Analogue 13: Inner & Outer Realities

 Analogue 13

In this world, those who clothe themselves with outer garments are superior to the clothes they wear. In the heavenly realm, however, the clothing is superior to those who wear them for they have been clothed by water and purified entirely by fire. 

 

Some things are exposed through revelation, and some are hidden in secret, while other things remain hidden even when revealed. Living water is hidden in baptismal waters, and fire is hidden in the oil of anointing.

SYNOPSIS

•  This analogue continues the discussion of resurrection, veiling and unveiling, nakedness and clothing beyond the boundaries of space, time and the material world.
• The garments donned in the resurrection are not material; they are infinitely superior to the clothing we wear in this world.
• Beings in the world to come are clothed with light and with something called Living Water.
• Secrets are being shared; other secrets remain hidden.
• A theology of the sacraments has always insisted that something important is hidden beneath the outer form which affects human beings inwardly despite being unseen.
• In this way, the sacraments are generative and transformational, catalyzing the resurrection and its subsequent new form of being.
• Standing up into the resurrection is preparing us to understand the statements which will be made at the end of Analogue14.
• Yeshua is both a recipient of as well as a catalyst for these processes. He initiates their action for the rest of us through the elemental powers of the hidden, living water and the divine fire.

COMMENTARY 

Living Clothes

Philip continues to share secrets and mysteries which appear to be what Yeshua taught his inner circle of students, and more importantly, what he himself saw in vision during his short life. The previous Analogue, which dealt with the nature of the resurrection and the future embodied state of humankind, leads to this discussion of the quality of the new form of embodiment that awaits us. Typically we outlast our clothing which wears out after a few years of use and is discarded — we are more enduring than what we wear. In the future world created by our metamorphosis of being, however, things will be reversed. The elements of our newly embodied self will last forever: our new form of being is equally eternal to what clothes us. In this way we can perhaps begin understand Philip’s statement that the new forms are superior to those who wear them: the elements with which we will be clothed do not come from time and are thus superior to our current material and time-bound forms. We might imagine then, that the clothing “woven for us there” comes from elements that pre-dated even our pre-eternal existence. That is perhaps all we know now, but it is enough to say that will be clothed with and in splendor from substances made up out of the eternity of God.

The Work of the Sacraments 

What the text does tell us is that this new embodiment has come to be realized through a process of purification by water and fire; these sacramental elements contain energies and forces hidden to our eyes, but completely alive in themselves. Their nature, though veiled, is nonetheless effective in creating change and transformation. An eternal form of water is hidden within the natural water we know as the baptismal element. Sacramentally (when we engage the sacramental elements), we are in touch with deep water, living water, that flows from the eternal Source and affects our souls in time. Similarly, withIn the anointing oil there burns another form of fire that goes deeply into our being and purifies, transforming and doing its alchemical work as an eternal form of energy. These assertions concerning the nature of the sacraments require that we understand the nature of both the surface and the deep structure of reality. What we typically observe all around us are outer manifestations, the surface structure of things. We know, of course, even in the natural world that below their surface there are realities that the senses cannot detect but which are vitally important. In modern science David Bohm has called these different aspects the explicate and the implicate orders; both must be considered in order to understand systems and processes.

Hidden and Revealed Realities 

Philip takes these two levels, explicate and implicate, surface and deep, into account beyond the natural world and spiritually into the worlds beyond space and time. They apply there. There are objects from the spiritual world here that we can see and know on a surface level perhaps, but these possess inner realities that deeply affect us. Though less easy to detect, they may be known and experienced at the level of the heart, which seen here as an instrument of cognition through which we may come to understand them. Philip rightly says, then, that the outer structures both reveal but also conceal inner realities. Some aspects of hidden things are often naturally revealed by their surface structure, while others remain completely hidden to us. This is a fact of the spiritual world and there are spiritual reasons for this, often having to do perhaps with our own readiness for the proper moment when something can and should be revealed.

Some things we cannot know now, especially if we or the time is not ripe, but the text suggests when that the future form of humanity as embodied Light is revealed, the truth of the things that are currently hidden from us will be made known as well. That future form will shine out as light revealing all, and in this way it will be far superior to the clothing we wear now which functions primarily to hide or conceal (while perhaps revealing something of our mood or personality.) In the future, our clothing of embodied light will be revelatory of our inner spiritual state and station, whatever that might be.

