by Michael Maciel

In the earliest stages of the human embryo, one of the first things to form is the spinal cord. When you look at it under a microscope, it’s like a lightning bolt—a squiggly little burst of energy not unlike the tail of a sperm cell with all of its intensity and purpose. 

This is the power of LIFE! Who knows where it comes from. It just seems to appear out of nowhere, as though it spurts out of a tiny wormhole, out of another dimension. All of a sudden, it’s just there, ignited by the Divine Spark!

The Divine Spark

I have a camper van. I call it the Sagecoach. It has a catalytic heater that runs off of propane, and it comes in real handy on cold desert nights. This little heater has three main components: a “blanket” impregnated with platinum, a fuel source (propane), and a spark igniter. I open the gas valve and press the igniter button and a spark lights up the gas. The only flame is the pilot light that gets it going. After a minute or two, the blanket starts to glow red and a wonderful radiant heat warms up everything it lands on. It’s like sitting in front of a fireplace. I really love it. 

The interesting thing about it is the way it produces heat. It pulls oxygen out of the air, which chemically interacts with the platinum in the blanket. Don’t ask me how, but the chemical reaction produces a surprising amount of heat. Somehow, the elements involved know exactly what to do. They have a built-in intelligence. But the elements themselves can’t do anything without the spark. The spark is the initiator. Without it, nothing happens. The elements just sit there—inert —waiting for the word, my word, to ignite it.

That word is GO! 

This word seems to come straight down out of the heaven worlds. It hits us right in our solar plexus, and from there shoots straight out of us into the world of matter. But by itself, it doesn’t do anything. All it does is get things going. It says, “GO,” and the impetus of it causes the intelligence inherent in matter to spring into life. Matter already knows what to do. The energy to do it is already wrapped up inside of it ready to spring into action. But it can do nothing until the Word tells it WHAT to do.

This is what the Taoists mean when they say we do by not doing. All we do is say the Word, and the thing to which we speak it takes it from there. It’s not our power. It’s just our word. We say GO and it goes. No effort, just the Word. 

The Magician

The Tarot is based on the Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah. The Magician in Key 1 of the Major Arcana holds a wand up to heaven while he points to the earth. The Four Elements of Creation are lying on the altar in front of him. The wand is hollow, signifying that power comes through it, not from it. The four elements symbolize the intelligence inherent within matter. They are not substances but principles. 

The wand symbolizes thought. Our thought. It’s directed at heaven and to earth—not at the material elements but to the intelligence within them. When theologians say that God is omniscient (all-knowing), it’s this inherent intelligence that they are referring to. But they’ve been saying this for so long that they’ve forgotten what it means. They think it means that God sees everything, as though he were separate from matter and looking at it from a distance. It would be more correct to say that God sees himself from the inside out. 

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

But there’s an interesting thing about this intelligence. It knows how to do everything but it doesn’t know what to do or when. For that, it needs its Son—the conscious, directive intelligence that speaks the Word. The “Father” is the authority. He’s the structure—the ruler of the kingdom—which is just another way of saying how the Whole Thing is set up. 

The Father is Reality itself. The Son is the active, conscious agent that makes it all happen. If reality were a corporation, the company—its history, its mission, its board of directors, and its by-laws—would be the Father. The Son would be its CEO. 

The CEO runs the business, but he or she has to do it within the scope of the by-laws and the needs of the stockholders, the customers, his employees, and (if he’s socially responsible) the needs of the environment. His purpose is to execute the will of the company—its mission—which was the determining factor in how the company was set up. 

The energy or “spirit” of the company—its vitality, its attentiveness and responsiveness to the market it serves (its cash flow and profitability), and the motivational verve that runs through everyone involved—is the Holy Spirit. 

The philosophy behind this explication is that God is everywhere. Everywhere, including within matter itself. He/She/It is in my catalytic heater, in The Magician Key of the Tarot, and in the legal structure of corporations. Everywhere. Especially in YOU. 

Top-down, Bottom-up

Reality is a top-down and bottom-up affair. It is the original vertical integration model, which is why in Judaism they say, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE.” One, not two, not three. However, if we consider the triune nature of how reality works, then the Holy Trinity starts to make sense, too. The Thing Itself, How It Works, and What It Does. (Holmes)

It’s the “bottom-up” part of this equation that places Man at the center of it all. We are the directive intelligence. God knows how to do everything. We know the what. This is why God created us. As Meister Eckhart said, “God needs me.” Also, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” Reality is an inside-out affair, and WE are at the center of it. 

As with the Magician of the Tarot, the CEO of a corporation, and the igniter in my catalytic heater, as long as our intention is within the scope of the ONE THING, whatever we choose—and ask for—is granted to us. As I like to say: God’s will is that we get our prayers answered. That’s it in a nutshell. As long as we do it in the spirit of God, our prayers will be answered. They have to be, because that’s how the Whole Thing is set up. It’s how it works. And WE are the agency by which it happens. 

Our Divine Human Nature

That’s our nature. That’s why we were created. That’s why Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” Jesus is our elder brother, which implies that we are Jesus, too. “Jesus” is the human part of us, Christ is the Divine in each and every one of us. God is within us, not somewhere up in the sky directing our lives from afar. The only law is “Thy Word shall not return unto thee void.” That’s it. What we do with that is the learning curve. 

Welcome to Earth.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

For more like this, visit The Urban Mystic. Be sure to subscribe!

Interested in taking classes? Check out the Holy Order of MANS website.

Are you in need of healing or interested in becoming a healer? See Spiritual Matters with Mark Earlix and Spirit Gate with Suzanne Clegg.

For a deep dive into Kabbalistic Symbolism, visit Gates of Light by Margot Whitney.

LINKS:

The Urban Mystic

YouTube – The Mystical Christ

YouTube – Lectures and Interviews

Patreon