The Resonant Interval: The Word Vibrating in the Spaces of Time

Say: It is in Our power, should We wish it, to cause all created things to expire in an instant, and, with the next, to endue them again with life. The knowledge thereof, however, is with God alone, the All-Knowing, the All-Informed.

(Baha'u'llah, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts: 39)

From last post we understood that there are two main ways to understand resonance as the balance, equilibrium, symmetry, and harmony of things: either  through acoustic or auditory metaphors, or through visual images, such as the Lewis structure in chemistry.  We can call these balances, equilibriums, and harmonies vibrating resonant structures.

We learned, too, that resonance, as what goes on in the excited state of anti-symmetry, i.e. disequilibrium, is connected with freedom and creativity.  A physical system can have as many resonant frequencies as it has degrees of freedom, each degree of freedom can vibrate as a harmonic oscillator.  But too much reinforcing positive feedback on a frequency can break down the system—as when a glass breaks at a certain frequency that is held too long—because the system stores vibrational energy until it reaches its limit.  Too much negative feedback brings about a rigid, sclerotic equilibrium that is death.

All this implies, in my mind, several principles.  First, not only the periodic breakdown of a resonant structure, but also the building of new ones upon different frequencies and new vibrations can occur.  This, in turn, suggests profound implications for the power of the human will to bring forth new reality—implications which I cannot go into in detail in this post.  Briefly, I mean that an intentional, volitional attitude (which is a thought at certain frequency or vibration) when held long enough and intensely enough may have the power to shape or reshape reality.  Certainly the Manifestations of God had this power to a supreme degree.  Does not Baha’u’llah unequivocally state of the effect of His Revelation upon a moribund human society that: “The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 136)

But further than human society, yet intertwined with its changes and transformations, is the effect of Revelation upon even the physical foundations of the entire universe.  Consider this statement: “I testify that no sooner had the First Word proceeded, through the potency of Thy will and purpose, out of His mouth, and the First Call gone forth from His lips than the whole creation was revolutionized, and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth were stirred to the depths. Through that Word the realities of all created things were shaken, were divided, separated, scattered, combined and reunited, disclosing, in both the contingent world and the heavenly kingdom, entities of a new creation, and revealing, in the unseen realms, the signs and tokens of Thy unity and oneness.

"No sooner had that Revelation been unveiled to men's eyes than the signs of universal discord appeared among the peoples of the world, and commotion seized the dwellers of earth and heaven, and the foundations of all things were shaken. The forces of dissension were released, the meaning of the Word was unfolded, and every several atom in all created things acquired its own distinct and separate character.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 295-296)

So where does this change and upheaval take place?  I say it takes place in what I am calling the resonant interval.  By resonant interval I mean the spaces between all living and created things, spaces that define the boundaries of resonant structures.  It is a kind of boiling cauldron of potentials that flow into existence when intention is focused upon it, something like lava erupting onto the surface of the earth that cools into rich soil.  Let us recall here Baha’u’llah’s statement that: “The world of existence came into being through the heat generated from the interaction between the active force and that which is its recipient.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 140)

I also call it a resonant interval to denote, on the auditory side, the vastly intricate activity of creating new harmonies and balances that is the result of the Word of God calling into being a new creation.  For there are no absolutely empty spaces.  The universe is a plenum not a vacuum, but a plenum of various and discrete orders and kingdoms.  The gaps or spaces or intervals are laboratories of creation, the place to glimpse the substratum of life, the dark matter behind visible matter, the realm of becoming or coming into being.

In the resonant interval is turbulence and disequilibrium, death and birth, where chaos rules, complexity is built, and new harmonies are established because a new master vibration, a new Name or Title of God, has upset equilibrium, where either positive feedback or negative feedback, or both, has pushed the system to its break boundary. 

The resonating interval is the interface of vibrational orders whose myriad recombinations in creative interplay renews creation in new form.  It is where final states return to their opposite, where energy can reverse and flow backwards, where end states become new beginnings and new beginnings incorporate what ended. It brings the extremes into conjunction.  These reversals are not only in structure but also in polarity and the flow of energy.  Enantiodromia means “to flow backward” the name of the counterpart of movement.

In the resonant interval the primary focus is not on things, not upon objects created or creations transformed, but on emerging relations of creation and transformation from the active force of Will,  Defining these new relations, bringing them out from their invisibility, clothing them in language or numbers so they may be perceived, is to peer inside the exploding nova of creative activity.  Changing the focus of the mind from things to their hidden relations does tend to blur the outline of the things themselves, much as physicists cannot know simultaneously the position and momentum of a photon.  That is, relations are hidden when the mind is focused on the things. Things become hidden if the focus is on relations and interaction and interplay as things.  But if the things are concretions of relations then “these two are the same, yet they are different”.  This is the glorious structure of the interactions of the active force and that which is its recipient.  Cosmologically and archetypically that is Divine Will acting upon primal matter through the universal Intellect.

