Author: Frank DeMarco

You are part of a process, not only the result of a process. Creation isn’t finished, and creation isn’t something that was done to you, so to speak. It is something done with you, and is forever being done with you, not merely to you. Remember this, if you can.

As I was writing that, I got an image of people watching television, passively receiving input.

That may be how it seems to them, and it may be how it seems to you, but in reality even “passive” is active, in a sense. You might as well describe plants in a garden as being passive to input like water. Receiving is transforming, conscious or not. It isn’t really possible for you (that is, for anyone) to remain unaffected by anything that flows through him, or her. Even an active decision not to be changed would be a change, you see.

The resolution would itself be a change from a prior state.

Even if it were a continuing resolution, yes, it represents an effect of an interaction.

Moral of story, be careful what you allow in as input?

Well, that could be a long subject if we followed it out. After all, what you choose to allow in can’t exactly be said to be random. You choose as much by what you won’t consider as by what you consider and decide upon. The point at the moment, though, is that you are never inert recipients; you are by nature, and inevitably, creators. That one particular aspect that you attribute to your God or gods is the one single descriptor that best includes all humans: creators. But creation is not merely a matter of imagination, of focused thought, any more than it is merely of skilled hands, or channeled willpower. It is your essence, your continued and uninterrupted and uninterruptable effect upon the world around you and within you. Every moment, you create by what you are. You are creating your flower, remember; you are creating a habit-system (your mind); you are molding the possibilities of the present moment in the context of past moments and future moments. And of course it all proceeds in a broader context – past lives, other versions, interactions with all the parts of your Sam, and so on  and so forth.

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

let’s consider your lives as you know them. In all their infinite variety, still they have patterns common to all. No need to enumerate them, you know life. But for the moment, concentrate on your internal life. When the morning’s energies flow though you, how do they flow? Do they flow through unshaped space?

I think you are meaning some illustrative images, like wind flowing across a field, unobstructed; or funneling through terrain, perhaps through and between trees, or being channeled down the streets of Manhattan, or blowing into windows on one side of a house, blowing through and emerging on the other side, things like that.

Yes only more intricate, more obstructed, more convoluted, and at the same time under less pressure and more pressure.

Harder to find an image for that. [Pause] All right, the analogy came to me, but I think it will end up causing us some confusion of ideas. Instead of wind, let’s think of the forces as electricity moving through a neural net. The configuration of the net determines the direction of flow and, to some extent, the strength of the flow (in inverse proportion to the obstacles it throws up, the tortuous pathways it requires). The configuration is determined not by the electricity but by the controller of the net, however we wish to envision that.

A much more elastic, serviceable analogy. We congratulate you.

I can’t decide whether that is sarcasm. I’m well aware that what I did was wait, receptively, holding the requirement in mind, until it surfaced.

No need to fear sarcasm. When something has been achieved, it has been achieved.

Okay. So then—?

All right, so look at what we have. Energy flows through you. If it did not, your computer would not work, so to speak. But how it flows through you is not the same as what flows through you.

A better analogy comes to me: Light shines through a vast maze of fiber-optic threads, and the configuration of the threads is what channels the light.

Now, bear in mind the contradictions in what we have said, for it is in reconciling contradictions that greater understanding is produced. We have described these vast impersonal forces – and we repeat these words for a reason – as representing or even exemplifying what you know as sinful or soulful attitudes, negative or positive biases, predilections that dominate and complicate your lives. We have also described these vast impersonal forces as being, in effect, causative and neutral, like wind, like channeled air, like electricity, like light. That is contradiction, and in contradiction, if faced and (so to speak) faced down, is greater understanding to be found.

In effect, you are asking us to be Rita when she was in the body, posing questions and pointing out ambiguities and contradictions.

Wrestling with the material, yes. Taking it seriously. That’s the invitation.

Well, how do you reconcile the two positions?

We don’t reconcile them, we use them to show that they are contrasting points of view. And in such case, resolution always comes only by moving to a higher, more encompassing perspective.

The analogies are still too simple. They are good as halfway houses, to position you, but they contradict the facts somewhat. The resolution is in realizing that the terms are too simple. It is as if all the light shining through the fiber optics must be white light, or all the electricity must be at the same amperage or voltage.

All light may have been white on the morning of creation (so to speak), but that was a long time of experience ago. All voltages may have been uniform initially, but, again, not by now. Remember, these are analogies. Try not to get caught up in the logical problems caused by the nature of the analogy; center on the logical problems posed by what the analogies are trying to convey.

I get that by this act of the play, nothing is pristine; everything shows the result of prior use.

An interesting take on what we are trying to convey. Not that the forces of the world are shopworn, but that the very energies that flow through you are themselves the product of much that happened before you arrived on the scene. It isn’t white light, but light some of whose qualities have been enhanced or hampered. (That is a definition of color, you see.)

So that we as 3D individuals may be receiving different inputs, as well as treating our inputs differently?

Next time.

