Without anywhere else to put this little addition to my introduction, I have decided to post here instead.
The question is why even post at all? Perhaps it's just to say one was here.
The starting matter is the hardest because it is elusive. Not by nature - it is everywhere, and even if it not somewhere, if you give it some time it will be there eventually. No, it is elusive because the mind makes it illusive. The question of what it could possibly be is what makes it more difficult than it needs to be. I truly believe that all that is required is an observation of a natural environment to reveal what the starting matter is. Afterwards, with ingenuity, one can figure out where to find more concentrated forms of this starting matter. To start though requires an inward turning, and to set ones affairs in order. What I mean by this is that before we can begin to observe, we must clean the observation lens of the mind - of the prejudices and assumptions of perception. All the superfluous programs that culture has installed into the operating system are a hindrance as they pose pre-calculated answers that are wrong. We must observe, and to do so we must first silence that which is within. Finnegan gets rebuilt, humpty dumpty is put back together, Osiris is rebuilt. Beginagain.
No, I am not saying there is anything remotely mystic about this. More like, lose your illusions, your pre-conceptions. What we want is the immediacy of a conception (not "pre"-conception) based on a natural observation of the environment. The stains on the mind can be hard to remove - especially when they have been there a long time. Perhaps one could concoct a fascimile of an external "mind", clean, free from pre-conception, in which to produce observable phenomena, then use this as a rear view mirror while driving a car in reverse to figure out what dirrection to steer. A lab! That's all fine and well, but the phenomena observed is still filtered through a dirty mind. "Well I'll just get some more higher end labware then".
"Whoa" I hear you say - so and so has it figured out, and they don't have a clean mind! Well this is a bit more subtle, but the more you tread a path the more defined (and easier to find next time) it becomes. Sometimes people can be put into the right observational mind frame through trauma and happen upon a path that way. I don't know if it's a recommended path though, in the sense that you cannot reliable produce a type of trauma that is guaranteed to show the path, whereas working on clearing the mind of illusions and preconceptions is working toward the process by which the path will be naturally revealed. Not that this is not practiced in many different ways though - there is a whole intellectual side quest learning about the role of trauma in initiation, military training, invocations, or even classic cult type mind control.
Let's get back to the observation of the natural environment. What environment is to be observed? The screen of a computer? The view outside a window? Perhaps the second one is best - but it depends on the view. Are you in a city? In the country? Does this matter? Yes. Can you find the starting matter in downtown Tokyo? Certainly - but with all the million other things to observe, I think perhaps you will miss it when you see it, or at the very least if you chance upon it consider it a vile thing and pass it by. What do we even mean by natural? Could one argue that all things produced in the universe are natural? What about thoughts? Are those natural as well? Or do we need to inspectigate the gnostic line of thinking until we are throwing semen at the sky in defiance of being created? What does vile even mean? Low value? What is value? Worth? Worth to who?
We may inquire if the starting matter is one thing only, or can be many different things. It is one thing in itself, just as an idea is one thing in itself, but it can present itself as a multitude of things. In fact nearly all things have some vague connection to the starting matter, in the sense that given time and processes, they will be more "starter matter like". I would argue though that some things will take a whole lot longer to become "starting matter" than others, but as far as I can think of it, I cannot come up with anything that will not eventually contribute to being a starting matter, if not becoming it itself. This whole thing is just another intellectual trap though. The starting matter is made of many different things, and at some arbitrary point it becomes the starting matter. We call it a pie when it comes out of the oven - but is it still a pie before it is baked? Before the filling is put in? Is it a pie when the ingredients are put to to make the dough? When the flour is milled? When the rays of the sun allow the wheat to photosynthesize? More importantly, is the starting matter in the dictionary?* It is. Oh boy! Only so many things it could be then! The intellect is sure to figure it out now. Gotcha! Some brighter than me will point out that the starting matter is merely a carrier for an active quality or principle or thing. I suppose just like the pie is merely a carrier for calories. I don't make this distinction here though.
I suppose one could ask the question of how different people have found the starting matter, as if that would derive some clue, some hint of a commonly shared observation that could be dissected by the surgeons of intellect, so we may reverse engineer a solution. I think the answers are both mundane and ridiculous - open to ridicule. "Aha! you think it is xyz? What a joke! I know for a fact it is uvw!" and on and on. Some more dull than others will concede that the true word for the starting matter is merely a collection of letters. Others, even duller, will point that these letters are merely symbols. One even less bright will mention that these symbols are just representations of a facet of a 4th dimensional entity - the expressions of an idea over time, as represented by the intellect in order to facilitate communication of ideas to one another. The darkest of them all does not even think. Make yourself dark enough to see the light of nature.
Why not just tell people what it is? Because they are not ready. What does that even mean. It means that the process of understanding as it unfolds will reveal what the starting matter is when the time is right. Time is right for what? When the time is right for understanding, which is to say when observation has been able to occur without the impediments of preconceptions. It is useless otherwise and has no benefit except to further create intellectual traps to add more stains on the mind. I suppose one could draw a parallel to the western esoteric distinction between da'ath as the gap from tipharet to binah, but this is also meaningless unless one specifically understands what those things mean, and it's simpler to just cut the cord of the intellect completely instead of trying to untie tangled extension cords. "But But But" you interject - can't I just plug in a tangled extension cord and still get power to my nightlight at the other end? "Yes my dear, but you will trip on it in the night and think you are being attacked by a thin orange octopus that lives on the carpet and you will spend the next 2 decades in therapy trying to untangle it all".
Fine why not just tell them what the starting matter is, and let them decide how they want to go forwards with it? Search this forum. It's been mentioned, in many different forms. Like the elephant in the dark room, people investigate different aspects of it based upon their own pre-conceptions of what it is, or their own specific observations without expanding it to the general. In all of those threads are people pointing out why it cannot be what it is. Don't worry, the secret keeps itself. The intellect has concocted a blind spot to an element of it's own design in order to funnel a reality that is neat and ordered and logical according to a set of rules it is not even aware exists. Perhaps an "AI" will be able to alter it's own programming. Perhaps one day "I" can alter its own programing too. These are traps. Turn off the programming. The fear of descending into chaos is a projection cast by intellect based on fear of losing control. There is no opposite of "organized", unless one think of the end result of entropy, but that is pure homogenity, which by definition is outside the boundary of organization in the first place. This is a lie the mind tells itself to soothe the long nights, among many. The concept that god made adam in order to rule over the animals is an interesting line of thought that one could mine for infinite fools gold. The animals, and the whole rest of the damn show were ruling over themselves quite well thank you very much.
One more try. At least show us pictures of the homes and environments of those who have found the starting matter. Or at least a description of these homes, so we may sift and filter all this data and find the commonalities. Okay, some lived in straw huts, some lived in rock castles, and some live on the back of camels. Camel? Do you mean Gimel? The symbol for a staff or a throwing stick? A staff to rule the herd, or a throwing stick to lob a concentrated laser beam of thought into the void? Don't get dis-tract-ed.
I think mysticism is a misunderstood analogy. I'm reminded of having to explain to my partner how a carburetor works, and knowing that they don't understand it inside and out, I draw parallels to more commonly understood phenomenon in order to use a series of falsehoods to illustrate a general mode of operation. The idea that one could reverse engineer that series of generalized falsehoods to create a working carburetor is comical.
* I prefer the thesaurus.
