Pietro Negri

Sub Specie Interioritatis

(From the Inner Point of View)

Coelum . . . nihil aliud est quam spiritualis interioritas.

(Heaven . . . is nothing other than spiritual inwardness.)

– Guibertus, De Pignoribus Sanctorum, IV, 8

Aquila volans per aerem et Bufo gradiens per terram est Magisterium.

(The eagle flying in the air and the toad crawling on the ground is the Magistery.)

– M. Maier, Symbola Aureae Mensae duodecim Nationum, Frankfurt, 1617, p. 192

Many years have gone by since I first had an experience of immateriality. But despite the passing of time, the impression I derived from it was so vivid and powerful that it still lingers in my memory, as far as it is possible to transfuse and retain certain transcendent experiences there. I will attempt now to convey this impression humanis verbis (in human terms), evoking it again from the innermost recesses of my consciousness.

The sensation of immaterial reality suddenly flashed in my consciousness, without prior warning, apparent cause, or determining reason. One day about fourteen years ago I was standing on a sidewalk of the Strozzi Palace in Florence, talking with a friend. I do not remember what we were talking about, though it was probably about some esoteric topic: in any event, the topic of the conversation had no bearing on the experience I had. It was a day like many others, and I was in perfect physical and spiritual health. I was not tired, excited, or intoxicated, but free from worries and nagging thoughts. All of a sudden, as I was either talking or listening, I felt the world, all things, and life itself in a different way. I suddenly became aware of my incorporeity and of the radical, evident immateriality of the universe. I realized that my body was in me, and that all things were inwardly within me; that everything led to me, namely to the deep, abysmal, and obscure center of my being. It was a sudden transfiguration; the sense of immaterial reality stirring in my field of awareness, and connecting with the usual sense of everyday, “dense” reality, allowed me to see everything in a new and different light. It was as when a sudden opening in a thick ceiling of clouds lets a ray of sun filter through, and the ground or the sea below is suddenly transfigured in a light and ephemeral brightness.

I perceived myself as a dimensionless and ineffably abstract point; I felt that inside this point the whole was contained, in an entirely nonspatial manner. It was a total reversal of the ordinary human sensation. Not only did the Self no longer have the impression of being contained, or localized in the body; not only did it acquire the perception of the incorporeity of its own body, but it felt the body within itself, feeling everything sub specie interioritatis (from the inner point of view). It is necessary to understand the terms I am using here: “within,” “inner,” “interior” are meant in a non-geometrical sense, simply as the best terms to convey the sense of the reversal of the position or relationship existing between body and consciousness. But then again, to speak of consciousness contained in the body is just as absurd and improper as to speak of the body contained in consciousness, considering the heterogeneity of the two terms.

It was a powerful, sweeping, overwhelming, positive, and original impression. It emerged spontaneously, without transition or warning, like a thief in the night, sneaking in and grafting itself on the usual commonplace way of perceiving reality. It surfaced very quickly, asserting itself and then remaining in a clear fashion, thus allowing me to live it intensely and to be sure of it; then it vanished, leaving me dumbfounded. “What I heard was a note of the eternal poem,” wrote Dante; and in evoking it again, I still feel its sacred solemnity, its calm and silent power, and its stellar purity floating in my inmost awareness.

This was my first experience of immateriality.

I have tried to describe my impression as accurately as possible, even at the cost of being criticized for not having obeyed the norms of a precise philosophical terminology. I will readily admit that my philosophical competence was not, and still is not, equal to these spiritual experiences, and also that, from the point of view of philosophical studies, it would probably be better if only those who have great philosophical merits could be told of such experiences. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the point of view of philosophical studies is not the only admissible one, and that “the spirit bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:7) without regard for anyone’s philosophical competence.

In the specific case of my personal experience, the shift occurred independently from any scientific or philosophical speculation and from any cerebral activity. I am rather inclined to think that this independence was not fortuitous and exceptional. In truth, it seems that rational speculation may lead no further than a mere conceptual abstraction of a fairly negative character, and is thus incapable of suggesting or provoking the direct experience or the perception of immateriality.

The usual way of living is based on the sense of material reality, or, if one prefers, on the material sense of reality. What exists is what resists, the compact, massive, and impenetrable; things are insofar as they exist and occupy space, outside and even inside our bodies; it is as though the more impenetrable and impregnable they are, the more real they are. The empirical and ordinary concept of matter, as a res (thing) in itself occupying space, tangible and offering resistance, is a function of bodily life. The necessities of a life lived in a solid, dense, heavy body, accustomed to rest on solid and stable ground, generate the habit of identifying the sense of reality with this particular human way of perceiving reality, and generate the conviction a priori that this is indeed the only possible way and that there neither are nor can be others.

