One of the world's Music Masters, Ustad Sultan Khan, passed away a couple of days ago. He was a Sarangi player and an incredible vocalist. His voice really sang out. I had the great fortune to work with him with the band Tabla Beat Science, a group formed by Bill Laswell, Zakir Hussein and Karsh Kale in the late '90's. Sultan Khan contributed beautiful soaring melodies balancing out the rhythmic intensity of TBS and adding to it a whole new dimension. The power of this music seemed to authorize transcendence of all planetary limitations and mundane concerns. At least that's how I heard it most of the time.
Sultan Khan's contribution to the music of the world was put well in a bollywood obituary:
His demise has marked the end of an era. The ‘Sarangi’ will no longer produce the same tune. The sufi probably will not sound as mystical as it sounded when Ustad sang. The soulful voice will never be heard again. But, Ustad will remain singing forever in our hearts. The songs he gave us, will forever be treasured.
Sultan Khan was always a pleasure and very easy work with. He was relaxed and unassuming but knew exactly how he wanted to sound including the type and amount of reverb he wanted on his voice. One of the greats!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Bob Dylan - Bringing the Woman to Life
I was 18 years young when Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone dramatically surfaced in my life and changed it forever. Had just finished 3 months of voluntarily living the life of a homeless wanderer hitchhiking back and forth between Vancouver and Calgary stopping off once or twice to get recharged at the ranch my Mother lived on in Vernon, B.C.
The homelessness came about during the summer of my 17th year, the last year of High School. Came home one day from school to find the locks on the doors changed and the windows locked. At that point, I was the only one living in that house, my roomates had moved out the month before. I did not pay that months rent; expected the damage deposit to cover it but apparently the Lord of that particular land thought otherwise. Naturally, I broke into my own home. Someone saw and called the cops who showed up and promptly arrested me in the belief I was a thief. They did get me for possession of pot and hash. Also had a "failure to appear" warrant due to a bureaucratic mix-up from another marijuana possession charge - the arresting officer put the wrong court number on the summons with result that I spent 5 days in jail.
While in jail, the Landlord got rid of everything in the house I used to live in. Friends managed to rescue my stereo, record collection and some clothes.
A month or so later, my legal issues were cleared up but decided to take a break from "trading my hours for a handful of dimes." So I lived off the land for the next 3 months until it got cold.
Sometime in October, 1977 I took got a job and rented a room to live in from a family near my work. One friend had stored my stereo which I retrieved. Another friend, who later unfriended me, refused to return my record collection saying I owed him rent. As luck would have it, I soon discovered that the local library to where I'd grown up had begun lending out records. Kind of absent-mindedly picked up Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. I heard it was supposed to be good.
Back home, I got into a receptive space, turned out the lights, put my headphones on and put the record on. It's quite impossible to describe exactly what happened next, suffice to say it was one of the most powerful peak musical experiences ever felt in this Universe by this one. I connected immediately and deeply with the street poetry of Like A Rolling Stone. I finally found someone else who had lived a similar street education and could articulate it so well. I'd been on my own since I turned 16. None of my peers, at that point, could relate to what that felt like. Dylan had quite obviously been there. I could hardly believe anyone else ha so profoundly found me. It seemed that the lyrics, accented and driven by Michael Bloomfield's searing guitar lines and Dylan's bright, loud harmonica, drew things out of my subconscious mind I barely, or never realized were there.
I've read interpretations that describe Like A Rolling Stone as bitter and cynical. I don't know, for me it resonated so strongly of joyful recognition for what it's like to die to childhood illusions and to directly confront and survive the beauty, brilliance, disappointments, twists and turns, ups and downs of the Real World in all its glorious, sometimes harsh, sometimes comic, always interesting Majesty. In short, I took it as a celebration of Life.
Comparisons have been made betwixt Dylan and Shakespeare. Never saw that myself, maybe because I don't know Shakespeare enough. I do know, with 99% certainty, that William didn't have an amplified electric guitar and harmonica to help him out. One commonality I do recognize: the beginning of Like A Rolling Stone's chorus, which Dylan and others (not long ago The Rolling Stones themselves) deliver with so many different kinds and degrees of passion in various recordings that it qualifies for ' the eight and ninety rules of art', seems a corollory question to Hamlet's famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be, that is the question..."
Timothy Leary asked another related question: "What is the question for which Life is the answer?" in his book What Does WoMan Want? Leary juxtaposes Dylan onto himself making him the protagonist in this autobiographical adventure:
The central plot is the Quixotic saga of an evolutionary agent, Dylan, a confused but sincere minstrel. He has been assigned to a primitive planet in the latter years of the Roaring 20th Century to perform those small but precise jiggles needed to cause chaos in the old, outmoded gene-pools, thus allowing creative individuals to start exploring and settling the next habitats. Dylan's mission is none other than to rediscover what woman really wants.
Leary seems to have had a hate/love relationship with Bob Dylan over the years. It couldn't have helped that Leary's wife Rosemary said that she learned everything she knew from Bob Dylan.
E.J. Gold also asks the question, 'what is it that a woman really wants?' in the chapter, Bringing the Woman to Life from the book The Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus:
With the deepest part of herself, with all her heart, she wishes to be found and to be known.
... warming her heart and bathing her in the intense radiation of total adoration.
Many of Dylan's songs seem to lyrically touch upon this theme but I actually hear it stronger in his harmonica playing. It often resonates with the active, functional manifestion of the magickal formula abbreviated YHVH, Yod, He, Vau, He ( explained in Crowley's, The Book of Thoth). This formula reads more like Yod Harmonica, Vau, Harmonica in Dylan's presentation but has the same intention as I hear it, to bring the woman to life.
A brilliant example of this occurs in the film I'm Not There in which 6 different actors portray Dylan's various character identities. The Like A Rolling Stone era Dylan is played by Cate Blanchett. No footage of the real Bob Dylan appears in the film, he's not there, except at the very end where he plays a lengthy harmonica solo to close the film.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Dustone Angel Photo
Kelly Rooney kindly and generously sent along the photo with the clearest image of the Dustone Angel. See for yourself.
There wasn't any smoke burning or any kind of Northern Lights type of phenomena occurring. It looks much closer than that, anyway. This apparition wasn't visible to the human eye, only showed up on camera. Its presence was sensed by Kelly. When she felt contact with it, all of her pain was lifted off, vanished and didn't return.
Three months ago, Healing Angels got blogged about here. Then I encounter a genuine contact experience, and it's connected with music as well. Makes you wonder ...
The Dustone website has launched. May it continue its work of "tootling the multitudes" with similar higher dimensional results.
There wasn't any smoke burning or any kind of Northern Lights type of phenomena occurring. It looks much closer than that, anyway. This apparition wasn't visible to the human eye, only showed up on camera. Its presence was sensed by Kelly. When she felt contact with it, all of her pain was lifted off, vanished and didn't return.
Three months ago, Healing Angels got blogged about here. Then I encounter a genuine contact experience, and it's connected with music as well. Makes you wonder ...
The Dustone website has launched. May it continue its work of "tootling the multitudes" with similar higher dimensional results.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Dustone Angel
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.
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.
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. "
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