Between divine unity (things created spiritually perfect and complete from the first) and earthly union (the last and perfectly manifest form of the thing, its essence) is the vast realm of indeterminacy.  At every stage of this journey from unity to union there is the resonant gap where all possibility exists until a determinate choice is made.  This is where Destiny takes shape.

Resonant intervals appear at the boundary/union of both extreme and end states of an organic system or living thing.  From one view, end states are the exhaustion of creative possibility, the state of total equilibrium which is approaching death.  They are, nonetheless, states ready for transformation and sacrifice.  The system is in crisis.  Extreme states are the transformative energies at work. These have a different dynamic from those incremental growth stages occurring within an order. End states are the prerequisite conditions for extreme states to be manifest.  Extreme states generate energy for humanity to make leaps, the final leap being to transcend the entire order.  But from the view of unity, these two states are actually stages of one process leading to union.

In previous posts I have named these two stages as The End of Time and the Eclipse of Distance.  The end of time is an end state, but the eclipse of distance is an extreme state. It is the state where, as Baha’u’llah says, “Paradise hath been brought nigh, and Hell made to blaze!” (Gems of Divine Mysteries: 16), where the B and the E are joined and knit together.

Last post we read that resonance only occurs when the first object is vibrating at the natural frequency of the second object.  Creation must periodically be recreated so that it resonates with the new spiritual message.  In fact, it is the new Revelation that causes the excited state that breaks balanced resonance, revelation being the new master vibration.  What happens in that universal interval is the recreation of the universe.  Thus for acoustic resonance that is the “calling into being” of all things.  For the visual image it is the reconfiguration of creation.

More in next post.

Resonance: Joining and Knitting Together

All that is known owes its renown to the splendour of Thy Name, the Most Manifest, and every object is deeply stirred by the vibrating influence emanating from Thine invincible Will.

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab: 195)

In this post and the next, through the phenomenon of resonance, I will propose a way to look at how the bonding, the joining and knitting together, of the spiritual worlds and material worlds may take place.

Briefly, because the spiritual and the material are exact counterparts, resonance operates or can operate between the spiritual and material realms.  When they are joined and knit together these realms are coherent at every level, like fractal spun yarn or large scale symmetry between levels of matter.  Resonance, the harmony of frequencies effected by the “vibrating influence” of the divine Will calling into being a new creation, is the mechanism of joining and knitting.  When coherence is achieved between the spiritual and material they become a resonant structure.  The finding of equivalent material vibration to manifest a vibrating spiritual reality is the creation of harmony between these two realms (the treble and bass, so to speak) and is, I believe, the basis of the phenomenon of manifestation.  First, what is resonance?

The word resonance comes from Latin and means to "resound"—to sound out together with a loud sound: an apt metaphor when linked with metaphors of creation by uttering the Word.  Resonance phenomena occur with all types of vibrations or waves.  Resonance needs a medium for waves and vibrations to travel through.  Resonance is the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object. 

There is resonance as the harmonics of interplay between interacting things, the vibratory frequencies that combine harmoniously to create, enhance and reinforce the equilibrium of living things.  The concept of resonance captures the interplay of the qualities of the field and all its interacting parts.  It is a fundamental quality of creation.

Resonance works in auditory harmonics as vibratory resonance.  In music, the natural frequencies of a musical instrument are sometimes referred to as the harmonics of the instrument. An instrument can be forced into vibrating at one of its harmonics if another interconnected object pushes it with one of those frequencies. When one object vibrating at the same natural frequency of a second object forces that second object into vibrational motion that is resonance.  Resonance only occurs when the first object is vibrating at the natural frequency of the second object. 

In physics, resonance is a phenomenon in which a vibrating system or external force drives another system to oscillate with greater amplitude at a specific preferential frequency.  Frequencies at which the response amplitude is a relative maximum are known as the system's resonant frequencies. At these frequencies, even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations, because the system stores vibrational energy.

That means that acoustic resonance can result in catastrophic breakdown of the object at resonance with too much positive feedback. The classic example of this is breaking a wine glass with sound at the precise resonant frequency of the glass.  Soldiers tramping across abridge in lockstep can set up such a vibration that it can shake the bridge down, whereas if they break stride and go over with separate steps all is well, for individual vibrations cancel out.

In celestial mechanics, an orbital resonance occurs when two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually due to their orbital periods being related by a ratio of two small integers. Orbital resonances greatly enhance the mutual gravitational influence of the bodies. In most cases, this results in an unstable interaction, in which the bodies exchange momentum and shift orbits until the resonance no longer exists—similar to the breakdowns in acoustic resonance. Under some circumstances, a resonant system can be stable and self-correcting, so that the bodies remain in resonance.

Resonance also occurs not only between structures or things but also within structures when a system is able to store and easily transfer energy between two or more different storage modes (such as kinetic energy and potential energy in the case of a pendulum). However, there are some losses from cycle to cycle, called damping. When damping is small, the resonant frequency is approximately equal to the natural frequency of the system, which is a frequency of unforced vibrations. Some systems have multiple, distinct, resonant frequencies. The exact response of a resonance, especially for frequencies far from the resonant frequency, depends on the details of the physical system, and is usually not exactly symmetric about the resonant frequency.  This is like Dissipative structures.

