The Region Of Concrete Thought

The Region of concrete Thought is neither shadowy nor illusory. It is the

acme of reality and this world which we mistakenly regard as the only

verity, is but an evanescent replica of that Region.



A little reflection will show the reasonableness of this statement and

prove our contention that all we see here is really crystallized thought.

Our houses, our machinery, our chairs and tables, all that has been made
br /> by the hand of man is the embodiment of a thought. As the juices in the

soft body of the snail gradually crystallize into the hard and flinty

shell which it carries upon its back and which hides it, so everything

used in our civilization is a concretion of invisible, intangible

mind-stuff. The thought of James Watt in time congealed into a steam

engine and revolutionized the world. Edison's thought was condensed into

an electric generator which has turned night to day, and had it not been

for the thought of Morse and Marconi, the telegraph would not have

annihilated distance as it does today. An earthquake may wreck a city and

demolish the lighting plant and telegraph station, but the thoughts of

Watt, Edison and Morse remain, and upon the basis of their indestructible

ideas new machinery may be constructed and operations resumed. Thus

thoughts are more permanent than things.



The sensitive ear of the musician detects a certain musical note in every

city which is different from that of another city. He hears in each little

brook a new melody, and to him the sound of wind in the treetops of

different forests give a varying sound. In the Desire World we noted the

existence of forms similar to the shapes of things here, also that

seemingly sound proceeds from form, but in the Region of concrete

Thought it is different, for while each form occupies and obscures a

certain space here, form is nonexistent when viewed from the standpoint of

the Region of concrete Thought. Where the form was, a transparent, vacuous

space is observable. From that empty void comes a sound which is the

"keynote" that creates and maintains the form whence it appears to

come, as the almost invisible core of a gas-flame is the source of the

light we perceive.



Sound from a vacuum cannot be heard in the Physical World, but the harmony

which proceeds from the vacuous cavity of a celestial archetype is "the

voice of the silence," and it becomes audible when all earthly sounds have

ceased. Elijah heard it not while the storm was raging; nor was it in

evidence during the turbulence of the earthquake, nor in the crackling and

roaring fire, but when the destructive and inharmonious sounds of this

world had melted into silence, "the still small voice" issued its commands

to save Elijah's life.



That "keynote" is a direct manifestation of the Higher Self which uses it

to impress and govern the Personality it has created. But alas, part of

its life has been infused into the material side of its being, which has

thus obtained a certain will of its own and only too often are the two

sides of our nature at war.



At last there comes a time when the spirit is too weary to strive with the

recalcitrant flesh, when "the voice of the silence" ceases.



The earthly nourishment we may seek to give, will not avail to sustain a

form when this harmonious sound, this "word from heaven" no longer

reverberates through the empty void of the celestial archetype, for "man

lives not by bread alone," but by the WORD, and the last sound-vibration

of the "keynote" is the death-knell of the physical body.



In this world we are compelled to investigate and to study a thing before

we know about it, and although the facilities for gaining information are

in some respects much greater in the Desire World, a certain amount of

investigation is necessary nevertheless to acquire knowledge. In the World

of Thought, on the contrary, it is different. When we wish to know about

any certain thing there, and we turn our attention thereto, then that

thing speaks to us, as it were. The sound it emits at once gives us a most

luminous comprehension of every phase of its nature. We attain to a

realization of its past history; the whole story of its unfoldment is laid

bare and we seem to have lived through all of those experiences together

with the thing we are investigating.



Were it not for one enormous difficulty, the story thus obtained would be

exceedingly valuable. But all this information, this life-picture, flows

in upon us with an enormous rapidity in a moment, in the twinkling of an

eye, so that it has neither beginning nor end, for, as said, in the World

of Thought, all is one great NOW, Time does not exist.



Therefore, when we want to use the archetypal information in the Physical

World, we must disentangle and arrange it in chronological order with

beginning and ending before it becomes intelligible to beings living in a

realm where Time is a prime factor. That rearrangement is a most difficult

task as all words are coined with relation to the three dimensions of

space and the evanescent unit of time, the fleeting moment, hence much of

that information remains unavailable.



Among the denizens of this Region of concrete Thought we may note

particularly two classes. One is called the powers of darkness by Paul and

the mystic investigator of the Western World knows them as Lords of Mind.

They were human at the time when the earth was in a condition of darkness

such as worlds in the making go through before they become luminous and

reach the firemist-stage. At that time we were in our mineral evolution.

That is to say: The Human Spirit which has now awakened was encrusted in

the ball of mindstuff, which was then the earth. At that time the present

Human Spirits were as much asleep as is the life which ensouls our

minerals of today, and as we are working with the mineral chemical

constituents of the earth, molding them into houses, railways,

steam-boats, chairs, etc, etc., so those beings, who are now Lords of

Mind, worked with us when we were mineral-like. They have since advanced

three steps, through stages similar to that of the Angels and Archangels,

before they attained their present position and became creative

intelligences. They are expert builders of mind stuff, as we are builders

of the present mineral substances and therefore they have given us

necessary help to acquire a mind which is the highest development of the

human being.



According to the foregoing explanation it seems to be an anomaly when Paul

speaks of them as evil and exhorts us to withstand them. The difficulty

disappears, however, when we understand that good and evil are but

relative qualities. An illustration will make the point clear:--Let us

suppose that an expert organ builder has constructed a wonderful organ, a

masterpiece. Then he has followed his vocation in the proper manner, and

is therefore to be commended for the good which he has done. But if he is

not satisfied to leave well enough alone, if he refuses to give up his

product to the musician who understands how to play upon the instrument;

if he intrudes his presence into the concert hall, he is out of place and

to be censured as evil. Similarly the Lords of Mind did the greatest

possible service to humanity when they helped us to acquire our mind, but

many subtle thought influences come from them, and are to be resisted, as

Paul very properly emphasizes.



The other class of beings which must be mentioned are called Archetypal

Forces by the Western School of occultism. They direct the energies of the

creative Archetypes native to this realm. They are a composite class of

beings of many different grades of intelligences, and there is one stage

in the cyclic journey of the Human Spirit when that also labors in, and is

part of, that great host of beings. For the Human Spirit is also destined

to become a great creative intelligence at some future time, and if there

were no school wherein it could gradually learn to create, it would not be

able to advance, for nothing in nature is done suddenly. An acorn planted

in the soil does not become a majestic oak over night, but many years of

slow, persistent growth are required before it attains to the stature of a

giant of the forest. A man does not become an Angel by the mere fact of

dying and entering a new world any more than an animal advances to be a

man by the same process. But in time all that lives, mounts the ladder of

Being from the clod to the God. There is no limitation possible to the

spirit, and so at various stages in its unfoldment the Human Spirit works

with the other nature forces, according to the stage of intelligence which

it has attained. It creates, changes and remodels the earth upon which it

is to live. Thus, under the great law of cause and effect, which we

observe in every realm of nature, it reaps upon earth what it has sown in

heaven, and vice versa. It grows slowly but persistently and advances

continually.