X3

X3 is Martinus’s designation for that which is created, the third principle in the analysis of the living being. Martinus identifies the eternal result of the I’s creative ability as X3; a particular organism is only a temporary result within this greater production. X3 is the created or manifested aspect through which the eternal I experiences and expresses itself, in inseparable relation to X1 and X2.

The third principle of the triune analysis

Martinus calls the living being a “triune principle” because it consists of three inseparable principles: the I, the faculty to create, and that which is created. In this terminology, X1 is the I, X2 is the faculty to create, and X3 is that which is created. The three are three analyses of one living reality: X1 is the originator, X2 is the creative and sensory faculty, and X3 is the resulting manifestation.

The triune analysis applies to both the individual and the universe. Martinus explains that something No. 1, the absolute or divine reality, creates a visible appearance through something No. 2, the sensing or creative faculty; this appearance is something No. 3. The appearance is created and temporal, whereas the absolute reality is eternal. Yet the created appearance is indispensable, because without it there could be no consciousness, manifestation, creation or experience.

In Christian symbolism, Martinus relates X1 to the Father, X2 to the son and X3 to the holy spirit. Here the holy spirit denotes the created expression or consciousness of the Godhead.

X1, X2 and X3

X1 is the eternal I, the invisible originator. It is not a form, body, thought or object among other objects. Martinus gives it the minimal analysis “Something that is”. The I is the source of manifestation and cannot itself be identified with the manifestations it produces.

X2 is the I’s eternal faculty to create and experience. Through this faculty the I can build an organism, create in matter and experience the results of creation. Martinus argues that the creative faculty cannot itself have been created, and therefore regards X2 as an eternal principle rather than a created object.

X3 is the result or view produced through this faculty. Martinus describes sensed reality as a created copy or view of the truth. X3 includes bodies, organs, structures and other temporal manifestations through which experience takes place. Their particular forms have dimensions in time and space and are perishable, whereas the creative production as a whole is eternal.

Martinus says that an organism is a result of the creative ability, but that every particular organism has a beginning and an end. It is therefore only a short-lived locality or fraction of the I’s combined eternal production. When one organism perishes, a new result of creation can follow; Martinus connects this succession with reincarnation.

The organism as an expression of X3

The individual’s organism is an immediate expression of X3. Martinus describes the physical organism as an expression of the I and its creative faculty, and as an instrument through which the being can manifest and experience. He also describes every created organism as a universe for the living beings that constitute it: it is an instrument for its I and a living space for microbeings.

The organism is not identical with the complete living being. Its organs and structures belong to the created and changing side of manifestation, while the I and the creative faculty are not exhausted by any one body. The organism provides conditions of life for smaller beings, while the being inhabiting it is itself included in a larger organism.

Martinus associates harmonious cooperation between macrobeing and microbeing with health and blessing, and disturbance with illness, suffering and pain. The created organism is thus a field in which manifestation and experience arise through relations between living beings.

Organisms as worlds within X3

The principle of living beings within living beings is expressed through organisms at several levels. Cells, organs and other microbeings exist within larger organisms, while larger beings exist within still greater organisms. Martinus describes the Earth as a macrobeing and as the outer world in which terrestrial beings live. The organism of one being can therefore be a world or material environment for another being.

Martinus presents logical and purposeful creation as evidence of an invisible originator behind movement and forms. The organism and its surrounding manifestations are expressions through which the I’s creative faculty operates.

X3, matter and the basic energies

X3 is the changing, relative reality accessible to experience. Martinus distinguishes the eternal something that is from temporal views, sensations and forms produced through the sensing or creative faculty. Everything that can be sensed is a created view of the absolute reality, while X3 is the manifestation through which X1 becomes visible and experienceable.

Martinus describes X2 and X3 together as a principle of perspective. Sensory perception depends on contrasts and viewpoints, and the forms of daily life are relative or created details. Without such temporal factors there would be no movement, consciousness or life-experience.

In the concrete description of creation, matter is the substance or movement in which manifestations appear. The six basic energies—instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory—occur in changing combinations. These combinations form the material used for manifestation and experience, while X2 is the creative faculty through which the I relates to them.

Each plane of existence is characterised by one basic energy in culmination: instinct in the Plant kingdom, gravity in the animal kingdom, feeling in the Human kingdom, intelligence in the Kingdom of wisdom, intuition in the Divine world and memory in the Kingdom of bliss. All six energies remain present in changing proportions, and their transformations provide changing forms of X3 throughout the spiral cycle.

Martinus calls the Mother energy the seventh basic energy and associates it with the creative faculty or superconsciousness. Unlike the six energies that form temporal and spatial manifestations, the mother energy is not physical in the same way; it is encountered indirectly through the creative faculty behind substances.

X3 and the Godhead

The universe has the same triune analysis as the living being. Martinus describes it as an eternal result of creation, and therefore as X3; its eternal creative ability is X2, and the eternal originator demanded by that ability is X1. The universe thus constitutes the same triune principle as the individual living being. Martinus identifies this all-encompassing living being with the Godhead, and says that living beings appear in God’s image after his likeness.

On this universal scale, the organisms of living beings constitute the X3 through which the Godhead manifests and experiences itself. Their creative faculties constitute X2, and their I’s constitute X1. Living beings are organs within the universal living being, while the universal organism contains and provides conditions for their existence.

The individual organism is temporary, but it belongs to a continuing structure of manifestation. The individual I remains an eternal centre of experience, while successive organisms and other created forms belong to the changing X3 of the individual and the Godhead.

X3, experience and evolution

X3 makes experience possible by providing created views, forms and movements that can be sensed. Martinus describes life as a chain of views passing before the I: thoughts, sensations and experiences are created views of the eternal something. X3 is the changing side of life-experience, not the unchanging identity of X1.

Through interaction with organisms, matter and surroundings, the being acquires experience and develops its faculties. Martinus describes physical and spiritual matter differently: physical conditions participate in the being’s struggle and creation, while spiritual matter becomes increasingly obedient to thought and can be shaped with less resistance.

As the being develops, its use of the created world becomes increasingly harmonious with the consciousness of the Godhead. Martinus connects the highest development with Cosmic consciousness, universal love and wisdom, and creation that becomes joy and blessing for other beings.

X3 is the created result of the I’s eternal creative faculty: the organism, its changing bodies and structures, and the wider created reality in which experience unfolds. It is distinct from X1, the originator, and X2, the faculty of creation, but cannot be separated from either. Together X1, X2 and X3 constitute the complete living being and, in their universal form, the living Godhead.

See also

• X1
• X2
• The I
• creative faculty
• organism
• matter
• The Living Being
• Godhead
• The Eternal World Picture