Seeking defintions: Matrix, Potentiator, & Significator

[Rama]

Dearest friends

i am a little disappointed with the definitions that Ra express regarding
Significator - Potentiator - Matrix - and their various counterparts and complexes
including that of the mind, body and spirit

can anyone express it concisely [un-Ra-ed] - like a set of dictionary terms
[i'm sure when Ra were communicating the words they were resonating well with the receiver]

thank you & blessings

xx
x

[Cyclops]

Ah the archetypical mind which I so often was confused and admit am still much confused today about, I believe I see the background of the matrix the potentiator and the significator a little.

Here we have the first excerpt on the matrix which is described as a structure which has desire to fill it's empty self, the potentiator is the great resource that the matrix reaches to fill itself.
Q'uo Homecoming Meditation September 23, 2001

In the system of the images which we of the Confederation have often spoken to your group concerning, the archetypal images are divided into three groups: those that pertain to the body, those that pertain to the mind, and those that pertain to the spirit. In each of the three systems there is a matrix which is a still and unmoving structure that is a receptor web that has only very limited ability to act. What it can do is desire. It can reach. This is the nature of the matrix. It is essentially a structure into which catalyst will come and through which catalyst will be processed into experience. In these three systems the potentiator is that which is able to fertilize or to make fruitful the matrix. There is a dynamic between matrix and potentiator then. The basic dynamic is that, in the mind, the reacher and the reached; in the body, the body in constant motion, and the controller of that body; and in the spirit, the unreaching, unhasting darkness of spirit waiting for, hoping for, yearning for, and desiring information about itself. And out of the dynamic of that dark yearning comes the Potentiator of the Spirit, which is light.

Here we have the matrix described as a structure or empty container which has potential to fill itself so it hungers or desires.
Q'uo Special Meditation, March 29, 2001

Matrix is a word that seems not even to indicate a living being but, rather, a structure, a container, a grid, qualities and aspects of self. The basic figure of Matrix is figured forth as royal. And this is not by mistake. For as a spiritual being each seeker is indeed the highest royalty, is indeed prince and king and Creator. This figure of Matrix has tremendous potential, for it is empty and waiting. The hunger for evolution is stitched and knitted into every fiber of the carefully articulated web of being that the Matrix experiences as its nature. Possessed of crown and power and royalty, it is a figure with no lack of self-respect, with no concern for being unworthy, with no unhealed issues. And coming to the mind of the Matrix as a human is the work of some time. For much of human sorrow, shame, guilt, low self-esteem and unworthiness need to be, not denied, but taken off as shoes, as garments that are upon the body of the self, but are not the self.

Here they describe the potentiator as that thing which feeds the hunger and desire of the empty matrix. It is described as the gift giver and great resource which is reached for by the matrix.
Q'uo Special Meditation, March 29, 2001

The Potentiator is cast also as a royal being. And it is perhaps efficacious in terms of what we would give to this entity at this time to figure forth this Potentiator as the guardian angel, the guidance, the guru, the agent of divine change. This is an entity royal with that same creatorship, full of the essence of that great Self which is the one original Thought which is love. Although each may fruitfully at other times see this agent as the self, yet in this discussion we will allow the seeing of this agent as a gift-giver to one who opens the hands without knowing what it has. For as the Matrix reaches to the Potentiator, the need of the Matrix creates the gifts of the Potentiator. It is not that spiritual evolution consists in step A, step B, step C and so forth, a lesson plan and a linear set of things to learn, things to do, things to encompass with the mind, but, rather, it is as though the unfed mind, by its thirst, by the intensity of its thirst, and by the direction of its seeking, creates an unending grove of trees whose fruits drop into the hands of the seeker, who then eats that fruit and receives knowledge peculiar to the soil in which that fruit grew, the soil of that particular seeking, the soil of that particular response from spirit.

There is a constant organic and mutual back and forth of information between the Matrix who reaches and the Potentiator who awaits the reaching. And all that is hidden within the Potentiator changes every time the Potentiator releases fruit from behind that veil. That is the hidden nature of things unknown. One person on one day shall receive fruit from spirit. That same person on another day with just the tiniest change in seeking, in attitude, in state of mind, shall receive an entirely different fruit. So we cannot offer the comfortable assurance that all is in safe hands, that all is prepared, that all will go one way. The archetypal journey is far more creative and far more plastic.

