Anything that can be written about this subject is bound to be wrong. I am using the brain and the language of my culture, both of which come under the suzerainty of the physical world, and the bent of my culture to functionalism. But more, I want to reduce the magic of it to categorisation - hallmark of the prosaic mind and anathema to the astral world, the world of emotion and feeling. So take this as a means to place a handle on the double - not an unworthy exercise.
As a being drops down a level, it splits into two - this is a very old insight. Lets begin with the three worlds - the physical, astral and causal; or on Toltec, the 1st, 2nd, and 3 attention; or as others have described, the 3 dimensional, the 2, and the 1 dimensional; or the body, the soul and the spirit. These are in essence illusions, but due to the nature of existence they are distinct worlds, separated by what some have called a ripple of energy. This classification is critically important, as too often spiritually inclined people see only the astral world as worthy of a goal. This is a huge debate that has raged in India for 3 thousand years, and in Christianity the 3rd world has been outlawed since the first council. Remember, the astral world is vast beyond comprehension, thus it is simplistic to classify it in 1st attention tools. But nonetheless, it is a world of pictures, in distinction to the 3rd world which is imageless.
At the topmost point that we can grasp, we have the Dreamer, the being that dreams, or beams us. This, from our perspective, ageless and immortal being, lives in the causal world, the 3rd world. Some call this the Higher Self, but the problem with that word is that it has become over used, and now means all kinds of things, so has become close to useless. I introduce it only to say it could mean anything.
When the Dreamer beams itself down into temporal manifestation, two beings are created, an astral body and a physical body. The physical body is really the only one we can call a ‘body’. But we all dream, and when in dream we inhabit a body, yet that is illusory. Try to see the astral as a physical body turned inside out, like a glove. What is ‘I’ in physical, becomes the ‘world’ in astral, and visa versa. In dream, we inhabit our physical body’s inner world, as our outer world.
Now comes the tricky part. I don’t like the word ‘double’, as it is far too clinical/mathematical for a being that would disdain such a simplistic term. The word soul, which I sometimes use, is another disintegrated word that has a different meaning for everyone. The old Taoists called it the spirit body, which I prefer myself. Sometimes I call it the energy body, but that depends on the context. The double is not the same as the astral body that everyone has, though it is the same in some ways. It inhabits the astral worlds, but curiously it seems to have a closer connection to the Dreamer than our physical, and it also seems to have deep roots far beyond our small life span, in short it has an ancientness redolent of the Dreamer itself. Personally I don’t believe it is immortal, but I am not in a position to claim that with any certainty - I will of course find out eventually. Still it is my Dreamer that I hold in prime focus, as it is the true channel of that other mysterious energy we call spirit, or Spirit.
Who made who, little me or the double? - I don’t know. But I have watched as my own double grew in power and awareness, and for me I observed that happen as I delved deeper into my own self. This is important, because contrary to the belief of many, it is not my own lucid dreaming that I observed as the creative impetus, though it was a very important step.
I became disillusioned with aimless lucid dreaming, which although was high adventure, never really went anywhere past the significant first point of astral awakening. I wanted to go deeper. I did not know how to do that in dreams except to meditate in dreaming, which produced explosive results, but still I saw that I was not changing, it was just me in a different movie. The same happened to me after years of physically travelling through strange lands, one day I realised I could be anywhere, but it was still me - I wanted deep transformation, not just switching TV channels. Comes a point when switching environments no longer produces the cataclysmic inner resonations that occur at first when our inner being is fused to the outer world - ie, when at last our inner being turns freely inside the outer shell, but still needs to grow further. How?
It was only when I discovered how to do this deep transformation, and implemented it in my life, that my double really began to draw closer to me, and began to reflect this depth in its own charismatic and fabulous manifestations. I use the term ‘draw closer’ with purpose, because that is how it appears, in myself and others I observe. It is almost impossible to transfer knowledge to another whose double is absent, irresponsible, childish, capricious, erratic or plain unhelpful (and mine has been all of those and more - like violent and abusive - along the journey, so I recognise it immediately in others).
But the strange thing is that now I get the picture that my double was always the wise and powerful being he is, and I was only projecting my own shadow side onto him, and seeing him as that, which he never was. So in that sense, my work-on-self has been a way to not create the double, but remove the illusions from my own eye so that I could see him more clearly. Still, it is not as simple as that, and I do believe the double is intimately connected with my own journey into depth of being - such a difficult thing to understand let alone progress into. There is something deep in me that is both the little physical me and the double - just coming of age into its full inheritance in two worlds, two bodies, neither more significant than the other.
The double’s appearance is different from spirit guides. There is a unique vibration around one when the double is present, or familiar. A quality of magical possibilities and inspiration. Guides give sensible advise and prosaic comments, where as the double causes poetic and powerful acts. The double has little time for small talk, even that of new-age spiritual fascinations. It sees in a moment, and loves to let its field of action free in the physical through us.
When a group comes together in the way of this work, you can bet the doubles of each person have long ago come together, and are acting together in the symbolic level of the astral. But if the doubles are not matured in their connection, and their own evolution, then the group on this side can disintegrate. That is a pity, as so much can be achieved, but really, the ‘group Dreamer’ has its own time, and will draw in its parts in its own way. Nonetheless I am one to be saddened at the opportunities lost to each member in this life, to such an extent that I try to find any way to turn the group, like the individual, from a puppet being into a basket being into a full being of light.
These terms are old, and reflect the images of seeing the Dreamer’s etheric energetic pathways down through the double to the lowest material level being - a few contacts looks like puppet strings, a very advanced person looks like a basket, and masters are a sealed ball of light.
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