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incarnateirony · 5 years

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Re: Primordial or Universal Concepts in Supernatural

Let it be said I’m going to try to cover this as... unilaterally and streamlined as I can. I’ve just come to realize, recently, that ideas like void, oblivion, or godhood tend to sit in an area of abstract that people haven’t really sat down and thought about. Most people remember their parents reading the bible about god splitting the waters and making light and darkness, and that’s it, that’s their comprehension of mythology on nothingness. Which is... fair.

But as Supernatural delves deeper and deeper into the primordial: God, Amara, The Shadow, The Empty, and Beyond -- so much as what seemed like a perfectly Reasonable(TM) statement from me about Dreaming In Nothing really seemed to blow out a valve on some people and I had to step back and go, Why Is That? I mean, our show already covers universes that aren’t even remotely attached to our center one (French Mistake vs MainVerse, as opposed to Endverse or AUverse which are timeline divergent), but I think people have had a hard time stacking up some mythological concepts our team is employing.

And it’s not just Random Speculation Of Intertext I Like that they’re employing. Some are in name, some are in direct concept, some are in... episode titles. Be it directly in “Ouroboros”, or more abstractly in Optimism vs Nihilism.

I may employ a few reference visuals and will definitely pull corresponding quotes from dogma(s), but let it be said -- these ideas are not even necessarily unique. I am not going to deep dive into the specifics of these beyond what is needed, because while I’d love to say “it’s obvious they’re using pure hermetics” from my angle, as a hermeticist, with recent titles and themes -- they might not be. They might be mixing and matching and just employing sweeping Omnimyth structure, such as The Hero With 1000 Faces but in mytharc form rather than just hero journey. (Also, read Campbell’s work, cuz reasons.)

THAT SAID.

I’ll carry away immediately into an aside that it was once kinda the swaggy thing to consider Hermeticism as “optimism” and gnosticism as “pessimism,” and they were parallel but not identical philosophies to discussing the origins of the universe. Both philosophies basically go on that the soul can only escape material bondage through deep and special, personal intuitive knowledge. There’s no one path through any of these, they both have respective denominations -- they are more philosophy than hard dogma and are designed for debate and, in some facets, scientific testing and comparison. That said, there’s some paradoxes, which is why I’m not gonna sit here needling any specific vein.

And you know, they touch on other ideas -- Qabbalism, for example; a great many creator myths, and so forth. Most of these resonate from an idea. Once there was nothing, and now there’s something, so we have to figure out how the fuck we got to all this Something out of Nothing. And I mean even if you say “big bang,” a related question in this philosophy is okay, but why was there the infinitely compressed boomy dot and why did it bang, because if there was nothing, how did nothing bang.

You see the catch-22.

SO LET’S TALK ABOUT NOTHING.

I’m going to use the Qabbalistic concepts, but these are in heavy discussion, only slightly divergent, in a variety of these discussions. Change the label as you will, there’s really only so many ways to discuss Nothing.

When we see The Empty in the show, we see black space. Which is fair. We, the viewers, are in a three dimensional world viewing light pouring out of our TV screen, and not in an indefinable void of any concepts, much less space.

Both of these fields use the Qabbalistic tree of life as their way to sort of like, grok how things go from nothing to everything, but even the tree means Something is there. We’ll get to the tree in a bit.

Before it all though, there is Ain. It’s negative existence, an absolute nothingness, sometimes called The Prime Cause or the Originless Origin of all manifestation. It’s not knowable or describable and anything you can say about it is not. In fact, that word pasta is itself still too defined. You feel me?

But once you creep past that, you talk about the Ain Soph. Ain means “Not.” Soph means “End.” Ain Soph is nothing but it’s an infinite nothing, infinite space, and eternity. That is to say, it’s gained some sort of cohesive definition while still being nothing. It’s called the Old One Of All Old Ones and is a total absolute primal darkness. Darkness being relative, of course, because we haven’t comprehended actual things like dark and light, but we’re getting close enough it applies. But it’s sort of a unified form of nothing-everything.

After that you hit the Ain Soph Aur. Aur just means “Light.” And once you hit the Aur, you’ve hit infinite light.

Once we start breaking free of the infinite-nothing-never-was-always-void-never, we discuss Ain Soph Aur as retracted into a point. There’s somehow substance in the nothing. This brings forth the Crown of the Tree of Life, where pretty much all other points in the universe descend.

Here, it splits off into pillars. To the left, the female form, judgment. The negative. Not negative like evil; negative like... magnetism. Atomic structure. Then you have Mercy, the male form, on the right, or the “atomic positive”. Between them is a neutral pillar of mildness and balance, and this makes the cap of your tree. There’s a hidden, or if you will, “unofficial” point called the abyss, which is a realm of ideals. Beneath the abyss is what starts to be considered “reality.” It’s the universe coming together and taking form in its many dimensions, thoughts, feelings, experiences, shapes and forms. Above that, you’re in sort of... primitive state of Ideas(TM).

