Easy as 1, 2, 3 September 13, 2008 by Jeffrey Pierce
Within spiritual circles, we seek to understand not only our own internal landscape, but the influence of the subtle realms around us. We hear terms like "the astral plane" or "the spirit realm" or, here in the pages of Old Ways, "the Elsewhere." We hear other people's thoughts, follow our own intuition, and have dreams and visions of events before they take place. But that's not all. We do work in the Dreamtime, we exercise our "psychic" abilities, and we manifest reality, somehow distinguishing between magick, miracles, and plain ol' coincidence.
Countless volumes have been written on the distinctions between telepathy and empathy, between the astral and ethereal realms. Ask one question, receive one thousand answers, each bringing additional questions of their own.
Thankfully, it's actually much simpler than all of that.
In the classes that I teach in the offline world, we organize all of the above into three categories. And to make this process as easy as possible, we refer to those categories as Level 1, Level 2, and, you guessed it, Level 3.
As unlikely as it seems, everything within and beyond our potential experiences, from psychic phenomena to the written word, fits neatly into one of these three categories. What's more is that an understanding of how these levels interact and how they are woven together provides us with tremendous insight into the workings of the mystical world. This insight isn't theory - it lends itself to being used as a tool to unravel processes and gain access to deeper and deeper levels of spiritual reality.
Level One
At it's heart, Level One is "any contained linear phenomena that's doesn't rely on symbolism for meaning." Mathematics is the ultimate example of Level One. If you take the equation, "2 + 2" it will always equal "4." Level One is a linear process. You can draw a direct line between the phenomena and it's product - just like you can in a math equation.
The written word is another example of Level One phenomena. Once you've written the words on a page, they don't tend to change unless you edit them, either removing words or adding new words in a concrete, linear fashion.
Level One does have what could actually be considered psychic abilities - namely hearing, touch, taste, and sight. We're reading the words on this page with our eyes, but the images of those words are being carried to our brain through a biological system. Those words aren't actually touching the parts of our brain that translate them into language. That's a linear, concrete process, which qualifies it for Level One.
Level Two
Each step deeper releases more and more of the linear nature of an experience. Level Two is our first experience with that. This is the home of what we term psychic phenomena. It's where magick takes place. On Level Two we experience telepathy, intuition, precognition. It's here that we connect with energy, where symbols are empowered and where dreams take place.
The secret is that we don't need any occult techniques, arcane phrases, or mastery of any particular ability to access each and every experience on Level Two. We experience them all the time. Somewhere along the way (and it looks like it happens about the time we start school and begin focusing so strongly on education - which shifts our focus to Level One), we simply start tuning out experiences and input from Level Two. It doesn't disappear. We don't lose it. We simply focus so completely on other areas that forget that it's there.
Believe it or not, experiencing life from a Level Two perspective is actually pretty easy to understand. One of the examples that we use in the classes that I teach is horseback riding. If you've ever spent time on a horse, you know that if you try to control the horse by pulling on the reins and approaching it through cause and effect (Level One) approach, the horse will fight you every step of the way. However, there's a moment when you and the horse become in sync. At that moment, you can feel the horse's intent, its personality, and the two of you begin to interact on an entirely different level - one that if we were doing it with another human being, we would instantly define as "telepathic." That's Level Two - and you didn't need an ounce of training to reach it.
We pick up on Level Two all the time. All the time. It simply doesn't register in a mind that's been wired to embrace Level One. In the first class that I teach in the "Unpaved Path" series, we go through a process that allows people to perceive their innate ability to connect with and really feel the energy around them. It takes all of forty-five seconds of instruction to begin the process and reconnect with the input you receive on Level Two. This isn't a new ability; it's as simple as saying, "Can you feel the floor beneath your feet?" We rapidly expand to the point where the attendees can sense energy, define the difference between multiple energy sources, and intuitively read the world around them.
And then I point out specific examples of different energy sources an how they feel. The students in the class nod in agreement. And then I remind them that those energy sources aren't present in the room, that they know how each feels because they've always been able to sense them. They're accessing a pool of experiences that they had without knowing it. Those experiences simply didn't consciously register.
