In the selfist model, the substantial is one of the four dimensions of potency and comprises all things that exist. These can be inner thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences themselves, and the outer people, places, and things. If I can conceive, perceive or experience it, then it is part of the substantial.
The substantial breaks down into two parts:
- The experiential – Everything I directly experience in my moment, excluding my past experiences, which are only imaginary beliefs.
- The extraexperiential – Everything beyond my direct experience in my moment, including ideas, beliefs, and desires.
So is the experiential everything in my immediate environment now? Is it the chair I am sitting on or the computer I am typing on? Is it the walls of my room, and all the objects within? Not exactly. Those objects are certainly closer to my present moment than the mountains beyond my walls, but they are still not the experiential.
The experiential is everything that remains once I let go of anything time- and desire-based. The computer is something I maintain over imagined time. It is something I aspired to acquire over time. It is an object I interact with in time to write these incantations and complete my work. All these activities extend into the imagined past and future. I imagine I have written hundreds of incantations on this website, and I imagine I have client projects I have to work on. So while these objects in my immediate physical space are closer than secondself memories, they are still embedded in the same time-based fluid of the second place.
The experiential is better explained as the state I enter when I sleep, when I close my eyes and meditate, or when I experience a strong incantation. It is a state of weightlessness, free from desire. I might explain it as being at my very center, though in reality, it is all around me. It is a state of non-movement because there is no desire to compel my movement.
That means the extraexperiential is actually everything in my second and thirdselves; in my second place. It is fueled by my desire, which keeps me moving in all dimensions. For example, as I sit here right now writing, the experiential is little more than a sense of desire-free weightlessness that I can experience in short bursts. There are no forms in the experiential. But the moment I desire, I physically or mentally move to satisfy it, creating the forms like handholds to try and obtain what I am seeking. Of course, the pursuit never yields what I seek, only the transitory relief of trying and momentarily achieving my desire.
To reclaim my potency, I must withdraw the energy of desire that sustains the extraexperiential and keeps me moving. As long as I desire anything in the second place, I will move to satisfy that desire. In moving, I create additional forms, or substance. All substance in the second place is a result of my own movement, which itself is a consequence of my own desire.
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