Have been quite busy of late, unable to post here, but plan to get into more of a regular schedule.
Two days ago I saw a photograph of an Angel. Well, I don't know exactly what it "is" I saw, however for purposes of communication "Angel" appears the best descriptor, or perhaps, "Healing Angel." I'll explain.
I'm part of an informal collective of improvisational musicians, producers and engineers called Dustone Cinema. Their website launches any day now. I was working at their studio located in a house atop a hill near Sebastopol, CA day before yesterday helping Richard Fisher set-up some 5.1 Surround Sound mixes. Later in the afternoon Richard introduced me to a woman who lived there,
"Oz, this is Kelly, she's Mickey's daughter."
At first I thought he meant Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead. Earlier we'd been discussing Bob Weir's new recording/performance facility in San Rafael. Richard worked for Mickey Hart for about 3 years. But then he said,
"Rooney, Mickey Rooney."
Regular readers of of the Oz Mix will easily recall the startling synchronicity I had regarding Mickey Rooney in the last post here, Bond 23. I told Kelly Rooney that story. She smiled, then a few minutes later recounted an amazing occurrence she had experienced just the night before.
She said that she had come home that night in a great deal of pain. She had a very graphic analogy for the pain that I don't remember verbatim, something like the feeling of a sharp knife going through your throat then down the back of your spine. She went to bed but couldn't rest so got up to get some air on the front deck which has a beautiful panoramic view of the land below. The pattern of lights down below caught her attention so Kelly decided to take a photo with her cell phone. Looking at the photo, she saw what looked like a kind of whitish smudge off to one side that wasn't visible to her eyes except in the photo. Thinking that she may have accidentally had her thumb over the lens partially, she took some more photos being careful that nothing was blocking the lens. The subsequent photos show a white, viscous light pattern morphing into different shapes like a lava lamp might. It looks more substantial than smoke ( nothing was burning), less substantial than a biological body. I saw about 4 photos like this. None of the apparition's shapes resembled anything humanoid, to me, yet it definitely appeared to have cohesiveness. It also looked very close, like it was right in front of the camera in contrast to the lights from the bottom of the hill.
Well, sure, maybe it could have been some weird defect in the camera and/or lens. I guess taking more photos from that camera would either confirm or rule that out. However, Kelly's experience, what she sensed and felt in the presence of this entity makes me suspect that a mechanical anamoly doesn't adequately explain this phenomenon. She said that she felt something touch her and when it did, all of her pain immediately vanished. She said it was like all the pain just lifted right off of her and didn't return.
From the way Kelly appeared when telling this story it seemed clear to me that she had a genuine contact experience. The owner of the Dustone studio, Paul Bareilles, was there and encouraged Kelly to write the account down. Perhaps more details will come to light. I don't know what she plans to do with the photos. I asked her permission to write this up. She said, please do and offered the explanation that one reason this might have happened was to let others know about it.
Also interesting to me is that this occurred in a location dedicated to the production of music intended to transform and heal.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Bond 23
Heard on the radio yesterday that the new James Bond movie will be called Bond 23. I'm not a huge James Bond fan, just find it interesting that the number 23 finds itself receiving more and more attention in the public eye. The 23 Enigma first became more explicitly known to a small segment of the public in Robert Anton Wilson's book Cosmic Trigger. The engima basically concerns the preponderance of strange coincidences with the number 23.
I wrote this whole post then discovered an article online claiming that Bond 23 was a working title only. It won't be the final name apparently. The info I heard on the radio appears wrong. I'm so disappointed! Who can you believe if you can't believe talk radio? Oh well, what follows gives my take on the subject regardless.
Wilson first heard about the 23 Enigma from William Burroughs who began noticing it from peculiar synchronicities with that number and death. Both writers began keeping records of odd coincidences and both noticed that 23 occurred an inordinate number of times. Wilson writes:
I accepted the 23 enigma as a signal that I should attempt to decipher.
23 also turns out to carry much significance in Crowley's Qabalah as the group who participated in RAW's online Crowley course discovered. Burroughs associated 23 with Death from experiences he had. Key number 23 corresponds with the Hanged Man in the tarot which suggests death. The 23rd Hexagram in the I Ching is called Splitting Apart which also suggests death.
From the List of Primes in 777 we see that 23 = The glyph of life - nascent life. A glyph is:
A hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph. In other words 23 = a symbol of new life.
From the Sepher Sephiroth list of words equivalent to 23 we see it correspond to:
Parted, removed, separated
Joy
A thread
Life
All this suggests to me the death/rebirth archetype. But there's more. The association with a thread recalls the classic, albeit cliche instruction when in the bardo to: maintain the thread of consciousness. Cliche it may seem but it also happens to convey extremely good advice. Obviously we would easily remember our past lives if able to maintain the thread of our consciousness through physical death. But we don't have to go there, to postulate reincarnation or speculate about life after death to benefit from this invaluable instruction.
P.D. Ouspensky gave the same advice, I don't remember where, when discussing the attempt to keep consistent practices of inner work. He said something to the effect that sometimes you'll fall so far from your work that you'll feel much more asleep than you ever have before, but if you try keeping even a very slight thread of remembrance to your aims and practices you can get through this negative side of the cycle.
Anyone who attempts the slightest amount of self-observation will soon discover a collection of self-contradictions. One moment I'm resolutely determined to lose weight. That evening my wife makes an incredible banana split with hot chocolate sauce and nuts for dessert that I can't pass up. This crude example seems common to everyone's experience though the details vary.
Further self-observation reveals that we seem to be slightly, sometimes drastically, different in every new situation. As the environment changes, we change with it as we react to different circumstances. In the Gurdjieff system they refer to this phenomena as "many I's." They say that as we appear now, we do not possess a unified "I" but rather a collection of small "I's" liable to change on a whim and often at odds with each other. If you stand between two mirrors angled in such a way to see multiple reflections of yourself you'll get a poignant graphic display of this idea.
So how do we go about forming a unified "I", one consistent from moment to moment and day to day? One method I recommend appears the first and most basic task in the Crowley system: discover, formulate, find your True Will and align yourself to it. Why am I here? What is my purpose or mission in this life? If I could do anything I like, money and time being no obstacle, what would I do? Answering these questions can help with that discovery. In Crowley's system, the Holy Guardian Angel represents the unified "I."
Another method harks back to the aforementioned instruction to "maintain the thread of consciousness." If I can remember my resolution to lose weight when presented with the temptation of a banana split then I might get unified enough to pass on it or only eat half.
To bind together as one seems exactly what we wish for a unified "I" also called a "Big I" - as opposed to all the little I's with their own agendas. To bind together as one appears as an original definition of the word religion. In the 60's Timothy Leary suggested, to anyone who would listen, the advice: start your own religion. Pretty sure he didn't mean to impose an ideology to oppress others with dogma and get rich as some of the new fangled "religions" have, probably taking their cues from some manifestations of traditional organized religions. From the context Leary gave this suggestion, I suspect he meant religion as originally defined: to bind together as one which we see as a method for forming a big, unified I or, alternatively, as a method for discovering and aligning to True Will. Leary saw himself carrying on Gurdjieff's work as well as Crowley's.
Starting your own religion introduces the idea of regarding your life and daily activities as sacred, which brings about the use of a special kind of presence and attention. Perhaps the aspect of Joy from the 23 glyph enters here? A good literary presentation of making daily life and ordinary routines sacred occurs in James Joyce's Ulysses, a book modeled in form after Homer's epic poem the Odyssey which concerns the ancient Greek hero Odysseus and the adventures on his prolonged journey home.
Like many fans of Robert Anton Wilson, when I first encountered his works and for several years after, I began having lots and lots of unusual coincidences with 23. Too many to write off as selective perception though there were some that fit that category. I usually regarded them as an indication of my awareness of a new life as a spiritual being, evidence of going in the right direction.
To give one example: On July 23rd, 1983 I did pay attention to any 23s that might crop up. The band I was worked for at the time, The Tickets, had a small party the night before in honor of my leaving the band to attend recording school in New York. Got up at noon. Went to a convenience store and saw a photo in a magazine with the caption, " on Aug. 23, 1974 John Lennon saw a U.F.O. flying over New York City." Fans of Cosmic Trigger will recognize the July 23rd date as the day the star system Sirius reputedly has the greatest effect on Earth, so the U.F.O. sighting over where I was going seemed relevant. A small coincidence there. The one that really got me though - at 2:30pm an old movie came on which was about a young man preparing to leave his home to go to school in New York - exactly what I was going through. To top it off, the actor playing the young man was a young Mickey Rooney. Mickey was the name I was called by until High School because my given name was the same as my Father's and Grandfather's and they had first dibs. Then I found that some of the dialog, when interpreted in a different context, sounded like communications from an Inner School of some kind. So I took all this as an indication of alignment to True Will by making the decision to move to New York.
The unique thing about the 23 glyph as a symbol of the death/rebirth archetype/formula - it specifically references the bardo by the correspondence with thread. You don't instantly go from death to rebirth, an in-between phase occurs even if it eludes awareness most of the time. This in-between death and rebirth phase, aka the bardo, marks the space where meta-programming can be done ie programming your programming. A formula suggesting how to do this appears in Cosmic Trigger. The bardo has also been called the space of choice-points.
So I now also see the 23 glyph as one communication device to make the death/bardo/rebirth formula more explicit as a viable and extremely useful technique for brain change. If you look at the pathway that lies between 2 and 3 on the Tree of Life you might get some useful hints there relative to bardo voyaging and brain change.
23 corresponds to the Hebrew letter Mem which opens up other avenues of useful inquiry. I'll just say that (perhaps this stretches it too far but sometimes you don't know how far to go until going too far) mem occurs as the root of remember which recalls Gurdjieff's prime instruction to remember yourself ie maintain the thread of consciousness.
So I'm glad to see 23 emerging more and more in popular culture. The first instance I'm aware appeared in the Max Headroom television show. Network 23 was the station the main characters worked for.The Movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit begins with a Baby Herman cartoon that seems a very accurate illustration of the trials and tribulations regarding the birth of the new Aeon of Horus. Immediately following is a comment about how they did 23 takes of it. This movie has a lot of useful information.
Whether Bond 23 relates to the 23 enigma, I do not know, except that ... I wrote this blog, so it does now. It's the first Bond film to only use a number in the title. The director, Sam Mendes, has a track record that includes a good film narrated from the bardo perspective called American Beauty.