Level Three
One of the concepts that we look at in class is that each level has it's own language. The farther the jump between levels, the harder it is to "translate." For instance, we can use the written word (Level One) to pretty accurately describe Level Two and the things that take place on that level. However, it's much more challenging to use the same written word to describe Level Three - simply because there's a two level jump in between. It's also why people who filter everything through Level One have a difficult time believing in miracles and the like - it's a two level jump in the opposite direction.
The easiest way to understand Level Three is this: if you think of Level One as "manifestation based on a linear process, then Level Three is "manifestation without a linear process." It's how things "just happen" in our world. It's manifestation - on an rather amazing level. It's how, much to the discomfort of three doctors and an orthopedic specialist, my severely damaged knee with two torn ligaments and shredded cartilage, was completely healed without surgery in a period of ten days.
Level Three, simply put, is miracles. It's raw, unexpected emotion. It's intense sexual chemistry. It's primal, powerful, raw - all of which is the very fabric of creation.
Where inner work (for instance, dreaming) on Level Two uses linear form rich with symbolism, Level Three relies on symbolism without form for its language. Chances are you've experienced this, but it's such a big jump from Level Three to Level One (where it would register in your conscious mind) that you don't clearly remember it. You might be picking something up in your intuition right now, but that's Level Two filling in the gaps.
So we use sexual chemistry as an illustration of Level Three, mostly because everyone has experienced it at some point. Remember, Parter A? You were in love, things were good, and sex was an intimate experience that left you feeling warm and loved, wanted and desired, and at home as you curled up in each others arms in the afterglow. Remember Partner B? You trembled when they were near. You don't ever remember being that aroused. When you made love, you swore the world around you disappeared - not symbolically, but part of you somehow remembers that it actually faded away until all that was left was the two of you. You may have never loved them, but, "WOW!" talk about chemistry!
Partner B is an example of a Level Three connection. We can't explain it, at least not in Level One's linear language. But if we find someone else that's experienced it, we can talk about it in, "You know?" and "Uh-huh," and nothing is really said because the core of the conversation is taking place on Level Two.
Living On the Levels
And that's key. We relate to each other, the spirit realm, and the world around us on all three levels - all the time. We instinctively and intuitively (Level Two) navigate our world. We literally have conversations with people, especially those that are close to us that we're "open" with on all three levels simultaneously. What's interesting is that, as you begin to remember to be aware of the connection, you suddenly realize that you're aware that your conversations and interactions take place on multiple levels simultaneously.
You'll be having a conversation with someone and they'll say they're doing fine, but the communication on Level Two tells you that they're heartbroken. With all three levels going, it's impossible to lie as we can't do so on all three levels simultaneously. Approaching life in this manner, our interactions become incredibly honest. Community spontaneously forms. People are knit together. And abilities that we consider "mystical," "magickal," or "psychic" begin to simply appear in every moment of our daily lives.
The key is, this isn't mystical. It's not magick. It's who we are as spiritual beings living life from a physical perspective. That's why, when a knowledgeable teacher can shift our perspective so that we remember what it's like to consciously connect with one of the levels, we're immediately aware of it. It's not just our birthright, it's who we are.
The only caveat to this process is when someone has experienced a great deal of trauma in their world - especially emotional trauma. Our normal response is to put blocks in place - energetic walls that hold the trauma at bay. Unfortunately, we put those walls up in moments of extreme duress - and without the same level of power at our fingertips to bring them down, we have to go through a lengthy process to lower the walls once we choose to do so. That's one of the key reasons we also offer holistic healing in our world. There's a small percentage of people who "don't experience" the energy we work with in class. A very small percentage. Without exception, everyone else in class can feel the energy they're projecting - the person simply can't feel it. Without exception, depending on what they can or cannot sense, we can tell them their history on the spot. The levels briefly and their interaction briefly outlined above are that clearly connected. And if we can make the diagnosis, we can also begin the healing.
