Month: November 2020

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Symbols – unlocking the key

When human beings learn the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from their eyes

Manly P. Hall

At the end of October each year, there is a flurry of excitement. The night of the 31st October is when the veil between the apparent physical world and the spirit world, opens wide. Across much of the western world the people are encouraged to make light of it. Children dress in demonic costumes and roam the streets knocking on stranger’s doors. This one night is when the ‘stranger danger’ thought bomb does not explode in parent’s minds. Local neighbourhood spirits offer treats to entice and draw children in. It’s viewed as all ‘quite normal’, by people who see the world through the great veil to which Hall refers.

‘Good Christian families’ ( or at least those millions in the United States of America who label themselves so ), engage in this most Pagan of all festivals as if they were celebrating a night with Mickey Mouse.

Few people pose the question, ‘what if All Hallows Eve is real?’.

I use Halloween as an example of the state of consciousness of our current civilisation in the West. Whilst it is true that many Hindus and Tibetan Buddhists for instance, have a powerful understanding of symbology, in the West ancient symbols are ‘not real’ and are treated at best as fantasy and at worst, entertainment.

In the present day, many people have retreated into a safety zone of ‘agnosticism’. They just do not believe in gnosis or ‘union with God’. The gods they trust are thier senses. There is no question when demon possessed magicians achieve the impossible on their television screens. People stare in disbelief as if, for the first time, they cannot trust their own eyes. Scientific reasoning has a lot of undoing to do, for it denies us thoughts beyond the information received from the senses. Western education has worked hard to achieve this.

In an hypnotic ‘Dance of Shiva‘ the technologies of information have built a wall between the soul and senses. To be ‘sensible’ in the English language means to be straight cut – down to earth, whilst also meaning, able to use the senses. So strong is this blockage, that thoughts of the collective soul remain a distant social memory. It is not that the memory is forgotten, although some politcal regimes desire that, it is that our perception is deceived so that reality becomes merely a fantasy and explained away as ‘just a bit of fun’.

We are educated to believe that every effect has a cause; to be rational. From childhood, westerners have been taught that coincidences happen for no reason, ghosts are tricks of the imagination and objects do not move on their own; if you tread on a crack in the pavement the bear will not really eat you…it can all be explained. Sigmund Freud wrote an essay called ‘Determinism, Belief in Chance and Superstition’ in which it was claimed rational explanations cleared the unconscious mind of irrational interpretations of the world and life. According to June Singer in her book Boundaries of the Soul, this view has changed the course of education – a process which aims beningly to turn the light on in a darkened mind.

Freud’s belief that rational explanations clear the unconscious, in the words of June Singer, ‘translated into psychological term the voices of the Enlightenment that called for the elimination of superstitions, the mystical and the non-rational in the Western intellectual tradition.’ As a Jungian psycologist Singer is sceptical to this view and I would agree. Where will we be when we have explained away everything in conclusions that are just interpretations? If you are prepared to believe in the power of the unknown you will never ‘educate away’ the unconscious and the irrational. When symbols link us to these ‘Neverlands‘, our spine should tingle.

David and Goliath retold centuries later

A trip to an ancient Egyptian temple by a group of Europeans straight from breakfast on the Nile river cruise ship, enters world for the merely curious. The guide will lead them through heavy doors into a new world where extraordinary people, long ago once trod. More than that they left for us beautifully designed and constructed buildings encoded from floor to Heaven with cartouches and pictures in relief. The entry into the Holy of Hollies in Karnac’s great halls will make them pause merely to check their camera settings and what time the taxis pick them up for the boat.

Of course this small group should be given credit for making the effort to be there but how sad they make little effort to ask ‘what went on here and what is left of it now?’ Few will entertain the idea that Temples represent a journey for mortals into their body, soul and spirit.

picture credit: Flying Carpet Tours

There is a temple in a New York museum which was transport block by block from Egypt. A modern mystic, Lorna Burne who is familiar with angels from early childhood, reports that there is a spirit in this temple in great anguish. The spirit circles in endless frustration that the temple has been moved and needs to be returned. Tell archaeologists that and they are likely to do little more than laugh.

Just as Halloween is reduced to a social joke, so are most experiences of those who make sense of things without using their senses. It’s as if modern cultures need a way of holding off the forces which they distrust, like an ancient DNA memory of a fear of spiders, rats and snakes. It is as if we have repressed our fears into two rationalisations labelled good and bad, then explore one but not the other.

