The author, on a visit to his sister's grave, May 26 2013
We rarely try to equate cosmic forces with what takes place in our inner lives, yet there must be a relationship. If the universe is really a fractal entity, as most of the great cosmologies argue, then the relationship between the acquisition of impressions within me that form my inner solar system and the action of gravity on matter must have a relationship to one another.
I've mentioned on a number of occasions that Emanuel Swedenborg was a prominent scientist as well as a mystic — in fact, one of the most extraordinary scientists of any generation, a fact that seems to be forgotten today. He was, among other things, the first person to explain that planets form from dust clouds around suns, through a process of gravitational accretion.
Gravity has an accretive property. It draws things to itself; we might call it a "grasping" force. Of all the forces in the universe, it is perhaps the least understood in terms of its fundamental structural nature, even though we can easily see its actions as they take place. No one can "show you" gravity, although no one would argue that it exists. Although Einstein did a pretty good job of suggesting what it is, physically — that is, a place where space deforms — exactly what it represents in terms of cosmological phenomena remains generally open to question.
I'm just having fun here, thinking about this, so readers should understand that these are highly allegorical thoughts. However, if matter begins with an “urge” within the octave of desire, one might call that urge the tendency of things to bind together.
In a sense, having completely separated from the divine, the first instinct that all particulate matter has is to seek partnership with other particles. This is an automatic and mechanical effort to rebuild towards an energetic state that puts God back together, metaphorically speaking. We are speaking of the reassembly of the severed limbs of Osiris, lived out on an atomic scale.
These particles — which form elements — then have a “lust” for one another, a tendency to bind together and form an enormously wide variety of minerals and complex mixtures of gas. This allegorically procreative act creates substances that attract one another and can eventually accrete into planets, which then, having formed a powerful gravitational attraction, draw more and more matter into themselves.
One might then suggest that when a planet crosses over the line into Being, it forms an intelligence, which then has a wish to become a sun. This is much like what Gurdjieff’s description of cosmological processes consisted of. Gurdjieff’s universe of suns as residences of divinity, with a Sun Absolute as the highest such location, provides a link between the idea of the evolution of matter towards divinity and this question of the evolution of desire.
According to Swedenborg, all of these natural processes are merely mirrors of spiritual or heavenly processes, which are so much brighter and more enlightened than natural processes that they are as darkness to light. He insists, in fact, that our entire universe is what one might call a dark reflection of the heavenly realm.
Can this relate to questions about dark matter in the universe? I don't know, but it's worth playing around with. The intention here is not to try and prove that spiritual matters have scientific foundations; in fact—LOL!—the idea is actually the other way around. A lot of energy is put into "defending" religion against science, with science demanding that religion show off its scientific proofs, or go home in shame, but what if religion, for once, put science on the defensive and argued — as Swedenborg so definitely did — that all of science, as it is, without any alterations or fiddling about, is actually the manifestation of a spiritual nature?
In this case, science is an entirely valid, yet lower and subordinate practice.
Applying Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences (see the above link), one need not apply bogus creationist arguments in order to validate one’s religious ideas. His liberating ideas on this matter are just as forgotten as his extraordinary scientific skills.
Swedenborg himself insisted that those who preferred to believe in God as being manifest throughout all of the natural universe misunderstood the case, and that all this was just an endless extension of naturalism, rather than a movement into the higher, spiritual realm. Ibn Arabi most certainly would've agreed with him on that particular argument.
I leave it to readers to ponder these questions. Gravity acts both on planets and within us. We draw the impressions of our lives into us with an action that is akin to gravity.
One last thought. Avidity is related in one way or another to magnetic center. The problem with it is that it is connected to an outer action, rather than an inner one. That is to say, it attaches to materials, instead of becoming a force that draws life into itself in order to grow a seed that can attract the inward flow of higher energies.
So when we discuss forces of attraction, be they outer things or magnetic center, the forces of gravity and avidity need to be considered.
May your soul be filled with light.