On Potential

On potential

In Treatise of initiation, Hermes says: “The things […] did not exist before birth, but they were comprised in that of which they were made. For […] is [… and] that which was not born yet, […] and that which does not possess generative fecundity, […] which cannot give birth to anything.”[1] And Heidegger: „For something to be «real» and to be able to be «real», it must first be possible.”[2]

Indeed, “the things could not exist without something to comprise them”[3]. We remark a phenomenon that we cannot explain otherwise but through introducing a subtle state of existence, which we named potential. “As everything that constitutes existentiality, it can be in the beginning only instituted under the form of a problem”[4], wrote Martin Heidegger. What is the potential? According to the dictionary: “possible to accomplish”. The same philosopher defined it this way: “The possibility signifies that which is not yet real and will never be necessary. It characterizes that which is only possible”[5]. We have to remark that his definition tends to include in defining potential the temporal component, which is not being the case, we replacing “not yet” by “not” and “never” by “not”. According to the Lucian Iordănescu’s definition, the potential is that which exists as possibility, is defined, has a conformation, and is completely structured in all its elements and all its details. The heideggerian definition is correct if we refer to the visions of the prophets, which, observed in a potential, fulfill in dynamics. In potential, do not exist space and time. Hermes defines it by: “That which has the power to generate contains [...] everything that can be born of itself […] the matrix of the universe comprising potentially the whole nature”[6].

Interesting, Heidegger remarks that constitution of Dasein (existence) of Possible‑Being, which “differs as radically from the logic possibility, as from the contingence of a subsisting being, to which can « happen » this or that thing”[7]. He continues: “The possibility does not signify though an able-ness to be freely suspended in the sense of « indifference owing to the arbitrary » (libertas indifferentiae)”[8], being “always[9] marked by certain determinate possibilities”[10].

The to be (Being) is himself (the name of God is “I am That I am” — cf. Exodus 3, 14) and is no other entity different from itself, although any entity is. As he is not a being, none of these can be compared to him, but he is comprising every one (as archetype of archetypes) while being at the same time beyond all. The to be we call potential, and is we call dynamics. The fusion of the two is God: Whole, Fundamental and Absolute; The Holy Trinity: the Neutral plus Duality.

In heideggerian language, we can differentiate between the very problem of existence of the to be and the being of existence. We may say that to be is because the existence of the last is comprised in to be (being both in potential and in dynamics) and subordinated to him. Heidegger starts Being and time by asking on the existence of the to be by researching at first the impossibilities of this existence as a being and affirming the explicit reconsideration of the question about him. Reconsidering the above quote, we remark that the to be meets us in a form of a problem (if we are not also prophets to palpate him somehow in a dynamics). According to the sayings of my master, the to be is so modest that he does not manifest himself, also being true the complementary proposition: he is the Creator, so omnipresent.

“In Principle was the Word. The world existed probably before, but did not situate itself on the level of consciousness, according to the existentialist formulation. In short, on a certain day we were given a world that we may know, it was the beginning of « our world »; by Word, we are from now on conscious of this world”[11]. This is the viewpoint of the Symbolic Traditional Grand Lodge Opéra. Far from the interpretation it offers, that is: “a new dimension was being such conferred to the World of Objects: that of subjectivity”[12], we notice here the description of the apparition of dynamics from potential: God was the Word means that He existed in potential, “before” the world. He decided its creation and that of the beings contained in it, the Word passing in dynamics. The viewpoint of the lodge is in fact a bastard between spiritualism and Darwinism, owing to the Yugoslav/Austrian occultist Rudolf Steiner.

For example, to utter the word “word”, we must at first configure the word in the conceptual plane and then to trigger the energy that moves the vocal chords (the letters of the word), which structure at their turn the sound wave in the acoustic environment. Mutatis mutandi, the same did God. The same way proceed the decision factors when they decide to dwell a building: they start from an idea, they format it and they delegate it to be applied. Then, the dwellers build the masonry starting from materials. The energy is the force that makes “something” passes from potential in dynamics or vice versa, so, an applied force, potentiality in dynamics, which produces a change of place or state.

Analyzing this saying, we found out that exists a dynamics of potential and a potential of dynamics. The dynamics of potential means that in potential takes place the configuring of a sub-potential for entering dynamics, and the potential of dynamics means that dynamics, in its developing, respects the configuration marked in potential, configuration from which it will not go astray. The platonic participation things-ideas (i.e., dynamics-potential) is reciprocal. In addition, in the structuring of the above exposition we inscribed the five universes: akashic (ideatic or conceptual), energetic (informational, explained in the anterior paragraph), substantial (material, anti-material, and divine), structural (rocks, plants, animals, men, and angels) and material (mineral, vegetal, animal, and human). All the five universes exist in both dynamics and potential. “The world […] is the total sum of characteristics and matter that may be created”[13], said Hermes.