James Bond creator, Ian Fleming was an acquaintance of Aleister Crowley's. He was the agent for British Intelligence who suggested that Crowley interview Rudolph Hess when Hess defected to England in W.W. II
Finally and unrelatedly, although I'm a bit late getting this out, a group is assembling over at alt.fan.rawilson to do a read through of the Thomas Pynchon book Against the Day. It starts in a couple of days with a plan to read 4 pages a day. Anyone is welcome to join in.
I wrote this whole post then discovered an article online claiming that Bond 23 was a working title only. It won't be the final name apparently. The info I heard on the radio appears wrong. I'm so disappointed! Who can you believe if you can't believe talk radio? Oh well, what follows gives my take on the subject regardless.
Wilson first heard about the 23 Enigma from William Burroughs who began noticing it from peculiar synchronicities with that number and death. Both writers began keeping records of odd coincidences and both noticed that 23 occurred an inordinate number of times. Wilson writes:
I accepted the 23 enigma as a signal that I should attempt to decipher.
23 also turns out to carry much significance in Crowley's Qabalah as the group who participated in RAW's online Crowley course discovered. Burroughs associated 23 with Death from experiences he had. Key number 23 corresponds with the Hanged Man in the tarot which suggests death. The 23rd Hexagram in the I Ching is called Splitting Apart which also suggests death.
From the List of Primes in 777 we see that 23 = The glyph of life - nascent life. A glyph is:
A hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph. In other words 23 = a symbol of new life.
From the Sepher Sephiroth list of words equivalent to 23 we see it correspond to:
Parted, removed, separated
Joy
A thread
Life
All this suggests to me the death/rebirth archetype. But there's more. The association with a thread recalls the classic, albeit cliche instruction when in the bardo to: maintain the thread of consciousness. Cliche it may seem but it also happens to convey extremely good advice. Obviously we would easily remember our past lives if able to maintain the thread of our consciousness through physical death. But we don't have to go there, to postulate reincarnation or speculate about life after death to benefit from this invaluable instruction.
P.D. Ouspensky gave the same advice, I don't remember where, when discussing the attempt to keep consistent practices of inner work. He said something to the effect that sometimes you'll fall so far from your work that you'll feel much more asleep than you ever have before, but if you try keeping even a very slight thread of remembrance to your aims and practices you can get through this negative side of the cycle.
Anyone who attempts the slightest amount of self-observation will soon discover a collection of self-contradictions. One moment I'm resolutely determined to lose weight. That evening my wife makes an incredible banana split with hot chocolate sauce and nuts for dessert that I can't pass up. This crude example seems common to everyone's experience though the details vary.
Further self-observation reveals that we seem to be slightly, sometimes drastically, different in every new situation. As the environment changes, we change with it as we react to different circumstances. In the Gurdjieff system they refer to this phenomena as "many I's." They say that as we appear now, we do not possess a unified "I" but rather a collection of small "I's" liable to change on a whim and often at odds with each other. If you stand between two mirrors angled in such a way to see multiple reflections of yourself you'll get a poignant graphic display of this idea.
So how do we go about forming a unified "I", one consistent from moment to moment and day to day? One method I recommend appears the first and most basic task in the Crowley system: discover, formulate, find your True Will and align yourself to it. Why am I here? What is my purpose or mission in this life? If I could do anything I like, money and time being no obstacle, what would I do? Answering these questions can help with that discovery. In Crowley's system, the Holy Guardian Angel represents the unified "I."
Another method harks back to the aforementioned instruction to "maintain the thread of consciousness." If I can remember my resolution to lose weight when presented with the temptation of a banana split then I might get unified enough to pass on it or only eat half.
To bind together as one seems exactly what we wish for a unified "I" also called a "Big I" - as opposed to all the little I's with their own agendas. To bind together as one appears as an original definition of the word religion. In the 60's Timothy Leary suggested, to anyone who would listen, the advice: start your own religion. Pretty sure he didn't mean to impose an ideology to oppress others with dogma and get rich as some of the new fangled "religions" have, probably taking their cues from some manifestations of traditional organized religions. From the context Leary gave this suggestion, I suspect he meant religion as originally defined: to bind together as one which we see as a method for forming a big, unified I or, alternatively, as a method for discovering and aligning to True Will. Leary saw himself carrying on Gurdjieff's work as well as Crowley's.
Starting your own religion introduces the idea of regarding your life and daily activities as sacred, which brings about the use of a special kind of presence and attention. Perhaps the aspect of Joy from the 23 glyph enters here? A good literary presentation of making daily life and ordinary routines sacred occurs in James Joyce's Ulysses, a book modeled in form after Homer's epic poem the Odyssey which concerns the ancient Greek hero Odysseus and the adventures on his prolonged journey home.
Like many fans of Robert Anton Wilson, when I first encountered his works and for several years after, I began having lots and lots of unusual coincidences with 23. Too many to write off as selective perception though there were some that fit that category. I usually regarded them as an indication of my awareness of a new life as a spiritual being, evidence of going in the right direction.
To give one example: On July 23rd, 1983 I did pay attention to any 23s that might crop up. The band I was worked for at the time, The Tickets, had a small party the night before in honor of my leaving the band to attend recording school in New York. Got up at noon. Went to a convenience store and saw a photo in a magazine with the caption, " on Aug. 23, 1974 John Lennon saw a U.F.O. flying over New York City." Fans of Cosmic Trigger will recognize the July 23rd date as the day the star system Sirius reputedly has the greatest effect on Earth, so the U.F.O. sighting over where I was going seemed relevant. A small coincidence there. The one that really got me though - at 2:30pm an old movie came on which was about a young man preparing to leave his home to go to school in New York - exactly what I was going through. To top it off, the actor playing the young man was a young Mickey Rooney. Mickey was the name I was called by until High School because my given name was the same as my Father's and Grandfather's and they had first dibs. Then I found that some of the dialog, when interpreted in a different context, sounded like communications from an Inner School of some kind. So I took all this as an indication of alignment to True Will by making the decision to move to New York.
The unique thing about the 23 glyph as a symbol of the death/rebirth archetype/formula - it specifically references the bardo by the correspondence with thread. You don't instantly go from death to rebirth, an in-between phase occurs even if it eludes awareness most of the time. This in-between death and rebirth phase, aka the bardo, marks the space where meta-programming can be done ie programming your programming. A formula suggesting how to do this appears in Cosmic Trigger. The bardo has also been called the space of choice-points.
So I now also see the 23 glyph as one communication device to make the death/bardo/rebirth formula more explicit as a viable and extremely useful technique for brain change. If you look at the pathway that lies between 2 and 3 on the Tree of Life you might get some useful hints there relative to bardo voyaging and brain change.
23 corresponds to the Hebrew letter Mem which opens up other avenues of useful inquiry. I'll just say that (perhaps this stretches it too far but sometimes you don't know how far to go until going too far) mem occurs as the root of remember which recalls Gurdjieff's prime instruction to remember yourself ie maintain the thread of consciousness.
So I'm glad to see 23 emerging more and more in popular culture. The first instance I'm aware appeared in the Max Headroom television show. Network 23 was the station the main characters worked for.The Movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit begins with a Baby Herman cartoon that seems a very accurate illustration of the trials and tribulations regarding the birth of the new Aeon of Horus. Immediately following is a comment about how they did 23 takes of it. This movie has a lot of useful information.
Whether Bond 23 relates to the 23 enigma, I do not know, except that ... I wrote this blog, so it does now. It's the first Bond film to only use a number in the title. The director, Sam Mendes, has a track record that includes a good film narrated from the bardo perspective called American Beauty.
James Bond creator, Ian Fleming was an acquaintance of Aleister Crowley's. He was the agent for British Intelligence who suggested that Crowley interview Rudolph Hess when Hess defected to England in W.W. II
Finally and unrelatedly, although I'm a bit late getting this out, a group is assembling over at alt.fan.rawilson to do a read through of the Thomas Pynchon book Against the Day. It starts in a couple of days with a plan to read 4 pages a day. Anyone is welcome to join in.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Rise Again
On Rise Again, Bill Laswell and Method of Defiance Technologies craft exotic, dub-groove beats and solid, fluid, moving, intelling bass lines set in depth-field micro-worlds born from the reverberations, oscillations and modulations of du du du dubbed out, stretched out, phase shifted, time twisted, pitch bent, frayed, delayed and parlayed sound FX forming the foundation and environment for the crazy-poetic, broadband nursery rhyme chants, mantrums, slogans and idiosyncratic, polypantheistic relativistic, revelatory transmissions of HIMOG Dub Messiah Lee Scratch Perry. At 75 years of age, sounding more God-intoxicated than ever yet also freely copping to his insanity, Perry delivers his vision with astonishing clarity and directness. It seems like he's reached the age where he just wants to cut out all the crap and get to the core of the message. Perry's pallette includes references to martial arts, sanskrit chants, the Ark of the Covenant and other Old Testament stories, Magick, Nietzsche, Little Richard, Reincarnation, Islam, vegetarianism, Astrology, extra-terrestrials, Japanese food, and of course, Rasatafari among other things.
I've been listening to it for awhile, got my copy in Ethiopia appropriately enough, but checked it out with headphones for the first time yesterday. Delighted to discover that the very first sound you hear on Rise Again is an ambient recording I made outside the crypt at the Basilica du Sacre Coeur in Paris, France. It was raining slowly and the church bell was ringing slowly. It has a very strong mood which you can hear in its entirety on the 7th track, Bells of Sacre Couer/ Showtime at Giza, from my cd, All Around the World mentioned a few posts back.
It's interesting that this record starts with a distant bell ringing because that's also how you begin a bardo reading. Bells reputedly open up entry portals to the Invisible World. You ring one at the start of a reading to indicate the intention and vector of your concentrated and directed attention. It helps to establish contact. Bells also see use in magick rituals, in particular Crowley's Mass of the Phoenix. In that ritual Crowley gives us the Thelemic rendition of the Lord's Prayer. Lee Perry gives his Rasta rendition of the Lord's Prayer on this CD.
Eleven tracks on this release. 11 = the number of Magick.
The tracks:
1. Higher Level - after the bell, the beat starts and Perry comes in right away establishing his direction or misdirection with:
Let there be light
Let there be no more parasites
Let there be light
Eating up the peace,
Removing grief
Condemning beef
Condemning meat
( I am not a vegetarian - this is LSP's vision/religion)
Peter Apfelbaum's flute wafts and punctuates like reflected, refracted light dancing through a diamond-like crystal prism.
Later in this song and on subsequent jams Perry's raps remind me of the spirit of 6th century Celtic poet Taliesan in particular the Hanes Taliesan riddle as presented in Robert Graves, The White Goddess.
