Our basic experience of the Universe is layered into different dimensions. To explore this in depth, take a journey through Numerology and the Ray of Creation. Here we will look at the three primary realms of experience, and their relationship to Magical Operations.
Many people discovered through movies like “The Secret” that our thoughts create our reality. However, this is only part of the Truth. Thoughts work like containers, creating forms and spaces in which creation can happen. Think of an “area of thought” like a room. When you enter that area of thought with your mind, you begin to experience things that are possible within that room. Let’s say you are thinking about being very hungry. You begin to find that as your thought focuses on this “space” of hunger, you get more and more hungry, and it seems like it is more and more challenging to simply go eat. This is because in the “area of thought” that is hunger, being hungry is what has the most powerful energy for creation.
Your emotions are also part of your creation process, and “The Secret” shared this as well, though it tends to get less attention than the “thinking” part. In fact, you can look at Thought as being a layer of reality, one that works in forms and geometries. Inside this layer is the layer of Emotions, like a vibrating fluid of color and light, and inside this layer is the layer of the Physical, where the vibrating fluid condenses into Physical substance. In this way, you can see that the Emotional layer is actually “closer” to the Physical than the Mental.
Through the Ages, the Sages and Wizards have described these layers as the Astral (Mental), Subtle (Emotional), and Gross (Physical). In the Astral Realm, everything is constantly changing and shifting with thoughtforms, literally the “Dreamstate” of Creation. In fact, this is where many of your Dreams take place, whether you are exploring this realm from inside your body or are journeying outward to explore the “Templates” of the Physical and Etheric Realms in the Astral.
The Subtle Realm is less structured, just as Emotions tend to be less formulated and solid than thoughts. It is like the Breath of Creation, a permeable Energy field that carries vibrations from one space or time to another. Each action you take or feeling you have is like a musical tone, which is carried through this layer of reality until it is “heard” or received by someone or something else. Sometimes old “songs” remain in spaces for very long periods of time, and you can feel this old music when you enter those places.
The Physical Realm is where these field layers condense into the Material World. In Dreams, Thoughts and the Astral Realm, you may be in one part of the world at one moment, and in another location the next. In the Subtle Emotional Realm, resonance still travels through Space-Time very quickly and easily, and can be in multiple places at the same time. In the Physical, the fabric of Space-Time becomes thicker, and energy brought down to this level may be manifested most easily in another location, which means it must then be brought to you for you to recognize it.
On the Physical level, there are many actions that can be taken to accelerate or ease the process of the creation being asked for to come into being. Here is where symbols can be very powerful, using physical objects as tools to represent certain energies or actions, and then performing a ceremony or ritual that expresses your communication or request to the Divine Source.
When these three layers are woven together proficiently, anything can be Created. The studious Magi learns to trust the unfolding of the Physical layer, allowing time for a response to come from the place where each of the other layers had the greatest ease in “condensing.”
Advanced Magi create spaces and situations that will allow the “condensation” process to happen locally, or in the immediate vicinity of the Magical practice, so that the manifestation may become immediately apparent.
Each of these Three Realms interconnect and cause changes in each other. In my practice, I have found that creating effective Mental or Astral constructions (containers) is a great way to begin a Magical Operation. Then when the time is right, enter an Emotional or Subtle State that best reflects the vibration or “music” of the creation, and take physical actions with either symbols or direct engagement that can bring your manifestation into being.
