisely, symbolic representations of an imaginal reality, which it in many ways distorts. This distortion is recognized by psychology, so that some authors speak, for example, of a "symbolic coding" of the "actual" reality done by the brain or the brain-mind. Quite apart from metaphysics, one can accept that the experience of one's own and other bodies is not immediate, but mediated by the mind, and "occurs in" the mind (or brain, if one chooses to regard mind as "epiphenomenon of brain"). As the KA's world is more subtle than the AUFU's, similarly the third body and world of the Shadow (HAIDIT) is more subtle than that of the KA. This is a reality ordinarily experienced as altogether "mental" and mostly "unconscious", the world, for example, of most dreams and most images experienced in trance and drug states. It can be a world of either the personal or the collective or transpersonal unconscious, a world that is the source of many works of art and which figures also in other sorts of "creativity." Many fail to consider that in, say, the dream world they have a body which is not the body of everyday experience and that the dream world also is a different reality, the dream body and dream worlds being unfettered by many of the "laws" which bind the world of the ordinary waking consciousness. As is true of the KA and the other subtle bodies, the HAIDIT is part of and interactive with that constellation of five bodies which is the human being. Therefore its experiences can affect the others, particularly those inferior to it in subtlety, but the more subtle bodies also. Such interactions are most strikingly apparent in cases where the unconscious is clearly in a causal relationship to the sickness or healing of the physical body or the mind. Once again, this world of experience is well-known to psychology. What is not grasped sufficiently, however, is that the world of the HAIDIT, or Shadow, is equally as real as the "objective" world, that the body of the HAIDIT is also equally real, and that the failure to recognize these facts is damaging and severely limiting. The Magical Body and its world, or KHU, are only rarely consciously experienced but shape importantly that "work of art" or "myth" which the HAIDIT in its own consciousness lives, and which it imposes on the KA, which in turn lives out the same myth, but almost always unconsciously. These subtler realities then very largely determine the fate of the AUFU, including, accidents apart, when and how it will deteriorate and die. In ancient times when such matters were better understood the KHU was not thought of as "magical", but as magico-spiritual, the line between magic and religion being artificial and imposed on human thinking by religions which already had lost much of their awareness and potency. The KHU was the "second order" reality and work of the magician-priest -- only later, just of the magician. To live and act consciously in the KHU it is necessary to undergo a prolonged and very rigorous training. There are brief, spontaneous experiences of it, most often triggered by unusual stress and a resultant alteration of consciousness. Also, in some more primitive societies, shamans, witch doctors and similar figures still attain to fragmentary knowledge of the KHU and thus can generate some "paranormal" effects, but these fall far short of what is possible. Nevertheless the importance of the KHU, which can serve either Cosmos or Chaos, is very great. Functioning unconsciously insofar as the less subtle bodies are concerned, it affects them and their worlds quite apart from determining the myth that is lived out. Each person is to some extent an "unconscious magician", affecting his world, including other persons, by telepathic, psychokinetic and other means. In some cases this "unconscious magic" can be extremely potent. The "highest" and most subtle body and world is the SAHU, or Spiritual Body which again, more appropriately, should be magicospiritual, but of the "first order." This is the world of authentic "religious experience" as it is attained to by rigorous practitioners of "spiritual disciplines" -- "holy men", "saints", "spiritual masters," whatever they may be called in a particular system. In the ancient traditions, the high magician-priest was expected to be able to experience and work with the realities of both KHU and SAHU. Presently, however, spiritual disciplines largely eschew the magical reality, aiming only at passive consciousness of the "spiritual" one -- more rarely, spiritual Work and interactions with Neters. This limitation is crippling for spiritual development. And the true goal must be "complete" consciousness -- that is, the knowledge and use of all five of the bodies and their respective dimensions. Similarly, the magician is crippled if his consciousness and Work do not extend beyond the KHU. The SAHU is the only human reality which is "congenial" to the Cosmic "Gods", although such Beings may "descend" all the way into the realm of the AUFU which, however, is excremental to them. The "Gods" of Chaos ordinarily "ascend" only to the realm of the KHU, when a "black magic" is practiced. However, some of the most potent sometimes invade the SAHU, so that even the holiest of men or women is not secure from them. Also, the most powerful of black magicians can work with Metaeidolons representing the UrGods of Chaos at this level, thus effecting the most potent evil. Having now, in one possible way, summarized the background against which the human drama is played my discussion will hereafter be limited to the human realities -- the five bodies of man, the dimensions appropriate to each of those bodies, and the functional metapsychology which can be effectively worked with once their existences have been made known. However, before examine more complete the "gross physical body" and its place in the metapsychology, something needs to be said about the animation of the body and certain other elements which are required if it is to be human. In addition to the five bodies, the human being has also two "spirits." One of these is commonly referred to as the Soul (BA) and, like the bodies, it is an arena in which the great opposing forces contend -- in a larger way, but also for control of the person's bodies and his life. The BA is imperishable, or almost so, unlike the other "spirit", the SOKHIM, which dies along with the physical body and is a kind of foundation for consciousness, a link between body and mind. At birth the five bodies and the two spirits coalesce, a process that begins at the moment of conception but only is completed at the time of the physical birth. Also, at conception, the Breath of Life, or SA, must be released and enter in. It is this SA, or Life Force, that the Gods can draw upon for immortality. When a God chooses to die, he can do so by abstaining from a periodically needed assimilation of the SA. A human who gains access to the SA by magical means can use it to extend his own life. And when a human being of special gifts is conceived -- one especially destined to serve Cosmos or Chaos -- forces will contend to ensure or to prevent the infusion of SA, even though that occurs in the barest instant after fertilization. Cosmos and Chaos designate many more such intended children of destiny than ever effectively reach the world: either the SA infusion is blocked, the infant is destroyed in the womb or at birth, or the person may be removed at any time later on, whenever he or she is vulnerable. Despite attempts at protection, it is very rare that such gifted and chosen humans survive to carry out the Work assigned to them. Cosmos and Chaos are equally merciless in their efforts to eliminate the designates, since even one such person can drastically affect the human race.
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