The Restoration of Symmetry: The Philosopher's Stone

The illustration for Michael Maier's 21st alchemical Emblem
from Atalanta Fugiens, by Swiss engraver, Matthäus Merian, 1617.
(All images in this post can be clicked for their original, larger size.)

The Philosopher's Stone

"Make of the man and woman a Circle, of that a Quadrangle, of this a Triangle, of the same a Circle and you will have the Stone of the Philosophers.

...In like manner the Philosophers would have the Quadrangle reduced into a Triangle, that is, into a Body, Spirit and Soul, which three appear in the three previous colours before Rednesse: that is, the Body or earth in the Blacknesse of Saturn, the Spirit in the Lunar whitenesse as water, and the Soul or air in the Solar Citrinity. Then the Triangle will be perfect, but this again must be changed into a Circle; that is, into an invariable rednesse, by which operation the woman is converted into the man and made one with him, and six the first of the perfect numbers is absolved by one, two having returned again to an unity in which there is Rest and eternall peace."

- From Emblem 21 of Michael Maier's alchemical test, Atalanta fugiens, 1617.

"The theoretical roots outlining the stone’s creation can be traced to Greek philosophy. Alchemists later used the classical elements, the concept of anima mundi, and Creation stories presented in texts like Plato's Timaeus as analogies for their process. According to Plato, the four elements are derived from a common source or prima materia (first matter), associated with chaos. Prima materia is also the name alchemists assign to the starting ingredient for the creation of the philosopher's stone. The importance of this philosophical first matter persisted throughout the history of alchemy. In the seventeenth century, Thomas Vaughan writes, "the first matter of the stone is the very same with the first matter of all things".

- From the Wiki entry for Philosopher's Stone.

"Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom believed that if a physician could establish harmony among the elements of earth, fire, air, and water, and unite them into a stone (the Philosopher's Stone) symbolized by the six-pointed star or two interlaced triangles, he would possess the means of healing all disease. Dr. Bacstrom further stated that there was no doubt in his mind that the universal, omnipresent fire (spirit) of Nature: "does all and is all in all." By attraction, repulsion, motion, heat, sublimation, evaporation, exsiccation, inspissation, coagulation, and fixation, the Universal Fire (Spirit) manipulates matter, and manifests throughout creation. Any individual who can understand these principles and adapt them to the three departments of Nature becomes a true philosopher."

- From the The Secret Teachings of all Ages by Manly P. Hall, 1929.

"Associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking is the phenomenon of symmetry restoration. If one heats a system that possesses a broken symmetry it tends to be restored at high temperature. ... Above the critical temperature the system exhibits rotational symmetry. Such a transition from a state of broken symmetry to one where the symmetry is restored is a phase transition. We believe that the same phenomenon occurs in the case of the symmetries of the fundamental forces of nature. Many of these are broken at low temperatures. Very early in the history of the universe, when the temperature was very high, all of these symmetries of nature were presumably restored. The resulting phase transitions, as the universe expanded and cooled, from symmetric states to those of broken symmetry have important cosmological implications."

- An excerpt from David J. Gross's The role of symmetry in fundamental physics, 1996.

***

I suppose the "Restoration of Symmetry" seems like a rather coldly analytical approach to Love, but, for a "geometer moth"  - that is, those of us for whom connecting-the-dots, so to speak, is an integral part of our nature - finding the hidden codes which help describe the world in which we live is not so much what we do, but what we are. And, like the geometrid, we do not tenaciously hide this information from view - as if it were knowledge we, alone, had access to - but, instead, wear the information on our metaphorical wings... or the skin of our backs. That is to say, we display information; we are unable to secret it away.

A contemporary glyph for Maier's diagram shown in his 21st emblem (above).*

Symmetry is a word that has tremendous importance in the world of science - in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and, yes, even philosophy - in which its definition varies somewhat, but, ultimately, refers to the similar phenomenon one finds in art and geometrical figures. Basically, it refers to physical parts, properties, or processes which are equivalent in two or more directions. The circle is a figure which, for instance, is geometrically equivalent in all directions, and is thereby described as having rotational symmetry. The Philosopher Stone glyph shown above - a modern interpretation of German alchemist (and counsellor to Emperor Rudolf II) Michael Maier's emblem (circa 1617) (artist unknown) - has bilateral symmetry, in that if a line is down its center, each side is exactly equivalent to the other, although seen in reverse. This can also be referred to as reflective symmetry as one side effectively mirrors the other.

