The Archetypal Nature of the Spirit, the Creative Power of the Soul and the Nature of the Self

Posted On April 30, 2020 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

One of the most fundamental errors we make in how we think about things comes when we start from the premise of duality and separation. Any hypothesis that’s based on a concept of separation while referring to our essential self or spiritual nature is an illusion in the most basic sense of the idea. I can remember a few years back attending a conference with what we could clearly call new agers, and one of the main ideas being expressed at that time was that our soul is not our self, with the self meaning who we are in relation with our body, personality, and ego formed out of identification with the body. When asked who you were the right answer was to state that you were a divine universal being, or something of that nature, instead of saying your name. They were teaching duality in the most basic sense and didn’t even seem to be aware of it.

This is a common error created through a lack of understanding of the principles governing different planes of existence, illustrated through the Hermetic axiom “As above so below, and as below so above, in the miraculous workings of the One thing”, and the concept of eternity as immortality. When we fail to understand fundamental universal principles that apply to all life, that misunderstanding comes through and is equally reflected in everything we think and do. While the idea of universal principles forming the basis for all life may appear to be based on a belief because it seems to offer no real facts to support it, this is also based on what it is we’re referring to as facts, and how it is that we know if something is true or not, and therefore real. Within the invisible principles that accompany and serve to organize and give life to the material world resides one of the greatest paradoxes and pervading mysteries of all time. How do we know if something is real or not?

I have often found it amazing if not a bit bewildering how science is always on a group quest to find the theory of everything, as though it’s going to come through a mechanical model of some kind or as the result of some kind of measurement or mathematical equation, without seeming to recognize that all science and reality itself is only knowable through our ability to perceive it. Society itself is being trained to rely on some kind of scientific study conducted by an expert to tell them what can only really be known through direct experience. The common denominator to all life and the whole cosmic mystery is the mind. All science arises out of our ability to think about things while wondering about new possibilities. Reality is only real and therefore knowable through our minds ability to perceive it. Every single mind of every individual perceives a slightly different and highly personalized version of what’s called an objective or shared reality that’s common to everyone.

This amazing feat of infinite possibilities for a single idea is produced by a dynamic series of filters that are used to sort through a vast and infinite amount of information inherent in the invisible field of information that surrounds us. Our mental filters serve to bring out and accentuate some features inherent in the whole, while subduing and excluding others to form a new field of organized information which is as a personal creation formed as a mental construct. How we experience reality changes based on the formation of new filters and the ongoing transformation of existing ones. These mental filters, also called perceptual filters, are formed out of beliefs, values, preferences, and memory. These filters form our mental paradigm, which is what we use as the means of shaping our reality by how we select, interpret, and organize specific aspects of any situation in order to create how we experience it.

Our mental paradigm is comprised of a system of mental filters that form our perceptual lens which is what we look through as the means of experiencing reality. We only see, process, form as a conceptual image and therefore comprehend what can be constructed, explained, described, and confirmed using our paradigm. When we understand this idea in the most basic sense we realize that what we tend to call reality is formed as a mental construct and projection of our mind. Nothing “out there” exists independent of what’s “in here”. One is the continuation and extension of the other as a mirror image (polar opposite). Everyone takes what exists as a universal field of potential and through a process of natural selection, reshapes it into a personalized, subjective version as their experience. All reality is the result of perception, and all perception forms how we experience our self as an entire reality. We don’t necessarily manifest material reality itself, but rather reshape it through our mental model to resemble us, and serve as a primary means of self-expression that provides us with a mirror into all aspects of our mind, many of which are hidden from us in the ordinary sense.

Our mind, like the light that makes up reality, is invisible to the senses, and we typically only perceive and form an entire reality out of a very small part of the light spectrum. We only see a small fraction of what’s actually there. There are many aspects of reality being played out all around us, within the same space, which we don’t recognize or perceive directly with our physical senses. This is because our senses are what allows us to perceive the world around us. What this tells us is that like the individual reality created using our mental paradigm by recombining key elements inherent in the whole to form a new possibility, what we perceive at any given time is only a small aspect of a much, much greater whole.

