Participating In The Supersensible Plenum Participating In The Supersensible Plenum Participating In The Supersensible Plenum

  In this essay we'll study how to achieve actual participation ¹  in, the Supersensible Plenum, a domain distinct from, though inclusive of, our ordinary world of terrestrial existence. Our participation in this Plenum can become an actual, active "partaking of the life eternal and the higher powers of the heavenly ones" as Iamblicus indicated. ²  Iamblicus, one of the foremost Neo-Platonists, considered the outcome of theurgical dialectic between humans and the Divine to be henôsis, "a creative partnership with the Divine, sharing in the transcendent activity of sustaining and evolving the cosmic order."

  The Supersensible Eternal Plenum is the hypostasis, ³ a continuum containing all elements (beings, objects, events, processes); everything that comes into eternal being or temporal existence passes into it. The Plenum contains both true reality as well as false reality, both eternal elements possessing the nature of Form, that is, consisting of essence, as well as transient elements, those of a limited time of terrestrial existence. All elements within the Supersensible Plenum, both eternal and transient, occur within eternity.

The Supersensible Eternal Plenum
The Everlasting (Timeless and Evolving)	The Transient, (Existing Within Time)
The Forms (Goodness, Truth, Justice, etc.)	Transient "things"
Your eternal being	Your thirteen-year-old self
All entities possessing essence and Arete--highest excellence	Norman Mailer's 1948 best-selling book, The Naked And the Dead
Plato's archetype of a commonwealth	The current fascist Republican Party; a cult devoted to Donald Trump
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony	The current "rap music" best-selling song

  All entities possessing Essence and Arete--highest, most complete excellence--are a part of the everlasting component within the Plenum. An entity--such as a person or a work of art--may never be experienced by, may never be known to, a single person in the terrestrial world, but if that individual or artwork possesses the nature of essence and Arete--becomes a part of the everlasting component within the Plenum--it will be experienced (apprehended, comprehended, and appreciated) by all Higher Beings, carnate and discarnate, within the Supersensible Plenum.

"It is in time that all the three-dimensional things of the obstructed universe are held and become realities. It is in time, too, that they exist, rather than in space and motion. They do have those essences, but they REALLY exist in time. . . "'Thoughts are things.' They are, in this way: they are received in time, and so are indestructible. "The facts and conditions resulting from. . . --any happening--remain in time, though the acts as incidents have vanished from space. . . It is in time that they remain--to condition and influence your present and the present of all coming generations." Betty White and Stewart Edward White, The Unobstructed Universe, 1941

   Arete is an element present in a certain few humans who engage in an ongoing attempt to realize their full human potential in all aspects of their lives and in any entity (being, object, event, process) which attains highest excellence. We find the achievement of excellence in people who have developed a particular set of specialized capabilities: artists, athletes, teachers, entertainers--those who have achieved expertise in any field.

   It is rare to find persons who are developing excellence in all areas of their lives. The one area where most so-called celebrities, geniuses, and heroes fail to achieve Arete is in developing social consciousness: working in whatever ways possible to expose tyranny and develop concepts and structures allowing people to join in forming a commonwealth community in which the good of all is the goal.

  Only persons who are themselves working to achieve Arete--aspiring to develop all areas of their human potential--are capable of discerning embodiments of the Arete factor in artworks, persons, organizations, and events. Making known to oneself and to others which specific entities incarnate essence and Arete, (excellence in full) or excellence in one area of life, is a major way in which we can participate in the Work ⁴  of the Supersensible Plenum.

The Counterfeit Has Supplanted the Genuine and the Real
  Many persons are unable to recognize that an inversion of value has taken place: --the counterfeit and sub-standard hailed as the excellent. What has resulted is such idiocies as Norman Mailer's 1948 book, The Naked And the Dead appearing as a Best Seller, the worst cacaphonous noise appearing as a Grammy Winner, the veriest tripe being hailed as an Oscar-winning movie, and a thug like Donald Trump becoming President. Ignorant persons continue to assume that any work appearing on the "best-seller" lists, any movie receiving an Oscar, any piece of anti-music winning a Best Country Western Award, or any artist, writer or thinker gaining a popular following must be "great."

  The exact opposite is true: anyone or anything that is touted by popular, illiterate, boorish taste can be clearly identified as sub-standard and fake. The current mind-set is incapable of recognizing--let alone appreciating--excellence in any arena.