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Above the matrix and the potentiator are the two tools or structures which in dynamic fashion intact together, these are tools for the actor or what is described as the significator or the significant self.
Q'uo Special Meditation, March 29, 2001

We would respond to your query by suggesting that the concept of sacrifice, the giving of the self for the benefit of another or for the benefit of a principle, shall we say, is indeed a salient feature of the blending of the Matrix and Potentiator so that the fruits of this blending, the stuff of your third density, may become a portion of the quality known as the Significator or the significant self. For it is the Significator that is the actor upon the stage of creation that is able to become more than it is because of the efforts of those qualities known as Matrix and Potentiator. That there is the sacrifice of comfort, of convenience, of opportunity, of any quality that gives stability and assurance to the entity, is significant and is registered as a great desire that seeks fulfillment by the significant self. The self of each seeker desires union with the Creator, desires knowledge of the Creator, of the self and of the creation. This knowledge, passionately sought, willingly sacrificed for, may only be obtained when one is willing to give of the self in a degree which is reflective of this great desire. Thus the experiences that each so eagerly seeks within each incarnation are dearly bought. The greater sacrifice purchases, shall we say, the greater knowledge, experience, union and presence of the one Creator.

In the creator's way of knowing itself it is described that the significator or the significant self is each a portion of mind then the body then the spirit. This actor in each of these three things uses the matrix and potentiator which are tools to it in the mind the body and the spirit.
Ra Session 78 of the Law of One February 19, 1982

Ra: I am Ra. At the beginning of this creation or, as you may call it, octave there were those things known which were the harvest of the preceding octave. About the preceding creation, we know as little as we do of the octave to come. However, we are aware of those pieces of gathered concept which were the tools which the Creator had in the knowing of the self.

These tools were of three kinds. Firstly, there was an awareness of the efficiency for experience of mind, body, and spirit. Secondly, there was an awareness of the most efficacious nature or, if you will, significator of mind, body, and spirit. Thirdly, there was the awareness of two aspects of mind, of body, and of spirit that the significator could use to balance all catalyst. You may call these two the matrix and the potentiator.

Here are the significators being described each as the mind body and spirit, I believe this is the portion which is the one who through the matrix and potentiator receives catalyst, gains experience as it biases the catalyst then transforms itself.
Ra Session 78 of the Law of One February 19, 1982

Ra: I am Ra. The original significators may undifferentiatedly be termed the mind, the body, and the spirit.

They are speaking about the significator of the mind but I believe it generally follows the same construction for the body and spirit as the entity of each portion which is both actor and acted upon as it receives catalyst, gains experience and then transforms.
Ra Session 92 of the Law of One July 8, 1982

Questioner: Then, the dynamic process between the Matrix, Potentiator, Catalyst, and Experience of the Mind forms the nature of the mind or the Significator of the Mind. Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. As our previous response suggests, the Significator of the Mind is both actor and acted upon. With this exception the statement is largely correct.

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The last set of excerpts are to support that each significator is the entity portion of the mind the body and the spirit themselves.
Ra Session 79 of the Law of One February 24, 1982

The mind itself became an actor possessed of free will and, more especially, will. As the Significator of the mind, the Hierophant has the will to know, but what shall it do with its knowledge, and for what reasons does it seek? The potentials of a complex significator are manifold.

Ra Session 80 of the Law of One February 27, 1982

Questioner: How would you describe the Significator of the Spirit?

Ra: I am Ra. In answer to the previous query we set about doing just this. The Significator of the Spirit is that living entity which either radiates or absorbs the love and the light of the One Infinite Creator, radiates it to others or absorbs it for the self.

And the final excerpt on how the significator is paired with archetype twenty-two which is the fool or the choice archetype, allowing the choice to be made from use of the tools of matrix and potentiator after receiving catalyst and processing it into experience, and before transforming itself as a significator once again.
Ra Session 88 of the Law of One May 29, 1982

When, at length, the student had mastered these visualizations and had considered each of the seven classifications of archetype, looking at the relationships between mind, body, and spirit, we then suggested consideration of archetypes in pairs: one and two; three and four; five; six and seven. You may continue in this form for the body and spirit archetypes. You will note that the consideration of the Significator was left unpaired, for the Significator shall be paired with Archetype Twenty-Two.

Just a suggestion which I would like to make, please be careful when looking at this answer for the archetypical mind is very hard to grasp and it may be very much misunderstood by me because it is so complex.