Let us come back to the temporal character: passing from a potential future to a potential past takes place through the dynamics of present. The future events may happen or not. The past ones leave no trace of remembrance. In dynamics are left the events of the present, which last only for a moment.

This way closes Goethe Faust[14] (Chorus Mysticus according to the translation of Ştefan Augustin Doinaş):

1. Temporarily-sensible

2. Only as symbol appears;

3. Here the intangible

4. Evidence becomes;

5. Here the genuine un-

6. Utter-able was told;

7. Eternal-Feminine

8. Attracts us upwards.

The first two verses describe the changing character of dynamics, which is palpable. It is the temporarily sensible, the place of expression of potential. In the verses three and four, the intangible is potential, and evidence is dynamic. “Here the intangible” means that it manifests in this world. These verses describe the passing from potential to dynamics. In the verses five and six, “Here the genuine un-/Utter-able was told” means that it expressed itself. The primordial Word cannot be uttered by creatures, which would become through this Creators, and God created all that may be created (in potential), the subordinated entities getting His creations from and passing them in dynamics helped by the energy. In these verses, the potential is what may be only designated and conceptualized. From here, we deduce that one of the paths of access to God is the path of thinking. In the verses seven and eight, “upwards” means in potential. The verses describe synthetically the spiritual evolution (the Eternal Feminine being the force of art), therefore the purpose of its evolution and of the two states.

Eminescu wrote: “For from the rest I was born, I’m thirsty of the rest” (The Evening Star). The first verse represents the origin of dynamics in potential, and the second the wish of a dynamic existence to pass into potential existence. The cycle ends this way: an inferior form, that came from potential, from which in order to reform itself it passes into dynamics, gets certain movement individuality. “All that exists [says Hermes] has to exist in a place […] for cannot be differentiated […] things which are nowhere placed”[15]. In potential, any entity has an identity, but has not a dynamic individuality. There it organizes on superior levels, superior meaning the adaptability to conditions of habitat.

God created all in potential and configured subsequently the dynamics by getting existences out of potential that he places in dynamics. Here they evolve from primary phenomena to complex phenomena, which pass back into potential. The rapport between any entity and existence is like that between drop and ocean: the existence is valid as long as the drop got out of the ocean. When the drop enters back the ocean, it passes in the state of potential.

In the sense of this cycle, the potential can be seen as absolute state, as Nirvana, the supreme stage to which reaches an existence. In potential exists no evolution. Nevertheless, the fundamental state of the Universe is dynamics. From dynamics, we cannot imagine the state of potential and we qualify it as non-existence. It is there, but we do not perceive it, for, to perceive it we cannot use the senses adequate to dynamics. As we can notice by studying the Scripture, the prophets perceive the potential by dinamizing it (they bring into their own dynamics a sub-potential). Jonah observed a cliché of the future events, which existed in potential and which, thanks to his action, did not entered dynamics. In potential, that is continuous, exist no sequences, these appearing in passing in dynamics (in prophecy or manifestation). There the space exists only rolled, so, duration, which is defined by distance, does not exist as such. Space and time are the same term: space is time in dynamics, and time is space in potential.

An entity in potential has consciousness, but no metabolism, has no exchange sequences. Even a primitive structure has the character of perfection in its primitivism. In potential the structures do not interact — they are subsisting in themselves, and, although in fusion with the others, do not mix. It is the situation of a multitude of radio frequencies, which coexist without interferences, chaos existing only in the three inferior universes.

Inside the ocean, the drop does not differ by individuality, but only by entity (archetype). Here the drops have no distinct individualities, have no spatiality. In dynamics are produced the interactions among entities. Here appears the discontinuous. Only dynamics creates particularities. Here exist precise rules according to which the forces interact.

The end of dynamics is that the existences, the elementary, primitive forms, become complex and tend toward potential. The love of God is the total integrator feeling. God wants that all that be in dynamics to evolve (in an infinite time and beyond time) up to His level and no longer to exist differences in potential. However, it will never reach that the potential‑dynamics movement ends and God reaches his end.

[1] Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, Treatise on Initiation or Asclepios, VII, cf. Filosofia hermetică, Edit. Univers Enciclopedic, 1995, p. 150.

[2] M. Heidegger, On Aristotle’s physis, [287], cf. Despre physis la Aristotel, in Repere pe drumul gândirii, Edit. Politică, Bucureşti, 1988, p. 258.

[4] M. Heidegger, Being and Time, §31, [145], cf. Fiinţă şi timp, Edit. Jurnalul literar, Bucureşti, 1994, p. 145.

[11] Anonymous, How to become freemason, cf. Cum să devii francmason, Edit. Lucman, Timişoara, 1999, p. 76.

[14] J.W. Goethe, Faust, [the end], cf. Edit. Grai şi suflet — Cultura naţională, Bucureşti, 1995, pp. 294-295.