You see Lee Scratch Perry everywhere
You see Lee Scratch Perry flying through the air
2. Scratch Message starts by quoting an old tune from the 1920's, Keep On Knocking But You Can't Come In that Little Richard made famous in the rock-n-roll era. Slowed down, chilled out and reggaeified it serves as the Greek Chorus to his message.
Then he riffs on the 23rd psalm:
Jamaica is thy shepherd
And I shall not want
I always reap what I sow
I walk through the valley, the valley of life
Chorus:
Death, I conquer Death.
Beth, I conquer Beth
Elizabeth, I conquer Elizabeth
Prince Charles, I conquer Prince Charles ...
I am the power
Showing true ambition, Perry manages to conquer death, the 2nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet (beth), and the Royal Family of England all in one verse.
3. Orthodox introduces the lovely, smooth as silk voice of the incomparable Gigi and the musical atmosphere of the Coptic Orthodox Church in this hymn to Ethiopia/Abyssinia. Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian Emporer considered the Messiah by the Rastafarian religion, makes a lyrical appearance . Most appropriately on this, the third track as his name means Power of the Trinity. Lee proceeds to evoke more of his Taliesan-like characteristics. Also appropos, Taliesan's name means radiant brow as shown in his creation myth:
O father who art in Heaven heaven
. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . heaven
. . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. . heaven
.................................................................................................heaven
........................................................................................................................................... .......heaven
..................................................................................................................................................................heaven ...
Allah, Allah be Thy name
.............................................Thy name
.................................................................................Thy name
...................................................................................................................Thy name
............................................................................................................................Thy name ...
Chorus:
Come to wake the dead
Come to wake the dead
Me come to wakes the dead
Me come to wake up the dead
Wake up the dead
To shake up their heads
Phased drum fill on shake up their heads introduces a horn section leading to Doctor Israel methodically, defiantly announcing FIRE .... FIRE ...
LSP calls forth the Ark of the Covenant to wipe out evil government
Chorus
Parasite get down and go down
Six foot six parasite
I am the light
Six foot six vampire
I am the light
You know that Jesus Christ is super black Rastafari
Chorus
5. Rise Again - The title track begins, once again, with distant Church bells chiming. Mellow, hypnotic, trance dub frames Lee's celebration of transcendence/rebirth/victory. B section chant starts out Aum Tat Sat. a sanskrit mantra. It means the Truth of Absolutely Reality.
6. African Revolution - notice how the titles of tracks 5 and6 have the same initials but reversed. 5 = 6 in that regard. From the joyfulness of the song I'd guess it advocates a non-violent revolution. Sounds like Hawk sings on this one.
7. Dancehall Kung Fu ode to martial arts, Geminis and Supermen?
With a Gemini mind
And a Gemini hand
Playing Gemini bass
With a Gemini feel ...
A litany to all things "Super" occurs later on
8. E.T.
Off-planet soundcapes conjure alien environments.
Transmission report: RED ALERT
Love the enemies
like you love yourself
Thou shall not hate
I don't debate
If you want to be reincarnate
Don't hate
If you wish to be reincarnated
Don't hate your enemies
Lee summons the Space Brothers to make a new race. This is the song where he admits his insanity, if you can believe him.
Love your enemies
People preach
Love your enemies
Parasites
Love your enemies
Bloodsuckers
Love your enemies
Blood drinkers ...
Look at the Sun
Throw away the gun
9. House of God - starts with the sound of an emergency vehicle siren.
Explict dub hymn to Scratch's vision of the Singularity. Sounds like my friend Jahdan Blakkamoore raps on this one. Jahdan was part of the KSK artist contingent performing in Mali one year.
Quotes a line I first heard from Robert Anton Wilson:
Me: What is the ultimate purpose of human life on Earth?
RAW: To be the eyes and ears of God.
10. Butterfly
Transformation is achieved, mission accomplished.
God bless my daughter
And my daughter is water
God bless my starter
And my starter is fire.
Good info in this song for further research re Instant Karma
11. Inakaya (Japanese Food)
Japanese dude
Japanese dude
I am a lover of the Japanese food
Japanese food give you good mood
Japanese food give you good mood
Perhaps the most profound track on the record. Ecstatic religious visions are great but everyone has to eat! The record ends with:
I am in a fire
Rastafari - all dubbed out
It might be easy to write off Lee Scratch Perry as a naive eccentric who maybe smoked a little too much ganga in his time but you need to remember this is the person who brought reggae music into the world. Hooking up with Bill Laswell (like Herbie Hancock, Iggy Pop, and William Burroughs before him) rates as genius in my book. It's good to hear Lee's voice strong as ever. Another aesthetic transmission communication from Method of Defiance.
Lee Scratch Perry
.
I've been listening to it for awhile, got my copy in Ethiopia appropriately enough, but checked it out with headphones for the first time yesterday. Delighted to discover that the very first sound you hear on Rise Again is an ambient recording I made outside the crypt at the Basilica du Sacre Coeur in Paris, France. It was raining slowly and the church bell was ringing slowly. It has a very strong mood which you can hear in its entirety on the 7th track, Bells of Sacre Couer/ Showtime at Giza, from my cd, All Around the World mentioned a few posts back.
It's interesting that this record starts with a distant bell ringing because that's also how you begin a bardo reading. Bells reputedly open up entry portals to the Invisible World. You ring one at the start of a reading to indicate the intention and vector of your concentrated and directed attention. It helps to establish contact. Bells also see use in magick rituals, in particular Crowley's Mass of the Phoenix. In that ritual Crowley gives us the Thelemic rendition of the Lord's Prayer. Lee Perry gives his Rasta rendition of the Lord's Prayer on this CD.
Eleven tracks on this release. 11 = the number of Magick.
The tracks:
1. Higher Level - after the bell, the beat starts and Perry comes in right away establishing his direction or misdirection with:
Let there be light
Let there be no more parasites
Let there be light
Eating up the peace,
Removing grief
Condemning beef
Condemning meat
( I am not a vegetarian - this is LSP's vision/religion)
Peter Apfelbaum's flute wafts and punctuates like reflected, refracted light dancing through a diamond-like crystal prism.
Later in this song and on subsequent jams Perry's raps remind me of the spirit of 6th century Celtic poet Taliesan in particular the Hanes Taliesan riddle as presented in Robert Graves, The White Goddess.
You see Lee Scratch Perry everywhere
You see Lee Scratch Perry flying through the air
2. Scratch Message starts by quoting an old tune from the 1920's, Keep On Knocking But You Can't Come In that Little Richard made famous in the rock-n-roll era. Slowed down, chilled out and reggaeified it serves as the Greek Chorus to his message.
Then he riffs on the 23rd psalm:
Jamaica is thy shepherd
And I shall not want
I always reap what I sow
I walk through the valley, the valley of life
Chorus:
Death, I conquer Death.
Beth, I conquer Beth
Elizabeth, I conquer Elizabeth
Prince Charles, I conquer Prince Charles ...
I am the power
Showing true ambition, Perry manages to conquer death, the 2nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet (beth), and the Royal Family of England all in one verse.
3. Orthodox introduces the lovely, smooth as silk voice of the incomparable Gigi and the musical atmosphere of the Coptic Orthodox Church in this hymn to Ethiopia/Abyssinia. Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian Emporer considered the Messiah by the Rastafarian religion, makes a lyrical appearance . Most appropriately on this, the third track as his name means Power of the Trinity. Lee proceeds to evoke more of his Taliesan-like characteristics. Also appropos, Taliesan's name means radiant brow as shown in his creation myth:
The baby was found by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, 'Lord of Ceredigion', while fishing for salmon. Surprised at the whiteness of the boy's brow, he exclaimed "dyma Dal Iesin", meaning "this is a radiant brow." Taliesin, thus named, began to recite beautiful poetry, saying:
- Fair Elffin, cease your lament!
- ....Though I am weak and small,
- On the wave crest of the surging sea,
- I shall be better for you
- Than three hundred shares of salmon.
- Elffin of noble generosity,
- Do not sorrow at your catch.
- Though I am weak on the floor of my basket,
- There are wonders on my tongue....''
Amazed, Elffin asked how a baby could talk. Again Taliesin replied with poetry:
- "Floating like a boat in its waters,
- I was thrown into a dark bag,
- and on an endless sea, I was set adrift.
- Just as I was suffocating, I had a happy omen,
- and the master of the Heavens brought me to liberty."
O father who art in Heaven heaven
. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . heaven
. . . . . . . .. . .. . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. . heaven
.................................................................................................heaven
........................................................................................................................................... .......heaven
..................................................................................................................................................................heaven ...
Allah, Allah be Thy name
.............................................Thy name
.................................................................................Thy name
...................................................................................................................Thy name
............................................................................................................................Thy name ...
Chorus:
Come to wake the dead
Come to wake the dead
Me come to wakes the dead
Me come to wake up the dead
Wake up the dead
To shake up their heads
Phased drum fill on shake up their heads introduces a horn section leading to Doctor Israel methodically, defiantly announcing FIRE .... FIRE ...
LSP calls forth the Ark of the Covenant to wipe out evil government
Chorus
Parasite get down and go down
Six foot six parasite
I am the light
Six foot six vampire
I am the light
You know that Jesus Christ is super black Rastafari
Chorus
5. Rise Again - The title track begins, once again, with distant Church bells chiming. Mellow, hypnotic, trance dub frames Lee's celebration of transcendence/rebirth/victory. B section chant starts out Aum Tat Sat. a sanskrit mantra. It means the Truth of Absolutely Reality.
6. African Revolution - notice how the titles of tracks 5 and6 have the same initials but reversed. 5 = 6 in that regard. From the joyfulness of the song I'd guess it advocates a non-violent revolution. Sounds like Hawk sings on this one.
7. Dancehall Kung Fu ode to martial arts, Geminis and Supermen?
With a Gemini mind
And a Gemini hand
Playing Gemini bass
With a Gemini feel ...
A litany to all things "Super" occurs later on
8. E.T.
Off-planet soundcapes conjure alien environments.
Transmission report: RED ALERT
Love the enemies
like you love yourself
Thou shall not hate
I don't debate
If you want to be reincarnate
Don't hate
If you wish to be reincarnated
Don't hate your enemies
Lee summons the Space Brothers to make a new race. This is the song where he admits his insanity, if you can believe him.
Love your enemies
People preach
Love your enemies
Parasites
Love your enemies
Bloodsuckers
Love your enemies
Blood drinkers ...
Look at the Sun
Throw away the gun
9. House of God - starts with the sound of an emergency vehicle siren.
Explict dub hymn to Scratch's vision of the Singularity. Sounds like my friend Jahdan Blakkamoore raps on this one. Jahdan was part of the KSK artist contingent performing in Mali one year.