In chemistry, resonance is a way of describing delocalized electrons within certain molecules where the bonding cannot be expressed by one single Lewis Structure. (A Lewis Structure is a kind of diagram or formula that shows the bonding between atoms of a molecule and the lone pairs of electrons that may exist in the molecule.)  A molecule or ion with such delocalized electrons is represented by several contributing structures, also called resonance structures or canonical structures.  The greater the number of contributing structures, the more stable the molecule.

In Lewis formulas, electrons are paired between atoms to form covalent bonds.  In molecules or ions that have a combination of one or more single and multiple bonds, often the exact position of the respective bonds cannot be indicated by a single Lewis structure. (Indeterminancy is a basic quantum principle.) That is, the bonded electrons appear to occupy an intermediate position between molecules. To solve this problem, the concept of resonance is used, and the molecule is represented by several contributing structures, each showing a possible distribution of single and multiple bonds. The actual structure has a lowered overall energy and an intermediate bond order.  The molecule is said to be "stabilized by resonance" or "resonance-stabilized".  The Lewis Structure is a visual image to try and capture what is really this shared, resonance energy. 

Every structure is associated with a certain quantity of energy, which determines the stability of the molecule or ion--the lower the potential energy, the greater stability because more of the potential energy has become manifest in form. The actual structure of a molecule in the normal quantum state (the molecule with its contributing structures) has the lowest possible value of total energy. This shared structure of the molecule and all its contributing structures is called the "resonance hybrid" of that molecule.

The resonance hybrid has a structure that is we can say is “intermediate” between the contributing structures; the total quantity of potential energy, however, is lower than the intermediate and hybrids are therefore always more stable than any of the contributing structures would be, because they are all together in balance or equilibrium.   The difference between the potential energy of the actual structure (the resonance hybrid) and that of the contributing structure with the lowest potential energy is called the "resonance energy.”

It is important to remember that resonance structures—the totality of connected molecules mapped by Lewis structures—are not transient states between stable contributing states, a form oscillating between stable states or existing as a temporary equilibrium between them.  Resonance-stability is a hybrid state existing in only one form, the form of a balance of forces.  Since no actual form of the resonance-hybrid can be observed to be resonating it can be said to be nonlocalized, or delocalized. Resonance energy would, too, be delocalized energy existing not in a field but as a field of which any particular molecule would be a concretion and configuration of that energy.

Quantum mechanics requires that the wavefunction of a molecule obeys its observed symmetry. If a single contributing structure does not achieve this, resonance is invoked.  Thus resonance is associated with symmetry.  If contributing structures have equal energy, they are equal contributors to the overall structure.  But this need not be the case. The symmetric combination gives the ground state while the antisymmetric combination gives the first excited state.

Hence, as we read with the breakdown that can occur with acoustic resonance and in celestial mechanics, chemical and molecular resonance is not just about achieving stability, symmetry, and balanced structure, but is also connected with freedom and creativity.  A physical system can have as many resonant frequencies as it has degrees of freedom, each degree of freedom can vibrate as a harmonic oscillator.  But there is the potential for instability, disequilibrium and new harmonics built into the system.  Here we transition to resonant intervals.  That is the topic of the next post.

What Am I Doing?

The glorious maturity of this world depends upon the realization of two things: the establishment of Universal Peace, and the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.

(I Heard Him Say: Words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha as recorded by his Secretary Mirza Ahmad Sohrab: 38)

Scientific knowledge is the highest attainment upon the human plane, for science is the discoverer of realities. It is of two kinds: material and spiritual. Material science is the investigation of natural phenomena; divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities. The world of humanity must acquire both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly with one. Material and spiritual science are the two wings of human uplift and attainment. Both are necessary—one the natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine. By the divine we mean the discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God, inner significances of the heavenly religions and foundation of the law.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 138)

Recently, I was asked by a friend: “Why do you write what you write?”  It is a fair question and I have often found it difficult to answer quickly, because the prime areas of my interest are, well, pretty obscure to most.  So, after answering to the best of my ability the first question, a second equally legitimate question comes: “Why should anybody read that?”; or, “OK.  But how does that help anybody?”  Neither question is asked with any malice or attempt to dismiss what I am doing.  They are genuine efforts to understand me and my work.  I appreciate that.  But it is puzzling to many why anyone would pursue something that does not have the immediate and practical benefits of, say, fixing a broken faucet or motor, especially since there is little hope of making a living remuneration for the hours that I put in.  So why do it?  The short answer is: I feel called to do it. More quizzical looks.  It is not a fashionable reason or motivation.  So I am going to devote this long post to answering the question: What Am I doing?