Many modern religionists express this dichotomy firmly with descriptions of the works of Satan on one hand and the love of Jesus on the other as if it was that simple. All mystics get to know Satan very well so as to overcome those elemental forces. Even when countries are at war, such as during the First World War, each hold their field services imploring favour to the same God! No contradiction is acknowledge since ‘the other side are Devils’, not us. Then both sides engage in mass slaughter, explained in their own minds as being on behalf of God. The killing is certainly not the work of the Devil. This is ignorance at it’s most extreme and most harmful.

Soldiers returning from war find it incredibly difficult to face ‘civilian life’ after this madness. Sometimes their families and that world have become so alien to them that many choose never to return, like the character of Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Soldiers have their eyes opened by Mars, the God of War and enter a reality that has been skinned of fantasy. It is truely horrific, but is more real than anything ever experienced.

I firmly believe that by getting to grips with the ancient mythical descriptions of ‘mind’ and the human condition through the powerful symbols of the past and present, the possibilit open now for western culture to embrace our personal and collective unconscious.

A series of books by the author Dan Brown bears testament to this popular mood to understand symbols and the hidden worlds to which they allude. Albeit he shrouds his messages as ‘entertainment’, he perhaps knows or hopes that many an ‘agnostic’ might be moved by the power of the non-rational. In an age when even the scientists are building their theories of the contradictory laws of quantum physics, we should at least be open to the wealth of knowledge contained in the improbable.

Symbols are a massively important language for the mind. In a subtle way, the power of poetry is the same as symbols. Poets hint sideways at realities with few words, just as symbols point us to new understandings with no words.

Carl G. Jung was perhaps the most famous psychologist who opened up symbols as a reputable field of study and in particular dream interpretation. He used the study of his own dreams as well as patients, to gain insight into the personal and the collective psyche, the latter which he termed the ‘collective unconscious’.

Symbols dig deep into this unconsciousness, of which modern man was once most fearful but today, in my view, needs to be less so. Symbols not so much ‘explain’ as knock down row after row of balanced dominoes in an unexpected way to produce unintended effects that you might call ‘realisations’.

The plots of the Dan Brown novels are just such a cascade of ‘clue solving’. Through the broad knowledge of symbols by the character Professor Robert Langdon, mysteries are revealed in rapid twists and turns of the plot.

If psychosis is a surfacing of unconscious fears, then symbols enable that to happen as well. Perhaps the fear of that is the process most inhibiting understanding today. Ancient wisdom is wrapped up and scurried away by people of religion, so that it’s power is denied the possession of the people. We are told how damaging such knowledge is and how it is ‘the work of the Devil, aliens and Satanic cults, not for popular consumption and well past it’s sell-by date’.

The Vatican Secret Archives are themselves a symbol of this sublimation of sacred wisdom deemed never to surface into the minds of the common people. Beyond the political secrets and records of shameful past and present actions, you would like to think that mankind will benefit more, that be caused harm, by revealing the archive’s contents to the public.

Unfortunately, the battle between the Angels and the Demons takes place right before all of our eyes, if we looked. Even such things scientifically real as the present Covid virus is demonic in character. Viruses are hidden and not understood but powerful and with the ability to kill innocent humans. In this description we can see the description of the malign demi-god of ancient myth, the dragon that inhabits the cave and eats villagers, Count Dracula who enters a country and seeks it’s vulnerable female victims blood, Sleeping Beauty who falls under the spell of the witch and is put in a coma like a hospital patient.

The V1 and V2 rockets of Nazi Germany were powerful killing machines and inspired by the occult secrets of the ancients, as much as by likes of team of rocket scientists.

All of these encounters with demons and angels are happening and as real today, in my view, as they were in the past. The ancient Greeks saw the sun and the moon just as we do. The only difference is that we see them as a nuclear explosion and an empty rock rather than giving them respect for the way they command our every waking moment. The joy of life is dependent entirely on the gift of the sun’s rays depicted by the ancient Egyptians as a straight line from the sun, with an Ankh symbol at the end of each life giving ray of light.

Such symbols may never totally be understood by modern man because historical cycles move in spirals, not circles, but we do have symbols of our own that echo insignts from our ancestors. Understanding our own selves and our environment is key to the sustainability of our technological societies. Modern life is an Odyssey into a world of Sirens and Whirlpools, just as real as it ever was for Odysseus. Hold tight!