Quotes a line I first heard from Robert Anton Wilson:
Me: What is the ultimate purpose of human life on Earth?
RAW: To be the eyes and ears of God.
10. Butterfly
Transformation is achieved, mission accomplished.
God bless my daughter
And my daughter is water
God bless my starter
And my starter is fire.
Good info in this song for further research re Instant Karma
11. Inakaya (Japanese Food)
Japanese dude
Japanese dude
I am a lover of the Japanese food
Japanese food give you good mood
Japanese food give you good mood
Perhaps the most profound track on the record. Ecstatic religious visions are great but everyone has to eat! The record ends with:
I am in a fire
Rastafari - all dubbed out
It might be easy to write off Lee Scratch Perry as a naive eccentric who maybe smoked a little too much ganga in his time but you need to remember this is the person who brought reggae music into the world. Hooking up with Bill Laswell (like Herbie Hancock, Iggy Pop, and William Burroughs before him) rates as genius in my book. It's good to hear Lee's voice strong as ever. Another aesthetic transmission communication from Method of Defiance.
Lee Scratch Perry
.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Franklin Merrell-Wolff
This is related to the Instant Karma Part 2 post where we gathered evidence in support of the premise 'Every man and every woman is a star'. I made the statement:
"This release of light and energy upon death can be sensed and felt, particularly by someone very close to the person who died."
What follows is an eyewitness account of the death of an extraordinary explorer of Higher Consciouness, Franklin Merrell-Wolff. It's quoted from a biographical piece on Merrell-Wolff by Dr. Richard Moss who knew him well. The whole piece is worth reading.
"When I entered his room, I stood silently at his bedside, gently holding his hand. I could feel his energy, exquisitely fine and open, but nearly gone. He didn't seem to be conscious. Reaching deep inside myself, I began to speak softly to him. I told him that his work was now complete, that his body had been prepared for release by the illness and was now ready. Then I was silent for a long moment and told him from the depths of my heart, "We all thank you." Suddenly, he roused himself, and with what seemed at once like genuine sincerity and the old mischievous humor I loved so much he replied, "You are all entirely welcome." These were his last words. He passed away peacefully a few hours later.
Franklin Merrell-Wolff
I'm currently reading and enjoying Wolff's book Pathways Through to Space - A Personal Report of Transformations in Consciousness. The title explains itself. The New York Times blurb on the back says:
"Beautifully written ...
a prolonged soliloquy by one who ...
sought to arrive at his own liberated self."
Another description of it by Ron Leonard:
"Henceforth, he began writing, not merely about Transcendental Consciousness, but from it. Because he intends Pathways to be primarily an autobiographical report on the process itself, including spontaneous reflection on a variety of topics and issues, he presents the philosophical dimension informally, rather than systematically. He is sharing the journey, which may provide personal inspiration for the reader’s spiritual path. "
"This release of light and energy upon death can be sensed and felt, particularly by someone very close to the person who died."
What follows is an eyewitness account of the death of an extraordinary explorer of Higher Consciouness, Franklin Merrell-Wolff. It's quoted from a biographical piece on Merrell-Wolff by Dr. Richard Moss who knew him well. The whole piece is worth reading.
"When I entered his room, I stood silently at his bedside, gently holding his hand. I could feel his energy, exquisitely fine and open, but nearly gone. He didn't seem to be conscious. Reaching deep inside myself, I began to speak softly to him. I told him that his work was now complete, that his body had been prepared for release by the illness and was now ready. Then I was silent for a long moment and told him from the depths of my heart, "We all thank you." Suddenly, he roused himself, and with what seemed at once like genuine sincerity and the old mischievous humor I loved so much he replied, "You are all entirely welcome." These were his last words. He passed away peacefully a few hours later.
His body was brought back to his home where he was dressed in his finest teaching suit and laid on the couch in the room where for years he had had his Sunday meetings. Then, because it had been his request, I and two of his oldest students began to whisper the First Bardo from the Tibetan Book Of The Dead repeatedly into his ear. He had been quite clear that he wanted to have the First Bardo read to him, and only that Bardo. The words instruct the "Nobly born" to receive the Pure White Light of Consciousness-without-characteristic of any kind. For him it was to be the Pure White Light or nothing. We took turns reciting the First Bardo for six hours until dawn.
In those hours and throughout that first day after his physical death the energy that radiated from him became stronger and stronger. It was like standing before a door onto the Infinite. I realized then that we can do our deepest work in service to Consciousness, as the Tibetan Buddhist's teach, in the final moments of life if we can release all self-contraction and become transparent to the Infinite. Forty-nine years before, exactly half his lifetime ago, this is what happened to Dr. Wolff at the time of his realization. Now it seemed it was happening again in the hours after his physical death."
Franklin Merrell-Wolff
I'm currently reading and enjoying Wolff's book Pathways Through to Space - A Personal Report of Transformations in Consciousness. The title explains itself. The New York Times blurb on the back says:
"Beautifully written ...
a prolonged soliloquy by one who ...
sought to arrive at his own liberated self."
Another description of it by Ron Leonard:
"Henceforth, he began writing, not merely about Transcendental Consciousness, but from it. Because he intends Pathways to be primarily an autobiographical report on the process itself, including spontaneous reflection on a variety of topics and issues, he presents the philosophical dimension informally, rather than systematically. He is sharing the journey, which may provide personal inspiration for the reader’s spiritual path. "
Thursday, October 6, 2011
3 Films
Three films that all include a common theme very pertinent, in my opinion, to the pain and difficult times we are collectively going through.
Generally speaking, this theme could be said to illustrate what brings down, or defeats an Invocation. These films each present the theme in completely different ways. Each film also reveals much more under the microscope of qabalistic analysis, and at least two of them work well, with repeated viewings, as exercises in that elucidating art.
This theme also turns up and develops out as one of the subtexts in Aleister Crowley's 91 chaptered Book of Lies, a crucial title for understanding the esoteric work he presented.
The first film is Animal Crackers by The Marx Brothers. Marx Brothers' films come highly recommended for several reasons. The humour they give provides nourishment to the soul. It can even heal the body as the famous story with Norman Cousins shows. He was diagnosed with a life threatening disease:
Cousins read of the theory that negative emotions be harmful to the body, and so hypothesized that if the negative emotions were detrimental to your health, then the positive emotions should improve health. Cousins, still battling his ailment, was being treated with high doses of painkillers, which he realized were being harmful to his body. This realization motivated him to prescribe himself a medication of a different sort. He hired a nurse who would read him humorous stories, and play for him Marx Brothers movies. This proved to be effective, as in very little time, Cousins was off of all painkillers and sleeping pills. He found that the laughter relieved pain and would help him sleep. Since Norman Cousins declared that he "laughed himself out of" a deadly disease, scientists have theorized that laughter has the ability to strengthen the human immune system.
- Jackie Chew
Another important function of Marx Brothers comedy is what's known as "breaking set" which means breaking down or breaking through our conscious and unconscious beliefs and habits.
In their excellent Preface to Israel Regardie's, The Eye in the Triangle, Christopher Hyatt and Daron Peter von Gundlach write:
"Breaking Set" is the spirit of Crowley. Psychological Set Theory defines set as the predetermined way we have of looking at the World. Set, funny enough, is the "evil" god of Egypt, who killed his brother Horus. Horus, the new aeon symbol, is opposed by the rigidities of the past (Set). Set is restriction and for Crowley's "morality" restriction is "evil," whether it be the restrictions and rigidities of our own conditioning and prejudices, or those of an entire culture and civilization."
"Breaking Set" is another form of the death/rebirth archetype/formula. To break set is to temporarily "die" to your preconceptions. Experience shows that a new, and hopefully expanded (be it ever so subtle sometimes) set forms fairly quickly. That's the rebirth part.
Crowley covers the same ground in the Book of Lies chapter 1 in clear but also cryptic fashion:
Kill thyself = breaking set - one possible meaning of several, perhaps. By Gematria, the 5th line indicates a method I've discussed much already so I shan't belabor the point.
In the Legominisms post I quoted Gurdjieff:
and we shall secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call initiates of art.
"initiates of art" qabalistically relates to Crowley's formula of N.O.X.
In Alchemical terms breaking set is called solve coagula which means dissolve and coagulate( ie resolidify)
Naturally, it always involves a little trip through the bardos.
The good news is that this process can become more familiar, learned and practiced, by watching Marx Brothers films. Ergo, watching Marx Brothers films can act as a form of bardo training.
In Animal Crackers, the stolen painting, represents the Invocation that gets defeated.
Harpo does finally return it in the end but then proceeds to knock everyone out with sleeping gas . I should note that in all these films there is a whole lot more to them than the points I'm making.
The second film is Beetlejuice. The theme I'm alluding to is shown in the first scene immediately after the opening credits sequence and in the first words of dialog. Unlike Animal Crackers the force that would bring down the Invocation is turned around to become the force that powers the Invocation.
Beetlejuice also communicates on many levels. It one scene it satirizes caricatured notions about death. In it the Maitlands, who are dead and haunting their house, are trying to scare off the Deetzes to get them to move out by putting sheets over themselves and moaning. Their daughter, Lydia discovers them playing ghosts and wants to know what's under the sheets,
"What do you look like under there?" she says trying to peer through the eye-holes.
"Are you gross under there? Are you Night of the Living Dead under there? Bloody veins and pus?"
Another level of the film can be seen as an allegory of how awakening consciousness ( the Maitlands in the bardo) "haunts" the body it lives in ( their house in the film) and how higher consciousness has to learn to get along with ordinary consciousness ( the Deetzes and friends except for Lydia) and vice versa.
The last film seems particularly relevant in this day and age with so many wars breaking out, wars continuing and threats of war elsewhere. Kubrik's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb remains one of the best satires on war ever, in my opinion., desoite its setting in a different era. The Invocation brought down in this film could be called "All Life on Planet Earth as we currently know it."
The video clip below graphically shows, in a Freudian way, this theme I've been getting at:
Thanks to the Overweening Generalist for pointing this vid out.
The same theme appears quite obviously evident in one of the final scenes:
Aircraft commander Major T. J. "King" Kong goes to the bomb bay to open the damaged doors manually, straddling a nuclear bomb as he repairs arcing wires overhead. When he effects his electrical patches, the bomb bay doors suddenly open, the bomb releases and Kong rides it to detonation like a rodeo cowboy, whooping and waving his cowboy hat. The H-bomb explodes and the Doomsday Device's detonation is inevitable.
