mechanisms

42:11.1In the eval­u­a­tion and rec­og­ni­tion of mind it should be re­mem­bered that the uni­verse is nei­ther me­chan­i­cal nor mag­i­cal; it is a cre­ation of mind and a mech­a­nism of law. But while in prac­ti­cal ap­pli­ca­tion the laws of na­ture op­er­ate in what seems to be the dual realms of the phys­i­cal and the spir­i­tual, in re­al­ity they are one. The First Source and Cen­ter is the pri­mal cause of all ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion and at the same time the first and fi­nal Fa­ther of all spir­its. The Par­a­dise Fa­ther ap­pears per­son­ally in the ex­tra-Ha­vona uni­verses only as pure en­ergy and pure spirit—as the Thought Ad­justers and other sim­i­lar frag­men­ta­tions.

42:11.2Mech­a­nisms do not ab­so­lutely dom­i­nate the to­tal cre­ation; the uni­verse of uni­verses in toto is mind planned, mind made, and mind ad­min­is­tered. But the di­vine mech­a­nism of the uni­verse of uni­verses is al­to­gether too per­fect for the sci­en­tific meth­ods of the fi­nite mind of man to dis­cern even a trace of the dom­i­nance of the in­fi­nite mind. For this cre­at­ing, con­trol­ling, and up­hold­ing mind is nei­ther ma­te­rial mind nor crea­ture mind; it is spirit-mind func­tion­ing on and from cre­ator lev­els of di­vine re­al­ity.

42:11.3The abil­ity to dis­cern and dis­cover mind in uni­verse mech­a­nisms de­pends en­tirely on the abil­ity, scope, and ca­pac­ity of the in­ves­ti­gat­ing mind en­gaged in such a task of ob­ser­va­tion. Time-space minds, or­ga­nized out of the en­er­gies of time and space, are sub­ject to the mech­a­nisms of time and space.

42:11.4Mo­tion and uni­verse grav­i­ta­tion are twin facets of the im­per­sonal time-space mech­a­nism of the uni­verse of uni­verses. The lev­els of grav­ity re­sponse for spirit, mind, and mat­ter are quite in­de­pen­dent of time, but only true spirit lev­els of re­al­ity are in­de­pen­dent of space (non­spa­tial). The higher mind lev­els of the uni­verse—the spirit-mind lev­els—may also be non­spa­tial, but the lev­els of ma­te­rial mind, such as hu­man mind, are re­spon­sive to the in­ter­ac­tions of uni­verse grav­i­ta­tion, los­ing this re­sponse only in pro­por­tion to spirit iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Spirit-re­al­ity lev­els are rec­og­nized by their spirit con­tent, and spir­i­tu­al­ity in time and space is mea­sured in­versely to the lin­ear-grav­ity re­sponse.

42:11.5Lin­ear-grav­ity re­sponse is a quan­ti­ta­tive mea­sure of non­spirit en­ergy. All mass—or­ga­nized en­ergy—is sub­ject to this grasp ex­cept as mo­tion and mind act upon it. Lin­ear grav­ity is the short-range co­he­sive force of the macro­cos­mos some­what as the forces of in­tra-atomic co­he­sion are the short-range forces of the mi­cro­cos­mos. Phys­i­cal ma­te­ri­al­ized en­ergy, or­ga­nized as so-called mat­ter, can­not tra­verse space with­out af­fect­ing lin­ear-grav­ity re­sponse. Al­though such grav­ity re­sponse is di­rectly pro­por­tional to mass, it is so mod­i­fied by in­ter­ven­ing space that the fi­nal re­sult is no more than roughly ap­prox­i­mated when ex­pressed as in­versely ac­cord­ing to the square of the dis­tance. Space even­tu­ally con­quers lin­ear grav­i­ta­tion be­cause of the pres­ence therein of the anti­grav­ity in­flu­ences of nu­mer­ous super­ma­te­rial forces which op­er­ate to neu­tral­ize grav­ity ac­tion and all re­sponses thereto.

42:11.6Ex­tremely com­plex and highly au­to­matic-ap­pear­ing cos­mic mech­a­nisms al­ways tend to con­ceal the pres­ence of the orig­i­na­tive or cre­ative in­dwelling mind from any and all in­tel­li­gences very far be­low the uni­verse lev­els of the na­ture and ca­pac­ity of the mech­a­nism it­self. There­fore is it in­ev­i­ta­ble that the higher uni­verse mech­a­nisms must ap­pear to be mind­less to the lower or­ders of crea­tures. The only pos­si­ble ex­cep­tion to such a con­clu­sion would be the im­pli­ca­tion of mind­ed­ness in the amaz­ing phe­nom­e­non of an ap­par­ently self-main­tain­ing uni­verse—but that is a mat­ter of phi­los­o­phy rather than one of ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence.