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

We remind you, as you seem to need to be reminded periodically, that all of this effort, on Frank’s part, on our part – and of course that includes everybody who has participated, not only Rita and other named individuals, but the many lumped in the category of “guys upstairs” – all this effort is not so that we may draw castles in the sky or that you may daydream “what if” pictures to compare with other schemes, but so that you may change your lives. In other words, work with this, don’t merely be entertained by it. You don’t have to accept it, or reject it, but, work with it, wrestle with it. See what you really think.

Of course, this too is within your choice, but the reminder is there. We don’t mean this as a chastisement, but think of us as an alarm clock, set to go off at unpredictable intervals, lest you fall asleep and have no one to nudge you.

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

[Question submitted by Jane Peranteau: “We are affected by the forces as they come through. Do we affect the forces in any way, other than by how we express or channel them? In other words, you could say they hone us. Do we hone them? Or is it just about honing us?”]

The short answer is yes, it is a mutual interaction. But the closer you look at this, the more complex and nuanced it is. As usual.

If we stick to the human level as commonly experienced – that is, if we consider only the effect of 3D decisions upon the forces that blow through them – then you could say, no, there is no effect. Hurricanes are not much affected by whether you do or don’t leave a lawn chair out on the deck. The lawn chair will be affected! But the hurricane, no. The disparity of forces is immense.

However, 3D experience indirectly affects you in 3D – that is, the real effect is in your changes, which are decisions express or implied. In turn, changes in you result in change in your overall being, hence in your Sam. Again, the disparity of forces is great, but there is an effect, especially considered cumulatively. And – we aren’t going to go into it – changes in Sams in effect result in changes in the winds sweeping through 3D life. But that is all we’re going to say about that.

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

Let us begin our long discussion of the forces that influence your lives, and that your lives use in order to make shapes.

Interesting way to think of it.

An analogy: Think of the air you breathe. Chemically, you change its composition; physically, within limits, you direct the outward flow of breathed air. You are not the air, and yet the air is a part of you, but not as a component so much as part of a process. Air flows through you. It is changed in predictable fashion as it does so, but this is not a one-time change, nor an accident, nor an incident: It is a process, and it must continue if you are to live. Eliminate humans and the air continues to exist and be influenced by other beings. But eliminate air and humans die. So you may wish to think of these “vast impersonal forces” we have been mentioning as the equivalent of air to breathe. And in fact the same word is sometimes used for breath and spirit, and that’s what they are talking about.

I thought I understood before, but this is clearer. The soul is us, the created physical beings attached to strands etc. The spirit is the force that flows through us, animating us, interacting with us, but not us.

That’s correct. Spirit both is part of you (because you couldn’t exist without it) and is not a part of you (because it has its own independent existence that would not fail in your absence.)

Compound beings are soul and spirit, localized collections of strands and characteristics, serving as conduits for forces forever beyond them. So now that you are clear on that distinction – you interact with spirit; you embody soul – let us look at the forces flowing through you.

The forces of good and evil, I take it.

Well, not quite. Good and evil may be looked at more as effects than as causes. Remember, God looked at his creation and found it good. He didn’t find it good and evil, he found it good. Evil didn’t enter into the picture until a compound being chose to experience the result of perceiving things as good and evil. Dropping into duality, in other words.

But wasn’t “creation” – the 3D world in its widest ramifications – already by nature dualistic?

Only if experienced – seen – that way.

You’re going to have to explain that.

Oh yes, and it won’t be a brief explanation. By the time we have explained it as best we can, many things will appear in different light.

Remember if you can – the 3D world is not exactly a creation, more like a separation from the larger reality. It is a creation in so far as anything is a creation that is gathered together from a larger, more comprehensive whole, but only in that sense. “The world was created out of nothing” can only mean – nothing like it existed before it was created. That doesn’t mean first there was a vacuum, then there was rubble filling the vacuum.

I get the sense of the 3D world as being a truncated part of reality, and it was the treating the truncated part as if it were a whole that is meant by creation. Is that right, or even partly right?

That is a serviceable interim way to look at it. Remember, there is one reality, not two. The 3D world is part of the All-D, as we are calling it. So if 3D had been created out of nothing, in the way people commonly understand the idea, what of the rest of All-D? Yes, you might imagine that it was created and unnoticed, or was created and somewhat noticed and considered as the spiritual complement of the physical world, but there is no need for so complicated a reaction. Considered as a world in itself, the 3D world came into existence when compound beings were – truncated, I suppose we should say – to experience only so much of reality and no more. But it is not this simple.

I notice it never is.

Over-simplifying is one of the great roots of fanaticism and determined ignorance.

The forces that flow through you manifest as good and evil not so much because it is their nature as because that is your nature. It isn’t spirit that is perceiving things as good and evil; it is your perception, just as was said in the Book of Genesis. But misinterpretation of intent leads to mistranslation and misunderstanding, and a devil of a lot of bad theology is based on logical conclusions from bad translations and incorrect assumptions.

