The inner realm is the physical realm, composed of the four Platonic elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. These are the basest realms, comprised primarily of matter with very little spiritual essence. However, these realms are still important to occultists because they are the realms we can most easily comprehend and with which we can most easily rate. One must understand their physical nature before he can hope to elevate himself beyond it.
Nature of The Realm
The Physical realms are considered both material and perishable. Material things do not last forever, and they are frequently subject to compositing and/or mutation into new forms.
Rarified Elements vs. Composite Physical Material
Furthermore, even these base realms function at a higher level than what we generally consider physical reality. Rainwater is not the same as the element of Water, and a match flame is not pure elemental Fire. Everything that we can physically interact with is a composite of elements, comprised of elemental combinations.
Hence, even the realm of earth, the basest of the Terrestrial realms, is still more pure, more rarefied than the physical soil beneath our feet or the flesh from which we are made.
Earth, Water, Air and Fire
The Terrestrial realms are ordered in a scientific fashion: through the application of heat (Fire), solids (Earth) can transform into liquids (Water), which can in turn evaporate into the air (Air). Fire, being the catalyst and strongly associated with the divine light, is then naturally placed at the top of this hierarchy.
Spirit: The Fifth Element
Between the Terrestrial and Spiritual realms lies a fifth element known by a number of names, including Spirit, Quintessence (Latin for “fifth element”), and Aether. While numbered as an element, Spirit was generally accepted to be something more rarified than any of the four physical elements. Also, while all physical matter is comprised of combinations of the four elements, Spirit was beyond matter, and it served such purposes as connecting body to soul and, in a cosmological sense, the Terrestrial realm to the Celestial one.
Vilokan is the home of the lwa in Vodou. It is synonymous with the spirit realm, as opposed to the physical realm in which mortals live. It is depicted as a submerged island.
Legba is the gatekeeper of Vilokan and thus he is always approached first in Vodou ceremonies in order for participants to be granted access to the other lwa. The traditional chant is:
Atibo Legba, open the gates for me, Papa Legba, open the gates for me Open the gates that I might enter When I will return, I will salute the laws Vodou Legba, open the gates for me WI will return, I will thank the laws
Ties Between Physical World and Vilokan
Vilokan in many ways mirrors the physical realm, and this is frequently represented in ritual through such things as double handshakes, pairs of people mirroring each other's gestures, and a variety of gestures in ritual being the opposite of how it is commonly done in the mundane world.
The two worlds are connected, and it is represented in Vodou temples by a central pole, the potomitan, around which ceremonies are performed. This pole is often touched at the beginning of ritual to reinforce the connection between priest and spirit world.
As an Afterlife
Vilokan is also the realm of the dead. Ancestor worship is an important aspect of Vodou and are honored in ways similar to the honoring of lwa.
