Logos, the creative vibration of the Universe

Italian version

We start from the assumption that is essential for us, according to which what exists is not the result of a chance or a bizarre and irrational fate, but that God willed everything; the creation is (and always will be) within his Plan. Now we can address the fundamental meaning of the term “Eternal Word” and what the current quest for it implies above all.

In John’s Gospel, the Word sits eternally next to God:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

john 1:1

Therefore, the existent existed and exists because the Word existed, and the Word was with God even though it was pretty distinct from Him, being his image. The Word is the movement, the first separation, from which (from the archetype) the binary descends.

The term “beginning”, however, is not to be understood in a literal sense: in Genesis, we read of the beginning of creation, but in reality, we are in a time beyond time, better perhaps to say in a “no time”; we should not forget that the term “beginning” is the translation of the Greek ἀρχή (arché), which assumes the meaning of origin, of the intangible source of existing things.

Subsequently, the Gospel states that

All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

ibid. 1:3

And:

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

ibid. 1:4

Paul of Tarsus (St. Paul) also affirms this in his Letters to the Colossians:

All things have been created through him and for him.

colossians 1:16

While in the Letters to the Hebrews, he recalls that:

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

hebrews 11.3

All these references suggest that the image of a constitutive Principle of all things cannot be the Eternal Word. Instead, we are faced with the appearance of a Power that creates and preserves all things through the Word, offering to begotten things a perennial testimony of itself. The creation would indelibly carry the trace of the creative Thought (the Power), which, through the Word (the Act), orders and guides the unknowable, thus making its incomprehensibility understandable and its invisibility visible.

We can compare the Infinite to a “book” – as Galileo Galilei also said – considering it “the work of an Author who expresses himself through the symphony of creation”. The score is the four words and thirty letters which, according to tradition, infinitely multiplied as they were pronounced and of which only the first is known, made up of the four letters of arché, precisely the origin.

In this regard, some Psalms teach us that:

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

psalms 33:6

And again:

For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.

ibid. 33:9

And:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.

ibid. 19:2

We can discern in the “Divine” a premise of Knowledge and in the Word the first manifestation and qualification of the Divine itself. The Word would not only be the “Word of God”. It could be understood as a complete knowledge of the absolute, of space and time, in a completely different way from what we can perceive today through our five senses and which projects us beyond the appearance and the fragmentation of the unfolding of manifestation. For this reason, the Word – an inseparable part of the Divine and its first manifestation – is placed in the foreground in the Scriptures: The non-emanated Power remains upstream of creation and, at the same time, is also at the origin of everything.

There is undoubtedly an enormous difficulty in understanding the mystery of what animates and precedes Creation, which – as has been said – cannot be reduced to simple scientific causality. We must be honest and admit how our rationality finds an insurmountable limit in front of what precedes that fateful moment in which the Unmanifest is manifested.

Indeed, we can only speculate on how that reflection which determined the first movement – represented by the Word – which gave rise to the first imprint of Time could have occurred. Like the lightning that illuminates the darkness, the Word springs from the Nothing (perhaps this is a more comprehensive image); it is the ordering principle, the backbone of the substance: the Word transforms the First Substance, orders it, knows it all and sprinkles it with new life, continually giving witness to his action. The Word precedes Creation because the Word, as the first emanation, is perfect.

The Word carries within itself the concept of Existence; the Word Is, and it is what makes the unmanifested manifest, what makes it possible to distinguish the Form, thus making it intelligible. The Word is the relation, but not mediation.

Some kabbalistic currents explain that the Uncreated Light emanates from the three negative veils and infuses itself, giving form to the Great Elder (Kether). He gives life to the still inanimate creation, with the breath and the divine presence, so much so that it is said that if his presence were withdrawn from the Creation, it would dry up like a channel in which no more water flows. Even today, the kabbalists seek the correct pronunciation of the divine name to acquire – so to speak – its powers and attributes.

Once again, Trismegistus in the Corpus Hermeticum has handed down a very compelling image:

The Light-Word (Logos) [that appeared] from Mind is Son of God. Not separate are they the one from other; just in their union [rather] is it Life consists.

corpus hermeticum – london 1906, p. 6.