A Mojo Magic Square (with update)

Mojo Magic Square - digital - © 1981, 2014, DS

(click to enlarge)

"Mojo is magic, magical ability, and the power to get things done. "Mojo" first appeared in the 1920s in the southern United States from the Gullah word "moco" (magic), Gullah being Creole spoken by some groups of African-Americans.  The ultimate root of "mojo" was the word "moco'o," which means "shaman or medicine man" in the African language Fulani.  "Mojo" spread first into mainstream Black English and then general usage primarily through the popularity of jazz and blues music.  Muddy Waters got his 'Mojo working' and Jim Morrison of The Doors called for the Mojo Risin'."
- Quote found here.

"Think joie de vivre, that sense of being alive, joyful, and fully present in the moment. The path to finding your mojo differs for everyone. For some, mojo is a sense of purpose and meaning in your life. For others, it’s reclaiming optimal health or sparking their creativity. Some seekers find mojo by getting in touch with the divine, while others get their mojo by getting in touch with their sexual prowess. For many, it’s all of the above."
- Quote found here.

"So what is a mojo? It is, in short, the staple amulet of African-American hoodoo practice, a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. The word is thought by some to be a corruption of the English word "magic." Others state that it is related to the West African word "mojuba," meaning a prayer of praise and homage, as it is a "prayer in a bag" - a spell you can carry. A third possible derivation is from the Bantu/Kongo word "mooyoo," the magically-charged ashes and ground up bones of an ancestor that are encased in the front of a nkisi ndoki - a fetish-statue made in the form of a human being or animal. This connection with the bones of the dead is interesting, because historically, many mojo hands have indeed contained small bones, either of animals or of humans.

Some root workers top off their mojo bags with parchments upon which are printed medieval European grimoire seals and sigils of talismanic import, particularly the Jewish-derived seals from the Greater Key of Solomon and The 6th and 7th Books of Moses, both of which are sold as sets of seals printed on parchment paper, and are used without reference to the rituals given in the texts of the original grimoire books.

These last items surprise many Caucasians, who are unaware that a strong vein of Germanic and Ashenazi Jewish folklore runs through traditional African-American hoodoo. Still, however strange it may seem to cultural anthropologists in search of "African survivals" in hoodoo practice, it is a fact that John George Hohman's "Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend" - first published in America in 1820 and translated into English in 1856 - has long been a staple source of inspiration for conjure-workers in both the African-American and European-American Appalachian traditions, and many a black hoodoo practitioner can cite chapter and verse of "Albertus Magnus," "The Black Pullet," "Secrets of the Psalms," "The 6th and 7th Books of Moses," "8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses," and other occult books of European origin."
- From an article found on Lucky Mojo.

A Sator Magic Square in Oppède, France.

"The earliest dateable Sator Square was found in the ruins of Pompeii, which was buried in the ash of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Examples may be found carved on stone tablets or pressed into clay before being fired. Its translation has been the subject of speculation with no clear consensus.

It seems that, in all early examples, it is a Rotas Square that reads "ROTAS OPERA TENET AREPO SATOR" from top to bottom, and from left to right.

The Sator Square is a four-times palindrome, and some people have attributed magical properties to it, considering it one of the broadest magical formulas in the Occident. An article on the square from The Saint Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. 76, reports that palindromes were viewed as being immune to tampering by the devil, who would become confused by the repetition of the letters, and hence their popularity in magical use....

The square has reportedly been used in folk magic for various purposes, including putting out fires (the spell is "TO EXTINGUISH FIRE WITHOUT WATER" in John George Hohman's Long Lost Friend), removing jinxes and fevers, to protect cattle from witchcraft, and against fatigue when traveling. It is sometimes claimed it must be written upon a certain material, or else with a certain type of ink to achieve its magical effect."
- From the Wiki Sator Square entry.

***

Well, it's officially a new year in the western world, but, in the Far East, the lunar new year doesn't occur till February 2nd. (More about that later...) So, it's a relative thing, and if your "mojo" isn't quite working the way you'd like it to, you've got a whole month to get yourself in gear. Now, while "gear" isn't necessarily the operative term when defining the word mojo, dynamo, or dynamic kind of is; so, in the last analysis, you know your mojo is working when your inner world is moving seamlessly in synch with the outer world. My guess is, if one can get that down, then, regardless of all the circumstances beyond one's control, he or she will be A-OK... and as much of a contender in this game of life as anyone else is.