[Eddie]

Your discussion is as cryptic as Ra's.

If I were wealthy, I would offer a substantial cash prize to anyone who could provide terse, understandable definitions of the Significator, Potentiator, and Matrix.

[Rama]

eddie
ask for money to grow on trees first
x

[thefool]

OK. I will bite for simplification...my first draft ---

Matrix - The female aspect of the creation, the unconscious, the being (maybe love?)

Potentiator - The male aspect of the creation, the conscious, the light

Significator - It is the manifested from the dance of matrix and Potentiator

So there is this female uninitiated but potent and male comes along and brings flowers to her and activates the dance. Significator is the creation they build together. dreams they have together or the physical things they make together like a house or the being they bring to life like kids. And the dance of the universe starts...Their reality of the situation may or may not reflect what they had wanted to accomplish (or they get more ideas!!!) so they try in a different way and they keep trying and keep dancing and the dance of the creation continues from the infinity to the infinity...

[unity100]

isnt matrix, the shape giver male. and potentiator, which gives potential, female.

[thefool]

isnt matrix, the shape giver male. and potentiator, which gives potential, female.

Yes, you are right. I mixed up between Matrix and Potentiator. This gives me an opportunity to try one more time, second draft:

Matrix - The male aspect of the creation, the conscious, the light

Potentiator -
The female aspect of the creation, the unconscious, the being (maybe love?), the unmanifested

Significator - It is the Manifested from the dance of matrix and Potentiator. It is the Experiencer.

So potentiation is waiting to be reached, It is reached by the Matrix and Potentiated by Matrix, The experience is recorded by the Matrix but Experienced by the Significator.

I find this quote helpful here-
92:34, RA

Secondly, each potentiation which has been reached for by the Matrix is recorded by the Matrix but experienced by the Significator. The experience of the Significator of this potentiated activity is of course dependent upon the acuity of its processes of Catalyst and Experience.

[ricdaw]

The Significator is the Surfer standing on a surfboard.

The Potentiator is the ocean under the surfboard.

The Matrix is the surfboard and the Desire to surf somewhere.

But this Surfer's Desire has a magical property. While it feels to the Surfer like an intangible thing "I want to do this," in actuality the merest Desire broadcasts a Signal in all directions from the Surfer. Those signals fall into the Waters of the Potentiator. If the Surfer desires the beach, the Potentiator builds the land and the beach in front of the Surfer. If the Surfer desires a challenge, the Potentiator builds a giant wave behind the Surfer. If the Surfer wants a respite, the Potentiator manifests a boat on the horizon. If the Surfer wants company, the Potentiator manifests another Surfer . . . .
In physical actuality, the Potentiator makes the physical environment and sustains it. In temporal actuality, the Potentiator causes all Events to happen.

Now let's go up one more level.

Before the Surfer, there was only Ocean.
The Ocean dreamed of the Surfer.
And the Surfer became "complex" and aware.
Inside the dream the Surfer begged the Ocean, "Let me explore your vast expanses. Let me dive to your depest depths. Free me!"
And the Ocean so Loved the Dream Surfer that a Matrix was constructed upon which the Dream figure could surf.

We are all such Surfers.

[Adonai One]

I am limiting myself to responding to only threads like this one in this board.

Here are your definitions:

Matrix: Awareness
Potentiator: Ideation
Catalyst: Expression
Experience: Emotion
Significator: Belief
Transformation: Realization
Great Way: Knowledge

Choice: Acceptance

Nobody should expect much else.

[ricdaw]

I am limiting myself to responding to only threads like this one in this board.

Here are your definitions:

Matrix: Awareness
Potentiator: Ideation
Catalyst: Expression
Experience: Emotion
Significator: Belief
Transformation: Realization
Great Way: Knowledge

Choice: Acceptance

Nobody should expect much else.

Well. No.

Matrix: Awareness. >> will
Potentiator: Ideation. >> manifestation
Catalyst: Expression >> opportunity
Experience: Emotion>> observation
Significator: Belief >> YOU.
Transformation: Realization>> choice
Great Way: Knowledge >> carpe diem

So not really. This is how the cards express themselves to me.

[Adonai One]

Matrix: Awareness. >> will >> Sure, why not. Comes after the choice, after all. However, Ra clearly calls this the conscious mind.