In fact, in the alchemical vision, the Word is described as a breath of life articulated in an expression that is both dynamic and eternal. It is the air that is born from the fire of the pure divine intellect, which, when it cools, turns into dew, destined to give life to the earth element that will testify to the finished work.

Ascending to the spiritual paths and often falling ruinously to the ground, the initiate thus encounters the “logos”, the matrix of all forms. For the Alexandrian Gnostics, it was the Sophia, the first hypostasis which, once separated from the consciousness that generated it, determines a disavowal between thought, thinking being and action.

By becoming aware of the discrepancy between Creation, Thought and Thinking Entity (which undoubtedly is not the Source), an unsustainable abandonment is determined, which causes the seeker an ardent desire to return to the Source and, at the same time, to abandon the manifestation inasmuch imperfect.

Therefore, we must understand the Word as a discourse, form, and principle expressed in a manifestation. Again, it is the cause of every cause and every effect on our quaternary.

That leads to the Word as Knowledge; to participate in this knowledge, the researcher must follow a difficult path through the overcoming of sensory perception; this desire for “reintegration” (and which others call “salvation”) is, in fact, anything but an intellectualistic exercise. Indeed, one can say that sometimes the presumption of understanding (or worse still of explaining) metaphysical realities with the mind, as well as an illusion, can be an obstacle.

Considering what has been said so far, the Word starts from a Thought and, representing it, gives it form and creates images, suggestions, feelings, actions and reactions. Jacopo Badoer [1] observed that “some things are better left unsaid” (un bel tacer non fu mai scritto) and, precisely, a mistaken use of the Word, or when it is used without being connected to thought (trivially: “I didn’t really think what I said”), creates false images or in any case different from what was thought.

For its thaumaturgical properties, we should use the Word with the correct pronunciation and tone; if it is easy to understand the concept of correct pronunciation, the tone is more complex, essentially linked to the vibrations (frequencies) of the voice and their dynamic diffusion in the ether.

All this, of course, also applies to the written Word, which must be measured and weighted with the correct terms because, just like the oral one, creating produces both good and evil, i.e., all the opposites.

To achieve this, it is also and above all necessary to free ourselves from the waste that weighs down our way of being, of living, of feeling; these are dross, and as Saint Paul said: “In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not“. (Romans 7:18). Only through catharsis and purification, freeing ourselves from the temporal logic, from the din of reflected thoughts, from stereotyped ideas and concepts, from the mirage, from the oppressive feelings all linked to our predatory soul, will it be possible, hopefully, to favour the connection between the soul and the inner being, in search of the True Light, the centre of the original Ego in its infinite facets, to realise (here is the bet) the mystical union with the divinity.

The mind, enlightened and freed from the psycho-cerebral conditioning structures, will then perhaps expand as a mental plane beyond the physical, returning to be the seat, albeit momentarily, of the pure consciousness of the Higher Self. Virtually all of our meditations insist on progressively making us educated to our Word and independent of the ego-centred impulse that moves our desires and interacts with our passions, ready to achieve benefits of all kinds and in every sector of our relationships with the outside world. Alternatively: the wastefulness.

In ritual use, the combined action of Thought, Word and Gesture, over time, should produce a redrafting of one’s being and expansion of consciousness until the encounter with the Inner Self and, through this, with the Solar Logos. With the Way of Feeling, which to thinking without senses, one should educate the soul to perceive the entire creation metaphysically; the Way of Thought is thus transformed into the Way of the Self, Way of the Heart (or cardiac), Way of the Solar Logos.

Bibliography

Benedict XVI – Esortazione Apostolica Verbum Domini (Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini), nn. 8-13, April 2012.
Pontifical Biblical Commission – Bibbia e morale. Radici bibliche (Bible and morals. Biblical roots) – 11 May 2008.
Gastone Ventura – Cosmogonie Gnostiche (Gnostic Cosmogonies) – Rome 1975.
Gabriele Palasciano – Alla ricerca del Logos. Un percorso storico-esegetico e teologico (In search of the Logos. A historical-exegetical and theological journey) – Todi 1997
Antonio D’Alonzo – L’immaginario del labirinto. Metamorfosi e trascendenza (The imaginary of the labyrinth. Metamorphosis and transcendence) – Acireale 2017

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