Maybe Kubrik's next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey was a response to the nihilism of Strangelove?
Generally speaking, this theme could be said to illustrate what brings down, or defeats an Invocation. These films each present the theme in completely different ways. Each film also reveals much more under the microscope of qabalistic analysis, and at least two of them work well, with repeated viewings, as exercises in that elucidating art.
This theme also turns up and develops out as one of the subtexts in Aleister Crowley's 91 chaptered Book of Lies, a crucial title for understanding the esoteric work he presented.
The first film is Animal Crackers by The Marx Brothers. Marx Brothers' films come highly recommended for several reasons. The humour they give provides nourishment to the soul. It can even heal the body as the famous story with Norman Cousins shows. He was diagnosed with a life threatening disease:
Cousins read of the theory that negative emotions be harmful to the body, and so hypothesized that if the negative emotions were detrimental to your health, then the positive emotions should improve health. Cousins, still battling his ailment, was being treated with high doses of painkillers, which he realized were being harmful to his body. This realization motivated him to prescribe himself a medication of a different sort. He hired a nurse who would read him humorous stories, and play for him Marx Brothers movies. This proved to be effective, as in very little time, Cousins was off of all painkillers and sleeping pills. He found that the laughter relieved pain and would help him sleep. Since Norman Cousins declared that he "laughed himself out of" a deadly disease, scientists have theorized that laughter has the ability to strengthen the human immune system.
- Jackie Chew
Another important function of Marx Brothers comedy is what's known as "breaking set" which means breaking down or breaking through our conscious and unconscious beliefs and habits.
In their excellent Preface to Israel Regardie's, The Eye in the Triangle, Christopher Hyatt and Daron Peter von Gundlach write:
"Breaking Set" is the spirit of Crowley. Psychological Set Theory defines set as the predetermined way we have of looking at the World. Set, funny enough, is the "evil" god of Egypt, who killed his brother Horus. Horus, the new aeon symbol, is opposed by the rigidities of the past (Set). Set is restriction and for Crowley's "morality" restriction is "evil," whether it be the restrictions and rigidities of our own conditioning and prejudices, or those of an entire culture and civilization."
"Breaking Set" is another form of the death/rebirth archetype/formula. To break set is to temporarily "die" to your preconceptions. Experience shows that a new, and hopefully expanded (be it ever so subtle sometimes) set forms fairly quickly. That's the rebirth part.
Crowley covers the same ground in the Book of Lies chapter 1 in clear but also cryptic fashion:
THE SABBATH OF THE GOAT
O! the heart of N.O.X. the Night of Pan.
{Pi-Alpha-Nu}: Duality: Energy: Death.
Death: Begetting: the supporters of O!
To beget is to die; to die is to beget.
Cast the Seed into the Field of Night.
Life and Death are two names of A.
Kill thyself.
Neither of these alone is enough.
Kill thyself = breaking set - one possible meaning of several, perhaps. By Gematria, the 5th line indicates a method I've discussed much already so I shan't belabor the point.
In the Legominisms post I quoted Gurdjieff:
and we shall secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call initiates of art.
"initiates of art" qabalistically relates to Crowley's formula of N.O.X.
In Alchemical terms breaking set is called solve coagula which means dissolve and coagulate( ie resolidify)
Naturally, it always involves a little trip through the bardos.
The good news is that this process can become more familiar, learned and practiced, by watching Marx Brothers films. Ergo, watching Marx Brothers films can act as a form of bardo training.
In Animal Crackers, the stolen painting, represents the Invocation that gets defeated.
Harpo does finally return it in the end but then proceeds to knock everyone out with sleeping gas . I should note that in all these films there is a whole lot more to them than the points I'm making.
The second film is Beetlejuice. The theme I'm alluding to is shown in the first scene immediately after the opening credits sequence and in the first words of dialog. Unlike Animal Crackers the force that would bring down the Invocation is turned around to become the force that powers the Invocation.
Beetlejuice also communicates on many levels. It one scene it satirizes caricatured notions about death. In it the Maitlands, who are dead and haunting their house, are trying to scare off the Deetzes to get them to move out by putting sheets over themselves and moaning. Their daughter, Lydia discovers them playing ghosts and wants to know what's under the sheets,
"What do you look like under there?" she says trying to peer through the eye-holes.
"Are you gross under there? Are you Night of the Living Dead under there? Bloody veins and pus?"
Another level of the film can be seen as an allegory of how awakening consciousness ( the Maitlands in the bardo) "haunts" the body it lives in ( their house in the film) and how higher consciousness has to learn to get along with ordinary consciousness ( the Deetzes and friends except for Lydia) and vice versa.
The last film seems particularly relevant in this day and age with so many wars breaking out, wars continuing and threats of war elsewhere. Kubrik's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb remains one of the best satires on war ever, in my opinion., desoite its setting in a different era. The Invocation brought down in this film could be called "All Life on Planet Earth as we currently know it."
The video clip below graphically shows, in a Freudian way, this theme I've been getting at:
Thanks to the Overweening Generalist for pointing this vid out.
The same theme appears quite obviously evident in one of the final scenes:
Aircraft commander Major T. J. "King" Kong goes to the bomb bay to open the damaged doors manually, straddling a nuclear bomb as he repairs arcing wires overhead. When he effects his electrical patches, the bomb bay doors suddenly open, the bomb releases and Kong rides it to detonation like a rodeo cowboy, whooping and waving his cowboy hat. The H-bomb explodes and the Doomsday Device's detonation is inevitable.
Maybe Kubrik's next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey was a response to the nihilism of Strangelove?
Steve Jobs
A special word from our "sponsers" ie computers, computer interfaces, the internet, apple, all the i-devices etc.
Steve Jobs rocked this world with his vision. He was a true friend of Humanity. Some of his last public words are worth listening to:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Bon voyage ...
Steve Jobs rocked this world with his vision. He was a true friend of Humanity. Some of his last public words are worth listening to:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Bon voyage ...
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Stele of Revealing - A Night to Remember
February 1996:
We had just finished recording and photographing Jali Kunda, Griots of West Africa and Beyond - Bill Laswell, Janet Rienstra, John Brown, Daniel Laine and our host Foday Musa Suso comprised our group for this venture.
"There's some money left over in the budget, we're in Africa, where should we go for a few days? ... Mali?" Bill said.
Janet responded, " Let's go to Cairo and see the Pyramids."
I said, "Yeah, sure, sounds good to me!," thinking she was joking
"Ok, let's do it, let's go" Bill replied. Then I realized he was serious, but could hardly believe this incredible opportunity. It would give me the chance to visit the Stele of Revealing in the Cairo Museum. The Stele of Revealing, an ancient artifact, is the funerary stele of the priest Ankh-af-na-khonsu circa 8th century B.C. It played a prominent role in Aleister Crowley's reception of the Book of the Law (Liber Legis). Crowley had the text on the Stele translated and incorporated some of it into Liber Legis. It's a Thelemic altar piece.
I was very grateful to Bill and Janet for letting me tag along on this new African adventure.
We were flying out of Brikama, Gambia. To get to Cairo we had to go through Paris; we had a 2 day layover there. I was feeling feverish and sick but was determined to keep it together long enough to get to Egypt. A couple of days before we left Gambia, driving up through Guinea Bissau at the conclusion of a long and rewarding, recording roadtrip, our van got into a small accident with a tree. The road was so pockmarked with deep and treacherous potholes that you could only drive 35 mph right on the edge of the shoulder which had the least amount of potholes. The driver still had to negotiate this weather-beaten road like he was competing on a road rally obstacle course. At one point he lost control, slid off the shoulder and slammed directly into a tree. Being an alarmist in the face of disaster, I thought we could be done for. If not done for, much uncertainty as to when and in what condition we would return home, if ever. The part of Guinea Bissau we crashed in was known to be unstable . Some French tourists had been abducted in this region a month before. To my great relief, the van started up right away and the driver had no difficulty getting it out of the ditch and back on the road. I've never been more grateful to hear an engine turning over than I was at that moment. Also very grateful to travel in a solidly built vehicle that could withstand such a shock and drive out like nothing happened. Still not out of the woods at that point, we had to get to a small ferry crossing before it closed at dusk. The ferry had been taken over and was being run by the military due to recent unrest. The last ferry was set to launch as we pulled up. The soldiers told us we were too late to get on board, that we'd have to wait until the morning. Some cash quickly changed their minds. We were allowed on the ferry, and made it back to Brikama that evening. A couple of days later, when we got to Paris, I started feeling feverish and sick. Apparently I had incurred a slight internal injury as a result of the sudden jolt of the accident and the fever was a reaction to that. I wasn't going to let a small thing like a viral infection interfere with this rare opportunity to work with the Stele of Revealing.
It was Bill, Janet and I making this pilgrimage to Egypt. John Brown shepherded the field recording gear back to New York. Suso stayed with his family in Gambia. Our illustrious and inspired photographer, Daniel Laine returned with us to Paris where he lived. Later, Daniel drove us to his home for a visit. What I remember most about that visit was this incredible John Coltrane music he had playing in the car. It still seems like some of the most expressive and explorative music I've heard from Coltrane. Apparently it was Coltrane and group Live in Japan which also included Pharoah Saunders at that time. Someone said that this was Coltrane in his "acid phase."
My other vivid memory of that brief Paris visit was of walking the street just after it rained. Everything felt fresh and clean. It had gotten dark but was still early enough and warm enough to accommodate the hustle and bustle of shopkeepers and their clientele: fresh flower markets, wine stalls and delicious looking fresh bread and cheese. Praise be to the amenities of a first world country after a month in Africa! I felt incredibly, vitally alive despite my body having other issues. At 3am a driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us to Brussels where we caught a flight to Cairo.
Going through customs we had to purchase visitor visas. Bill pointed out a sign to me that said something to the effect that anyone caught with drugs would be executed on sight. The way it was worded made it sound even worse than that.
I wasted no time the first morning getting to the Cairo Museum to see the Stele of Revealing. The plan was to meet up with Bill and Janet in the afternoon and go out to Giza to see the Pyramids. We would stay the night at one of the most luxurious hotels I've ever been to, the Mena House Oberoi. The Mena House has a rich history playing host to such notables as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Cecil B. DeMille, Charlton Heston, Charlie Chaplin, and Winston Churchill among others. It was at the Mena House in 1977 where representatives for Egypt and Israel met to discuss a peace settlement which eventually lead to the Camp David Accord that has lasted to this day.