The Importance of Seeing Clearly
January 22, 2008
by Jeffrey Pierce www.oldways.com
Years ago, I participated in a spiritual discussion group where we considered a series of books that were channeled from a spirit known as White Eagle. The class was led by a very gentle soul who had that twinkle in his eye, the one that suggests he knew just a little more than he let on. It was that feeling you get from a teacher when they supply you with a line of bread crumbs and allow you to follow it in your own way and in your own time. His name was Gary and he gave us a single guideline to follow at the very beginning of our first class.
"This is channeled material," he began. "You can't simply take it at face value. What you have to remember is that each and every one of us has our own prejudices and our own experiences that we filter such information through. The author of this book was not immune to that, no matter how much we would like to pretend otherwise. We can't blindly accept these words as the author presents them. Instead, we have to do our best to understand the author's perspective and remove the author's fingerprints from the words before us."
Of all of the instruction that I've been offered over the years, this small morsel has been more consistently useful to me than any other. Any sort of spiritual - whether it's a recognized holy text, channeled material, or information gleaned from our own interaction with the spirit world - cannot be accepted wholly at face value. We have to remove the taint of the perspective and prejudice that the material was filtered through. This concept has applications, not just when approaching channeled material, but in accepting instruction from any teacher (incarnated or otherwise), and when engaging in meditative or shamanic journeying.
Riding a Wild Horse
The key behind this concept is pretty simple. To access material from the Elsewhere, whether we're contacting an entity our embarking on a shamanic journey, we have to achieve a certain state of consciousness, similar in many ways to how we experience the Dreamtime. In this state, symbolism becomes a critical component of the communication between our conscious mind, our subconscious, our spirit, and the spirit world. Our conscious mind often takes a passive role in journeying, becoming an observer and a recorder. It's our spirit that leads the way, teaming with our subconscious mind to paint the landscape we experience in our journeying.
You can think of journeying in a manner similar to riding a wild horse. Our conscious mind is little more than a video camera, capturing the experience for playback at a later date. For the most part, it is not in control of the experience. In fact, if we engage our conscious mind to too great of an extent, it tends to ground us and pull us out of the journey. While we interact with the spirit world and it is this level of reality that we learn from and experience in our journeying, the entire process is made more difficult by the fact that it is not our spirit that takes the role of our steed. Our spirit is the rider and our subconscious, with all of its prejudices and preconceived ideas, is the wild horse we're trying to steer toward the spiritual truths we seek.
Imagine that you're on the back of a spirited, nearly unbroken stallion, trying to ride toward a specific destination or attempting to study or observe something on the path right in front of you. But instead of the rearing, skittering horse constantly turning so that you see other landscapes around you instead of what should be right in front of you nose, the horse actually changes the symbolism that you interact with.
The Challenge of Our Past
For example, let's imagine that you had an encounter with a vicious canine somewhere in your childhood. Not only did the creature bite you, but ever since you've harbored a deeply rooted fear of dogs.
In the midst of your journeying, you're approached by Wolf, a spirit often associated with teaching energy. However, because your subconscious has such a prominent role in journeying and you have previously established feelings where dogs are concerned, one of two things will generally happen. Either your subconscious mind masks the form of Wolf, creating new symbolism (perhaps turning Wolf into an old wise woman or even another animal) and you risk losing the full meaning behind the encounter - or your fears manifest and Wolf is seen as a huge, menacing creature and the entire message is heavily influenced by your prejudices where canines are concerned.
This is an obvious example of how this process works. But imagine that you enter the encounter with a strong opinion on how the divine manifests. Or that you believe in a battle between darkness and light and everything must be framed as either a threat or an ally. Perhaps you have very low self-esteem and a nurturing and compassionate manifestation of the Goddess is turned demanding and emotionally distant by your subconscious mind.
The Benefit of Breaking Free
If you've spent any amount of time in the pages of Old Ways, you've heard me talking a lot about spiritual growth and the importance of learning to let go of fear and fully embracing love. There are a handful of key reasons to do so, reasons that immediately and concretely impact or ability to work magick and interact with the spirit realm. With a typical student, the first mystical benefit that is gained by embracing this process is the ability to see clearly.
This is a lesson that I learned firsthand and one that I still strive to promote in my own practice. Before I am anything else, I am a simple student myself. There is always something more to learn, some other challenge to overcome, another shadow to let go and allow love to fill that once darkened space. From time to time, I still find my own prejudices influencing a journeying and, when I re-center and let them go, I have literally watched the entire landscape of the journey change before my eyes.