Now, again, I’m using Qabbalism as a base, I’m not saying this is like... specifically nail on head what the powers that be used.

Now, Qabbalism or not, general creation myth or not, I really don’t believe they’ve hardily stuck through and through top to bottom of running Supernatural on a tree of life path. That would be insanity to suggest in retrograde. A good deal of its existing concepts before inclusion of these primal ideas, in our show, plug well INTO it in retcon or retrograde, but we know pretty much for a fact that when Kripke threw down his little draft about two dudes and a car, he wasn’t really thinking about The Concept Of True God And Oblivion. So I’m going to spare that waterfall of fuckery, perhaps for another day.

But we do know several things about SPNVerse:

There is a definite point of Empty/Nothing

There is a point that Empty starts getting feisty, but is itself separate from the creator

There is a creator represented by light and a “destroyer” represented by darkness, each gendered to these old ideologies.

I mean, we can banter sexism and the ilk, but that actually comes with a very human perspective understanding and a bit of a struggle of understanding that destruction is not necessarily evil and creation is not necessarily good, but both are necessary forces. Now how well Supernatural handled that in execution is another thing entirely, but I’m not here to cover the social aspect of that in this meta -- I’m just here to sort of help with a confusion I’ve witnessed in recent commentary I’ve dropped.

There are many ways this gets listed depending on what... ideology you’re applying to this tree. Hell, there’s Egyptian versions.

Tumblr’s probably gonna shrink that illegibly but if you can’t squint it out, you’ll notice the top is the concealed, source of power, infinite potential and subjective realm, and so on. And that’s already being past the respective Ain Soph of nothing and into the Realm of Light.

TL, DR, basically, the rules of operation that you know in your material, living existence or within your universe are not necessarily employed in the above. Height, depth, width, emotion, feeling, these are all thoughts of this universe. And in theory, there may be other nodes of light that have their own outpouring.

This, in example, might be employed in concepts like The French Mistakeverse which, even according to the angel there, lacked heaven, god, or any of the rules within the SPNverse. It came from another, slightly shittier cascade of light and thought its own thinkie thoughts until it reached that point in an otherwise atheistic universe wherein Sam was something named a Padaleski when he got thrown into it. The rules and terms and conditions of that universe have, in the very least, not followed down the same path on the tree. On the other hand, the tree has shadows, parallels, or different spheres that have different levels of or parallel existences; or of course divergences in timeline in what is otherwise the same cascade of reality.

Again, to not diverge too heavily into a singular train of thought I’m going to cut that off there, but hopefully the concept I’m trying to deliver is clear:

Endverse and AUverse in theory are very likely on a similar waterfall of existence but

French Mistake and Scoobynatural and others like it are likely not.

It is reasonably arguable that Scoobynatural is almost a node within that plane, similar to Gabriel creating a sphere of his own when doing his trickster fuckery. In which case, I point to French Mistake, which was a universe unto itself.

PEDANTICS ASIDE,

I bring you to why I’m talking about this to begin with.

Now, it was a conversation of headcanons and potential-canon thoughts that brought this up, but something that seems to hold fairly canonically sound, if in subtext: The Dream.

When Chuck was mortally wounded by Amara, the universe started... dying. Now, the real question is, if there is a world without god within it, why can it exist while another will fade if its god dies?

Well, first of all, that depends on the concept of an incarnate god; is the French Mistake’s god more of an abstract? Was there an early dream wherein the universe is only vaguely conscious, similar to ours which quantum scientists are testing its reactability as we speak, wherein it behaves differently while observed than not but doesn’t necessarily have angels in togas and trenchcoats popping around in direct view as much as our wavelengths being literal like, forces of the universe most of the time? And what defines consciousness? BIG question in both science and a lot of philosophy.

Before we digress into that, however, let’s talk about the concept of the incarnate god -- I’ll do so in shorthand as to not turn this into some sort of Initiation Class(TM) but essentially, considering it’s canonically sound that Chuck probably wasn’t walkin’ around like a Dude before there were humans for his angels to possess, and we’ve heard the rise of humans over neanderthals, what does that leave us but the awareness that this is an incarnate, and more directly engaged concept monitoring its realm?

And of course, the idea of the dream.

