Matter

Matter is, in Martinus' analysis, the substance through which living beings manifest and experience life. It is created, changing, and perceptible as movement, while the living being is the enduring originator that uses it. Matter therefore belongs to the created aspect of existence, but its analysis leads to energy, consciousness and living beings. ^[1]

Matter and the triune principle

Martinus describes the living being through three inseparable principles: The I, its superconscious creative structure, and the created or manifested reality designated X3. Matter belongs to X3 and includes physical as well as ray-formed forms. ^[2]

In Livets Bog, Martinus argues that a living being cannot manifest without matter, while matter cannot exist without expressing a living being. Since matter reacts, and reaction is organised energy or movement, matter is connected with creation, consciousness and spirit. He therefore presents the identity of matter and spirit as a cosmic-chemical conclusion: the substance used for manifestation is also an expression of consciousness. ^[3]

The I is the experiencing and willing “something”, whereas matter is what is experienced and manifested. Martinus distinguishes the living being's fixed point from the movements that emanate from it and return to it. ^[4]

Matter as movement

In Martinus' terminology, all temporal and spatial phenomena—solid, liquid, gaseous and ray-formed—are different kinds of movement. Movement includes not only travel through space but also transformation from one state to another. Matter is therefore changeable and belongs to the created world. ^[5] ^[6]

Matter is composed of energy, and every substance has a capacity to react. Martinus describes seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling and thinking as reactions between energies that come into contact. In this broad sense, sensory experience and the forms of matter are related expressions of reaction and movement. ^[7]

Creation is likewise described through reactions and the unfolding of energy. The living being's manifestation is an expression of energy-combinations, while the living being is the fixed point from which movements and vibrations emanate. ^[8] ^[9]

The energies and forms of matter

Martinus says that the material of the created world is composed of the six basic energies: Instinct, Gravity, Feeling, Intelligence, Intuition and Memory. The mother-energy is distinguished from these as the eternal creative principle in the superconsciousness. The six basic energies appear in combinations and are transformed into different forms of movement. ^[10]

The physical forms of matter are described through the interaction of gravity and feeling. Gravity-energy is associated with fire and heat, while feeling-energy is associated with cold and condensation. Martinus connects the degree of condensation with these energies and with will or desire. The physical states of solid, liquid and gaseous matter belong to the cycle of matter. ^[11] ^[12]

The cycle also includes a fourth, ray-formed state. Fire, cold, electricity, rays and waves belong to this radiating condition. Together with the other states it provides the material through which the living being creates physical bodies, thoughts, consciousness and spiritual bodies. ^[13] ^[14]

In The Road to Initiation, ray-formed matter is also called spiritual matter. Martinus describes it as the substance in which thoughts and mental constructions arise, and as the finest material for the creation of thought and consciousness. ^[15]

Physical and spiritual matter

Physical matter is dense and does not automatically obey the being's thought impulses. The living being therefore requires a physical organism with sensory organs in order to transmit impulses to the physical plane and receive physical impressions. The physical body is a temporary instrument for working with physical matter. ^[16]

By contrast, spiritual matter is shaped by spiritual impulses. Thoughts appear in it as forms and images, and the being can create and experience there without direct dependence on physical matter. Physical creations are copies of thoughts that first exist in the ray-formed or spiritual substance. ^[17] ^[18]

The physical organism is consequently not the whole living being in Martinus' account. It is an extension of the being's primary spiritual structure. Physical and spiritual matter are thus related modes through which the living being experiences and creates. ^[19]

Matter, reaction and cosmic chemistry

Every substance has a characteristic ability to react. Martinus calls this the beginning of a “cosmic chemistry”: all phenomena are reactions between substances or energies, including digestion, respiration, sensory perception, thought, emotions and creative achievements. ^[20]

A substance's particular reaction depends on the combination and relative strength of the energies composing it. The same principle is extended to living beings: their bodies, talents, sensory faculties and character express particular combinations of energy and therefore particular ways of reacting. Martinus connects this regularity with an all-embracing order. ^[21]

The living being is itself one of the units of which matter consists. In mesocosmic matter—the scale most accessible to ordinary human perception—Martinus identifies a reacting faculty, organisms that distribute power, and an experiencing and manifesting I. He extends this basic analysis to matter at other scales. ^[22]

Matter as life seen from different perspectives

The distinction between matter and life is therefore a distinction of perspective. From the aspect of substance, the living universe appears as energy, vibration, movement and material forms. From the aspect of life, the same reality appears as living beings and enduring I's. Martinus calls these latter realities “life units”. ^[23]

The inner world is also a form of material activity. Martinus describes how impressions from the outer world are retained as inner copies, which can then be altered and rearranged in thought. This manipulation of inner material is what he calls the functioning of thought or mental work. ^[24] ^[25]

Thoughts and thought-climates are also composed of substance, although their spiritual nature means that they are commonly called forces, energies, waves or auras. Terrestrial human beings are chiefly day-conscious in relation to physical matter, while their spiritual bodies and corresponding planes remain largely subconscious. ^[26]

Matter and the living cosmos

Martinus places matter within a hierarchy in which living beings are both wholes and parts. In The Galaxies of the Universe, physical particles are described as crystallisations of thought energies and as temporary results of a living being's consciousness and creative ability. The universe is consequently presented as cycles of living beings within living beings. ^[27]

Matter is therefore central to fate: it is the medium in which a living being's manifestation, experience and reactions unfold. The four states of matter are not merely physical categories in this analysis; they are stages in the living being's continuing cycle of creation and experience. ^[28] ^[29]

References

[1] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.11

[2] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.18

[3] Livets Bog 2, section 318

[4] Den ideelle føde, section 1.13 (*)

[5] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.11

[6] Livets Bog 2, section 587

[7] Livets Bog 2, section 290

[8] Livets Bog 2, section 290

[9] Den ideelle føde, section 1.15 (*)

[10] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.18

[11] Livets Bog 2, section 377

[12] Livets Bog 2, section 587

[13] Livets Bog 2, section 588

[14] Livets Bog 2, section 590

[15] Vejen til paradis, section 1.10 (*)

[16] Vejen til paradis, section 1.14 (*)

[17] Vejen til paradis, section 1.10 (*)

[18] Vejen til paradis, section 1.14 (*)

[19] Vejen til paradis, section 1.14 (*)

[20] Livets Bog 2, section 290

[21] Livets Bog 2, section 298

[22] Livets Bog 2, section 484

[23] Den ideelle føde, section 1.13 (*)

[24] Livets Bog 3, section 799

[25] Livets Bog 3, section 800

[26] Livets Bog 1, section 181

[27] Reinkarnationsprincippet, section 2.7 (*)

[28] Livets Bog 2, section 587

[29] Livets Bog 2, section 590

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