The Mystical Nature of Firelight
The Mystical Nature of Firelight
The five parts of a flame as paradigms of reality.
There are five discernable parts of firelight. There is the blue of the flame, which is the physical footing of the combustion reaction called fire, and the black background emptiness of the room. These are on opposite ends of a causal spectrum. Furthermore, these five aspects of a flame are a metaphor for the five paradigms of reality described by Kabbalah and which are manifest for us as the five parts of our consciousness.
The first and lowest component of candlelight is the blue flame that surrounds the wick. This is the integration of fire in which the ethereal light of the combustion reaction actualizes with interface with the physical candle. This relates to the lowest aspect of our consciousness, which pertains to the metaphysical vitality of our basic physical organism.
The second color is that of the body of the flame, which is the white-yellow aspect, generally known as fire. This corresponds with the moxie and spirit of the mind. Accordingly, this yellow flame is ever spritely and dances and moves in all directions with wind or disturbance.
Above the flame is a translucent glow like an aura of the body of the flame. One must close an eye or squint at the flame to best see this glowing halo. This represents the intellect and higher aspects of emotion which is not readily perceptible without pensive introspection.
The fourth aspect of a candle's flame is the glow that it projects through the darkness to enlighten the black space around it, which shines as it reflects off nearby objects. This symbolizes the psyche itself, which exists as a personal reservoir of spiritual potential, which is lifeforce yet can be integrated.
The final and most exalted color of candlelight is blackness—the preeminent darkness of the illuminated space itself. This opacity relates to what the Zohar calls the "Lamp of Darkness," which is not simply a lack of light but part and parcel of light itself. In sublime domains, the metaphysical source of fire is actually blackness. The far end of this metaphysical continuum begins with the blue flame where the wick ends, and rapid oxidation begins.
The soul on this fifth level is known as 'the singular' in that it completes and defines the entire 'unit' of a person's lifeforce, which comprises these five aspects. Whereas the lower parts of the soul are an individual's imminent essence, this level is quintessence—a word that denotes transcendence on this fifth plane of reality.
It seems a great paradox that light causes darkness, and darkness light. How can the light and heat of fire derive from a metaphysical realm which can only be described as absolute darkness? However, the fact that the room is otherwise black with darkness gives meaning to the candle's flame.
There's a teaching that says that if we would hold a candle in the midday sun, then it would have no effect; it would be 'light,' but it would not be 'illumination' and thereby lack an integrated identity as luminous. Darkness is part of the ontological entirety of light because it generates a scenario for illumination.
In another Kabbalistic source, we are taught that "their ends are implanted in their beginnings and their beginnings in their ends." This means that common notions of cause and effect are misguided. In the lowliest analyses of day-to-day life, cause and effect must remain a simple and linear matter—helpful for mundane tasks like driving a car, making a sandwich, or giving someone instructions.
However, with deeper consideration, we see that knowing and understanding an effect depend upon knowing and understanding its cause. Modern positivist science looks for patterns in effects and then draws conclusions about causes; it sees results first and then forms theory. This approach reverses cause and effect yet claims to 'know' how both work without truly defining causality.
In scientific analysis, we isolate events to find firm conclusions. In a classic example, Isaac Newton saw causality in a ripe apple weighing on its stem and falling to the ground. The process of ripening and gravity are forces that cause an apple to fall to the ground when and where it does. However, if we ask bigger questions about why there is an apple or why there is gravity, then our storyline unravels.
We can ask similar questions when looking at the movement of clock hands: Is time the cause of change or, vice versa, does my perception of change cause my notion of time? Is particle motion the cause of heat, or is heat a cause of particle motion? For that matter, is kinetic energy a cause of motion or, vice versa, does motion cause kinetic energy?
The 'definite causality' of conventional wisdom says that event 'B' in the present is caused by event 'A' in the past and, in turn, will act as a cause for 'C' which happens in the future. However, the Kabbalah nudges us into the study of quantum mechanics, where 'indefinite causality' makes it possible to conceive situations in which a single event can be both a cause and an effect.
This 'retrocausality' allows us to place a causal relationship in a state of quantum superposition in which A influences B, and B influences A. Consider a 'block universe' where the past, present, and future coincide as equally present and real. Here, causality has no connection with changing the future or the past because we see both as independently anchored.
Therefore, it seems that 'we' are the problem because of causal perspectivalism (the philosophical view that all perception always takes place from a specific perspective). In short, our view is so constrained by time and space that we cannot fathom other possibilities. Therefore, our definite causal notions seem the only possibility. Unlike us, The Ancient One, who is endlessness itself, has an absolute understanding of the whole spatiotemporal block. Cause and effect, which we perceive, is not the transcendent picture.
Tel Aviv University professor Leonard Leibovici perceived this in a study published in 2001 in The BMJ. His double-blind and randomized experiment demonstrated the power of retroactive prayer in the summer of 2000 on medical outcomes—but only years after the patients were admitted to care and received treatment in the early 1990s. His' prayer team' received the names of patients from a decade earlier, chosen at random from others at the same hospital. After prayer, he determined that those who had been prayed for in the present future were precisely those who had a statistically relevant and better outcome in the past. One might argue that the success of therapy in the past was caused by prayer in the future.
This idea is helpful when we try to make sense of past events in our personal lives. So often, those disasters, tragedies, and sorrows that were so dark when they were present experiences appear as good or worthwhile in hindsight many years later. Our later emotional appraisal of what once seemed so bad is often full of gratitude because we see how things played out—whom we met, where we went, and what we accomplished specifically because of sadness and adversity long ago.
In the candlelight of retrocausality, we can even be grateful for the wars we fought—even those which were lost—a blackness that is also the cause of a brighter present that we accept as good. This current outcome can even be understood as a cause of the catastrophes of yesteryear. At twilight on a winter's evening, we approach the Divine Perspective where "their ends are implanted in their beginnings and their beginnings in their ends."