To give some context, I had posted this as an “endgame potential thought,”

“The Everybody Dies BUT” Ending:

The Empty eventually comes for Cas. Also, so as to not auto-revive him, they’ve also killed off Jack, and the Empty claimed him anyway. Be it by battle or long life, Sam and Dean also perish, and are also escorted to the Empty by Billie. However, due to their strong connections, nephilim, profound bond or whatever else, they find each other in oblivion – in this liminal space before God and Amara and Creation – and create their own dream among each other. No angels, no god, or at least none without their version of doing it Right™. A new world – a better one – paradise.

This, I realized, confused people -- and as above, rightfully so to people not really realizing the concept of Nothing is completely outside of the universal construct. I had tried to shorthand it in that blurb, but it kinda whiffed over heads and really, I get why. I’m actually going to use this exchange to see if, now with some context, I can better trade off and fill it out without top-to-bottom trying to Qabbalah through the whole SPNverse:

Other questions came shortly after in asks:

In your "Everybody dies BUT" Ending, when you say TFW 2.0 creates their own paradise, do you mean like they create a dream, like a collective heaven of their own, concious design, where they can be in peace together? Or do you mean it as they go cosmic entity mode, and create a version of the world that they consider perfect, basically becoming God(s)?

To which I replied,

Perhaps people aren’t used to abstract thought wherein the question is, what’s the difference?

What makes a cosmic being beyond being the one to have a thought to create a thing? By nature it is their dream, it is their world and it is thus both subject to them and dependent on them, so chicken or the egg, ouroboros and full cycle, legitimately, what is the difference of one dream or the other?

But again, curse of knowledge/perspective, I realize I kind of missed the mark on that explanation, as was further evidenced by this follow-up ask:

I guess even in abstract terms the definition and perspective between what's real or what's not varies,just like the concept of perfection.I think everyone sees aspects that would represent differences between dream and reality in a some way,but it's always different. For instance,for me the SPN heaven is real in terms of it's existence,but it's also a dream,because it's a reflection of what a individual wanted to be real.It's real,but also a dream,it all varies on the layer you're analysing.

Fair, of course, but as we were addressing this conceptual point, which is -- as shown above, difficult to detail, I replied:

You’re still thinking within the universe.

Heaven, and hell, exist within the universe.

Other universes exist. Some are parallel but varied timelines. Some are French Mistakes with different rules. Some are cartoons. These do not all function under the same rule set.

Heaven is part of the universe that Chuck made. At one point, he existed in oblivion, for whatever reason; we do not know whence he and Amara or even Death among them (chicken or the egg as Death put it) came. They simply were, as far as we can comprehend, as they predate time within the universe. Because Chuck created the universe. Ergo they all existed before the universe.

It requires a form of nonlinear thinking to parse it. But at some point, Chuck Made Everything When There Was Only Nothing. That world can fade out if Chuck dies, even inside the world. Just like, if someone was to die while dreaming, their dream would end as well. Many parts of your dream imagine themselves from your subconscious. Other parts you can become lucid in and start to control and take command of. Many elements run simply on what you know, or the depths of your mind manifests. Such is the nature of a dream.

Heaven isn’t to be treated as separate because it’s within that universe. Now, what Sam and Dean and Cas and maybe Jack might dream of as paradise might not be what Heaven is. Heaven, after all, was only part of Chuck’s vision of creation.

That first primordial spark that made Chuck’s early intangible dream that blossomed into everything he wanted above and below, that’s the universe.

If, as per The Post In Question, TFW started from that same oblivion point… what divides them from Chuck? “Power”? What is power when it is a dream reliant on YOU? You are the power.

And then came this follow-up ask:

I think I see your point.But just to understand your stand on this better,when you say suggest that power would be irrelevant in a situation were power is basically the ability to dream,that makes sense if that's the true source,or at least the initial source,of Gods powers.But what if there was something else,if he, Amara and Death had,for wathever reason,came into being with more power than just creativity?Could a being that came into existence without those powers obtain them,in your opinion?

This is the point in which I dug in my heels, but I now recognize did so unclearly:

I think this opinion requires that the authors are completely bypassing any and all myth regarding the concept of oblivion in multiple legends, and that people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around what ideas like Nothingness actually mean. Black Space is ironically too much. The idea of void predates… I dunno, time, space, height, depth, width, light, dark, that’s why it’s actually void. Most creation principles dawn from the idea that somehow, some way, a spark of thought dawned. What that spark is called, how it manifests, that’s where everybody bickers. But things like “uber power scale” are completely irrelevant when you’re talking about starting points of literal nothing, and that’s ironically the concept of things like the Ouroboros.

You see, the reason I dug my heels in, however, is not pure stubbornness. If we are operating outside of the laws of any mechanical or existing universe in which presence and power is defined, the power and presence within that universe is moot. Once a creature enters that universe it brings with it the weight of its general principle, but within the Empty, all things are relative. If this were not true, the Empty “would have thrown Cas so deep into the Empty that you can’t bother me,” but “except you can’t, or you would have already.”