Work In the Supersensible Plenum
  The Work of discarnate Higher Beings in the Supersensible Plenum is mystical, in the sense of having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to common intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding. The Divine creates and sustains a world which provides precisely coordinated learning experiences transcendentally matched to our current needs and capabilities. The Divine has the power to take all human actions and use them to assist us in our evolution. All persons receive exactly the experiences they deserve and from which they can best learn what they need for their personal evolution--and at the same time for the evolution of all humankind. The Divine does not create negative elements, those are created by human error and perfidy through the exercise of human freedom.

  Our participation in the Supersensible Plenum is exceptionally important and rewarding in these times when Evil is so active and so much in evidence. It is heartening and energizing for persons to realize that they can significantly participate in and contribute to the Work of the Supersensible Plenum if they fulfill the prerequisites for genuine involvement.

  Many people today are asking what they can do to fight against all the horrors they see going on about them. Well, here is an answer to that question: You can learn to participate in the Work of the Supersensible Plenum, in the ongoing creative, evolutionary operations of the Higher Powers. You may have allowed yourself to become so despondent in the face of all this evil, that this seems grandiose to you. But, nonetheless, it is possible for you to learn to become an active participant in the elemental Work of the positive forces for the Good.

"Do not forget how you do it: through strength of desire to serve, through vigorous encircling action, through overflowing faith, through vision of reality, through union with spiritual law and purpose, through understanding of temptation and resistance, through magnifying to each his own soul. Through all these you find your way to the comprehension of the divine life." Betty White, The Betty Book, 1937

  By participating in this cosmic Work, we are able to overcome the elements of evil that are presently destroying our world. We engage in overcoming these demonic forces in the sense of outmaneuvering and overpowering them and overlaying and replacing them with positive elements.

  Participating in, actively engaging in, contributing to the Work of the Supersensible Plenum becomes our primary duty and we are heartened to know that our activities actually result in positive effects in the Supersensible Plenum: the Higher World of Divine Sovereignty. Our work involves these activities:

1. Working to gain wisdom and understanding of both True Reality and False Reality.
   
     It requires wisdom to discern that developing ourselves into genuine, moral, intelligent, discerning, inspired human beings, working to attain higher understanding and wisdom, is a distinct and important contribution to the entire realm of Supersensible Being.
   
     We work to attain an understanding of focal points of negativity, non-receptivity, defilement, or destruction that need to be transmuted--for example, the present political-economic-social world as corrupted and perverted by capitalist befoulment. We do not waste time in railing against the abominations and outrages, recognizing that the negative elements (persons, objects, systems) have abandoned their relationship with the divine source of life and are dying of deteriorization and dissolution.
   
   
   • Explicating the focal point of negativity in explicit, easily understood terms, so that a remediation can be discovered.
     
     
   • Elucidating Archetypal Forms that will result in transmuting negative elements into positive, life-giving expressions of Spirit.
     

2. We must work assiduously and intelligently to avoid allowing negative elements to affect us in a deleterious manner.
   

  While we must work to understand the False World, we must, at the same time, make certain that we do not allow this knowledge to produce negative results in us:

• Irrational Fear
• Hatred
• Depression or hopelessness

  It is reasonable to fear what the capitalist cabal's current Trump Republicans and corporate Democrats are perpetrating--since they are literally murdering working class members. But we must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with groundless emotions of panic, anxiety, or hysteria. It is rational to detest what the enemies of reason, justice, and truth are wreaking on defenseless persons, but lunatic loathing serves no purpose and weakens us. We understandably feel dejected by the murderous outrages being perpetrated on a daily basis, but it is counter-productive to allow ourselves to become despondent or hopeless. We are, we must remind ourselves, working in collaboration with Higher Persons and Transcendent Powers.

  We create spiritually by working within the terrestrial realm. We work to gain understanding of this earthly realm: including its points of ignorance, egomania, evil, and destruction. As we're working within the terrestrial realm, we must recognize that there are negative forces against which we must "insulate" ourselves.

"The first application of wisdom is to accept opposition so in its entirety, so completely, that thereafter not one speck of attention power is ever wasted on it, except for the intellectual appraisement of its strength and the planning for control of its effect.

"One of the most fundamental things about all the obstructive refuse you have to contend with, is that it has released its relationship with the ultimate source of life, and is cooling off and dying of decomposition. Once you realize and understand this, thoroughly, you will never be tempted to lose hope and give in. For with this engraved on your mind, it is impossible to entertain personal antagonism: you know too well the reason for things being the way they are. And once above personal antagonism, and aware of your own free power of relationship with the source, you find the way cleared for the bringing in of the fresh, healthy, over-laying material."