In a nutshell, I am making an inquiry into some possible conditions for spiritual sciences.  I am following up ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s statement in the second quote above that science is of two kinds, material and spiritual.  Both, He says, are necessary.  The past four hundred years has been primarily devoted to bringing forth marvelous material sciences.  The past few decades have seen some scientists undertake a similar effort to discover spiritual realities and generate sciences of the spirit that explain and explicate them, albeit slowly because of, first, great resistance or crushing indifference from those committed to a materialist paradigm, but also from their looking in the wrong place for a true beginning.

I take a somewhat unorthodox view on sciences of the spirit, to say the least. My view hinges on the difference between “sciences of the spirit” and “spiritual sciences”.  The distinction is, for me, more than mere nuance, and certainly not semantic word-games.  It is the difference that makes all the difference.  While generating spiritual sciences does not require that the mind jettison everything about the structure of material science, it also does not mean that we can simply transfer wholesale the methods and approaches of material science to spirit and believe these will bring us all we can ever know of spirit.  Why?

Because the conditions for understanding spiritual realities and, therefore, for establishing spiritual sciences, are more than simply new theories, better experimental apparatus, and the verification of new facts gained from modifying the established paradigm of understanding.  Rather, a new set of assumptions about Reality and human nature, wider contexts and domains of knowledge that include the spiritual, newly awakened faculties of perception, a new language of communication, new practices of attaining knowledge, such as faith and vision, are needed.  In short, a new paradigm of human knowledge and understanding is required.  To establish spiritual sciences requires a revolution in humanity’s total world view.

Thus, for me, while sciences of the spirit can be conceived as new sciences within the existing paradigm of science, extensions, if you will, into the spiritual of the procedures of material science, spiritual sciences are new kinds of sciences.  (The phrase “spiritual science” was also used by Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy and Waldorf Schools. Though there is some commonality between his conception of spiritual science and mine, there is an important difference.  I will not go into that here.  Perhaps a later post.)

If we read closely the quote from ‘Abdu’l-Baha about the two kinds of science He calls one the natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine.  That is, spiritual science itself is supernatural and not just what it is investigating.

What is a supernatural science?  It could be merely mental, for the mind is, strictly speaking, a supernatural phenomenon.  But I believe it is more than mental, for He further defines supernatural science as divine.  What is a divine science?  He goes on: divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities…By the divine we mean the discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God, inner significances of the heavenly religions and foundation of the law.

Are any spiritual sciences mentioned in the Bahá’i Writings?  I believe so.  In the second Valley of His Four Valleys, a valley devoted to “primal reason”, Baha’u’llah quotes these lines from a celebrated Persian poet: 

Wouldst thou that the mind should not entrap thee?

Teach it the science of the love of God!”

(Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 52)

It seems this science is the means to mental health and progress, else the mind stops growing and gets entrapped in its own imaginings.  It is like alchemy, perhaps the first proto-science, which started out fine but got lost in its imaginings, as will any science which does not lead to God.  A bit more on alchemy below.

But the science of the love of God is more than a good psychology.  The science of the love of God may be the foundational science for all spiritual sciences.  I say this because of a phrase in the first opening quote—I know it is a pilgrim’s note and is not scripture so it must be taken as not necessarily His actual words.  That phrase is the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.  Look at it again: a single science “will renovate all the conditions of existence.” That’s the kind of foundational DNA-like code of knowledge out from which can emerge different sciences, as the oak tree emerges, from trunk to twig to leaf, from the acorn because the entire code sequence to make an oak is in it.

A statement from the Master that qualifies as more scriptural than pilgrim’s notes gives support to this idea.  He is reported to have said: “In this century of the latter times Bahá'u'lláh has appeared and so resuscitated spirits that they have manifested powers more than human….Therefore, the question arises: How is this resuscitation to be accomplished?

“There are certain means for its accomplishment by which mankind is regenerated and quickened with a new birth. This is the second birth mentioned in the heavenly Books. Its accomplishment is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The resuscitation or rebirth of the spirit of man is through the science of the love of God. It is through the efficacy of the water of life. This life and quickening is the regeneration of the phenomenal world.” (Promulgation of Universal Peace: 277)  The bold-faced emphasis is, of course, mine.

I believe that some keys to the science of the love of God may be concealed within Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of Wisdom—Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 137-152—awaiting discovery.  It is in this tablet that He refers to the teachings of Hermes, or Idris, as that Manifestation of God is known in the Qur’an.  There He also praises Balinus (Apollonius of Tyana) as a “man of wisdom who became informed of the mysteries of creation and discerned the subtleties which lie enshrined in the Hermetic writings.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:148)  The scope of Hermes teachings is brought out in the footnote to that statement: “In one of His Tablets Bahá'u'lláh wrote: 'The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Idris. Thus was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and convincing statements. After him Balinus derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements...' In the Qur'án, Sura 19, verses 57 and 58, is written: 'And commemorate Idris in the Book; for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; And we uplifted him to a place on high.' (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 148)

Earlier in that same tablet Baha’u’llah wrote: “I will also mention for thee the invocation voiced by Balinus who was familiar with the theories put forward by the Father of Philosophy (Hermes) regarding the mysteries of creation as given in his chrysolite tablets, that everyone may be fully assured of the things We have elucidated for thee in this manifest Tablet, which, if pressed with the hand of fairness and knowledge, will yield the spirit of life for the quickening of all created things.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:147)  All this sounds to me very much like the kind of language revolving around the great science of the love of God.  The science of the love of God may be that fundamental scientific knowledge that “will yield the spirit of life for the quickening of all created things.”