Potentiator: Ideation. >> manifestation >> No. "The Potentiator of the Mind is that great resource which may be seen as the sea into which the consciousness dips ever deeper and more thoroughly in order to create, ideate, and become more self-conscious."

Catalyst: Expression >> opportunity >> Meh. "True healing is simply the radiance of the self causing an environment in which a catalyst may occur which initiates the recognition of self, by self, of the self-healing properties of the self."

Experience: Emotion>> observation >> Sure, emotion is the pure response to observing.

Significator: Belief >> YOU. >> Meh. "You will note that the consideration of the Significator was left unpaired, for the Significator shall be paired with Archetype Twenty-Two."

Transformation: Realization>> choice >> Meh. Choice manifested as a concept in the prior archetype as according to Ra.

Great Way: Knowledge >> carpe diem >> What is this. I don't even.

[xise]

Great Way: Knowledge >> carpe diem >> What is this. I don't even.

Urban Dictionary: carpe diem

To "seize the day" and/or a certain moment in time.

To put aside all differences, all fears, all worries, and just go for it.

To make the most out of that part of time.

Carpe Diem more often or you will miss out on life and never truely be happy.

[Jade]

Found an interesting short definition of Significator which makes a lot of sense:

QUESTIONER: Turning, then, to my analogy or shall we say, example of the newborn infant with the undistorted Matrix, this newborn infant has its subconscious veiled from the Matrix. The second archetype, the Potentiator of Mind, is going to act at some time through— I won’t say through the veil, I don’t think that is a very good way of stating it, but the Potentiator of Mind will act to create a condition, and I will use an example of the infant touching a hot object. The hot object we could take as random catalyst. The infant can either leave its hand on the hot object or rapidly remove it. My question is, is the Potentiator of Mind involved at all in this experience and, if so, how?

RA: I am Ra. The Potentiator of Mind and of Body are both involved in the questing of the infant for new experience. The mind/body/spirit complex which is an infant has one highly developed portion which may be best studied by viewing the Significators of Mind and Body. You notice we do not include the spirit. That portion of a mind/body/spirit complex is not reliably developed in each and every mind/body/spirit complex. Thusly the infant’s significant self, which is the harvest of biases of all previous incarnational experiences, offers to this infant biases with which to meet new experience.

[Adonai One]

So pre-formed beliefs at a subconscious level, formed from beliefs of the previous lives.

[JustLikeYou]

The Significator is, as Ra has said before, the "very nature" of the complex. That is, it is the blueprint of the mind complex, body complex, or spirit complex viewed as a singular "living entity." Due to genetics and culture, we are born into circumstances in which the body and mind are already full of biases. The Significator is not itself beliefs or biases. In fact, the Significator itself is not anything at all but a group of concepts. However, these groups of concepts give the structure according to which the mind, body and spirit complexes are constructed. And within this blueprint is the concept of a storehouse for biases.

[Adonai One]

A concept is a belief. A bias is in inclination towards believing something must be had a certain way or is a certain way. A concept is a belief a certain thing is of a certain way or state.

The very nature of the complex is a set of chosen beliefs that form and describe the complex and creation through believed concepts. A blueprint is a written set of beliefs about a thing and how it should function through believed concepts.

By what you have stated, I can only see the significator as belief as will in its purest distilled form. The whole creation is just believing it is of a certain way or state described in certain believed concepts.

---

The Logos chooses to believe its creation as certain believed concepts and as such it wills them to be.

[AnthroHeart]

I always think of the Significator as the thing that makes it significant.

[ricdaw]

The Significator is not itself beliefs or biases. In fact, the Significator itself is not anything at all but a group of concepts.

I beg to disagree. The Significator of Mind is your personal identity. The you of you. It is your entire collection of pre-incarnative beliefs and biases. It is the amalgam of all past lives. It is the "thing" of you that you take with you into the Afterlife and will be when you are reborn again. It is the essential incarnate you; your personality.

The Significator of Body is the entire genetic amalgam passed down to you from each of your parents going back to . . . . well wherever the first bodies came from. It is as laden with genetic history as the Significator of the Mind is laden with pre-incarnative beliefs and biases.

Neither is empty.

[βαθμιαίος]

I beg to disagree. The Significator of Mind is your personal identity. The you of you. It is your entire collection of pre-incarnative beliefs and biases. It is the amalgam of all past lives. It is the "thing" of you that you take with you into the Afterlife and will be when you are reborn again. It is the essential incarnate you; your personality.

