Many Christians acknowledge the concepts of transubstantiation and constantiation. I am thinking transubstantiation is likely a mythical/mystical subset of trans-substantialism, but that's just a guess until I've done further study.

A few weeks ago, I went to a lecture on the variant forms of Avalokiteshvara (an eastern deity of love and compassion), and the speaker got to a very interesting place where it started to sound kind of Christian in terms of the state of existence (not so much WRT the doctrine) as he described the situation. Anyway, one of the audience members asked the presenter if his theory wouldn't be bordering on the sin of "substantialism," which apparently is looked down upon in certain circles. I began thinking about what could be the counterpart to substantialism -- what is the level of existence that transcends our substantial reality, the one where the spirit resides, and things can "get goofy." The place where we really are in touch with the divine -- what's that called? I couldn't find an answer other than the (to me) inadequate phrase "the etherial." The closest agreeable term I could come up with was a new term of my own - "Trans-substantialism." I need to do further study on substance theory, but I think there's something there. (No pun intended!)


pax hominibus,
joel