Be that as it may, one of the effects of the appearance or discovery of this “hidden science” that “renovates all the conditions of existence”, that regenerates the phenomenal world because it resuscitates a human spirit entrapped in materialism, will be to cause the kind of rupture in human existence that occurred millennia ago when humanity burst out of its chrysalis of sensory knowledge into the world of intellectual knowledge.  This rupture was the conception—in the biological sense of conception—of science.  The story is told in the Judeo-Christian tradition through the Genesis story surrounding the figure of Adam, though secular thinkers like to ascribe the leap to the pre-Socratic Greeks, or the Egyptians, and so forth.  But such great ruptures can, for me, only occur through the creative Word of God, not intuitive leaps of human beings.

The first rational intellectual form that emerged from the “Adamic” mental revolution was philosophy to replace mythology.  It is from logical inquiry into the regularities of nature and humanity that all sciences have come.  We are passing through an even greater revolution today with the birth of spiritual man.  As intellectual philosophy was the birth of all rational inquiry—an endeavor extending over vast millennia that has culminated in the mansions of thought we now call modern experimental science—so the science of the love of God, a spiritual philosophy, will be the womb out from which will be born, in the coming centuries, powerful spiritually-driven inquiries into creation.

Now when the “mind” was born in that eponymous Garden with the naming of things it was not just a new knowledge, but also a new kind of knowledge, a kind of knowledge that could only be understood by “a new race of men” using newly awakened faculties.  The new knowledge was not just objective, but also subjective, even, we can make the argument, subjective for the first time in the sense of an individual “I” narrating its experiences to itself in an inner “space”.  It was not just conscious, but self-conscious.  Nothing like it had ever appeared before, but everything came from it.

Similarly today a new philosophy leads. In His Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha’u’llah appointed two signs that indicate the maturity of humanity.  The note elucidating this statement says: “The first sign of the coming of age of humanity referred to in the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh is the emergence of a science which is described as that ‘divine philosophy’ which will include the discovery of a radical approach to the transmutation of elements.  This is an indication of the splendours of the future stupendous expansion of knowledge.” (The Kitab-i-Aqdas: 250)  This can be  alchemy.  But first is the divine alchemy of soul making I discussed last post.

We live in an entirely new day.  What does it require from us to live in the new reality?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha says that people “must be set completely free from their old patterns of thought…until the old ways, the old concepts, are gone and forgotten, this world of being will find no peace, nor will it reflect the perfections of the Heavenly Kingdom.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 252)

Spiritual sciences will be built upon that foundation laid down by the new Revelation, and no other foundation.  Does not Baha’u’llah state: “Unveiled and unconcealed, this Wronged One hath, at all times, proclaimed before the face of all the peoples of the world that which will serve as the key for unlocking the doors of sciences, of arts, of knowledge, of well-being, of prosperity and wealth.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 96)

As I see it, part of the revolution in humanity’s world-view, and an essential aspect of any inquiry into the science of the love of God, will be a new, deeper and broader perspective on causality, for all science must explain the coming into being of things.  While material science has got along quite nicely relying almost exclusively upon efficient causality—the linear, sequential, logico-empirical, left-brained thought so characteristic of the post-Renaissance—spiritual science emphasizes, I believe, the two causes that material science leaves out, formal cause and final cause, structure and purpose, ontos and telos.

The book I am currently piecing together is actually the first volume of a two volume study of the science of the love of God to provide a new cosmology.  Volume two is tentatively titled The Causes of Things.  It examines the Word of God as spiritual cause, the causer of causes—a phrase of Baha’u’llah’s which I have used in my previous books but will hope to define more precisely and use more comprehensively in that coming volume.

At this juncture I will only say that for me spiritual cause is beyond, before, and behind the four traditional causes—formal, final, efficient and material—that Aristotle laid out to explain the creation of phenomena.  Many others, including ‘Abdu’l-Baha, have employed Aristotle’s terminology to explain the creation of phenomena.  If one looks deeply into Aristotle’s discussion of the four causes, however, one can see implied a “causer of causes”.

Spiritual cause is the hidden field out from which the four causes of phenomena come forth, with which they remain connected, and through which they work.  Baha’u’llah says “the Word of God is the cause which hath preceded the contingent world.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:141)  Spiritual cause generates, supports, and makes the four causes work, much as the zero-point field does for all subatomic interactions of the physical world.  But spiritual cause, this field of interpenetrating spiritual energies, is prior in importance, though not in time, even to the zero-point field.  Quantum mechanics is turning the thought of physics toward the reality of a mental foundation to the physical universe, but even more refined than the domain of thought, which ‘Abdu’l-Baha called a “boundless sea”, is the kingdom of spirit.  It is to the spiritual level that we will try to penetrate, to become conscious of that which supports and gives life to everything.