42:11.7Since mind co-or­di­nates the uni­verse, fix­ity of mech­a­nisms is nonex­is­tent. The phe­nom­e­non of pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion as­so­ci­ated with cos­mic self-main­te­nance is uni­ver­sal. The evo­lu­tion­ary ca­pac­ity of the uni­verse is in­ex­haustible in the in­fin­ity of spon­tane­ity. Prog­ress to­wards har­mo­nious unity, a grow­ing ex­pe­ri­en­tial syn­the­sis super­im­posed on an ever-in­creas­ing com­plex­ity of re­la­tion­ships, could be ef­fected only by a pur­po­sive and dom­i­nant mind.

42:11.8The higher the uni­verse mind as­so­ci­ated with any uni­verse phe­nom­e­non, the more dif­fi­cult it is for the lower types of mind to dis­cover it. And since the mind of the uni­verse mech­a­nism is cre­ative spirit-mind (even the mind­ed­ness of the In­fi­nite), it can never be dis­cov­ered or dis­cerned by the lower-level minds of the uni­verse, much less by the low­est mind of all, the hu­man. The evolv­ing an­i­mal mind, while nat­u­rally God-seek­ing, is not alone and of it­self in­her­ently God-know­ing.

42:12.1The evo­lu­tion of mech­a­nisms im­plies and in­di­cates the con­cealed pres­ence and dom­i­nance of cre­ative mind. The abil­ity of the mor­tal in­tel­lect to con­ceive, de­sign, and cre­ate au­to­matic mech­a­nisms demon­strates the su­pe­rior, cre­ative, and pur­po­sive qual­i­ties of man’s mind as the dom­i­nant in­flu­ence on the planet. Mind al­ways reaches out to­wards:

118:9.5Mech­a­nisms are the prod­ucts of mind, cre­ative mind act­ing on and in cos­mic po­ten­tials. Mech­a­nisms are the fixed crys­tal­liza­tions of Cre­ator thought, and they ever func­tion true to the vo­li­tional con­cept that gave them ori­gin. But the pur­po­sive­ness of any mech­a­nism is in its ori­gin, not in its func­tion.

118:9.6These mech­a­nisms should not be thought of as lim­it­ing the ac­tion of De­ity; rather is it true that in these very me­chan­ics De­ity has achieved one phase of eter­nal ex­pres­sion. The ba­sic uni­verse mech­a­nisms have come into ex­is­tence in re­sponse to the ab­so­lute will of the First Source and Cen­ter, and they will there­fore eter­nally func­tion in per­fect har­mony with the plan of the In­fi­nite; they are, in­deed, the non­vo­li­tional pat­terns of that very plan.

112:1.13Life is re­ally a pro­cess which takes place be­tween the or­gan­ism (self­hood) and its en­vi­ron­ment. The per­son­al­ity im­parts value of iden­tity and mean­ings of con­ti­nu­ity to this or­gan­is­mal-en­vi­ron­men­tal as­so­ci­a­tion. Thus it will be rec­og­nized that the phe­nom­e­non of stim­u­lus-re­sponse is not a mere me­chan­i­cal pro­cess since the per­son­al­ity func­tions as a fac­tor in the to­tal sit­u­a­tion. It is ever true that mech­a­nisms are in­nately pas­sive; or­gan­isms, in­her­ently ac­tive.

42:12.21. Cre­ation of ma­te­rial mech­a­nisms.

118:9.1Time and space are a con­joined mech­a­nism of the mas­ter uni­verse. They are the de­vices whereby fi­nite crea­tures are en­abled to co­ex­ist in the cos­mos with the In­fi­nite. Fi­nite crea­tures are ef­fec­tively in­su­lated from the ab­so­lute lev­els by time and space. But these in­su­lat­ing me­dia, with­out which no mor­tal could ex­ist, op­er­ate di­rectly to limit the range of fi­nite ac­tion. With­out them no crea­ture could act, but by them the acts of ev­ery crea­ture are def­i­nitely lim­ited.

118:9.2Mech­a­nisms pro­duced by higher minds func­tion to lib­er­ate their cre­ative sources but to some de­gree un­vary­ingly limit the ac­tion of all sub­or­di­nate in­tel­li­gences. To the crea­tures of the uni­verses this lim­i­ta­tion be­comes ap­par­ent as the mech­a­nism of the uni­verses. Man does not have un­fet­tered free will; there are lim­its to his range of choice, but within the ra­dius of this choice his will is rel­a­tively sov­er­eign.

118:9.3The life mech­a­nism of the mor­tal per­son­al­ity, the hu­man body, is the prod­uct of super­mor­tal cre­ative de­sign; there­fore it can never be per­fectly con­trolled by man him­self. Only when as­cend­ing man, in li­ai­son with the fused Ad­juster, self-cre­ates the mech­a­nism for per­son­al­ity ex­pres­sion, will he achieve per­fected con­trol thereof.

118:9.4The grand uni­verse is mech­a­nism as well as or­gan­ism, me­chan­i­cal and liv­ing—a liv­ing mech­a­nism ac­ti­vated by a Su­preme Mind, co-or­di­nat­ing with a Su­preme Spirit, and find­ing ex­pres­sion on max­i­mum lev­els of power and per­son­al­ity uni­fi­ca­tion as the Su­preme Be­ing. But to deny the mech­a­nism of the fi­nite cre­ation is to deny fact and to dis­re­gard re­al­ity.