The sacramental alchemy that is beginning to happen to us now appears to be a process unavailable to the outer eye or senses. It works just below the surface of things and its effects can only be revealed to us at a later time. We can, however, learn to trust that it is working in the present moment. Philip may even be suggesting, however, that there are some individuals who can indeed begin to perceive this working through the opening of inner eyes in a visionary way. What is being made known to us in this Gospel comes to us through the Messianic consciousness of the one who had begun to see and know all this through his own baptism into living water and divine fire. Though much of what will be done through his work necessarily remains hidden for now, to be revealed at a later time through the future form of the light body, we are being given glimpses into these secrets and hidden mysteries throughout this visionary Gospel.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION 

1. How familiar are you with these esoteric or mystical teachings of early Christianity? What parts are new to you? Which you are important for you to explore further?
2. The last Analogue presented the idea of the physical body as only one type of clothing. The future garments of our being will be quite different from those we wear now and will be superior because they never wear out because they are alive with their own form of life and never die. Can you imagine how, unlike our current clothes, this future apparel will be alive in some new way, changing and growing with us?
3. How do you view or experience the sacraments now? To whom do they belong? How are they used today? How does their use vary between groups and practitioners?
4. Do you have a sense of the inner value and alchemical nature of the sacraments? How might you already have experienced this reality as inner and esoteric and not merely as an outer rite?
5. What does “living water” mean? How would it be different from ordinary water? Describe your understanding of how divine fire is hidden in ordinary oil.

Notes for Reference and Study

A. A deeper, more comprehensive understanding of religion itself and what its role and function is in society requires that we come to understand its complex structures and how they relate to one another. One useful description is that religion acts like a wheel for a vehicle of conveyance —it rolls or moves through time carrying people and objects forward. A wheel essentially has three parts: an axis which drives the wheel with energies coming perpendicular to it, a rim that is rigid and touches the ground, and the spokes which act to connect the rim to the axis, conveying the energy of the axis to the rim. Imagine then that the rim is the outer and exoteric parts of religion which are easily seen. The axis is the Source of the wheel's energy that moves it forward but is typically hidden. The spokes, which may also be more interior and hidden, are the esoteric aspects connecting the other two and carrying the energies from the Source to the outer parts of the religion. So a religion has its exoteric manifestations which can be seen and known, but it also has its inner, esoteric and mystical realities which give the outer form meaning and life. Superior to these it has its axis, the Source at the core from which the energy comes, driving the vehicle forward. Without each of these the wheel of religion would not be a wheel and would simply collapse.

B. This description helps us understand what the deep structure versus surface structure in religion and sacred tradition actually is and how we might come to know them. These are complex relationships and they may even change over time as a religious tradition grows organically, which all traditions must do if they are to stay alive. We usually first come to know and experience a religion out on its external rim where we are attracted to some exoteric aspect of the tradition. After a while (perhaps after a long while), we may come to know more and more of the deeper meaning and form of the religion and discover that it has esoteric forms and realities which were hidden before—that is, we come to discover its inner, mystical path that leads us to the Source itself, following its spokes as the way to the Center. This spiritual path entails more than just a rational, educated knowledge about the religion. It requires that we come to know by experience the spiritual reality itself in both its revealed and also its hidden forms. These experiences take us deeper into our own soul and into the heart of a religious tradition where we come to know the Source.

C. If the sacraments, which manifest in the exoteric realm of a religion as rites and rituals, also have an esoteric component, then Philip’s description of their hidden alchemical nature is about deeper and more hidden qualities and powers. These realities might describe the sacraments not simply as rites to be performed in their outer institutional forms, but as practices of inner and deeply personal alchemy. The Gospel of Philip focuses upon the inner, esoteric, and alchemical effects of the external rites we know as the sacraments, leading to an hidden experience in the Temple of Being.

Notes on the Translation

• It would be possible to translate the final phrase of the first paragraph of the Analogue as “... for they have been clothed by water purified entirely in fire,” but the translation used above seems more coherent.
• The last sentence in the final paragraph expands the translation by adding “baptismal” which appears to be understood in the context and “oil” which is inherent in the term chrisma or chrismation.