As it happens, mojo is a word that's been used - in various corrupted forms - quite a lot in recent years. Originally it was Hoodoo charm (although not to be confused with this hoodoo) bringing good luck and psychic protection to its bearer. Now, it's a catchword most commonly utilized by motivational speakers, executive coaches, "life" coaches, and self-help gurus when describing formulas for increasing ones productivity*, particularly in the workforce.

But, just exactly what do I mean by the word Mojo?

Mojo is animism... the dynamic energy fluctuation that makes an organism tick. If ones wiring is in top form, ones inner force pulls back and then moves forward in sync with ones conscious desires and motivations. In other words, ones Mojo is "working". On the other hand, if ones wiring has gone awry - for instance, in the case of a series of set-backs, intense trauma or injury of any kind, or just plain chronic disappointment - then ones Mojo is thrown off its game. It isn't as if you've lost it... it's that it's blocked from true expression; in other words, it's broken.

Case in point: the magic square (first image above) is something I've had on my desktop for the past 2 years. Why is this? Well, that's a good question! Before this period, I had just gone through a series of unfortunate events, and was holed up in an unfamiliar town with absolutely no clue - and no hope - for a "brighter future." Without going into details, my mojo was, in fact, at the lowest point of its existence...

Revitalizing Vitalism; A Thought Experiment

"Aura" - digital/fractal - 2012, Renate S.

(Click on all images to enlarge)

Vitalism

1. a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from physicochemical forces

2. a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining

 - Definition of Vitalism

"He goes on to show how the particular properties of consciousness might arise from the physical laws that govern our universe. And he explains how these properties allow physicists to reason about the conditions under which consciousness arises and how we might exploit it to better understand why the world around us appears as it does.

For Tegmark, this paradox suggests that his mathematical formulation of consciousness is missing a vital ingredient. “This strongly implies that the integration principle must be supplemented by at least one additional principle,” he says.

- From the article: "Why Physicists Are Saying Consciousness Is A State Of Matter..."


"Barušs wrote: "Scientific materialism assures us that reality is a meaningless, incidental, mechanistic, collocation of improbable events."

He summarized some of the ways in which the materialist interpretation of reality has already broken down: quantum events are seen to be non-deterministic; time is no longer linear, as effects have been shown to precede their causes; particles change position depending on where one looks or what one decides to measure.

Finally, he said, “Materialism cannot explain … the sense of existence that people have for themselves.”

- From an August 20 article: 8 Scientists Contemplate Place of Human Consciousness in Science  (New quote just found, August 22; hat-tip to Bruce Duensing!)

***

"Throughout the ages men have been intuitively aware of such a center. The Greeks called it a man's inner Daimon, in Egypt, it was expressed by the concept of Ba-soul; and the Romans worshipped it as the "Genius" native to each individual..."

- from: "Seeing With The Mind's Eye: The History, Techniques and Uses of Visualization", 1975,  Michael and Nancy Samuels

"Is the earth dead or alive? The ancient cultures of east and west and the native peoples of America saw the earth as a mother, alive, active, and responsive to human action. Greeks and Renaissance Europeans conceptualized the cosmos as a living organism, with a body, soul, and Spirit, and the earth as a nurturing mother with respiratory, circulatory, reproductive, and elimination systems. The relationship between most peoples and the earth was an I-thou ethic of propitiation to be made before damming a brook, cutting a tree, or sinking a mine shaft. Yet for the past three hundred years, western mechanistic science and capitalism have viewed the earth as dead and inert, manipulable from outside, and exploitable for profits. The death of nature legitimated its domination. Colonial extractions of resources combined with industrial pollution and depletion have today pushed the whole earth to the brink of ecological destruction."

- From "Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World" - 1992, Carolyn Merchant.

"But what is it that shamans 'see' or 'know'? Shamanism is a kind of spiritual technology. It is a technology that is based on the animistic worldview much in the way that physical technology is based on the modern scientific worldview. Unlike modern science, however, which is based on the search for uniform laws that work the same way for everyone, shamanism has literally infinite forms of expression -- just as art, inspired creation, can take literally infinite forms and there are infinite cultural styles of art, yet the word "artist," like the word "shaman," has a cross-cultural meaning. (Indeed, art itself originated as a tool and expression of the shaman. Shamans are a kind of inspired artist, channeling a common source of spiritual energy in their own unique ways. Art as merely decorative is a modern, desacralized echo of the real purposes of art.) "

- from an article: Indigenous Shamanism, Animism, and the Spirits (by "Gayle") found here.