What we commonly refer to as the soul is equivalent with the mind, both of which are invisible to our senses. We can look at the mind as being a universal principle and the soul as being what works through the mind to produce a material image of itself. Our soul is our personal consciousness built up through experiences of itself acquired through the body. The Soul creates reality as the means of experiencing itself as its own creation. We only gain knowledge of ourselves through direct experience. The soul utilizes the mind as a means of constructing a reality of itself, which it then uses in order to experience itself as a material being. It doesn’t do this by simply designing the body that it then inhabits as a personality, but by creating the whole reality of the body necessary to experience itself in a specific way.

The entire outer reality of the personality is produced as a mental projection that’s naturally formed out of our formative conditioning. Our initial conditioning takes place as a child through a process of adaptation that modifies and adjusts our paradigm to match our environment. In this way we can produce a unique variable of the same core essence and evolve ourselves according to a specific set of conditions and circumstances. The soul isn’t comprised of the personalized version created through our body, personality, and identity within the body, but by taking the personalized experience created and returning it to a universal, archetypal state. The human soul is archetypal in nature and is comprised of unique combinations and potencies of different qualities to form a new and unique whole. The process of creation is represented by the infinity symbol as a perpetual movement between parallel planes that are complementary in nature.

 We draw on a universal archetype as the means of producing an experience of our self as an outer projection, and then reabsorb the experience created and turn it back into a universal state as our souls memory and essence. Our soul is comprised of universal memory that is metaphorical and thematic in nature, because this is necessary in order to be able to adapt it to any situation as the means of creating more of the same type of experiences. Our soul is universal in nature and is what’s creating the entire material plane of manifestation as an individual. It’s holistic in nature, and exists in a whole, unified form on its native plane.

Our soul designs what we call the light body or etheric double of subtle energy which serves as the blueprint for not only constructing and animating the body, but for the entire reality produced through the body as a mental projection. It creates the world through which it experiences itself from the inside out. It’s in a constant state of transformation based on the energy its constantly absorbing from everything around it as the Earths soul. This is done through the principle of polarity as a form of electromagnetic pulsation and respiration. We’re always drawing in the energy from around us that’s of a similar nature to us, and metabolizing it to adjust our mental model. As we metabolize and assimilate new energies (information) we equalize ourselves in terms of energetic composition to match or be the same nature as the environment we live, grow, and experience ourselves through.

All creation that’s of an intelligent (highly organized) and complex nature requires a blueprint, model, or prototype in order to be systematically produced, reproduced, and maintained. Our light body, like our physical body which is a mirror image of it, is constantly undergoing a process of regeneration through the birth, maturity, and death process. The outer reality of organized light of the Earths soul (Nature) is mentally constructed by the individual as an emanation. Our energy field is not confined to the body, and extends quite some distance from our body in more and more subtle forms. While we tend to think that our self as our “I” (identity) is not formed as an individual by our soul, and that our body is somehow separate from our mind, soul, and spirit which give us life, it is in fact the creation of our soul, and is in a constant state of growth and transformation. This also forms the illusion that consciousness is somehow produced by the brain and nervous system, instead of what’s using it as a vehicle for traversing and working within the material plane, which exists fully within it as an essential part of it.

The soul is what gives life to the body and acts as the organizing principle of all material forms. Every single material form (light body made of photons) is an emanation of One Light. The Soul is the electrical force that charges plasma and organizes light (photons) into a distinct pattern. It coagulates light to form a ghost-like image of gases (astral fluid), which then becomes more densely concentrated as liquid-light (etheric substance), which is used to organize the entire lower material plane. It’s the life-force that operates and runs our body through electrical impulses that set a chain-reaction in motion as a neurological process of equilibrium. Our mind as an energetic state (frequency) works through our brain, nervous system, and endocrine system to adjust our body to the same state. Our brain and nervous system is what you can think of as our command center for operating our body.