However, these typical traits of material reality become increasingly tenuous and eventually disappear when a shift occurs from solid matter to liquid, fluid, and gaseous matter. Thus scientific analysis leads, through the successive stages of molecular and atomic disintegration, to a view of matter that is very far from the primitive, empirical concept that first appeared to be a most certain and immediate datum of experience. Moving from science to philosophy, the universal dematerialization of physical bodies necessarily corresponds to the idealistic conceptual abstraction and to the resolution of the whole in the Self. However, the conceptual acknowledgment of universal spirituality does not lead to the conquest or to the effective acquisition of the perception of spiritual reality. It is possible to follow an idealistic philosophy while remaining as spiritually blind as the grossest materialist. It is possible to claim to be an idealist philosopher and to believe oneself to have reached the peak of idealism merely through a laborious conceptual conquest, all the while excluding or not thinking at all about the possibility of a perception ex imo (from below). Again, it is possible to mistake every spiritual epiphany with a mere act of thought—and even to believe it necessary to do so.

Naturally, with such notions in one’s head, one could be clambering up the trees of absolute idealism without any other consequence than breaking a few branches on the heads of one’s fellow climbers. We really should not look so disdainfully at the positivist philosophers of the past, since they were the poor but honest victims of a simplistic acceptance of the empirical criterion of material reality! To deprive this materialistic and empirical sense of reality of its character of uniqueness, positivity, and irreplaceability does not rob it of all value, but rather defines its value. It continues to have a right of citizenship in the universe, beside and together with other ways of experiencing reality.

Having attained idealistic conceptual abstraction is no cause for singing hymns of victory too soon. Nor does the existence and the discovery of immaterial reality require us to turn the tables, bestowing on the new sense of reality the privileges of the old one, exalting the former at the latter’s expense. The truth of one of them does not imply the falsity of the other: the existence of one does not exclude coexistence with the other. It is illusory and arbitrary to believe that there is and must be only one way to experience reality; if in the last analysis the empirical criterion of material reality is fatally reduced to a mere illusion, this modality of consciousness based on an illusion nevertheless really exists; so much so, that this sense is the foundation of the lives of countless beings, even when this criterion is conceptually or spiritually overcome, engulfed by the new sense of immateriality.

My experience, no matter how fleeting, gave me the practical demonstration of the possible, effective, and simultaneous coexistence of the two perceptions of reality, namely the pure spiritual perception and the ordinary and bodily perception, as contradictory as they may be to the eyes of reason. It is an elementary experience that is certainly no occasion for pride; however, it is a fundamental experience similar to the one Arjuna had in the Bhagavad Gita and to the one Tat had in Pymander; it is a first, effective, and direct perception of what the Kabbalists called the holy palace within; of what Philalethes called “the hidden palace of the King”; and of what St. Theresa of Avila called “the interior castle.” As elementary as it may be, it is an experience that initiates a person to a new and double life; the hermetic dragon puts on wings and becomes airborne, able to live on the earth or to fly away from it.

Why is it, though, that we are usually deaf to this perception and that I myself was not aware of it before? Why did it fade away? What purpose does it serve? Is it not better not even to suspect the existence of such disturbing mysteries? And why is one not taught how to obtain this sensation? Is it right that only a few should partake of it, and others not?

It is not easy to give exhaustive answers to these and other relevant questions. As for spiritual deafness, it seems to me that it comes from or depends on the fact that usually our conscious attention is so much focused on the sense of material reality that every other sensation goes unnoticed. Thus it is a matter of listening: the melodic theme played by the violins usually commands all one’s attention, while that of the cellos and basses goes unnoticed. Maybe it is also the monotony of this deep and low note that hides it from ordinary perception. I clearly remember the astonishing feeling I experienced one day in the mountains, when, standing in the middle of a vast field of flowers, all of a sudden the dull and monotonous buzzing sound produced by countless insects struck my ear. Only by chance, or rather all at once and without apparent reason, I became aware of the buzzing that certainly existed prior to my sudden perception.

The answer, as one can see, can be found only in a comparison with similar phenomena, and it will probably not satisfy the reader. Thus I am afraid that I will not be able to give more satisfactory answers to other questions. Therefore I shall end this essay, in obedience to the limits of time if not to discretion.