***

"Without an active agent, an ordering center, or an Intelligence, "consciousness" becomes a rather hollow proposition; another one of those phenomena which, if merely viewed as another mechanical quality arising from matter, has no intrinsic meaning. It has no "cause" and is no cause. It will not build a ship, invent a car, nor drive it. It will simply exist in a somnambulistic manner as a sort of passive, unspecified awareness. Consciousness, alone, does not create; and, by itself, cannot evolve. Consciousness alone, is not the answer to the existential quandary."

- Paragraph from a post file which never materialized, The Shamans of Spirit & The Shamans of Matter; Dia Sobin, June 12, 2014

"Because, who knows, but, hiding among those four famous "forces of nature" (recently renamed the "Fundamental Interaction") is an undiscovered ordering force, a "shadow" component permeating the matrix: intelligence, but wholly unspecific intelligence - without genre or gender - which, although diversified and expressed relative to the matter which interprets it, is also the architect of the matter it unfolds. I call it: Creatura... (most emphatically) not to be confused with religionist myths and its corresponding characters - example: "the man upstairs."

If "god is dead" religionists (specifically Western and Middle-Eastern varieties) killed it. They gave it limits; limits imposed by their own fears, politics and pathologies."

- Paragraphs deleted from a previous post, and added to a collection of notes; DS, June 28, 2014

"Creatura (singular and plural) - A creative Intelligence: the integrated ordering agent and organizing, self-referential noumenon present in all living organisms."

- A working definition of Creatura from a collection of notes; DS, July 1, 2014, posted July 28.

***

I was kind of on the fence about posting this "thought experiment"... I originally attempted to allude to it with a post containing a brief definition of Creatura. That didn't cut it for me, so I pulled it down (deleted post, July, 28, 2014). 

For the past few months however, this concept - admittedly a "Vitalist" concept (or, more appropriately, Revitalist), and not even a terribly original one - has been stirring around in my psyche, coloring just about all of my thoughts. I've drafted (and destroyed) a number of posts, but they all seem to have the same general theme; a theme I was planning to slowly build up to, but now I find I'm not going to have the time (I'm about to take an extended hiatus from the blogosphere). So, it's now or never... 

Creatura - Songs From the Oyster Bed

Oysters on a desk-top - Digital Photo - 2014, DS

"The co-evolutionary story between rocks and life began 4 billion years or so ago, when the planet had only rocks, air and oceans to work with. The origins researchers that followed Miller and Urey’s heady success soon realised that air and oceans aren’t enough to create life, no matter how lightning-filled the sky. Only with the addition of carefully selected minerals will simple, nonliving biomolecules concentrate and combine in complex biologically useful ways.

Life arose from minerals; then minerals arose from life. The geosphere and biosphere have become complexly intertwined, with numerous feedback loops driving myriad critical natural processes in ways that are only now coming into focus."

- from an 2014 article by Robert Hazen, found at Aeon magazine.



"Mr. Gerard further states: 'Just before crossing the boundary of Ludak into Bussalier, I was exceedingly gratified by the discovery of a bed of fossil oysters, clinging to a rock as if they had been alive.'

In whatever point of view we are to consider the subject, it is sublime to think of organic remains lying at such an extraordinary altitude, and of vast cliffs of rocks formed out of them, frowning over the illimitable and desolate waters, where oceans once rolled."

- from Shells on the Snowy Mountains of Tibet, Asiatic Register,  found here.



"... the great power and human destinies are couched in the virtues of Stones and Herbs. But to know from whence these come, a higher speculation is required. Alexander the peripatetic, not going any further than his senses and qualities, is of the opinion that these proceed from Elements, and their qualities, which haply might be supposed to be true, if those were of the same species; but many of the operations of the Stones agree neither in genere nor specie. Therefore Plato and his scholars attribute these virtues to Ideas, the formers of things. But Avicen reduceth these kinds of operations to Intelligence, Hermes to the Stars, Albertus to the specifical forms of things.

...Now consequently we must discourse of Intelligences, spirits and Angels. An Intelligence is an intelligible substance, free from all gross and putrifying mass of a body, immortall, insensible, assisting all, having Influence over all; and the nature of all intelligences, spirits and Angels is the same. But I call Angels here, not those whom we usually call Devils, but spirits so called from the propriety of the word, as it were, knowing, understanding and wise."