These two volumes are the first of an envisioned five volumes titled collectively, Restoring the Transcendent.  Each volume is, even now, at some level of completion.  Besides the current book and the volume on causality, a third volume on history, titled Revelation and History: Axial Ages of Humanity’s Spiritual Evolution, is being written.  The last two volumes are The Loom of Civilization, a study of the construction of divine civilization, and The Coordinated Vision—a treatise of educational philosophy centered on religion, science and art as the three most powerful ways that humans acquire knowledge.  That final volume will complete the circle back to education that started with my first book, Renewing the Sacred: A New Vision of Education.  The purpose of all these works is the same as that stated by Francis Bacon in the preface of his Novum Organon, (New  Science): “I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty.”

‘Abdu’l-Baha said: “The sciences of today are bridges to reality; if then they lead not to reality, naught remains but fruitless illusion. By the one true God! If learning be not a means of access to Him, the Most Manifest, it is nothing but evident loss.

He went on to the same inquirer: “It is incumbent upon thee to acquire the various branches of knowledge, and to turn thy face toward the beauty of the Manifest Beauty, that thou mayest be a sign of saving guidance amongst the peoples of the world, and a focal centre of understanding in this sphere from which the wise and their wisdom are shut out, except for those who set foot in the Kingdom of lights and become informed of the veiled and hidden mystery, the well-guarded secret.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 108)

When we discover that hidden science that will renovate all the conditions of existence, if we can penetrate to that “sphere from which the wise and their wisdom are shut out”, then we will have crossed what Nietzsche called “the rainbow bridge of concepts” that compose “the sciences of today”, that bridge leading from the land of shadows to the domain of light which is Reality.  There we will “become informed of the veiled and hidden mystery, the well-guarded secret.”

The continued evolution of humanity calls for a new state of heart and mind and a new way of looking at things.  I am attempting to show only some of the features of what that may look like.  By definition, whatever I may discover in this work must, I freely admit, be only partial and incomplete, often imprecise in thought and clumsy in expression. That is in the nature of first attempts, and there are few precedents. I take no credit for results, only the effort.  Only a fool would believe he has done anything in this arena by his own making.  If one wishes to help discover that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence, it is necessary to be led by greater Intelligence, by light up ahead not behind, by illumination from above and beyond.

That is what I am doing now, and, God willing, shall be doing till the inner lights fade and finally go out.  I ask for your prayers and support.

Divine Alchemy: The Most Potent Elixir

Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee…

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words #3)

Baha'u'llah says that acquiring knowledge of proper alchemy is one of the signs of maturity of the human race.  (Kitab-i-Aqdas: 250)  However He discouraged the Baha'is of His time from investigating further into alchemy, saying the world was not ready for it, and if it were to be discovered too early a great calamity would occur. (Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha’u’llah, vol. 2: 268) 

Nonetheless, He did indicate it was, or could be, an authentic science. In dismissing one arrogant person’s claim to “know” alchemy, He stated: “Among the sciences which this pretender hath professed is that of alchemy. We cherish the hope that either a king or a man of preeminent power may call upon him to translate this science from the realm of fancy to the domain of fact and from the plane of mere pretension to that of actual achievement. Would that this unlearned and humble Servant, who never laid any pretension to such things, nor even regarded them as the criterion of true knowledge, might undertake the same task, that thereby the truth might be known and distinguished from falsehood.” (Kitab-i-Iqan: 189-190)

Thus the base pretensions of some foolish ones did not prevent Him from using some of alchemy’s central terminology. One of the alchemical terms He uses is “Elixir”. He affirms that the alchemist’s dream of distilling an elixir, also called the Philosopher’s Stone, that could instantly transmute metals into gold is a reality, albeit an undiscovered one.  He wrote: “For instance, consider the substance of copper. Were it to be protected in its own mine from becoming solidified, it would, within the space of seventy years, attain to the state of gold. There are some, however, who maintain that copper itself is gold, which by becoming solidified is in a diseased condition, and hath not therefore reached its own state.

“Be that as it may, the real elixir will, in one instant, cause the substance of copper to attain the state of gold, and will traverse the seventy-year stages in a single moment." (Kitab-i-Iqan: 156)

Evidently, He got some resistance to this statement, for He wrote later: “Consider the doubts which they who have joined partners with God have instilled into the hearts of the people of this land. "Is it ever possible," they ask, "for copper to be transmuted into gold?" Say, Yes, by my Lord, it is possible. Its secret, however, lieth hidden in Our Knowledge. We will reveal it unto whom We will. Whoso doubteth Our power, let him ask the Lord his God, that He may disclose unto him the secret, and assure him of its truth. That copper can be turned into gold is in itself sufficient proof that gold can, in like manner, be transmuted into copper, if they be of them that can apprehend this truth. Every mineral can be made to acquire the density, form, and substance of each and every other mineral. The knowledge thereof is with Us in the Hidden Book.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 197-198)

Disclosing the science of alchemy was not His mission.  It remains a hidden science.  But chemical alchemy provided for Him metaphors to unveil a greater, spiritual alchemy, that of the transmutation of souls, to which He called His followers.  There are, then, two elixirs, a spiritual and a material, the spiritual more powerful than the other. 