All thought comes as electrical sparks that stimulate various parts of our brain to form a kind of encoded message system that’s translated into chemical messengers by various parts of our body. A spark ignites, awakening and setting into motion a mental function, which then follows a series of pathways, similar to how lightning propagates through the atmosphere, forming a whole orchestration of correlated activities. As consciousness is transmitted through the brain and nervous system as electrical impulses, it stimulates hormone production of the endocrine system where it’s translated into orders for organizing a synchronized event, flooding the bloodstream with the chemical instructions necessary to synchronize all systems of the body to produce a unified motion as activity of the whole being.

It’s the mind operating through the brain that creates our reality as a conscious state, and for this reason creates the illusion of consciousness arising from the brain. Spirit comes through the body and projects reality from within outward. In order to change the outer appearance of reality in terms of how we perceive and thereby experience it, we have to work to change our mental paradigm that ordering, organizing, and producing it as a mental projection. If we try to change our experience by working on the outer material manifestation we usually end up simply creating the same type of experience, only in a new way. This is where you get sayings like “no matter where you go, there you are”.

The outer reality only changes in exact proportion to the inner reality. Our inner reality, formed as a mental construct out of memory, serves to organize the substrata (energetic matrix) out of which all material phenomena arise as an emanation. We change the inner by studying and constantly taking in new information that we conceptualize as an inner representation that brings new realizations about the same thing, causing a paradigm shift. As we imagine ideas in detail, developing them the more we think about them, they become a set of instructions for our subconscious to produce as an outer experience of the same type and kind. As we apply knowledge to produce an experience of it as a reality, we absorb our experience and it becomes our souls essence. When we stop learning and growing, we become stagnate and complacent, and begin dying. We’re always both expanding and reforming, or we’re contracting and dying, becoming smaller and less capable of adapting.

So to say that there’s no self is an anomaly that comes out of a fundamental misconception. The self is actually the creation of the soul necessary in order to experience itself in a specific way as a material being. The self isn’t fixed as the form itself in a completely limited state, it’s constantly fluctuating and morphing as a continuous growth process based on an overall plan as the life naturally produced by the soul. The entire material plane is the creation of the soul and is what provides it with an experience of a certain kind, necessary in order to know itself. What we call the spirit exists on a higher plane of vibration as archetypes in an ideal and potential (unformed) state, which are drawn down by the soul on a medium plane through sympathetic induction, and utilized to form an image of itself that is then projected into the lower, material plane in order to experience itself. The soul is comprised of a vibration that forms the lower frequency of the higher plane, and the highest frequency of the lower plane. It acts as a circuit or conduit for spirit to manifest in form as one of an infinite number of possibilities without being changed from its original state on the higher plane.

This is what’s meant by the idea that only what descends from heaven returns or ascends back into heaven. Universal archetypes are ideals (perfect) that are drawn into the mind of the soul where they’re blended and modified according to the nature of the soul and used to manifest in the lower planes as a personal creation. In their original state archetypes are pure and unmixed, and become an amalgamation when mixed with the consciousness of the individual soul. The experience created by the soul of itself in form is then reabsorbed as experience of itself, where it’s then translated into a metaphorical theme as a memory of the soul. The personal aspect is transformed back into its original universal state as archetypal essence as the memory of the soul that comprises its constitution.

All memories acquired while in a body are synthesized to form a new whole as the souls essence. The souls essence forms its character and moral summation as it’s nature, and is what enters into another body and restructures itself into a new variation based on all the elements used to form a new series of combinations as relationships. The same essence as well developed characteristics formed out of accumulated memory that’s built-up over time, undergoes another transformative process of adaptation and modification that forms a whole new expression of the same essence. Just as the soul structures itself as a whole reality, it also restructures and evolves itself from one incarnation to the next. Different genetic factors, living conditions, environment, race, culture, family, and era produces a whole new series of relationships that stimulate us in different ways, developing our personality accordingly.

The soul is in a constant and never ending state of transformation and evolution. It’s fluctuating energetically based on how the inner aspects and qualities interact with those same energies in the outer projection. We’re always acting on ourselves in and as everything else. What we perceive as a reality that’s separate from us is actually more of an extension and continuation of our mind and soul as the same idea being played out on different scales. Our outer world is created by our subconscious mind, which is also the group mind shared by all life on Earth. It’s constructed as a whole mind rather than a fragmented one, and contains aspects of ourselves that we’re normally unaware of (our shadow), which is why we don’t recognize them as being our own.