- from De occulta philosophia libri tres (Three Books Concerning Occult Philosophy), 1530s, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

As readers of this blog know, the moment summer arrives, one can often find a peculiar, solitary woman (me) roaming the sandbars on the Connecticut shoreline; every now and then bending down to pick up an object or two... possibly even talking to herself (or the objects) before placing them back down, or, resuming her search (if that's what it is), possibly still holding one prized object (carefully) in her sweaty little paw.

There are no "ordinary" objects at the shore... and some, like the one above (shown from various angles - click to enlarge) are to be celebrated. When I first found these three shells cemented* to a fragment of rock, however, I wasn't even sure what I'd found. Were they some form of barnacle? Had a human glued some shells onto a rock in such a pretty array?

The Merkabah and a Sixth Sense - A Practical View (Annotated)

"The idea or reality of the esoteric chakra system may or may not be relevant to the phenomena I am referring to - from what I gather, the chakra centers are considered symbolic and psycho-spiritual and have no apparent physiological manifestation - but, as I am not aware of any other "maps" at my disposal, contemporary "subtle energy" diagrams provide one place to begin the inquiry.

In the tradition of the Eastern mystics - and Western alternative healers - the chakras (Sanskrit for "wheels") are basically 7 main energy vortices or focal points that lie along the spinal column and skull. The uppermost point, and the one that concerns us here, is generally known as Sahasrara, the seventh, or "crown chakra". In some systems, the seventh chakra lies directly at the top of the head, but in others it lies above. In some systems there are a number of energy centers above the head - the uppermost, and the one that corresponds to my sensory zone is sometimes referred to as the "transpersonal point". In all chakra literature, the crown chakra's primary function seems to serve as a conduit for consciousness, generally of the "cosmic" or collective variety."

- From a web article "Non-Local" Causes and Effects on the Human Body (Tactile Sensations from a distance), Dia Sobin, uploaded 2007 (see: .pdf).


(Added June 9th 2020):

"I can't explain the science behind it, but I just tried it for myself - raised my hand to above the top of my head, and I could feel a sensation like the hairs standing on end - only in a small spot, nothing dramatic, but a definite tingling. I don't think I was imagining it because I can still feel the tingling now."

- A comment left on Posthuman Blues post in 2007 by "Bumble," a female reader of Mac's. His post links to the original web article mentioned above, although the link is now broken. I just found this comment recently and it made me smile. From her description, It seems the woman did, indeed, find the epicranial occult locus.

***

No, it's true, I wasn't lying. I am "exiting the blogosphere." Unfortunately, I spent so much time laying Post-Mac Blues to rest, I haven't had time to deal with Trans-D at all. Meanwhile March has arrived. It still looks like January where I am, mind you, and, yet, it could always be worse... it could look like war. But, as is apparent (and not out-of-character), I was a bit premature when designating "Imbolc" as the "last post". There will be this post and one more to come. I'm aiming for exactly 90 posts. It's a matter of symmetry and symbolism.  Esoterically, the number 9 is the perfect place to tie up loose ends and let loose the finished "product" - ones little spaceship careening towards the galaxy's edge.




How poetic.

But then, my muses - and/or my unconscious self - have/has an agenda... and, generally one I can't figure out till the last phase of a project. The agenda of this post started innocently enough. My urge was to post another scan. On a whim I had scanned into this machine a small crystal Merkabah - a recent birthday gift from my friend, Moo. As we know, I love minerals, and scanning them sometimes provides startling results. So, allow me to explain the scans above and to your left.

First off, Merkabah is an esoteric name given to a certain polyhedron - essentially a triakis octahedron and/or a stella octangula... It has a kind of weird shape that combines both the cubic and the hexagonal - in other words, viewed from one angle it looks square, from the other it resembles a 6-pointed star (hence the "stella"); this is a result of the fact that it is comprised of two interlocking tetrahedrons. Kind of like physical reality. My aim was to capture both angles via my flatbed scanner. To this end I taped my Merkabah - with packing tape - to the inside of a shallow box. Posted above are the results. Posted below (and below the jump) are the same scans with the tape digitally removed.

But, it's the light artifacts in the tape which interest me. While its true that cellophane material will create some cool image scans, I was a little startled by the weird effects produced in conjunction with the crystal polyhedron. Let's just say that, optically, light had a field day. One might also be inclined to consider certain myths concerning the Merkabah in a more sympathetic light.