The Significator of Body is the entire genetic amalgam passed down to you from each of your parents going back to . . . . well wherever the first bodies came from. It is as laden with genetic history as the Significator of the Mind is laden with pre-incarnative beliefs and biases.

Neither is empty.

Don't stop there! What is the significator of the spirit, then?

[Adonai One]

79.20: The Significator of each mind, body, and spirit may be seen as a simple and unified concept.

I'll say it again: Belief. Even the word "Concept" does the job.

The Significator of the Spirit individuated is just the collection bin of beliefs growing larger across moments, days, lives: Wisdom. Once you believe in everything in a set potentiator, you know what beliefs work and those that don't, you know all contradictions and can manifest anything at will, the spirit knowing itself in a specific set, the lessons being learned.

---

Also, ricdaw is a bloody genius.

[ricdaw]

Don't stop there! What is the significator of the spirit, then?

I think I did a long post on that elsewhere. Does posting a link work? http://www.bring4th.org/forums/showthread.php?tid=9791

[βαθμιαίος]

Thanks. Yes, the link works. What I found so intriguing about your post above in this thread was the idea that the significator of the mind is the essential you and the significator of the body is your genetic inheritance. It made me wonder about the significator of the spirit in this context of inheritance and essentials. Is there an essential spirit of us that we bring into each life, and if so, how does it differ from our essential personality (mind)?

[Adonai One]

The whole trinity is a cycle consisting of three cycles: The mind cycle, the body cycle and the spirit cycle. With the mind informing the body and then the body informing the spirit, we can assume the spirit informs the mind in full circle until the totality completes with us joining the macrocosm as one being.

In short, it doesn't differ. The spirit is just a collection bin of minds, moments, lives experienced that inform future minds, moments, lives, which in turn further inform the spirit once more.

[JustLikeYou]

I beg to disagree. The Significator of Mind is your personal identity. The you of you.

We speak like this all the time, but it is really shorthand for "the part of you that the Significator of the Mind describes is..."

Consider:

78.31

Recall at all times, if you would use this term, that the archetypes are a portion of the resources of the mind complex.

92.11

This is indeed carried within that portion of the mind which is of the deep mind, the architecture of which may be envisioned as being represented by that concept complex known as the Potentiator.

The point I'm trying to make here is not that your description of the Significator of the Mind is inaccurate, but that your language is somewhat sloppy. To say the Matrix of the Mind, for example, IS the conscious mind confuses the representation with the thing itself. When architects are looking at their blueprints and describing to engineers what they have in mind, the do not refer to the blueprint as the building. They talk about how the building will be but is not yet. In our case, we are still using the blueprint as a reference even though the building is already built, so it is far easier to confuse the two for each other.

Although the Significators themselves (as well as all the archetypes) are only concept complexes, they are by no means empty. However, it is what these concept complexes represent which collect biases.

Since we're talking about bias collection, my assertion is that the spirit complex collects biases in the same way as the mind and body do, but its act of collecting biases is in reference to polarity. That is, the spirit wants to serve in either a radiating way or an absorbing way. It pains the spirit to have to alternate. So as incarnations mount and the choice begins to manifest, the spirit takes on the bias of the polarity chosen. This is why wanders have the spiritual "armor of light" which not only protects them from getting absorbed in karma, but also encourages them to choose yet again the preferred polarity.

Purity of service is written into the Significator of the Spirit as its natural inclination, but because it must experience itself through the modes of mind and body, the spirit cannot come to a conclusion as to which kind of purity will be chosen until the mind has enough experience to choose to tap into the energy of the spirit consistently in one way or another.

A concept is a belief.

You've got this backwards. A belief is a concept in which a person or group of people have become emotionally invested. A concept does not need to be believed to be a concept. Concepts are the fundamental particles of mind, out of which all mentation is constructed. Concepts have two perpendicular elements to them, just as electromagnetic waves have two perpendicular elements (electricity and magnetism). Thoughts are one of these elements and emotions are the other. A thought names and describes a concept in a structural way, while the emotional element gives the music of the concept.

The problem with using the word "belief" instead of the word "concept" is that "belief" has the connotation of emotional investment. If you believe something, then you take it for truth. Concepts need no attachment to truth to exist. You may well have a concept of unicorns, but that does not mean that you or anyone needs to believe in unicorns for it to be yet a concept.