There is a concept, similar to what we interpret as The Threefold Law, that comes into play in our own spiritual growth. At its heart is the simple principle that the more we learn and grow, the more opportunity we're given. What begins as a process of learning to clearly see in our journeying, becomes a process of accepting the full potential of spiritual reality. And accepting that on one level of reality will open up doors on other levels of reality.
In late 1998, I was collecting sea salt for use in ritual work on a secluded beach outside of San Francisco when I found myself being shadowed by a spirit. I stopped and addressed it and it introduced itself to me, offering to teach me what secrets she knew and aid in my spiritual growth. What's more is that she gave me a name to use whenever I chose to call her to my side. In the lore of our family, she became known as "the goddess of the sea," and I called upon her and worked with her on numerous occasions.
Several years later, having grown a considerable amount and having reached the point where I'd let go of many of my own prejudices, I called upon "the goddess of the sea" while doing some shamanic work on the Oregon Coast. I had no preconceived ideas of how the encounter would unfold, but was simply open to whatever work we might do together that day as I'd been receiving lessons from her for some time.
"I am not the goddess of the sea, but her handmaiden," she said. "Would you like to meet the one that I serve?"
I was given a name to use when calling upon this goddess, its form ancient and sing-song, not a single name but one layered in three parts, almost like a primitive poem. As I stood there on the shoreline, I uttered the threefold name, not knowing what to expect and doing my best to simply be open to whatever might happen. The "goddess" materialized, not in the surf before me, but upon the horizon, "her" form dominating the expanse of ocean that lay before my eyes. She was ancient. Primal. Elemental. There was no need to anthropomorphize her, to try to fit her into human form, because there was nothing even remotely human about her. To put it simply, she was awe-inspiring.
That encounter not only enabled me to let go of more of my preconceived ideas, but opened other doors for me. And that's how magick works. Each step forward on our path presents us with new landscapes, with new challenges, and opens us to experiences (and please consider both the irony and truth of this statement) that we never believed possible.
We Already Have The Tools
At first glance, letting go of our prejudices and preconceived ideas may seem like a daunting task - even more so when we attempt to apply it to words, wisdom, or insight channeled through another's psyche. The good news is that we already have the necessary framework in place to do the work.
First, we need an ethical structure to guide us, such as the spiritual paths we already embrace. More than replacing one set of preconceived ideas with a new set of the same, a series of ethical guidelines and standards provide us with a mirror to gaze into, something in which we find our challenges reflected. By striving to become more than we are, we slowly begin to let go of those things that prevent us from seeing clearly.
Second, we need a detection system in place, something that will notify us when we are filtering the information we receive. Thankfully, we already have that too. Whenever we have an emotional response to an experience, regardless of whether we label that experience positive or negative, we're filtering what is present in that moment. All we have to do is notice that we're having an emotional response, step back and ask ourselves, "Why do I feel this way?"
When we find the source, whether it's a fear, an insecurity, or a wound that we suffered along the way, all we have to do is heal the wound - and the easiest way to do so is to forgive those involved, including ourselves, and learn to love those involved in the situation. By learning to love, we disarm the prejudice and let it go. And with the prejudice out of the way, we can see clearly and our path continues to open up before us.
Much like everything else on our path, it all comes down to one simple concept. Love.
Even when we work with second hand materials, we need to look for patterns and measure them against an ethical framework. The easiest rule of thumb is to look at it in the light of the core of the divine - love. The absence of love creates fear. Fear creates limitations. Limitations create boundaries. We slowly see where an author begins to say, "You must do this" or "You cannot do that" and realize that they are placing restrictions on the divine. Each path, each voice, contains a bit of truth, a tiny fragment of the whole. These voices overlap in a chorus, not where they draw lines, but where they are allowed the freedom to merge and flow. It's in these places where we can begin to gain a glimpse of the sacred - and using that glimpse as a mirror, we can slowly whittle away at our own prejudices and preconceived ideas and begin to see more clearly.