118:9.7We un­der­stand some­thing of how the mech­a­nism of Par­a­dise is cor­re­lated with the per­son­al­ity of the Eter­nal Son; this is the func­tion of the Con­joint Ac­tor. And we have the­o­ries re­gard­ing the op­er­a­tions of the Uni­ver­sal Ab­so­lute with re­spect to the the­o­ret­i­cal mech­a­nisms of the Un­qual­i­fied and the po­ten­tial per­son of the De­ity Ab­so­lute. But in the evolv­ing De­i­ties of Su­preme and Ul­ti­mate we ob­serve that cer­tain im­per­sonal phases are be­ing ac­tu­ally united with their vo­li­tional coun­ter­parts, and thus there is evolv­ing a new re­la­tion­ship be­tween pat­tern and per­son.

118:9.8In the eter­nity of the past the Fa­ther and the Son found union in the unity of the ex­pres­sion of the In­fi­nite Spirit. If, in the eter­nity of the fu­ture, the Cre­ator Sons and the Cre­ative Spir­its of the lo­cal uni­verses of time and space should at­tain cre­ative union in the realms of outer space, what would their unity cre­ate as the com­bined ex­pres­sion of their di­vine na­tures? It may well be that we are to wit­ness a hith­erto un­re­vealed man­i­fes­ta­tion of Ul­ti­mate De­ity, a new type of super­ad­min­is­tra­tor. Such be­ings would em­brace unique pre­rog­a­tives of per­son­al­ity, be­ing the union of per­sonal Cre­ator, im­per­sonal Cre­ative Spirit, mor­tal-crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence, and pro­gres­sive per­son­al­iza­tion of the Di­vine Min­is­ter. Such be­ings could be ul­ti­mate in that they would em­brace per­sonal and im­per­sonal re­al­ity, while they would com­bine the ex­pe­ri­ences of Cre­ator and crea­ture. What­ever the at­tri­butes of such third per­sons of these pos­tu­lated func­tion­ing trin­i­ties of the cre­ations of outer space, they will sus­tain some­thing of the same re­la­tion to their Cre­ator Fa­thers and their Cre­ative Moth­ers that the In­fi­nite Spirit does to the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther and the Eter­nal Son.

118:9.9God the Su­preme is the per­son­al­iza­tion of all uni­verse ex­pe­ri­ence, the fo­cal­iza­tion of all fi­nite evo­lu­tion, the max­i­ma­tion of all crea­ture re­al­ity, the con­sum­ma­tion of cos­mic wis­dom, the em­bod­i­ment of the har­mo­nious beau­ties of the galax­ies of time, the truth of cos­mic mind mean­ings, and the good­ness of su­preme spirit val­ues. And God the Su­preme will, in the eter­nal fu­ture, syn­the­size these man­i­fold fi­nite di­ver­si­ties into one ex­pe­ri­en­tially mean­ing­ful whole, even as they are now ex­is­ten­tially united on ab­so­lute lev­els in the Par­a­dise Trin­ity.

195:6.14The fact of the ab­so­lute mech­a­nism of Par­a­dise at the cen­ter of the uni­verse of uni­verses, in the pres­ence of the un­qual­i­fied vo­li­tion of the Sec­ond Source and Cen­ter, makes for­ever cer­tain that de­ter­min­ers are not the ex­clu­sive law of the cos­mos. Ma­te­ri­al­ism is there, but it is not ex­clu­sive; mech­a­nism is there, but it is not un­qual­i­fied; de­ter­min­ism is there, but it is not alone.

75:8.7If this were a mech­a­nis­tic uni­verse, if the First Great Source and Cen­ter were only a force and not also a per­son­al­ity, if all cre­ation were a vast ag­gre­ga­tion of phys­i­cal mat­ter dom­i­nated by pre­cise laws char­ac­ter­ized by un­vary­ing en­ergy ac­tions, then might per­fec­tion ob­tain, even de­spite the in­com­plete­ness of uni­verse sta­tus. There would be no dis­agree­ment; there would be no fric­tion. But in our evolv­ing uni­verse of rel­a­tive per­fec­tion and im­per­fec­tion we re­joice that dis­agree­ment and mis­un­der­stand­ing are pos­si­ble, for thereby is ev­i­denced the fact and the act of per­son­al­ity in the uni­verse. And if our cre­ation is an ex­is­tence dom­i­nated by per­son­al­ity, then can you be as­sured of the pos­si­bil­i­ties of per­son­al­ity sur­vival, ad­vance­ment, and achieve­ment; we can be con­fi­dent of per­son­al­ity growth, ex­pe­ri­ence, and ad­ven­ture. What a glo­ri­ous uni­verse, in that it is per­sonal and pro­gres­sive, not merely me­chan­i­cal or even pas­sively per­fect!