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

 

Bear in mind continually, there can be no such thing as a universally applicable statement. What is appropriate to a Western audience may not meet the condition of someone in a Chinese or African society. What meets the needs of 2017 may fall flat in 2050 as in 1950. So, don’t try to assume that everything being said is universally applicable. It isn’t and it can’t be. The underlying reality is the same, but the illustrative examples aren’t and cannot be equally appropriate. We are speaking to you, in your 2017 now. Settle for that, and do not try to make one size fit all.

All right. So, where we have been, tailored to our audience.

Where Western society has been is a divided trail. For 500 years and more, religion and science have been fragmented because divorced from each other and unable to understand each other’s point of view. We would say the chief example of this is that your society has lost sight of the vast impersonal forces we mentioned as vast impersonal forces. A part of your thought regards them as supernatural or as only epiphenomena (because “matter” is considered to be primary, as if matter even existed independently).

Clearly a society cannot continue such a splintering process forever. At some point the social glue cannot hold. Then comes the use of force and, ultimately, self-destruction. But remember, we are not primarily concerned with societies but with compound-beings. It is true, your society shapes you. but it is not the only thing that shapes you, and its influence can be modified. In any case, stick to what you know, which is your own experience in the world, most of that experience being internal.

That’s all the back-tracking we need to do here. Those interested in history will find the history well laid out – and the way it is laid out will tell you worlds about the mental constrictions of those who did the laying out. But, it’s hardly necessary. You all know what you are living.

Now, to come back to what is for many of you a sore point – which should be your cue that it is an important point. Religious thought is your most extensive investigation into the existence, function, and manifestation of these vast impersonal forces. We have said it before and no doubt we will be obliged to say it again, because there will be great resistance, but if you do not know these forces, you do not know your lives. If you do not know how they shape your lives, you do not know what your lives are to accomplish, or why you are in 3D in the first place.

Do we need to say we are not advocating that you go join a church? However, we are requesting that those of you who are members of The Church of Nothing-But consider resigning your membership.

These forces are real. Every society you know of, and many more that you have never heard of and never will hear of, knew it, know it, will know it. You cannot understand reality if you begin by resolutely determining that reality will not consist of A, B, or C because you were taught a cruder version of them, or because you don’t like the looks of some who talk about A, B, or C as if they knew what they were talking about and – more – as if no contradictory version could contain truth. If you allow yourselves to block off aspects of reality because of external manifestations, that isn’t exploring, it is a different form of conformity, conforming to an imagined band of holders of the truth instead of going ahead and seeing for yourself.

Understand, to say all that is not to say, give up your present beliefs. What kind of exploring would that be, either? Yet, it may seem like that, because we do say, don’t let your present beliefs prevent you from giving fair consideration to things you may have rejected. (Actually, it is more a matter of giving fair consideration to things that remind you of things you have rejected.)

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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.

I get that we’re centering on that same image of humans as conduits of vast impersonal forces. It’s a huge subject, and it flows off in all directions. I’ll start and rely on you to steer me or at least head me off if I go off in non-productive directions.

The visual is sort of a horizontal torus comprising untold millions of individuals, a swirl of organized energy, call us. We know we aren’t “individuals” in the way people commonly think, but for simplicity, call us that. So, a vast orderly flow of compound-being energies, always changing, but, as I say, orderly, sort of shaped loosely. I can’t think of a good extension of the visual analogy. Not marbles or solid objects of any kind; not merely lights or drops of liquid, a little too undefined. Maybe the kind of visual image you see in close-ups of the sun’s swirling energies.

Anyway, that is the horizontal image. Then welling up vertically are the vast impersonal energies I have been sensing, the forces that flow through our lives, vitalizing them, causing complication and interest and discord and beauty and every thing humans can feel. We personalize these energies – we personify them – we think either that they are part of our being (rather than part of our environment, you might say) or that they are the forces of the gods.

Horizontally, a vast beautiful ever-changing torus-shaped image representing humanity. Vertically, an eternal upwelling of energies from far beyond human limits, mingling with, transforming, interfering with, vitalizing, all human activity as it is directed by uncounted numbers of decisions moment by moment by uncounted numbers of humans and ex-humans. (Humans, remember, in this case means compound beings whose consciousness normally is restricted to 3D conditions. It does not mean “only planet Earth”).

I say humans and ex-humans, and I am surprised at first, then I recall that of course we and they remain integrally connected, so of course we continue to be affected, and to affect, together. Not in lockstep, and I don’t even know if always in harmony, but at any rate, together.

More or less okay so far?

So far, so good. Now, why are we centering this picture at this time in your exposition?

Hmm. All I can get is, it’s time. We have reached the point where we can’t re-evaluate without changing focus.

Not exactly reevaluate. More like, you can’t go deeper without bringing what had been unnoticed background into focus.

Okay. So where are we going?

Wrong question. A better question would be, where have we been? It’s much more convincingly answered, you see.