Behind The Veil

Just a random illustration from an old alchemical book- probably the most relevant part is the three triangles- corpus (body), anima (soul) and spiritus (spirit or Divine nature). So why put this up here, apart from the fact that I don't have anything else to do? Alchemy is an old science, and largely a symbolic one. The official purpose is to transmute metals or other substances into gold. About the only way to do this is to go pulling subatomic bonds apart, which is not such a hot idea. However, the real purpose of alchemy is to turn "lesser substances" into "gold". Alchemists developed the idea that we exist on only one of a series of planes- there is the highest plane, which would be God, or the Divine. This is not the bearded dude in a robe God, but rather the highest state of existence- creation realizing its own nature. Below that is the lesser, physical world, where the real nature of what's going on is not realized. Nonetheless, the nature of the Divine kind of imbues all things- everything that is a part of it shares in its nature, and operates according to the principles of it. Like mathematics- everything operates according to mathematical principles, although in many cases the operations of these principles are far too huge for us to fully grasp. The basic principles apply, but to formulate a prediction would involve such a huge number of variables the human race would have come and gone several times over before any of us managed to even get a fraction of it down. In my experience, this is something more to grasp intuitively than logically- oddly enough, the same logical principles as the ones we can readily grasp apply, except on such a huge scale, we simply can't get our brains around it. (No reason not to try, though, says I). There's another illustration around somewhere, where a man is poking his head through a large curtain- the curtain itself is covered with stars, and represents the sky, or the heavens. Behind this, he sees an incredibly complex array of wheels, machines and concentric rings. This stuck with me, as this guy has managed to look beyond the surface and find an underlying pattern, even in the seeming chaos- in other words, he looked past the immediate impressions of the world and saw a greater whole and greater pattern. It's an interesting analogy, and any of us really can see this pattern- reminds me of that old Robert Hunter song- once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right. And really, that's all this is- wherever you look, whatever medium you look through, there is a pattern and order to our existence. Whether or not this is a comforting thought, I think, depends on where you are standing.