Centre

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The Beautiful Centre

The Centre is a special place that contains as many mysteries as explanations…but what kind of centers do I mean? Well, the center is in our body-mind unity and extends between the centre of the Earth and infinity. Let us start with ourselves.

We are born with a placenta connected from the centre of our bodies, to our mother. This physical centre remains true for the rest of our lives, yet our mind also has a centre as does our spiritual being. The centre of our consciousness is not necessarily in our heads. Acrobats, gymnasts, martial artists will all give you an explanation derived from their experience. To turn and tumble under complete control, our consciousness needs to be somewhere other than our heads. For the Karate adapt, the Hara is again the navel or the sacral chakra from where the body finds it’s centre. Control of the Hara fixes the practitioner to a single axis or centre of gravity and from this position a balanced and grounded attack can be made, or a defense.

The Dervish in the Sufi tradition spins on the left rotating foot whilst pushing with the other. The experience is to be removed from the visible world or ‘dunya’ and moved vertically on the axis of turning into another realm. The analogy is that the dervishes become like planets as they spin around the Sun, who is the guide, the Sheikh.

Psychologically, the process of becoming adult is similar. As children we tend to run out of control, wobble and fall, like spinning plates left too long. We need adults to check what we do when we edge close to the metaphorical cliff. We are not centred. In maturity we find our balance and with balance a centre. Unlike a pair of scales, the centre is in three or more dimensions, but the analogy works.

If we become too absorbed in a particular activity, such as work or family, or leisure, we neglect other parts of our lives. We indeed neglect our full potential as human beings because the art of being balanced is more important than excelling in one particular area of life. This is contrary to what modern societies tend to expect. We are encouraged to specialise and repeat patterns until we can execute a skill perfectly. This is the process taught to factory workers, concert pianists, teachers, parents or any other career or social position. Time spent on these activities usually is at the cost of other responsibilities. So it is that modern managers will consider the work and life ‘balance’ of employees. It is recognised that becoming a grand master at chess is all very well but creates a lesser human if other simple tasks are not understood, such as working the washing machine or understanding another human’s emotions.

picture credit: KCP International

One technique for becoming ‘centered’ is found in both Eastern and Western spiritual practice. The former emphasises the importance of concentration when awake and alert and not becoming distracted by day dreams. Concentration is sometimes taught by training the body before the mind. Students of Zen Buddhism will sit in Za Zen for hours whilst supervised by a master. No movement or involvement in a mental or physical distraction is tolerated. If an earth quake occurred the class should remain motionless. The point is that all that occurs in the world is an illusion that must not be taken seriously, even when catastrophe is imminent. Some deaths cannot be avoided by running, therefore sitting is taking ones noble and inner strength with one into Paradise.

In the West, monks and nuns will sit in contemplation, having already put themselves outside of the world. Although less emphasis is placed on ‘illusion’ the seeker is directed to concentrate on the Divine. The ‘God Head’ is and represents a fixed point, to which the seeker becomes attached in their whole being. By this process all attachment to the outer perceived world falls away as unimportant. The contemplative becomes centred by fixing consciousness to an unmoving presence.

This apparent ‘stillness’ is characteristic of the part of the mystery of the centre. The geographic poles on the spinning earth are not moving at one thousand miles per hour as is the case at the equator. They are the still place which encompasses all directions whilst being themselves directionless.

Throughout time and place humans have found it necessary to identify ‘centers’ outside their bodies.

As the word suggests, the ‘hearth’ in the home is both the centre of the ‘earth’ and the ‘heart’. It generally contains fire as a loyal servant to social well being and survival. It cooks food, warms water and the space around it, giving the householders good reason to gather around.

The village or town containing these homes, will also have a designated ‘centre’. It may deserve that title as a spiritual centre, an administrative centre, a social centre, a business centre, a defensive centre from invaders and other functions.

In ancient times the centre was marked with a significant natural feature such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. So sacred is this ‘centre’ that three major religions revere it ‘s significance as the place where God created the world and the first man ‘Adam’.

In even earlier times societies were sensitive not only to the ‘spirit of the place’ but to a ‘cosmological order’. The ancient Egyptians had a canon of harmonies which Plato referred to in Laws which kept Egyptian society consistently for thousands of years. John Michell refers to this order in his book ‘At the Centre of the World’ p165;

‘The occurrence at different times throughout the world of similarly organised twelve-tribe societies, focused upon a rock, a sanctuary and a sacred king, can only be due to the influence of a common prototype, which must be that traditional code of number and proportion which constitutes the best possible more rational and inclusive image of essential reality’.

