Down, down, I sank, till immersed in that mighty ocean where conflicting elements were swallowed by a mountain wave of darkness, which grasped me within its mighty folds and I sank to the lowest depths of forgetfulness.
– Andrew Jackson Davis, quoted by James Webb in The Occult Underground
It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself – and what you see you shall become.
– From The Gospel of Philip, Trans. Wesley W. Isenberg
A cold fire calling from beyond time or space, its light refracted in the prism of apparent materiality, who can stand the sight of themselves stripped of skin and bone, who can listen with ease to that haunting song sung without a mouth or breath? Who can kiss Diana’s lips and still stand in the material realm unchanged?
We live in a world between mirrors, beneath us the ground, above us the sky, and beyond each an infinite space filled with potential. Immersed in our own being, everywhere we look we see reflections of our nature. Perhaps, as the Gospel of Philip states, we see the sun without becoming it, but its fiery nature awakens in us a recognition of our own being, and we are able to make some symbolic connection that goes beyond mere allusion. This tendency regulates our daily lives, allowing day-to-day experiences to anchor themselves in previous expectations. Mirrored wherever we look, our future emerges from the shadows of past evidence. From this security we can drop a line into the depths of our senses, fishing out insights and answers. Sometimes, however, what we catch pulls us under, leaving us lost in the swirling currents of our self, and if our identity fractures on the hidden rocks reaching up from beneath the surface, we run the risk of drowning.
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