Although it is commonly believed that the Ten Commandments prohibit the religious use of images, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus that assertion is clearly disproven. Perhaps the most powerful instrument for such interdimensional communication was the Ark of the Covenant. But it is possible to open gates for communication between them and even for denizens of one region to pass into another. Just as within our bodies we have barriers to keep the bacteria and elements of the various systems from crossing over into one another, so it is with the external realms. God has divided His universe into many mansions (John 14:2), or zones. Even further, an image can be a point of contact between the beholder and the (usually) invisible worlds. Since an image both reflects and produces states of consciousness, this commandment prohibits the whimsical making of imagery–especially of trying to encompass through imagery That Which knows no bounds. Some American psychiatrists have obtained remarkable results in healing mental illness through having their patients visualize certain classical Indian Yantras. Yantras are diagrams of the energy patterns or force fields produced when certain mantras are recited correctly. Therefore in Hinduism there is an entire science of mantra–creative spoken sound–and yantra–creative visualized form. Rather, they are the dual manifestations of great creative power. However, on the level of higher realities, form is not form, name is not name. The name gives rise to a form and the form gives rise to a name. If someone points out a tree to us, we think: “Oh, a tree!” Thus name and form are interchangeable. When someone says “tree,” we see the form of a tree in our mind. The basis of all phenomenal–i.e., relative–existence is name and form. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” Chapter Three of the Gnosis of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes:
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