The object to life in recognizing our true identity as the creator of our reality and life’s story comes by the inner and outer becoming a unified whole that we perceive in a fully conscious way. This only comes by forming an awareness of our unconscious aspects, also referred to as our shadow aspects. These are the aspects of our self that we judged harshly for some reason, refusing to express them, and denying having them as a result . . . even to ourselves. This renders us unconscious in the most basic sense, because we perceive our shadow nature in our outer world without realizing it. As we form an image of ourselves in a split, fragmented way, as separate from ourselves, we also form our outer reality in the same manner. As we deny and repress our shadow aspects because we’ve judged them to be bad or wrong to have, we simultaneously begin forming an image of ourselves out of a fragmented state of only owning what we deem to be good, and admirable, forming what’s referred to as our false ego.

The Archetypal Nature of the Soul – The Mortal, Immortal, and Higher and Lower Nature of the Soul

Archetypes as Laws and Principles that Provide Tools for Personal Transformation

Our ego is an illusion of ourselves created out of a fragmented mind. We’re provided with a mirror into our hidden nature through our outer experience of reality, but don’t realize it because we’ve denied having those traits to ourselves, and as a result, don’t have a clear memory of them, so we don’t know they’re ours. We don’t realize that the reason we form a reaction to them is because we possess the complementary aspect in its latent state. We bring ourselves back into a harmonious and unified state of equilibrium by learning how to relinquish judgment of ourselves in others and harmonize them into our whole being as a result.

We judge the same traits in others to the exact same degree that we judge those same traits in our self, causing us to go unconscious while still projecting those traits onto others. We don’t give people those traits, so to speak, but rather perceive the same traits in them and react to them as a result. Once we realize that the outer world is a mirror reflection of the inner world in a whole and unified state, we can use it to self-reflect and follow our judgments back to their root. Once we recognize those same traits in our self and embrace them by harmoniously integrating them into our experience, and finding an appropriate expression for them, we act to heal ourselves and become whole again.

As we experience compassion as understanding of ourselves, our judgment of those same things in others fades away, and it becomes a harmonious part of our whole self and our perception of reality. This is what Jesus was elucidating when he said, “when the outer becomes the same as the inner, and the inner becomes the same as the outer, you’ll have entered the gates of heaven”. What we call heaven is the native plane of the soul where everything exists in a unified state of self-awareness and harmony. Once we identify our outer reality as a reflection and projection of our own mind, we touch on our true identity as a higher divine being that’s acting to create our entire worldly experience as an experience of our self.

All reality is formed as a manifestation of One Source. All reality is formed out of a cosmic seed of spirit that impregnates the individual soul as it also impregnates the soul of humanity as a whole. This is why the spirit is often referred to in masculine terms, and the soul in feminine terms. Reality as we’re capable of knowing it through our perception is the offspring of the soul and spirit. The Trinity is illustrated in mythological terms as the husband and wife, who together produce a child as their offspring. The spirit exists in a purely potential state as an ideal that’s drawn into the soul as a form of seed, and gestates it turning it into a reality as the combination of both manifested as a material matrix. In order to manifest as a new form, a new seed has to be drawn in through resonance and allowed to incubate as a process of adaptation that shapes it into a modified version that’s harmonious to the souls paradigm, where it can be incorporated logically into the whole structure of reality as a natural part of our souls perception of itself.

Form as material manifestation is the expression of spirit brought down the planes of density (destiny) by the soul. The spirit is the ether as the unified field of intelligence in its potential state that permeates the entire universe, informing it. The human soul is of the Astral Plane of Light and Formation, and the body-template produced through their copulation, forms the etheric double or subtle body, all of which are invisible to the physical senses. In order to work with our physical manifestation, we have to work through our subtle light body which is formed by our mind and spirit. This is what’s being referred to when it’s stated that we have to work by way of the laws that govern the higher planes in order to over-ride and work directly with the material plane. We have to work with the laws governing our mind, which are primarily the laws of mentation, vibration, and polarity, all of which are correspondences of each other.

Dr. Linda Gadbois