This is brought out by Baha’u’llah in the following passage: “The vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it? Is it within human power, O Hakim, to effect in the constituent elements of any of the minute and indivisible particles of matter so complete a transformation as to transmute it into purest gold? Perplexing and difficult as this may appear, the still greater task of converting satanic strength into heavenly power is one that We have been empowered to accomplish. The Force capable of such a transformation transcendeth the potency of the Elixir itself. The Word of God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity required for so great and far-reaching a change.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah: 201)

It is of great importance that the greater spiritual Elixir be known and understood and take effect before the material elixir is known and applied, for knowing this greater Elixir protects us from the dangers of the second.  The “Elixir of His potent Revelation” is greater and more powerful than the elixir which transmutes matter in any form into purest gold. 

In another passage on the Elixir that can transform and transmute souls Baha’u’llah writes: “I beg of Thee, O my God, by Thy most exalted Word which Thou hast ordained as the Divine Elixir unto all who are in Thy realm, the Elixir through whose potency the crude metal of human life hath been transmuted into purest gold, O Thou in Whose hands are both the visible and invisible kingdoms….” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 53)

In speaking of the Divine Elixir’s power to transmute human beings, Baha’u’llah pointed to the changes wrought in those who accepted His Revelation: “It is evident that nothing short of this mystic transformation could cause such spirit and behaviour, so utterly unlike their previous habits and manners, to be made manifest in the world of being. For their agitation was turned into peace, their doubt into certitude, their timidity into courage. Such is the potency of the Divine Elixir, which, swift as the twinkling of an eye, transmuteth the souls of men!” (Kitab-i-Iqan:155)

One of the powers attributed to the alchemical elixir is the healing of illness.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha also employs the notion of the elixir as metaphor for spiritual healing.  “Every divine Manifestation is the very life of the world, and the skilled physician of each ailing soul. The world of man is sick, and that competent Physician knoweth the cure, arising as He doth with teachings, counsels and admonishments that are the remedy for every pain, the healing balm to every wound. It is certain that the wise physician can diagnose his patient's needs at any season, and apply the cure. Wherefore, relate thou the Teachings of the Abha Beauty to the urgent needs of this present day, and thou wilt see that they provide an instant remedy for the ailing body of the world. Indeed, they are the elixir that bringeth eternal health.”(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 59)

As indicated, this most potent Elixir is to be used by His followers to change and uplift the souls of others, so their divine aspect may come forth.  How to do this?  He advises: “From the texts of the wondrous, heavenly Scriptures they should memorize phrases and passages bearing on various instances, so that in the course of their speech they may recite divine verses whenever the occasion demandeth it, inasmuch as these holy verses are the most potent elixir, the greatest and mightiest talisman. So potent is their influence that the hearer will have no cause for vacillation.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 200)

Baha’u’llah speaks of those who truly follow Him in these terms: “The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. No more than a mere handful, however, hath been found willing to cleave to His Cause, or to become the instruments for its promotion. These few have been endued with the Divine Elixir that can, alone, transmute into purest gold the dross of the world, and have been empowered to administer the infallible remedy for all the ills that afflict the children of men.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 183)

Though empowered to administer the divine elixir the proper expression of that power was perfectly stated in a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi: “Love is, indeed, a most potent elixir that can transform vilest and meanest of people into heavenly souls.”  (From a letter written of behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, December 6, 1935)  (Lights of Guidance: 222)

As I said in previous posts, the alchemist’s prima materia from which is distilled the elixir of life points to something like the concept in modern physics of zero-point energy and ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s “etheric matter.”  Humanity will discover this original matter and how to scientifically transmute it into any desired material.   But the Divine Elixir that has been given to us is the greater elixir and we can learn to use it to transmute all things, starting with our own souls, through the science of the love of God, which is, in my opinion, a combination of both sciences, i.e. using the knowledge of God to transmute the primal love of God into any desired form, as stated in the opening quote.

The Conditions of Recognition

As to those that have tasted of the fruit of man’s earthly existence, which is the recognition of the one true God, exalted be His glory, their life hereafter is such as We are unable to describe. The knowledge thereof is with God, alone, the Lord of all worlds.

(Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 345-346)

Previous posts discussed the concept of direct connection and presented three kinds of direct connection, physical, mental and spiritual, ontological connections all formed by the unity of Spirit and Matter created by Revelation..  These three kinds of connection correspond to and are keys to the three kinds of knowledge human beings can attain, sensory from the senses, intellectual from the mental faculties, and divine within the heart, each having a kind of direct perception of the “things” in its domain. The senses perceive physical things, the intellect perceives through cognition intellectual realities, and the divine is perceived (i.e. reflected) by the higher faculties of faith and vision in the heart.  These three knowledges form together an epistemological unity, also formed by Revelation, when the intelligence awakens to knowledge of the divine.

