Nov. 17th, 2024: On Spirit’s Sentience

“God—it is true—does not fall-under the senses; but he’s printed his character over all sensible things; we see him there, & the senses lift us up unto him.”

—De Condillac, La Logique

The proceeding of God’s infinite Thought is that of passing from a mere “intelligibility” (lacking in body, in physical expressions and dimensions) unto a fully embodied, felt, sensibility (coherently outlined, moulded into reality). What is normally designated as a dynamic between hiddenness and explicitness in the Bible, is more systematically a dynamic between the metaphysical states of unreality and reality, or essence and existence. The “presentation”, the “founding” of divine Thought is its explication as a “Dasein”—a being-in, a mind elaborately-footed in its body. This is—most classically—the dynamic at play in the Original Sin: Man and his Wife regressing from a state of Nakedness & shamelessness (or boldness) unto a more primitive state of infolding, within the Coats-of-Skins, hidden and inclosed, inhibited by Shame and Sin.

The experience or sentience of divine meaning is “...Seeing the Face of Godhood”, as had Jacob (Gen. 33:10) referred to his discovery of Esau, of Edom. Jacob—who is normally “dwelling in Tents” (Gen. 25:27)—is implicated and inclosed within the contours (the “walls” or “veils”) of the House, of the Pavillion, the Succoth (Gen. 33:17), סכת. Esau represents the undoing of those shameful fences, setting-out unto the Field (Gen. 25:27), the abundant exteriority and sensibility of the divine mind—the “Face of Godhood”, that is the Face of Esau; the Greatness & simplicity of a fully-elaborated beyng, a founded and presenced Thought.

—The Garden of Scents—

We count, that it’s written four times “...Return!” in Song of Solomon 6:13. These four times typify the Four Corners of the world, through-out which the world’s Spirit is scattered. The plea “...Return!”, directed at the Shulamite (i.e. the world’s Spirit), refers to a return to the Garden of Eden, which is spread along Four Corners of bodily extension, being a focality of the Four Spirits/winds of the world—particularly the Northern (astringent) and Southern (sweet) winds. It is told in our scriptures that the Garden of Eden has the most delicate scents, which—complicated together—create the strongest, supremely elaborate sensibility: the most saturated expression of divine meaning, explicated in all dimensions of bodiliness, consisting with the richest variety of the most intense emotions, all bearing the imprint of divine Wisdom. This is why it’s written: “...and the smell of thy nose, like apples” (Sng. 7:8)—since the Masoretic word for “Apples” is תפוחים, which also means “large things” or “expanses”, from the root תפח which qualifies an action of being “spread”.