In other words, the centre of the sovereign nation is determined geometrical according to harmonious proportions. Stonehenge in Southern England is a good example of a centre conceived as a circle with twelve divisions. It connects visually with the Universe by alignment with the sun and moon, stars and planets placing the observer / worshiper, firmly at the centre of all things.

The supreme example of a geographic centre is the pyramids on the Giza Plateau which occupy the exact centre of the landmasses of the continents at 30 degrees north.

The geometry of Divine symbolism is a large subject if little understood in the modern world. Towns and cities are conceived for rational reasons of economy and function. If there is a sacred centre to a town it is because it’s ancient forefather conceived it so. In the United States of America the city of Washington is such an example of the application of sacred principles and geometry in city planning, but such examples are rare in the land that built according to ‘the grid’.

In not caring to create sacred centers in our buildings, towns, cities and countries, we are not caring to be ‘centred’ in ourselves. For we are intimately connected with the spaces we occupy whether they are inside buildings, inside the spaces buildings create or within the landscape and cosmos.

As an architectural student in the 1970’s some of my tutors disliked my use of geometry, symmetry and proportion in my designs. Organic shapes were also ‘taboo’. I was told very strongly to design using only right angles and grid patterns, presumably because they had been taught that themselves. They respected only maximising the performance of materials, ignoring the third of Vitruvian principles of architecture which are durability, utility and beauty.

As citizens of the modern world we have learnt only function and forgotten, or care not, to make our buildings and public spaces beautiful.

The change that has to come is for us to enter the centers of ourselves. When we speak from our hearts our social fabric will evolve to transform those places that we hold precious. That is, in my view, the direction for the citizens of the 21st century, but first we must start within ourselves.

‘Go sweep out the chamber of your heart.
Make it ready to be the dwelling place of the Beloved.
When you depart out,
He will enter it.
In you,
void of yourself,
will He display His beauties.

Mahmud Shabistari 14th century Sufi poet

1+2=3

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Science and philosophy are contrary subjects yet strangely complimentary; after all, they are both exploring the same thing…the Universe.

If philosophers are generalists then scientists study detail. Building up on detail, philosophers gain a knowledge and understanding of the way ‘things work’ based on ‘all and everything’. Inspired by generality, scientist drill down into new unexplored places.

But it does not have to be so polarised as that. We can be more ‘nuanced’ about their relationship. History shows us that science sometimes makes great leaps when scientists turn philosophers. Einstein’s General and Special theories of Relativity are an example of that. Innovators in the scientific community are often those whose interests and hobbies include the arts. Look out for the professor with the vivid bow tie and red shoes. He or she is the one most likely to be able to peep over the fence into the garden containing all things ‘artistic’. They may even have the key to the connecting gate.

Some of the greatest minds who ever lived are celebrated as both artists and scientist. Perhaps the best known example is Leonardo de Vinci and his stable mates in the Renaissance. To look after a forest you sometimes have to look down on it from the mountain top, whilst other times tending the specific needs of each tree, branch and twig.

Such a way of working is the way of a wise person. They will have seen a lot of life and understand that trees are trees, from whatever distance you view them. This ‘third place’ or trintessence, is the sacred child of both art and science. It is unique and special and often has no name and does not enter thought for that reason.

But it is vital to take notice of the fact that frequently there is a magic third element springing from the fusion of two complimentary opposites.

One only needs to refer to Christian theology and the coming together of the concept of the Trinity. It obeys the phenomenon that two ‘opposite’ forces conflate to produce a third mysterious new entity.

I remember my rather sanctimonious aunt leaning over from the pew behind me when I was a boy and asking what parts made up the Trinity. I replied parrot fashion; ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’.

But then I was the boy who drew a parrot on the chalk board in the class room with a speech bubble containing religious words. I have always had a problem with those who repeat words without understanding. Now in old age I can see that how the Trinity is created in not just Christianity but in the many mystical traditions that underpin religions.