---

Is there an essential spirit of us that we bring into each life, and if so, how does it differ from our essential personality (mind)?

I like to use the old Greek concept of the daemon. At his trial, Socrates defended his belief in the gods by saying that he faithfully adhered to the dictates of the daemon. At all times, the daemon guided him through his life, assisting him in knowing which avenue to take next and how to best approach any situation.

While the daemon may sound, here, like the Higher Self, it is closer and more personal than that. The Greeks also used a very interesting term which we have poorly translated "happiness": Eudaemonia. This term means complete adherence to the pull of the daemon. Whereas the Higher Self is seen as outside or above or beyond, the daemon is very much inner and feels like a part of the self. The daemon is that which pulls you in a direction without consulting the mind or body. It has its own will and to ignore that will is to sacrifice some measure of your own joy. The mind is always struggling to grasp what it is that the daemon is telling it, ideating and intuiting about what it ought to do, what it wants, what comes next, etc. But there is no thought which can accurately name the deep pull of the daemon. It is the mind's doom to merely approximate.

While the mind is the harbinger of choice in this experience, it is not by any means the source of a sense of fulfillment or joy. This is squarely the province of the spirit. The mind can choose to move in alignment with or against the pull of the daemon, but the feelings associated may not be the ones desired.

So while it is true that the Significator of the Mind describes the personality, this personality itself is not quite enough to describe the incarnate self fully. We all, each of us, bring something into incarnation which is deeply personal and yet somehow straddles all incarnations. It is not merely the unconscious mind informed of previous incarnation, or the unconscious mind programmed with biases. The biases of the mind are felt as emotive; their horizon is love, not joy. The biases of the spirit, on the other hand are, well, spiritual (for lack of vocabulary), and their horizon is joy and sorrow. For feeling love says nothing of whether we feel it joyfully, sorrowfully, or in some other way entirely.

[Adonai One]

Truth as a concept is a funny one. I understand your epistemology now. I have none.

[ricdaw]

I beg to disagree. The Significator of Mind is your personal identity. The you of you.

We speak like this all the time, but it is really shorthand for "the part of you that the Significator of the Mind describes is..."

The point I'm trying to make here is not that your description of the Significator of the Mind is inaccurate, but that your language is somewhat sloppy. To say the Matrix of the Mind, for example, IS the conscious mind confuses the representation with the thing itself.

You made me smile. This reminds me of college debates with friends.

In this forum I am talking about the cards because, at that level of representational thought, I can bring some clarity to the discourse of the larger concepts that way.

I'm still a student and need my tools.

When architects are looking at their blueprints and describing to engineers what they have in mind, they do not refer to the blueprint as the building. They talk about how the building will be but is not yet.

In my experience, it doesn't work that way. The blueprint stage is when all conversation stops about the building that "will be." In everyday life, putting something in words or on paper is the equivalent to making the concepts concrete.

Can you imagine how slow the conversation would be otherwise? Instead of, this:

Architect pointing at the blueprints, speaking to Engineer, "I want you to expand this joint two inches and move this wall out."

You'd get this instead:

Architect pointing at the blueprints, speaking to Engineer, "See my finger? I'm using it as a pointing device, not because I have any desire for you to look at the finger. But follow where the finger is pointing. See that two dimensional drawing/representation of the wall there? The one line of it is a two dimensional representation of the joint. Now you can't see this of course, because I can't easily manipulate the image, but imagine the line here moving two inches so that this representational wall, when actualized in three dimensions with your work crew, is moved out as well."

What you call "sloppy" I believe is clear and better suited to the teach/learning.

I think the other way is dense and obfuscating, though more accurate.

In our case, we are still using the blueprint as a reference even though the building is already built, so it is far easier to confuse the two for each other.

The cards are part of the Ra Material text. I think it's okay to ground the inchoate concepts of Ra's teaching back into the imagery. That's why I spend so much time describing the images themselves. I found Ra's syntax dense and off-putting. I'm trying a different way.

I am, by professional training and experience, a lawyer. Some legal concepts are so foreign to Anglo-American thinking, and so abstract, that they are described in latin. For the first several years of legal education, the student is introduced to these concepts via case law, or by story telling, if you will. The concepts are discovered and learned by parsing the texts of judges and by seeing them applied in real world situations. This method of study works really well. And I endeavor to apply it here.

