Musings on Plato’s World of Forms

Musings on Plato’s World of Forms

After many years of self observation of my own thinking activity (using the methods of natural science – as advised by RS in the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity), I found myself having access to “pure ideas”. Thinking in this Way involves an inward focus, so this “purity” is threefold: 1) only concepts and ideas are observed – not sense impressions. 2) The motive behind the thinking is selfless. 3) contemplation and meditation on a single idea is an important practice.

Those who work in this realm are aware that the act of thinking can’t observe itself in action. Experience taught me that thinking leaves a kind of after-effect in the soul – this can be observed, and thus helps us understand what we are doing when we think consciously. In a certain sense, as we become more and more aware of the nature of thinking, it is “Thinking Itself” that teaches us. Experience also reveals that the “relationship” of one idea to another is a “felt” experience. Will the good, but think with the heart.

In recent years I have begun to do what I call: a physics of ideas. I started thinking of primary aspects of our existence, as related to us by ancient minds, such as via the Emerald Tablet (a copy, from a translation by Issac Newton is at the end of this meditation).

This basic wisdom then becomes elaborated in the book of symbols called the Tarot. There is an overlap between Tomberg’s modern work on the Tarot, and the ideas of Franz Bardon on Magic. In addition, the remarkable book: “Practical Astrology” by St. Germain, reveals the ways the ancients thought of Tarot as just one of three aspects of their science, which includes Numerology and Astrology as a single system.

A principle idea of the ancients is: Macrocosm and microcosm (as above so below, and as below so above, for the miracle of the one). We are an exact analogue of the Great World. There is nothing in the Macrocosm that is not an aspect of the microcosm. Want to become better acquainted with Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorath, and the Asuras? Study how those realities express themselves in our own souls. When we look for good and evil in the world, this act of judging, violates the principle of Judge Not, from the Sermon on the Mount.

One way to appreciate – this aspect of our conscious reality – is to ask yourself: “What, of value and meaning, does the Mystery see in that which we observe, that we have not ourselves seen?”

RS in Lucifer and Ahriman suggests we have to recognize what takes effect “through” us. The idea that evil lies outside us, acting upon us, is a mistake of observation as to the “source”.

It is intriguing to notice the nouns in the Emerald Tablet: Father, Mother, Sun, Moon and so forth. Keep in mind that these words came from, or through, a founding priest of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries, via direct experience of the Mystery.

Sometimes it helps to see “nouns” as “verbs”. To “Father” is a deed of generation, while to “Mother” is the deed of nurturing. These wise ancients knew the Christ as the Sun being in a certain sense, and the Moon being as the Mother, and as the Earth, in a sense.

Yet, there is the riddle … once you start working through the various ideas we have of the Mystery, their relationship to each other is qualitative, and aesthetic. Still, whatever path we follow, we find the fundamental nature of reality is Unity, or God, or the One.

Unity can be seen as two-fold in function: to father and to mother. From this polarity, a secondary unity, the Son. All three sub-aspects are present everywhere and every-when.

Some years ago I did a long study of the relationship between the four elements (fire, air, water, earth) and the four fundamental forces and transformations of modern physics. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2019/05/20/letters-about-magic/

In my biography, which began in the thirty first year of my body-brother Joey’s life, I soon developed a conscious relationship with Divine Providence. As a consequence, I was first led to Franz Bardon’s books on Hermetic Science (aka: Magic). Only subsequently was I led to RS, the Goethean scientists, and Tomberg.

The doctrine of the elements is a symbol system: Fire = Will; Air = Intellect; Water = Feeling; and, Earth = Consciousness. Is there any relationship between those ideas and the ideas of: electromagnetism, gravity, and the weak and strong nuclear forces?

I continued those studies, and developed the concept of what would it mean if I took the Hermetic ideas of the Father, the Son, the Mother, and the Moon, and sought in those four forces transformations the underlying Being, given the idea that nothing exists which is not the will of Cosmic Beings.

This pure thinking in ideas led to associating electromagnetic phenomena as related to the Father – the generator – at Rest (fire-will), and gravity to the Mother – the nurturing (water-feeling) of that which has been generated. To the Son, who is akin to Unity becoming twofold, the strong (air-intellect) and weak (earth-consciousness) nuclear aspects.

There is an ideal relationship between these four-fold aspects and the Stages of Planetary Spheres: Saturn (Emanation), Sun (Creation), Moon (Formation), and Earth (Existence). Saturn, a sphere of warmth (fire-cosmic will); Sun, a sphere of newly created entities, sort of “named” into differentiated and created “being” by air-intellect; Moon, the Mother and form, the world speaking of Itself as shapes, with only one form – the human being – having hands as a symbol of our own divinity and capacity to induce change.

As with the elements, all three combine into one result, earth – consciousness.

Recently, while reading Tomberg’s “The Art of the Good – the Regeneration of Fallen Justice”, I came upon this four-fold idea: first the phenomena, second the concept or name, third the idea, and then fourth the ideal. RS, by the way, in GA-2 – “A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe’s World Conception”, writes of the idea as a complex of concepts.

To fill this out, think about “rain”. The phenomena is the direct experience. The name is the concept. The idea is the complex of concepts covering the whole of the phenomena, which is multifaceted. With the ideal we come to the contemplation of the essence – the being nature behind the phenomena.

Is true without lying, certain and most true.
That which is below is like that which is above
and that which is above is like that is below
to do the miracles of one only thing
And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one:
so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.

The Sun is its father,
the moon its mother,
the wind hath carried it in its belly,
the earth is its nurse.
The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.

Separate thou the earth from the fire,
the subtle from the gross
sweetly with great industry.
It ascends from the earth to the heaven
and again it descends to the earth
and receives the force of things superior and inferior.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.

Its force is above all force.
For it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing.
So was ye world created.
From this are and do come admirable adaptations
where of the means is here in this.

Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist,
having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.