“Pretty smart, pretty smart, tough guy.”

What we have is the Ain having something from the Aur thrown in and essentially becoming the Ain Soph, there is now Something in the Nothing and the Nothing just wants it to fuck off and leave it alone so it can resume being Nothing. It’s now vaguely aware again, of Things(TM). Of worlds and dreams and people and things, when everything else was just so peaceful Not Existing.

If we defer back to Qabbalah again, this is a breech of something called the Tzimtzum. The tzimtzum is basically the act of when “God” “contracted” into the infinite point of light to barf out space and made its polar parts, it was considered creating “conceptual space” in which these finite and seemingly independent realms could like. Exist. But it made a bunch of empty space around it. Again, space being relative, when talking about Nothing, but doing it in a way we can discuss it. But here we are, putzing around in this place that doesn’t even exists and thus wants to be left the fuck alone. God is even called “Ha Makom” or “The place” in this structure. So there’s The Nothing and The Place. The Place is God’s universe basically.

God, in this structure of naming, actually wouldn’t be Chuck as we know it. Chuck would quite-likely be the male pole with Amara the female, but again, we can’t swear up and down how closely they held to this. It would more be whatever thought hiccupped and made the PrimordialTwins that had their bickering match in season 11, which kind of made the non-space they started having their slap fight in.

Also, realistically, there seems to be a level of retcon in this, as in theory “sealing out the darkness” could also correspond to this idea itself, and there’s a variety of terms one could sling around in treating Amara as herself conceptually outside of this space. The original intent/application could genuinely be either/or, and that’s the fun part of dealing in this level of philosophical fuckery. And the Tzimtzum did lots of cool things, like made not just spiritual and physical worlds but yes, even the very concept of Free Will is on the list of things it made space to exist.

One could also argue no retcon needed, as even if the primordial aspect of Amara was sealed away, the Mark used to do so still waterfalled her concepts and impact through the rest of the known universe via Lucifer, Cain, Dean, and whatever else that shifted along the way. Without the mark, Lucifer wouldn’t have fallen and made demons, and hell wouldn’t exist, still realizing “destruction” or “severity” into the universe. Wherein if she were ironically imprisoned within the realm of light, as it is more metaphorical light at that point, somewhere in the area of Ideas rather than Physical Reality And The Known Universe, it all applies and once that Abyss is crossed is where the Mark instead impacted reality in her stead.

The hermetic God is really Both Of These, not to be confused with the idea of the Christian God, more easily directly encapsulated in Chuck. One simply does not exist without the other. And there’s a billion reads on these in philosophy, some weirder than others and really, the application of these is light enough we need to ask if there were even retcons, much less trying to badly staple over our Favored Denomination Of Thought(TM). Supernatural handled it as brother and sister, one egg if you will. Many versions treat it as a hermaphroditic concept that split in two somehow. Others... get even weirder, we’re not gonna go there because frankly, the show didn’t even really try. We got brother and sister. It is what it is.

So while this post is somewhat in explanation of what I realized sounded like a madhouse theory to people not used to thinking abstractly over what is admittedly a headcanon/hopeful ending concept, it is also -- perhaps oddly to some people -- how I’ve taken to compute most of the ongoing mythology within the Dabb era, naturally as per my base... like... life? And study and teachings?

And frankly probably adds up a hell of a lot better than just assuming it’s a leveled-up power-game, which while from the bottom it looks like such, in the full scale, the top and the bottom are not so unlevel from each other, for -- “as above, so below,” the cardinal concept of the Ouroboros (14.14).

If the Nothing did not Become Infinite, nothing might Be. But if the Infinite Nothing did not then retract itself into a point, then Nothing Could Exist. In retracting to a Point, something existed. That Point births an origin, and all attributes that become the recognized universe and reality, to which there are poles and balance of arguable levels of sentience, and from which all things flow, including -- in this essay-ass meta thing -- Chuck’s creation(s).

Heaven, hell, probably even purgatory, those are all parts of Chuck’s respective dream, that moment Something In Nothing pulled its shit together and started having Thinkie Thoughts. Maybe in French Mistakeverse it became a Big Bang. Maybe it even was in SPNVerse considering the mention of evolution. But the simple fact is, it all came from Somewhere In Nothing.

Which does, yes, roll back to my little idea about a possible ending I’d like to see on a list of a few, but also might help recognize what I mean when I say things like “power scales are pretty relative and abstract at these points” and so forth.

Hindsight edit: @drsilverfish may enjoy.

#supernatural #primordials #chuck #amara #the empty #pagan life #meta #my meta

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