Hi all,
Please bear with me guys, as I’m about to (yet again) ramble on about the whole issue of other planes of existence, and what relation these have to our physical plane and to us as human beings.
I realize this is something that I post about often- but I simply find it fascinating, and since I’ve got a lot of free time now I’m contemplating it quite a bit.
A few months ago I posed a question to this forum: ‘What is your view on the nature of the material universe?’. I started the thread by explaining that when I first became interested in occult subjects, I came across the Neo-platonic cosmology, which at the time resonated very strongly with me. Being someone who has always been very moved by art and specifically music, I came to the conclusion that art is a sort of gateway to these other ‘higher planes’- a sort of temporary glimpse into the more blissful nature of the planes above the coarser, denser physical. I believed this for quite a few years. Lately though, for various reasons, I have been questioning these views. I decided it’s time to seek out the truth of the matter.
I received quite a few responses in the above-mentioned thread, which gave me a lot to think about. A common belief amongst Balg forum members seems to be that the physical plane is neither ‘evil’ (gnostic thought) or somehow inferior to other realms (Neo-Platonic), but simply neutral- it simply exists- it just is what it is. I have been pondering over this a lot, and in a way I have come to agree, but there is still a part of me that feels that there is more… more to existence than the mundane feelings and experiences we associate with being ‘alive’. The idea that I’m currently toying with is sort of a combination of these two points of view: perhaps our universe is neutral in a sense, but yet at the same time, lesser but only when directly compared to the higher realms? I’m not even sure if that makes any sense, even to myself lol, but the point of this post is to go into more detail about why I feel that there’s ‘something else’, some sort of ‘otherness’ that we occasionally tap into, during altered states of consciousness for example, but which for the most part, lies just beyond our grasp. It’s such a hard concept to express in words, but I’ve recently watched a film that I feel conveys these ideas really well.
As I mentioned above, I’ve really been delving into this subject recently- researching, meditating, and working with Raziel (the archangel of Chokmah- sphere of wisdom) whom I believe may well have some of the answers that I seek. So far we have discussed, in quite a bit of detail, the ‘mechanics’ of the astral plane and how the astral, physical and mental planes interact with each other. I’ve received some absolutely mind-blowing info, which I’ve posted about in a separate thread (that reminds me- I need to update that as I’ve got more really interesting and useful info to share with you guys). I’ve also been doing more research into Gnosticism, which is a dualist philosophy that takes Neo-platonic ideas to the extreme. So, a few weeks ago I was watching a youtube vid that dealt with Luciferian Gnosticism, and the guy recommended some gnostic-themed movies, one of which was the film Pleasantville. This is what I wanted to talk about today…
To give a brief summary: Two teenagers find themselves trapped in a parallel, black and white universe. The name of the town in which they live is Pleasantville, but in a sense Pleasantville is their entire universe as the inhabitants are unaware of anything existing outside of it. As the name suggests, life in this universe is ‘pleasant’, but dull and monotonous, as it lacks emotion, passion, and creativity (sex is not a thing either btw). Slowly the teenagers introduce these elements to the people of the town, and as they start having these new experiences, they become ‘coloured’ (they literally start existing in colour, rather than the usual black and white). These changes cause quite a stir and the town authorities are keen to put a stop to it, however in the end even they succumb to emotion and become ‘coloured’ themselves… In gnostic terms, the two teenagers would be seen as the saviours of the inhabitants of that universe – as they introduce these new experiences to the people who would otherwise only ever know a mechanical, albeit smooth running, existence.
I personally do not believe that we are living in an ‘evil’ universe controlled by a spiteful demiurge- which is essentially what Gnosticism espouses, BUT I feel, very strongly, that there is a whole range of experiences from which we are currently, for the most part, cut off from, only to experience fleetingly through art, music or altered states of awareness. A quote from David Icke comes to mind (and no I’m not particularly a fan- but I think that some of what he says makes sense): ‘ People look through their eyes, and they think “this is the world’. But it isn’t. It’s a tiny, tiny frequency range, within an infinite energy field of infinite frequency ranges.’ From a scientific point of view, this observation is correct when considering the scope of our physical senses; frequencies exist which are beyond our hearing range for example, similarly colours exist which cannot be perceived by our sense of sight. It just somehow makes sense to me that this limited perception would extend beyond just the realm of the five senses, and apply equally to the phenomenon of consciousness itself?
So to put it another way: are we like the citizens of Pleasantville? Existing in a little bubble of very, very limited perception- within a multiverse of endless possibilities and infinitely more blissful experiences? And if so, how do we tap into this ‘otherness’; how do we make this a part of our experience, right here on earth, in the here and now?