This is the topic outline for our next meeting (May 6th):

 

Step One:   Spirit and Matter

Topic:         The Relationship between Spirit and Matter.

 

  I’ve found that the perceived difference between Spirit and Matter is most readily summed up as follows -- “Living” Spirit and “Dead” Matter.   At least these are the two most commonly used adjectives that people apply in describing the apparent opposition of these two concepts.

 

   On the surface this would seem quite correct, but where error creeps in is in our willingness to judge according to outward appearances, and as well, in the terms by which we define these judgments.

What do we mean by the “Livingness” we attribute to the Spirit?

 

What do we mean by the “Deadness” we attribute to the Matter?

 

  Scientifically speaking, there is no such state as the absence of the power of motion.   Matter or seemingly inert masses are vibrating with the most intense energy at speeds that bewilder the mind.   As well, atoms come and go from common substances in a constant and ongoing process and seemingly empty space is filled with various cosmic vibrations, therefore Motion cannot be the distinguishing factor in defining Life as opposed to Lifelessness.

 

…    We must probe deeper …

 

   Rather than setting out to compare what we call “Living” to what we call “Dead”, which will not provide a solution to this dilemma, we must instead compare various degrees of “Livingness” with each other. 

 

>> One school of thought suggests that Livingness does not admit to degrees.

>> Another suggests that it is all a question of degrees.

 

   We wouldn’t question the Livingness of a plant.   However, we must accept that it is something very different from the Livingness of an animal.  

 

Again, in turn, what child wouldn’t prefer a dog or cat for a pet rather than a goldfish?

 

   Let us consider why the child itself is an advance upon the dog.   The plant, the fish, the dog, and the child are all equally alive.   There is, however, a difference in the quality of their Livingness about which no one can have any doubt.   

 

  I am suggesting that this difference is in the degree of intelligence expressed by each.

 

   It is the greater expression of intelligence that places the animal higher in the scale of being than the plant, the man higher than the animal, the intellectual man higher than the savage.

 

  The higher the expression of intelligence, the more completely that circumstances and environment are under its control.   As we descend in the scale of intelligence, it is marked by a corresponding increase in automatic motion not under the control of conscious intelligence.

 

  This descent is gradual from the expanded self-recognition of the highest human personality to that lowest order of visible forms, which we call "things", which possess no self-recognition at all.

 

  “Livingness” therefore consists in the degree of intelligence -- in other words, in the power of thought.

 

We may then say that the distinctive quality of spirit is thought.

 

  We cannot conceive of matter without form.   To be matter at all, it must occupy space, and to occupy any particular space implies a corresponding form.

 

   Form implies extension in space and therefore limitation within certain boundaries.  Thought implies neither.

 

Therefore we can accept that the distinctive quality of Spirit is thought and the distinctive quality of Matter is form.

 

  When we think of Life as existing in any particular form, we associate it with the idea of extension in space.   An elephant consists of a vastly larger amount of living substance than a mouse.   However, when we think of “Life” as the “Livingness” we do not associate it with the idea of extension, thus we know that the mouse is just as much alive as the elephant, despite the difference in size.   

 

  The important point here is that if we can conceive of anything as entirely devoid of the element of extension in space, it must be present in its totality everywhere -- that is to say, at every point simultaneously.

 

The scientific definition of time is the period occupied by a body in passing from one given point in space to another. Therefore, when there is no space there can be no time.

 

  Since Spirit is devoid of the element of space it must also be devoid of the element of time.   Therefore if our conception of spirit is of pure Thought, and not as concrete Form, then the conception of it is as subsisting independently of the elements of both time and space.

 

  From this it follows that if the idea of anything is conceived as existing on this level it can only represent that thing as being actually “present” Here and Now .   In this view of things nothing can be remote from us either in time or space.

 

  Either the idea is entirely dissipated or it exists as an actual present entity, and not as something that shall be in the future, for where there is no sequence in time there can be no future.   Similarly where there is no space there can be no conception of anything as being at a distance from us.

 

When the elements of time and space are eliminated, all our ideas of things must be as existing in a “Universal Here” and an “Everlasting Now”.   The Spirit knows no conditions, the Spirit knows no limitations, and the Spirit knows no death.   The Spirit is the Life-In-Itself -- the Ever-present Here and Now.

 

  The opposite conception, therefore, is that of things expressing themselves through conditions of time and space and thus establishing a variety of relations to other things, such as of size, distance, speed, direction, and sequence in time.

 

These two aspects are the concept of the abstract and the concrete, of the unconditioned and the conditioned, of the absolute and the relative, of the Infinite and the finite.

 

  They are not opposed to each other in the sense of incompatibility, but are each the complement of the other and the Spiritual medium for expression is in the combination of the two; both are necessary for the formation of a substantial or palpable entity.  

 

 

  -- Victor