Stewart Edward White and Betty White, Across the Unknown
"I must keep my energy lifted up, insulated. The minute it rests without insulation it gets into the vortex. . . You see, when I get within the power of that zone its action begins on me in spite of myself. It is like getting into quicksand; that acts on you, and you can't help it. That's a zone of action of a certain kind. It takes great, almost superhuman, spirituality to go into that lower form of life and hold your own. You can do it, if you have the right insulation.

"This, then, is the secret of maintaining our integrity: we must meet the problems of our world and the people of our world, not in their zone of action, but in ours. We must not go to them; we must get them to come to us.

"[Evil] is the antithesis of spiritual. It is the impetus to nullify, to deaden your life-containing powers. It is analogous to the way a certain action takes place and a tree is petrified; or if you stay out in the cold, you freeze. Certain action takes place, a certain impetus is unchecked, and you are reduced to a helpless state and can't do anything about it. It has a great drawing power toward its own. When you get in the vortex it begins to work on you unless you have a strong insulation.

"It is simply that when we step out to meet the world, after having more or less development in solitude through spiritual contact, connection with the greater forces, we must be able to protect ourselves. Otherwise we would soon fall back into the old turmoil. We have laid off our old turtle shell of indifference, of antagonism, of clannishness, and all the other world protections: we must in compensation command this other safeguard or we shall be torn to pieces."

Betty White, The Betty Book, 1937

  In the war we're fighting against terrestrial demonic forces, each of us has been given certain capabilities to use in helping humankind struggle against the persistent forces of ignorance, oppression, and murder. It's our responsibility to do what we can; and we're not to consider the fruits of our labor. The success or failure of our efforts is up to a Higher Power. It would be foolish to say, "I'm not going to struggle against the capitalist cabal and its political-economic puppets because people wouldn't listen to me anyway, and anything I could do wouldn't make any difference." Your duty is to do what you can with what you're given and forego egoistic attachment to any results you might expect as a reward for your efforts.

"Your main effort must go into union with the supreme force or intelligence, not by just calling it down and isolating yourself in it, but by calling for it and uniting with it in such a manner as to transmute it into an available earth force."

Betty White, The Betty Book, 1937

3. We work to gain effectual understanding of both our present terrestrial domain and the higher, supersensible domain, both aspects of the One Universe.
   
   
   

   "Gradually, through your science, you are controlling more and more obstructions. You are reaching up into my universe. By means of extending your understanding and use of the law." Betty White and Stewart Edward White, The Unobstructed Universe

   
   
     Part of our work while we are in the terrestrial realm is to gain understanding of the higher, supersensible domain and bring this understanding to productive use in enhancing and improving human life.
   
   
4. We must join with others to perform the Work of the Supersensible Plenum.
   
   

   One feels connection with the Supersensible Plenum, and with other persons participating in the Work of the Plenum, as Oneness, Harmony, and Unity.    Spiritual and psychic energy flows from the Plenum into all those participating in its Work. 5   We must work with others to create cooperative commonwealth communities, the only solution to our present fascist political-economic system.

   
   
   

   "Only by collecting a group of your dearest, going forth with your heart among them, cementing, as it were, a collective entity, and continually enlarging it, putting forth the substance among you, can you start toward comprehension of the Universal Consciousness." Betty White, Across The Unknown

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Notes:
   
   ¹ In an earlier essay, we examined how to live a separate life in the Higher Realm.
   
   ² Iamblicus (250-325 CE), The Egyptian Mysteries
   
   ³ The fundamental reality that supports all else
   
   ⁴ In the Perennial Tradition, the terrestrial and spiritual Enterprise of providing specialized training in the transformation of the human essence into Higher Consciousness is designated by several different terms. In alchemical writings, it is referred to as the "Great Work," and in other occult systems it is termed theurgy, which means "The Science or Art of Divine Works," the Telestic Work, or the Perfecting Work. In the Sufi embodiment of the Perennial Tradition, the Arabic word amal (work, action, operation) is used to refer to the transformative effort. The entire Enterprise is termed "the Work," while the responsibilities and efforts of individual initiates (beginning students) is called their "work."
   
   ⁵ Focus your attention on the image above, noting the various persons seated around the circular table and the large cone of energy descending into the table and then dispersed to each individual at the table. Imagine yourself as one of those seated around the table, in psychic connection with the others, and receiving the energy flowing down through the cone and into the table and the other participants.