The Father and Son are two huge archetypes from which all of creation emanates. The son sits on the right hand of God and the two make a very special SWAT (special weapons and techniques) team. Because God cannot enter the gross material world physically, he sends his ‘go to’ helper. Whatever incarnation the son may appear in (Apollo, Hermes, Ra and so on) he is always the same perfected entity who returns to earth on a mercy mission.

But the ‘double act’ needs something else, some other essence that ‘makes things move’. Examine the equation e=mc2. The energy (e) could be understood as the infinitely expansive Creator of all things including and especially ‘thought’. The material element (m) is the ‘Redeemer’ who comes to a physical Earth on a mission. The spectacular mystery is that both energy and matter obey a third rule and constant – c, or the ‘Holy Spirit’.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a dove. She is an untransmutable bird who visits all of those in need, as a helper and producer. Without the aid of the holy spirit, stuff would just not change and move on. Noah would still be in a flood.

She is the flux element that stabilises and goes beyond the relationship between matter and energy. It can do this because it is their product. How apt that the United Nations chose to have a dove on their flag. They brought together the energy and matter of warring nations in peace.

Pre-Christian theological and philosophical ideas encapsulated the same Trinity of archetypes, only using different names.

Plato realised that matter and energy combine in a third essence which was named the ‘aether’ or ‘ether’. This mysterious third element persisted throughout the centuries. It was embraced by the Alchemists as being the ultimate symbol and tool of perfection, the philosopher’s stone. Without this ancient concept of an invisible third element that pervades all things – even outer space – then early scientists like Sir Isaac Newton (an avid Alchemist) may never have germinated the seeds of modern scientific thought.

Today scientist’s view the ether as belonging to and explaining the existence of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. We are told that the former occupies 4% of the Universe we can perceive with our senses and instruments. The rest cannot be perceived or measured.

When philosopher’s understand that scientists are ‘in the soup’ over where the Universe is i.e. where dark energy lives, they can be excused for not offering an explanation. All that is dark as ‘e’ and ‘m’ exists in the area of their product as a constant. It is neither matter nor energy but a mathematical / geometrical immutable mystery.

To continue the list of ancient ‘trinities’, Osiris and Isis inhabited the Temples of Ancient Egypt. In their story that have a son who is Horus – a divine child sometimes depicted on the knee of his nursing mother as a baby. The infant child is a accurate depiction of the product of two energies. They produce an asexual, passive being without transgression, action or thought. It is the constant that held together successive dynasties in the land of Egypt for thousands of years. Horus the Divine child – inspired the constructions of matter such as the pyramids in such a way and as such supreme manifestations of thought and understanding, that their presence in the material world has an ‘eternity’ about them. That eternity is most purely expressed in mathematics, which is why the Pyramid of Cheops in Gaza is built with such precision. It is truly aligned to the points of the compass, particular stars including the sun, underground tellurgic currents and stands in the physical centre of the land masses of the globe. This is as close to being ‘constant’ as is ever likely to be achieved on this earth.

Perhaps the greatest two archetypes ever to unite, with their product being a ‘trinity’ is the Hermetic law of male and female. The Hermetics believe that not only does this duality exist on Earth but in every parallel dimension. We see nature using these subtly similar yet different archetypes to the full, not merely for sexual reproduction but at emotional, intellectual, and behavioural levels of existence. All animals such as mammals depend on their parents in their conception, incubation and infancy but eventually they ‘fly the nest’ and become a free independent entity. They are the same as their genetic parents and yet – as Charles Darwin observed – they are empowered by an improvement on their parents.

We are therefore each an expression of the ‘third essence’ in our own uniqueness as a being. Fired by the holy constant ‘c’, we each of us contain the possibility to transcend our material (body) and energetic (spirit) limitations. As infinite souls (c) we will never experience death and will move gently into perfection at the right hand of God. Human bodies are not designed for longevity but give just enough time for experience and reflection on what does not change in life; what is constant. That is why Zen masters feel the ecstasy of a falling leaf. In every Universe, leaves fall.

The tri-essence knows that it has a future greater than it’s individual parts, and for this reason has a good chance at realising perfection. This perfection is the great mysterious tunnel that souls follow into the constant realm of the ‘after life’.

It is a bourne from where most travellers do return, just to get one more bite of the forbidden fruit; one more chance to become greater than the sum of it’s parts.

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The Platonic Pyramid (above) is decimal. The top half of the pyramid is the Trinity. The lower part (7) is also sacred and another subject!

The Alchemical Trinity

soul (c)

body (m) spirit (e)