Deepsea Diving

A neutral sort of way to understand “The Fall,” thus by a physical analogy, is to think of a radical change in environments. For human beings life at great depths in the ocean is not a natural way to live, to be. When we venture to such places, we need a supply of air and some protection against low temperatures and pressures. The world down there is deficient in the oxygen we need. The diving suit is an additional something that we require—and when we once more reach our proper environment, we take it off so that we can move more freely again, take deep breaths of the plentiful air, and enjoy the light of the sun.

One way to picture The Fall is by analogy. The realm where we rightfully belong may be pictured, walking with Theosophy for a moment, as a subtle world where we have subtle bodies—a world were those subtle bodies are nourished by energies of a kind not even detectable by science, a world where our light—indeed all radiations of the electromagnetic spectrum, the most subtle phenomena we know—would be considered coarse.

Now let us picture a very large community of that subtle realm either voluntarily or involuntarily falling into the coarse dimension of what we call materiality—where the electromagnetic, the most subtle there, is already of such density that it significantly interferes with the people’s proper functioning—as deep water interferes with ours. Suppose that they, deprived of the subtle ethers, can’t even properly remember what happened, cannot orient, get lost in the flux of matter, and even have major problems communicating one with the other.

Unlike us they do not suffocate in the material flux. They’re immortal, actually. They retain their subtle bodies but these lack the necessary force to influence the vast coarseness of matter much at all. But they find ways of adapting—although it takes millions of years. They begin to build themselves some diving suits beginning at the atomic level, where they are able to nudge the atoms this way and that. These suits—we call them bodies—gather and concentrate coarse energies—and they discover that these energies also carry residuals, to be sure, but still some real traces of the subtle ethers they once “breathed” as it were to energize their subtle bodies and used in other ways to maintain their memories and to communicate one with the other. This effort to make sense of The Fall, indeed to cope with it, becomes Job 1. And it grows in extent until, today, we call it life on earth. The object of that enterprise becomes—although vast numbers, having experienced confusion for so long, cannot all unambiguously grasp it—is to get back to the subtle world by gathering up enough of that subtle ether, call it grace, to make the trip back again.

Could be turned into a rather exciting TV series, actually—although, in season two or three, I’m fairly sure, the original theme will have been lost. But these higher beings, although greatly challenged by the environment, and vaguely remembering that they might have been guilty of some kind of disobedience, recklessness, or foolish curiosity are still immortal beings. And despite many failures along the way, still destined ultimately to succeed.