I got to the museum shortly after it opened, around 10am. I decided to check out the rest of the museum before finding the Stele of Revealing. It's hard to convey the experience of navigating the museum corridors surrounded and often dwarfed by the stone-carved statuary, monuments, tombs and artifacts of Ancient Egypt. I kept my eyes open for the Stele but didn't see it. It even took awhile to find when I started to deliberately search for it. Finally found it on the 2nd floor, a little out of the way. It still had it's own label from when Crowley and his wife Rose saw it in 1904 which gave the exhibit number as 666.
For those who don't know, the story goes that Aleister and Rose were visiting Cairo on their honeymoon when Rose uncharacteristically started having some kind of visions after Crowley performed a ritual Invocation. She started saying, "they are waiting for you. " After further investigations along those lines, Crowley determined that "the waiter was Horus," an Egyptian solar deity. He was still very skeptical so he plied Rose with a barrage of questions. All her answers indicated Horus despite having no conscious knowledge of Egyptology or occult subjects. Crowley took Rose to the Cairo Museum, which they had never visited, and asked her to pick an artifact related to the Intelligence coming through her. Some accounts have him gleefully watching as Rose passed several statues of Horus with no indication. Finally, she spotted the Stele of Ankh-af-na-khonsu from a considerable distance and said that's the one. Crowley was astounded to discover that the exhibit number was 666, a number that he identified with as his life's work. Much later in England under oath at a court trial, Aleister told the judge that 666 was simply a number of the Sun. "You can call me Little Sunshine," he humourously proposed to the ponderous magistrate. Crowley renamed Cairo Museum's exhibit 666, the Stele of Revealing.
My intention was to psychometrize the Stele though I didn't have much of an idea of how to go about it. I just stood in front of it and tried to quiet and empty myself of all thought and be open to receiving any impressions. Nothing dramatic occurred. I experienced no visions or strong cognitions. After about 40 minutes of this I started becoming self-conscious and ended the experiment. I did feel like I was in a mildly altered state. You might expect to feel this way after meditating on anything for 40 minutes but this felt distinctly different like a vague, undefined opening of some sort had been made. Maybe it was "just my imagination" to quote the Rolling Stones quoting The Temptations.
I met up with Bill and Janet and we caught a taxi out to Giza spending the afternoon out by the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, and the not-as-great-but still-pretty-impressive lesser Pyramids - I forget their official names. A local tourist guide had a camel for tourists to get their picture taken on. Bill asked if I wanted to get on but I was still in far too much pain to undertake such a feat. He did snap a picture of me with the Great Pyramid in the background. It's a photo I've often used as a profile picture over the years.
We had just finished recording and photographing Jali Kunda, Griots of West Africa and Beyond - Bill Laswell, Janet Rienstra, John Brown, Daniel Laine and our host Foday Musa Suso comprised our group for this venture.
"There's some money left over in the budget, we're in Africa, where should we go for a few days? ... Mali?" Bill said.
Janet responded, " Let's go to Cairo and see the Pyramids."
I said, "Yeah, sure, sounds good to me!," thinking she was joking
"Ok, let's do it, let's go" Bill replied. Then I realized he was serious, but could hardly believe this incredible opportunity. It would give me the chance to visit the Stele of Revealing in the Cairo Museum. The Stele of Revealing, an ancient artifact, is the funerary stele of the priest Ankh-af-na-khonsu circa 8th century B.C. It played a prominent role in Aleister Crowley's reception of the Book of the Law (Liber Legis). Crowley had the text on the Stele translated and incorporated some of it into Liber Legis. It's a Thelemic altar piece.
I was very grateful to Bill and Janet for letting me tag along on this new African adventure.
We were flying out of Brikama, Gambia. To get to Cairo we had to go through Paris; we had a 2 day layover there. I was feeling feverish and sick but was determined to keep it together long enough to get to Egypt. A couple of days before we left Gambia, driving up through Guinea Bissau at the conclusion of a long and rewarding, recording roadtrip, our van got into a small accident with a tree. The road was so pockmarked with deep and treacherous potholes that you could only drive 35 mph right on the edge of the shoulder which had the least amount of potholes. The driver still had to negotiate this weather-beaten road like he was competing on a road rally obstacle course. At one point he lost control, slid off the shoulder and slammed directly into a tree. Being an alarmist in the face of disaster, I thought we could be done for. If not done for, much uncertainty as to when and in what condition we would return home, if ever. The part of Guinea Bissau we crashed in was known to be unstable . Some French tourists had been abducted in this region a month before. To my great relief, the van started up right away and the driver had no difficulty getting it out of the ditch and back on the road. I've never been more grateful to hear an engine turning over than I was at that moment. Also very grateful to travel in a solidly built vehicle that could withstand such a shock and drive out like nothing happened. Still not out of the woods at that point, we had to get to a small ferry crossing before it closed at dusk. The ferry had been taken over and was being run by the military due to recent unrest. The last ferry was set to launch as we pulled up. The soldiers told us we were too late to get on board, that we'd have to wait until the morning. Some cash quickly changed their minds. We were allowed on the ferry, and made it back to Brikama that evening. A couple of days later, when we got to Paris, I started feeling feverish and sick. Apparently I had incurred a slight internal injury as a result of the sudden jolt of the accident and the fever was a reaction to that. I wasn't going to let a small thing like a viral infection interfere with this rare opportunity to work with the Stele of Revealing.
It was Bill, Janet and I making this pilgrimage to Egypt. John Brown shepherded the field recording gear back to New York. Suso stayed with his family in Gambia. Our illustrious and inspired photographer, Daniel Laine returned with us to Paris where he lived. Later, Daniel drove us to his home for a visit. What I remember most about that visit was this incredible John Coltrane music he had playing in the car. It still seems like some of the most expressive and explorative music I've heard from Coltrane. Apparently it was Coltrane and group Live in Japan which also included Pharoah Saunders at that time. Someone said that this was Coltrane in his "acid phase."
cover of one of Daniel's books
My other vivid memory of that brief Paris visit was of walking the street just after it rained. Everything felt fresh and clean. It had gotten dark but was still early enough and warm enough to accommodate the hustle and bustle of shopkeepers and their clientele: fresh flower markets, wine stalls and delicious looking fresh bread and cheese. Praise be to the amenities of a first world country after a month in Africa! I felt incredibly, vitally alive despite my body having other issues. At 3am a driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us to Brussels where we caught a flight to Cairo.
Going through customs we had to purchase visitor visas. Bill pointed out a sign to me that said something to the effect that anyone caught with drugs would be executed on sight. The way it was worded made it sound even worse than that.
I wasted no time the first morning getting to the Cairo Museum to see the Stele of Revealing. The plan was to meet up with Bill and Janet in the afternoon and go out to Giza to see the Pyramids. We would stay the night at one of the most luxurious hotels I've ever been to, the Mena House Oberoi. The Mena House has a rich history playing host to such notables as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Cecil B. DeMille, Charlton Heston, Charlie Chaplin, and Winston Churchill among others. It was at the Mena House in 1977 where representatives for Egypt and Israel met to discuss a peace settlement which eventually lead to the Camp David Accord that has lasted to this day.
I got to the museum shortly after it opened, around 10am. I decided to check out the rest of the museum before finding the Stele of Revealing. It's hard to convey the experience of navigating the museum corridors surrounded and often dwarfed by the stone-carved statuary, monuments, tombs and artifacts of Ancient Egypt. I kept my eyes open for the Stele but didn't see it. It even took awhile to find when I started to deliberately search for it. Finally found it on the 2nd floor, a little out of the way. It still had it's own label from when Crowley and his wife Rose saw it in 1904 which gave the exhibit number as 666.
For those who don't know, the story goes that Aleister and Rose were visiting Cairo on their honeymoon when Rose uncharacteristically started having some kind of visions after Crowley performed a ritual Invocation. She started saying, "they are waiting for you. " After further investigations along those lines, Crowley determined that "the waiter was Horus," an Egyptian solar deity. He was still very skeptical so he plied Rose with a barrage of questions. All her answers indicated Horus despite having no conscious knowledge of Egyptology or occult subjects. Crowley took Rose to the Cairo Museum, which they had never visited, and asked her to pick an artifact related to the Intelligence coming through her. Some accounts have him gleefully watching as Rose passed several statues of Horus with no indication. Finally, she spotted the Stele of Ankh-af-na-khonsu from a considerable distance and said that's the one. Crowley was astounded to discover that the exhibit number was 666, a number that he identified with as his life's work. Much later in England under oath at a court trial, Aleister told the judge that 666 was simply a number of the Sun. "You can call me Little Sunshine," he humourously proposed to the ponderous magistrate. Crowley renamed Cairo Museum's exhibit 666, the Stele of Revealing.
My intention was to psychometrize the Stele though I didn't have much of an idea of how to go about it. I just stood in front of it and tried to quiet and empty myself of all thought and be open to receiving any impressions. Nothing dramatic occurred. I experienced no visions or strong cognitions. After about 40 minutes of this I started becoming self-conscious and ended the experiment. I did feel like I was in a mildly altered state. You might expect to feel this way after meditating on anything for 40 minutes but this felt distinctly different like a vague, undefined opening of some sort had been made. Maybe it was "just my imagination" to quote the Rolling Stones quoting The Temptations.
I met up with Bill and Janet and we caught a taxi out to Giza spending the afternoon out by the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, and the not-as-great-but still-pretty-impressive lesser Pyramids - I forget their official names. A local tourist guide had a camel for tourists to get their picture taken on. Bill asked if I wanted to get on but I was still in far too much pain to undertake such a feat. He did snap a picture of me with the Great Pyramid in the background. It's a photo I've often used as a profile picture over the years.
In the evening we assembled in the lobby of the Mena House before heading out into the night. Bill said, "Oz, I have something for you that will make you feel better," then gave me a small piece of blotter paper which I ate after a quick and silent consecration. This isn't something I normally do but it seemed like an extraordinary circumstance so I thought I'd follow the advice of the Guide and trust the situation. I did start to feel better quite soon but then rapidly started feeling a little too good for my body's comfort zone. I knew exactly what he'd given me, and through previous study, knew exactly what remedy to take to tone down the dosage. I didn't have any vitamin B12 with me, but was well aware that alcohol would act as a mild sedative so I had a couple of shots of whiskey to relax.
We didn't have any real plans so thought about going back to the Pyramids. Turns out that they cordon off the area and charge tourists admission to a laser light show they put on. We weren't interested in that so we told the cab driver to take us somewhere near the area. He took us to a street that ran along the eastern side of the Giza plateau. To our left, in the darkness, was the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Suddenly the Great Pyramid lit up in a brilliant dark green hue as the laser light show began. A soundtrack was blasting across the plateau with music that sounded like it could come from a Cecil B. DeMille epic over which a narrator was lecturing on the Ancient Egyptian pantheon in French. A sequence of changing colors continued to illuminate the night. I felt like I was in Disneyland but then remembered that this was one of the monuments of the Ancient World. The Pyramids had been co-opted by consumerism, this must be the end of the world, was how my reasoning proceeded at that time. For the rest of the night I had this feeling of living in end times.