Graduate students of law can make jokes using res judicata in a sentence, or res ipsa, because the concepts are, by then, fully grounded. They are over the mistaken notion that the concepts are what the judges have said about them, but are instead eternal concepts that exist outside of language on on their own.

But many who come to these forums to graze are not there yet.

It is a big step just to be able to translate a picture of a guy pointing at a cube as "will" or "consciousness," let alone putting that understanding into the context of the Archetypes of the Deeper Mind, which is really but a portion of a Trinity of the Self, which is a portion of (who knows how many layers) before Unity.

I am trying to provide a grounded understanding of the cards, in the hope that the readers may graduate to the greater understandings. Please forgive my sloppiness, I do it with purpose.

[ricdaw]

A concept does not need to be believed to be a concept.

An unknown, inchoate concept is potential only. It exists only through belief in its existence.

Concepts are the fundamental particles of mind, out of which all mentation is constructed.

At least, so you believe. (I'm just teasing! LOL)

The problem with using the word "belief" instead of the word "concept" is that "belief" has the connotation of emotional investment.

There is another definition of belief, a scientific sense, probably best described as doubt, and without any emotional investment. I believe China exists, even though I have never been there.

---

Is there an essential spirit of us that we bring into each life, and if so, how does it differ from our essential personality (mind)?

I believe there is a GodSpark in each of us. (And in everything else too, actually.) It is inseparable (though it can be divided) and we do bring it into each lifetime.

In meditation, when the thoughts are stilled, there is still an Awareness, the I AM of you. I think this might be an attribute or shadow of the Essential Spirit, or at least a cross-over point between the Essential Spirit and the Mind. It is at least a practical analogy you can hold in mind when trying to grasp the nature of the Essential Spirit.

I also believe that the Essential Spirit of me is watching me.

But in this, I am novice. Others may have more experience.

[JustLikeYou]

In my experience, it doesn't work that way. The blueprint stage is when all conversation stops about the building that "will be." In everyday life, putting something in words or on paper is the equivalent to making the concepts concrete.

Can you imagine how slow the conversation would be otherwise?

You're right about this. I don't want to revolutionize our language to be painfully precise; only our thinking. In my days amidst the community of Ra students, I've run into the conflation of representation and object so often that I make sure reiterate this distinction wherever I find it appropriate. I don't mean to correct you as much as point out that your language is shorthand. You clearly already understand this. But you and I are not the only readers.

I am trying to provide a grounded understanding of the cards, in the hope that the readers may graduate to the greater understandings. Please forgive my sloppiness, I do it with purpose.

That's a good point. You and I are alike in this. It would seem that we just have a different take on which notions are important to grasp first. It has always been my attitude that an understanding of what the Archetypal Mind is precedes any consideration of specific consideration of archetypes. You seem to take the opposite approach. And I have no intention to suggest that my method is better. Perhaps we tend to teach in the manner we prefer to learn.

An unknown, inchoate concept is potential only. It exists only through belief in its existence.

This is a discussion worth having, but I don't think it belongs in this thread. However, I'll take a moment to respond to the following in a way that probably won't encourage much further discussion:

There is another definition of belief, a scientific sense, probably best described as doubt, and without any emotional investment. I believe China exists, even though I have never been there.

Generally speaking, this is the usage of the term "belief" that I perfer also. However, we must keep in mind that it is not the only common usage. Words are tricky little buggers. Perhaps I should warn you that I speak in shorthand, too. "Emotional investment" is probably not the best term for what I mean, but it's a compact one.

[Plenum]

It pains the spirit to have to alternate. So as incarnations mount and the choice begins to manifest, the spirit takes on the bias of the polarity chosen. This is why wanders have the spiritual "armor of light" which not only protects them from getting absorbed in karma, but also encourages them to choose yet again the preferred polarity.

just a small point of clarification, but not all Wanderers have this 'armor of light'.

As we have said before, Wanderers become completely the creature of third density in mind/body complex. There is just as much chance of such influence to a Wanderer entity as to a mind/body/spirit complex of this planetary sphere.

The only difference occurs in the spirit complex which, if it wishes, has an armor of light, if you will, which enables it to recognize more clearly that which is not as it would appropriately be desired by the mind/body/spirit complex. This is not more than a bias and cannot be called an understanding.