The unseen realm

There is an unseen realm, transcendent to our own and over-laying us, where unseen forces exert untold influence over the hearts and minds of men and women in this, our material reality. To what extent is unknown. On whom, exactly, is unknowable. When and where, how... these are details only hinted at, only suggested, by various sources throughout human history.

The conspiratorially-minded might be inclined to see the influence of this unseen realm and those unseen forces everywhere. The skeptic might be inclined to see such influence nowhere. Perhaps the truest and most noble approach to these unseen forces is to live as if they don’t exist, to live such a passive and pacified life as to fail utterly to recognize anything higher than one’s self or one’s government. Blissfully ignorant.

But while the ignorant slumber, indeed, there are forces at work. You don’t have to be ‘spiritual’ or religious to know it’s happening all around you. In this material realm there are immaterial forces. They are: Familial-social, socio-cultural, geo-political... all those multi-hyphenate influences which have no material of themselves in this, our material world. I mean, where can I visit the zeitgeist? Is it in a museum?

I’ve been a Christian now all my adult life, in the Baptist way of being a Christian. In our view, angels and demons do battle in an astral plane over the hearts and minds of men. Watchers view mankind, and report our deeds to the ultimate Judge, seated in heaven. Heavenly hosts (armies) of angels cry out in adoration of this Judge and King day and night. Cries of ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God Almighty!’ thunder through the heavenly realm as if sounded by horns. Meanwhile, the fallen among these angels act as tempters, whispering satanic lies into the minds of men, twisting spirits toward all manner of evil deeds.

Regrettably, our view of the unseen realm is far more influenced by Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost than it is by our own bibles. We’ve allowed ourselves to be taken captive by the very vain ideologies and philosophies of angels that our bibles warned us against. What we pose as biblical literacy is nothing more than a passing familiarity with the aforementioned classical works, and perhaps the fruit of an obsession with contemporary works like Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, or worse, movies based on books like LaHaye and Jenkins’ Left Behind. In Lewis’ own words, “We are far too easily pleased.”

What does the bible have to say about this unseen realm? I’m going to limit my remarks to the scope of Christ’s teachings, as it would take a year and a half to type out all the the bible says on this matter. For one thing, Christ said, it’s both here and near. The Kingdom of God is upon us. This has an implication for our personal behavior, as Christ always follows with the call to, ‘Repent, therefore.’ To repent is to conduct oneself in metanoia, the Greek words meta- meaning ‘new,’ and -noia (as in ‘paranoia’), meaning ‘mind.’ To repent means to have a new mind about you. Or, in the words of Bob Dylan, “I gotta change my way of thinking.”

Secondly, Christ says that this Kingdom--this unseen realm--is not so different from our own. It has many of the characteristics of the world we know. Christ likens it to a buried treasure, a lost coin now found, and a pearl of great price, and he likens its King to a farmer sowing seed or to a fisherman sorting the good fish from the bad. He likens our modes of operation within this Kingdom to be like how a mustard seed is small but grows large, or, how a pinch of yeast causes the whole dough to rise. Parables like these are commentary on Christ’s longer discourses. They served to help his audience of non-abstract thinkers to understand his more abstract teachings. Sadly, such parables have lost a lot of their meaning to us, to abstract thinkers in our modern age. What is one lost coin to me? I have thousands. What is one pearl to me? I have hundreds. Or, at least, my mom and my sister do. Strings of ‘em.

That’s an area where we would do well to simplify our lives. Bake some bread. Collect a rare coin. Think about your way of living. Do so in raw, material terms. Jesus Christ was a materialist (gasp! Blasphemy!). What I mean is, Christ anchored his teachings about higher planes of existence in purely material terms. Kingdoms, wedding ceremonies, feasts, farmlands, vineyards... he called us to an experience of the transcendent that is profoundly immanent. Here and now, close at hand, just like what you’ve already seen.

That’s not to say that the immaterial doesn’t exist. I don’t have to give proof of it; it’s self-evident. What do you want? You want me to try to give material proof of an immaterial reality? Nonsense.

What’s the point of all of this? If the unseen realm is by nature unseeable, largely unknowable, and best approached as if it doesn’t exist or as if it looks similar to our material plane, why talk about it at all? I’ll give three quick thoughts, as food for further thought. I invite you to think on these things:

1) what you see is severely limited. Your perspective is severely limited. You might think that you have a global perspective, an enlightened perspective, or an erudite perspective. But your perspective is limited to the one lens by which you’ve viewed the world your entire life. You’ve never put on another pair of eyes. You’ve never truly walked in another man’s shoes. What you know is limited to the singular means by which you’ve come to know anything at all. Some of us try on epistemic frameworks and we get smart. We think we’re trying on new lenses. Not so. Even your secular epistemological views are severely limited. You’re not an empiricist, you’re you playing at knowledge from your perspective as one who loves the scientific method. You’re not a rationalist, you are you, playing at knowledge from your perspective as one who values logic. You’re not a transcendentalist--you hippie--you’re you, pawing at knowledge and playing with the acquisition of it from your limited view as one who loves experience. You can only be you. Try as you might, your you-ness won’t inhabit a new corporeal form until you’re you reincarnate.

That brings me to, 2) who you are is severely limited. Much talk of identity, today. Much talk of finding oneself. Meaningless talk. Have you noticed that the same people who trumpet the uniqueness of our personal experiences also leap at the first chance to categorize us by race, color, creed, sexual orientation, etc., and then, in the case of the religious Right, they seek to marginalize us, while in the case of the liberal Left they seek to, “explore the intersectionality between us as marginalized groups?” Whatever that means. In both cases, the true uniqueness of our own personal experiences is summarily dismissed, undermined by the act of categorizing us as peoples. While your individual view is severely limited, singularly funneled through your own eyes and ears and upbringing, there has never been, nor will there ever be, another you. The formula of influences which molded you and shaped you into the you that you are today, all that brought you to this moment--nothing will ever fall into place the exact same way for another person ever again. Isn’t that interesting? So, while you’re limited to you, you get to be you! What a blessing! Who you are is limited to who you are; you are not all those things they say about you, or categories they put on you.

So, if what we see is severely limited, and who we are is severely limited, there must be an unseen realm which binds us, holds us all together, props us up, keeps us moving, because... 3) self-interest is not the supreme motivator. Self-preservation is not all there is. Natural selection is wholly unequipped to explain the forces of history which have brought us all to this moment. If everyone out there were just looking out for Number One, for themselves, life as we know it would descend into utter chaos. That’s not to say that there aren’t some who are totally self-absorbed and only looking out for themselves. Those people exist and they’re miserable. Why? Because something unseen ever lives to compel us toward one another and away from ourselves. Do you believe in that force? Do you believe in such guidance? If you don’t, how can you explain the great upward trajectory of purpose and grace that we’re on, making the world a better place? It’s easy to explain a Hitler or a Stalin, acting in self-interest. How do explain an M.L.K. Jr., a Ghandi, a Mandela? a Christ? a mother?