To our right was a 2 story building that looked like a motel. A single street light revealed it's fluorescent blue color, very similar to the color of the adobe dwellings in Jajouka, Morocco where Bill and I had recorded the Master Musicians of Jajouka playing their Rites of Pan. No signage appeared on this "motel" except for large "A A " letters painted in black at the front top. The A .'. A .'. is the magical order founded by Crowley and George Cecil Jones in 1907 and still exists to this day. I am not a member. It still seemed strange to randomly end up at the AA motel after attempting to psychometrize the Stele of Revealing, an artifact of central importance to the A .'. A.'.
The aural landscape sounded equally rich. Besides the surreal melodramatic classical music and French narration recording electronically blasting across the plateau at full volume, we could also detect spirited acoustic music from just up the street. I had my DAT recorder with me and immediately got it out to record to this collaged, kaleidoscopic soundtrack to the end of the world. Unfortunately, the batteries needed changing - 6 double "A"s in an awkwardly fitting enclosure. They were challenging to quickly replace even under the best of circumstances such as, for instance, when the world wasn't ending. That night, for some reason, it was smooth and easy. The batteries just slid into place. "It worked," you can hear me say in surprise at the start of that recording.
You literally can hear this, if you like. I used some of this night's audio on the first track, titled What Is Your Job? from my cd All Around the World. Portions of it also appear later on the 8th track, Bells of Sacre Couer/ Showtime at Giza.
Janet, Bill and I proceeded up the street toward the live music. It sounded very similar to the Master Musicians of Jajouka. About 15 - 20 musicians were playing drums and raitas (high-pitched double-reed horns). Turns out they were playing the music for a dancing Arabian horse show. One by one, the dozen or so horses would take a turn doing their thing in the center of the circle. Except for us and about 4 other people, there weren't any spectators. Nearly everyone there seemed to be participating in the show. There also wasn't any separation between us and the horses waiting their turns. We were right beside them. They seemed incredibly high strung as if the riders were right at the edge of keeping them under control. The possibility of one of them losing it and kicking us seemed real. They were certainly within striking range. I could feel adrenaline pumping through my body. When the horses took center stage and did their thing, they danced with poise and grace. They were highly disciplined.
Horse is one of the animals that corresponds with Horus by qabalistic reckonings. The Stele of Revealing helps announce the new aeon of Horus by Thelemic reckonings. Dancing horses seems most appropriate.
After about an hour the show ended and we made our way back to the hotel. We had a late dinner then wandered around Mena House a bit taking in the luxurious but fading decor. Various interesting and unusual rooms or "chambers" appeared off the hallways we traversed such as the room full of hookah smokers, a light blue smoky haze floating above them exuding the pungent aroma of exotic tobacco. Another "chamber' reminded me of a beautiful treasure room I had once visited.
I rested for a few hours then got up early to record the ambience inside the Great Pyramid before we went back to central Cairo. Going up the stairs inside the pyramid I caught the chaotic, boisterous chattering and shouting of school kids on a tour. Inside the Kings Chamber it was very quiet. I tried to imagine where Crowley might have done the demonstration of magic he famously did there to impress his new wife, Rose, which produced an astral light. No sounds were happening to activate the chamber's acoustics so I clapped my hands a few times. These recordings also appear on my cd.
We didn't have any real plans so thought about going back to the Pyramids. Turns out that they cordon off the area and charge tourists admission to a laser light show they put on. We weren't interested in that so we told the cab driver to take us somewhere near the area. He took us to a street that ran along the eastern side of the Giza plateau. To our left, in the darkness, was the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Suddenly the Great Pyramid lit up in a brilliant dark green hue as the laser light show began. A soundtrack was blasting across the plateau with music that sounded like it could come from a Cecil B. DeMille epic over which a narrator was lecturing on the Ancient Egyptian pantheon in French. A sequence of changing colors continued to illuminate the night. I felt like I was in Disneyland but then remembered that this was one of the monuments of the Ancient World. The Pyramids had been co-opted by consumerism, this must be the end of the world, was how my reasoning proceeded at that time. For the rest of the night I had this feeling of living in end times.
To our right was a 2 story building that looked like a motel. A single street light revealed it's fluorescent blue color, very similar to the color of the adobe dwellings in Jajouka, Morocco where Bill and I had recorded the Master Musicians of Jajouka playing their Rites of Pan. No signage appeared on this "motel" except for large "A A " letters painted in black at the front top. The A .'. A .'. is the magical order founded by Crowley and George Cecil Jones in 1907 and still exists to this day. I am not a member. It still seemed strange to randomly end up at the AA motel after attempting to psychometrize the Stele of Revealing, an artifact of central importance to the A .'. A.'.
The aural landscape sounded equally rich. Besides the surreal melodramatic classical music and French narration recording electronically blasting across the plateau at full volume, we could also detect spirited acoustic music from just up the street. I had my DAT recorder with me and immediately got it out to record to this collaged, kaleidoscopic soundtrack to the end of the world. Unfortunately, the batteries needed changing - 6 double "A"s in an awkwardly fitting enclosure. They were challenging to quickly replace even under the best of circumstances such as, for instance, when the world wasn't ending. That night, for some reason, it was smooth and easy. The batteries just slid into place. "It worked," you can hear me say in surprise at the start of that recording.
You literally can hear this, if you like. I used some of this night's audio on the first track, titled What Is Your Job? from my cd All Around the World. Portions of it also appear later on the 8th track, Bells of Sacre Couer/ Showtime at Giza.
Janet, Bill and I proceeded up the street toward the live music. It sounded very similar to the Master Musicians of Jajouka. About 15 - 20 musicians were playing drums and raitas (high-pitched double-reed horns). Turns out they were playing the music for a dancing Arabian horse show. One by one, the dozen or so horses would take a turn doing their thing in the center of the circle. Except for us and about 4 other people, there weren't any spectators. Nearly everyone there seemed to be participating in the show. There also wasn't any separation between us and the horses waiting their turns. We were right beside them. They seemed incredibly high strung as if the riders were right at the edge of keeping them under control. The possibility of one of them losing it and kicking us seemed real. They were certainly within striking range. I could feel adrenaline pumping through my body. When the horses took center stage and did their thing, they danced with poise and grace. They were highly disciplined.
Horse is one of the animals that corresponds with Horus by qabalistic reckonings. The Stele of Revealing helps announce the new aeon of Horus by Thelemic reckonings. Dancing horses seems most appropriate.
After about an hour the show ended and we made our way back to the hotel. We had a late dinner then wandered around Mena House a bit taking in the luxurious but fading decor. Various interesting and unusual rooms or "chambers" appeared off the hallways we traversed such as the room full of hookah smokers, a light blue smoky haze floating above them exuding the pungent aroma of exotic tobacco. Another "chamber' reminded me of a beautiful treasure room I had once visited.
I rested for a few hours then got up early to record the ambience inside the Great Pyramid before we went back to central Cairo. Going up the stairs inside the pyramid I caught the chaotic, boisterous chattering and shouting of school kids on a tour. Inside the Kings Chamber it was very quiet. I tried to imagine where Crowley might have done the demonstration of magic he famously did there to impress his new wife, Rose, which produced an astral light. No sounds were happening to activate the chamber's acoustics so I clapped my hands a few times. These recordings also appear on my cd.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Legominisms
The first time I saw the image of Leary's head mentioned in the Talking Heads post I had the intuitive flash that he was trying to create a legominism, a lasting impression that communicates a great deal of extremely useful information for one brief but eternal moment.
A legominism is any kind of artifact that fufills such a purpose. The most well known legominism is the cruciform cross aka "the man on the cross." A quick, honest survey of the Christian religion clearly shows that this communication device can get misapplied and distorted into an authoritarian instrument of ideological restriction. It's not a given that the information in a legominism will get unlocked and decoded. Rosicrucians have been working with this same image, minus the dogmatic Christian associations, for a few hundred years at least.
Initiates in ancient times wanted some way to preserve and transmit their research notes, techniques and other relevant data that would be immune to barbaric destruction. They did pass on their information via books, and certain books definitely count as legominisms, but books have a tendency to periodically get destroyed enmasse. A lot of knowledge gets lost in that form. One of the blogs I follow, Michael Johnson's Overweening Generalist recently had a post about this here. The part I had in mind starts about 2/3rds of the way down with a mention of a book, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Baez, and continues into the comments section.
I first heard about legominisms from Gurdjieff's epic magnum opus Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson:
"My dear and beloved Grandfather, tell me, please, what does the word Legominism mean?" Hassein asked. "This word Legominism", replied Beelzebub, "is given to one of the means existing there of transmitting from generation to generation information about certain events of long-past ages, through just those three-brained beings who are thought worthy to be and who are called initiates.
This comes from chapter 25. Later, in chapter 30 he talks about making a legominism.
"'In any case, for the interpretation itself, or, as may be said, for the "key" to those inexactitudes in that great Law, we shall further make in our productions something like a Legominism, and we shall secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call initiates of art.
Robert Anton Wilson and myself have expressed the opinion that Gurdjieff and Crowley presented the same system in two completely different ways. A qabalist would see evidence to support this in the last quote.
I found further elaboration on this method of transmission in Visions in the Stone by E.J. Gold in chapter 17, The Ancient Science of Legominism:
Several esoteric societies through the ages have claimed to have discovered the psychometric secrets of the artifact - "Soorptkalknian Thought-Tapes" intentionally recorded in the mineral-kingdom-bodies of various ancient artifacts. ..
Soorptkalknian Thought-Tapes had for many years been attributed to contemporary intitiates in the Himalayas as the "telepathic-source-of-data" invountarily perpetuating the myth that artifact transmission of data is not ancient.
On the other hand, one cannot talk back to these recordings, nor ask questions. The data on how to implant these thought-tapes is embedded in some of the recordings.
The technique of reading these artifacts is called psychometry. Reading the images of tarot cards is a form of psychometry; the tarot itself counts as a legominism. Unlocking knowledge from artifacts is something anyone can attempt and eventually develop a skill at. It doesn't require advanced psychic abilities to begin. I liken it to skrying in the spirit vision after an Enochian invocation.