The outer and inner conditions of direct perception of the divine by the heart, which is the state of recognition, is what I want to examine here more deeply.

Moving from physical to spiritual connection, each level or context is a more interior one, for the attracted human intelligence moves toward the mid-most heart or center, each context of knowing a more direct union both of creation with the human reality and of God with the human reality.  For the desiring intelligence, moving from the spiritual to the material, each connection is also a more manifest complex unity of attributes and powers.

Direct perception of the divine is the epistemological stage (knowledge state) of perceiving the unity of the inherent relations structuring creation and their union as the universe as the manifestation of Divine Knowledge.  At the center and pivot of this perception for the human reality is the image of God within it.  The Manifestation of God is the Divine center of these human centers, and the mid-most heart of all creation.  When the unity of direct connection is consciously attained, what Baha’u’llah calls “piercing the veils of plurality”, then recognition, which I have claimed is the heart’s mode of understanding, is the primary mode of apprehension, and not the senses or cognition. 

Further, though He and His Revelation is always “closer to you than your life vein” (Baha’u’llah quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come: 15) whenever the intelligence moves into a higher mode of awareness and understanding, especially of the divine, it is felt, psychologically and emotionally, as an eclipse of distance, as meeting the Presence of God.  The soul moves closer to Reality and God, because God comes closer to us. The mind no longer only thinks about God but, rather, the heart recognizes God in everything.  This is a new state of mind.  What is the difference between the human and divine Intellect, and how does the mind change its state?

‘Abdu’l-Baha explains the difference between the universal divine Mind and the general human mind as: “But the universal divine mind, which is beyond nature, is the bounty of the Preexistent Power. This universal mind is divine; it embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God. It is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research. The intellectual power of the world of nature is a power of investigation, and by its researches it discovers the realities of beings and the properties of existences; but the heavenly intellectual power, which is beyond nature, embraces things and is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)

He goes on to explain how the human mind attains a divine state: “This divine intellectual power is the special attribute of the Holy Manifestations and the Dawning-places of prophethood; a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous, and a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)  This reflective capacity is an inherent quality of the heart.  The Bab wrote in this regard: "He hath moreover deposited within the realities of all created things the emblem of His recognition..." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab: 111-112)

But when does this ray of divine Light shine upon the heart and awaken the "emblem of His recognition" deposited there?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha advises: “If thou wishest the divine knowledge and recognition, purify thy heart from all beside God, be wholly attracted to the ideal, beloved One; search for and choose Him and apply thyself to rational and authoritative arguments. For arguments are a guide to the path and by this the heart will be turned unto the Sun of Truth. And when the heart is turned unto the Sun, then the eye will be opened and will recognize the Sun through the Sun itself.” (Baha'i World Faith: 383-384)

While the human mind is a product of natural causes and developments, the essential power and perfection of the human spirit, the ground and apex of creation, an intelligence that “…embraces all beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings” (Some Answered Questions: 208), this “natural” mind is not the highest state the mind may attain.  But it cannot go higher unaided. It cannot advance further without assistance from higher Powers.   “But the human spirit, unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover the heavenly secrets.” (Some Answered Questions: 208)

Now we come to the crux.  What is the essential difference in perception and quality of knowledge between these two states of mind? The Master explains that: “The phenomenal knowledge has need of things known; the Preexistent Knowledge is independent of their existence.” (Some Answered Questions: 293)  Recall, He said that the universal divine Mind is “beyond nature.”  It “is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research.”  It “embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God.”  It “is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.”

Therefore, when “a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous…a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.”  In this awakened divine state of the human mind (which is not the same divine state as the Manifestation.  He does not attain this state.  It is an inherent quality of His being which He manifests when He is called to His Mission.  He is the sun, we are recipients of His light.) we, too, may to some small extent be truly cognizant of things, know them, understand them, be aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and discover the concealed verities of the Kingdom which He reveals.  In short, we see Him as He sees Himself, and we see the world like He does: attaining the condition of “Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith.” (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words #44)

This is the state of recognition.  It is not attainable to the natural mind through investigation and research.  It is a state of understanding Reality attainable only by the burnished heart, via either the inner hearing recognizing His Voice, which is faith, or through inner vision, which is the recognition, figuratively, of the light of His Being.  Baha’u’llah claims: “If it be your wish, O people, to know God and to discover the greatness of His might, look, then, upon Me with Mine own eyes, and not with the eyes of any one besides Me. Ye will, otherwise, be never capable of recognizing Me, though ye ponder My Cause as long as My Kingdom endureth, and meditate upon all created things throughout the eternity of God, the Sovereign Lord of all, the Omnipotent, the Ever-Abiding, the All-Wise.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 272)