Various combinations of physical posture, mood, psychological attitude etc, can serve as keys for opening artifacts. This is explained, with examples given in Visions in the Stone. From chapter 16, Artifact Psychometrizing:
The man of will is able to voluntarily arouse emotions for the opening of artifacts. Every important esoteric artifact has its own obscure, humorous, or absurd key, some quite ingenious in their originality.
In his "autobiographical" account Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff claims to have received much esoteric wisdom from observing the sacred dances and sacred music at the Sarmoung monastery. After Gurdjieff died, J.G. Bennett went in search of this alleged Sufi Brotherhood based on information from Meetings... and was unable to locate it. Current wisdom holds that the Sarmoung Brotherhood was allegorical rather than literal.
From here:
Perhaps he was more truthful or literal with this statement:
In Meetings with Remarkable Men, Arkana 1985, p. 90 Gurdjieff writes: "What struck us most was the word Sarmoung, which we had come across several times in the book called Merkhavat. This word is the name of a famous esoteric school which, according to tradition, was founded in Babylon as far back as 2500 b.c., and which was known to have existed somewhere in Mesopotamia up to the sixth or seventh century a.d.; but about its further existence one could not obtain anywhere the least information.
The author of this site, Reijo Oksanen, then comments:
Merkhavat can most likely only refer to Merkavah, which is part of Jewish mysticism, thought to have existed from 100 B.C. until 1100. It is related to Gnosticism from those times and the Kabbalah, which is of medieval origin from Provence and Spain. The literature describing Merkavah is called Hekhalot, which means "heavenly hall" and this literature describes the seven chambers, their guardian angels, the Merkavah (chariot - the chariot is the one in Ezekiel's vision in chapter one of the book of Ezekiel) itself and the auditory and visual hallucinations induced by the Ma'aseh Merkavah.
It appears that Jewish mysticism played a prominent role in both Gurdjieff's and Crowley's systems.
It was suggested to me once by Jerry Berman, a curator of a museum of ancient artifacts, and an authority on ancient Egypt, that people who saturate themselves with knowledge and experience of a particular kind could be considered "artifacts" to be unlocked. I have found this approach quite useful on my rare encounters with extraordinary people. For an example, I'll repeat a story I told sometime back in this current context.
In 1990 or so I was fortunate to be in a group invited to have dinner with the famous expatriate writer Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco. I was there preparing to record the Master Musicians of Jajouka. I had researched Bowles' life before coming over. Besides earning a livelihood as a writer of such works as The Sheltering Sky, he had worked as an accomplished music composer writing music for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater group and Tennesee Williams among others. Bowles had established his bardo credentials translating Jean Paul Sartes' existential play No Exit into English. For a period in the 1940's, he had even worked as a field recording audio engineer traveling around Morocco and documenting the highly diverse local music. These recordings still exist in the Library of Congress. It was his field recording work that interested me the most. I was there to do the same thing.
Most of the time people in our group elicited from Bowles famous stories and adventures he had taken part in, stories well documented, information I already knew from research beforehand. All I got out of that was his confirmation of the written accounts. I hoped to unlock this "artifact" and learn something new. I felt this to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. When the chance came, I asked Bowles what he did, if anything, to inspire creativity in the musicians he records. His answer was very simple but is still something I follow to this day.
"Make them comfortable," he said. He then told a story of recording some female singers in a fundamentalist part of the country where alcohol was strictly taboo. They had requested some whiskey to help them sing. He risked his life procuring some for them but said the end result made it worthwhile.
Next up, I'll recount my adventures attempting to psychometrize the Stele of Revealing in Cairo.
A legominism is any kind of artifact that fufills such a purpose. The most well known legominism is the cruciform cross aka "the man on the cross." A quick, honest survey of the Christian religion clearly shows that this communication device can get misapplied and distorted into an authoritarian instrument of ideological restriction. It's not a given that the information in a legominism will get unlocked and decoded. Rosicrucians have been working with this same image, minus the dogmatic Christian associations, for a few hundred years at least.
Initiates in ancient times wanted some way to preserve and transmit their research notes, techniques and other relevant data that would be immune to barbaric destruction. They did pass on their information via books, and certain books definitely count as legominisms, but books have a tendency to periodically get destroyed enmasse. A lot of knowledge gets lost in that form. One of the blogs I follow, Michael Johnson's Overweening Generalist recently had a post about this here. The part I had in mind starts about 2/3rds of the way down with a mention of a book, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Baez, and continues into the comments section.
I first heard about legominisms from Gurdjieff's epic magnum opus Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson:
"My dear and beloved Grandfather, tell me, please, what does the word Legominism mean?" Hassein asked. "This word Legominism", replied Beelzebub, "is given to one of the means existing there of transmitting from generation to generation information about certain events of long-past ages, through just those three-brained beings who are thought worthy to be and who are called initiates.
This comes from chapter 25. Later, in chapter 30 he talks about making a legominism.
"'In any case, for the interpretation itself, or, as may be said, for the "key" to those inexactitudes in that great Law, we shall further make in our productions something like a Legominism, and we shall secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call initiates of art.
Robert Anton Wilson and myself have expressed the opinion that Gurdjieff and Crowley presented the same system in two completely different ways. A qabalist would see evidence to support this in the last quote.
I found further elaboration on this method of transmission in Visions in the Stone by E.J. Gold in chapter 17, The Ancient Science of Legominism:
Several esoteric societies through the ages have claimed to have discovered the psychometric secrets of the artifact - "Soorptkalknian Thought-Tapes" intentionally recorded in the mineral-kingdom-bodies of various ancient artifacts. ..
Soorptkalknian Thought-Tapes had for many years been attributed to contemporary intitiates in the Himalayas as the "telepathic-source-of-data" invountarily perpetuating the myth that artifact transmission of data is not ancient.
On the other hand, one cannot talk back to these recordings, nor ask questions. The data on how to implant these thought-tapes is embedded in some of the recordings.
The technique of reading these artifacts is called psychometry. Reading the images of tarot cards is a form of psychometry; the tarot itself counts as a legominism. Unlocking knowledge from artifacts is something anyone can attempt and eventually develop a skill at. It doesn't require advanced psychic abilities to begin. I liken it to skrying in the spirit vision after an Enochian invocation.
Various combinations of physical posture, mood, psychological attitude etc, can serve as keys for opening artifacts. This is explained, with examples given in Visions in the Stone. From chapter 16, Artifact Psychometrizing:
The man of will is able to voluntarily arouse emotions for the opening of artifacts. Every important esoteric artifact has its own obscure, humorous, or absurd key, some quite ingenious in their originality.
In his "autobiographical" account Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff claims to have received much esoteric wisdom from observing the sacred dances and sacred music at the Sarmoung monastery. After Gurdjieff died, J.G. Bennett went in search of this alleged Sufi Brotherhood based on information from Meetings... and was unable to locate it. Current wisdom holds that the Sarmoung Brotherhood was allegorical rather than literal.
From here:
Mark Sedgwick, the Coordinator, Unit for Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University writes:
Although few commentators in Gurdjief would put it so bluntly, it seems clear to me that the Sarmoung are entirely imaginary. No Sufi tariqa of such a name is known, and in fact "Sarmoung" is a typically Gurdjieffian fantastical name. It is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about regular Sufism that there is nothing remotely Sufi about the Sarmoung Order described by Gurdjieff.
We could surmise that the name 'sarmoung brotherhood' was not any formal institution but instead a title adopted by Gurdjief as a metaphor for great traditions handed down from the past that he had discovered in his travels, thus providing greater legitimacy and a historical anchor for his teachings.
His attempts to establish a link between the Brotherhood, ancient Sumer, and even "pre-sand Egypt", was an intriguing attempt at acquiring esoteric knowledge that had been passed down from antiquity
No one knows the source of Gurdjieff's teachings. It seems possible that he may have received his data from legominisms of various kinds particularly sacred music of which he appeared a lifelong student.
Perhaps he was more truthful or literal with this statement:
In Meetings with Remarkable Men, Arkana 1985, p. 90 Gurdjieff writes: "What struck us most was the word Sarmoung, which we had come across several times in the book called Merkhavat. This word is the name of a famous esoteric school which, according to tradition, was founded in Babylon as far back as 2500 b.c., and which was known to have existed somewhere in Mesopotamia up to the sixth or seventh century a.d.; but about its further existence one could not obtain anywhere the least information.
The author of this site, Reijo Oksanen, then comments:
Merkhavat can most likely only refer to Merkavah, which is part of Jewish mysticism, thought to have existed from 100 B.C. until 1100. It is related to Gnosticism from those times and the Kabbalah, which is of medieval origin from Provence and Spain. The literature describing Merkavah is called Hekhalot, which means "heavenly hall" and this literature describes the seven chambers, their guardian angels, the Merkavah (chariot - the chariot is the one in Ezekiel's vision in chapter one of the book of Ezekiel) itself and the auditory and visual hallucinations induced by the Ma'aseh Merkavah.
It appears that Jewish mysticism played a prominent role in both Gurdjieff's and Crowley's systems.
It was suggested to me once by Jerry Berman, a curator of a museum of ancient artifacts, and an authority on ancient Egypt, that people who saturate themselves with knowledge and experience of a particular kind could be considered "artifacts" to be unlocked. I have found this approach quite useful on my rare encounters with extraordinary people. For an example, I'll repeat a story I told sometime back in this current context.
In 1990 or so I was fortunate to be in a group invited to have dinner with the famous expatriate writer Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco. I was there preparing to record the Master Musicians of Jajouka. I had researched Bowles' life before coming over. Besides earning a livelihood as a writer of such works as The Sheltering Sky, he had worked as an accomplished music composer writing music for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater group and Tennesee Williams among others. Bowles had established his bardo credentials translating Jean Paul Sartes' existential play No Exit into English. For a period in the 1940's, he had even worked as a field recording audio engineer traveling around Morocco and documenting the highly diverse local music. These recordings still exist in the Library of Congress. It was his field recording work that interested me the most. I was there to do the same thing.
Most of the time people in our group elicited from Bowles famous stories and adventures he had taken part in, stories well documented, information I already knew from research beforehand. All I got out of that was his confirmation of the written accounts. I hoped to unlock this "artifact" and learn something new. I felt this to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. When the chance came, I asked Bowles what he did, if anything, to inspire creativity in the musicians he records. His answer was very simple but is still something I follow to this day.
"Make them comfortable," he said. He then told a story of recording some female singers in a fundamentalist part of the country where alcohol was strictly taboo. They had requested some whiskey to help them sing. He risked his life procuring some for them but said the end result made it worthwhile.
Next up, I'll recount my adventures attempting to psychometrize the Stele of Revealing in Cairo.
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