Originally, the word "Merkabah" arose from early Judaic mysticism and referred to the "chariot of God", specifically that envisioned by the prophet Ezekial.  Of course, nothing is so sacred that it can't fall under the auspices of New Age jargon (or, for that matter, Ancient Alien lore). But, kernals of truth are found in the strangest of places.

Imbolc

Noosphere Day Image -  digital - Tatiana Plakhova
(Click to enlarge.)

"By her many graces I call to Brigit who graces us this day;

Grace of eye and grace of hand,

Grace of word and grace of will,

Grace of caring, grace of birthing, grace in mourning,

Grace of carriage, grace of courage,

Comforter and mother,

Brigit of the Blessings I name the one

Who blesses us this day!"

- Brigit Invocation from A Solitary Imbolc Ritual, Rob Henderson and Kami Landy, 1999

"Even after the Roman Catholics banned all Pagan ways, She was so firmly and permanently beloved, She was absorbed into Christianity as a saint. But the Wheel turns and we once more give honor to the Sun Goddess Bride (pronounced “breed” or “breej”), Brigit, or Brig(h)id. She is the Fire Goddess of Healing, Poetry, and Art. You can see Her embodied in the bright stars of the constellation we call Orion.

For millennia at Her temple at Kildare, Her priestesses, and later, the nuns of Her order, tended an eternal flame in Her honor. Although it was extinguished during the Burning Times (the Inquisition), in 1993, Sister Mary Minehan boldly re-lit St. Brigid’s flame in Kildare. It was lit again in 1997, in the square at Kildare by Ragny Skaisten, a member of the Norwegian Brigidine Sisters, at the opening of Her feast day, Feile Bhride."

- from Blessings of Imbolc!, Beth Owl, 2010*

There's sort of "Land of Milk & Honey" vibe about the pagan holiday of Imbolc (pronounced EEM bolg), also known and/or confused with the Christian holiday of Candlemas. While the actual date of the holiday varies, you can begin to see it in the change of light that occurs around this time. While winter isn't exactly over, it's possible to react like our ancestors must've reacted, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief: finally, a flicker of of hope on a previously desolate horizon.

Addendum

A series of drawings by Louise Despont - pencil on antique paper

"I think art is one way in which magical symbols and images can be presented to the public in a way that will not appear threatening. We know from the history of art in the past 100 years, that many genuine schools of occultism came forth to present themselves as what I am going to call mystical schools of painting, of sculpture and so forth. I am particularly concerned about one French school", says Bertiaux. "It is the pataphysical school. It was allied to Dada, surrealism, spiritualism and trance medium ship. The whole idea was that we would explore structures of the unconscious and come back renewed with a new kind of imagery and energy we can focus through works of art. The pataphysicians are my favorites, because what they sought to do was to create a kind of alternative science. I remember a pataphysician telling me, that as metaphysics is to physics, so pataphysics is to metaphysics, which meant an intuitive extension into the abstract or the transcendental or the less known aspects of experience."

 What were the characteristics of this school, I asked?

 "One of the characteristics would be their drawing of inspiration from dream states and a kind of somnambulistic meditation", says Bertiaux. "Another would be the idea that everything has a psychic history. This is related to “the cult of the found object” in modern art, the discovery of “the given.”

We know that there are many artists who will go around looking for what they call “a found

object” – actually they wouldn’t have to look very hard. According to the theory a found object

would “speak” to them and indicate to them that this was what was needed for the artwork of the artist.

The famous American sculptress Louise Nevelson - who worked with large assemblages and collages made from wood and wooden pieces - she had what I call her esoteric school", Bertiaux explains.

"These helpers of Louise Nevelson would get up very early in the morning. She lived in a town house in Manhattan, I believe; and they would go up and down the alleys, looking for discards. They were all kinds of individuals who were perhaps misfits in the outer world, but she believed them to be tremendously psychic. They all worked for her as her technicians, her helpers, in finding objects and wrapping them up in newspapers and paper bags, bringing them home; and then when they had all these treasures before them, they would let the objects tell them where to use them. And this came from a kind of psychic dialogue with the found object – which, I might add, was very similar to what Carl Jung taught many of his patients, to engage in with many natural things in their own experience."

- From: Arts and the Occult - An interview with Michael Bertiaux by Bjarne Salling Pedersen (.pdf file)

***

During the latter half of my research of the astrological sign Capricorn (and its constellation Capricornus) I stumbled upon an interesting man, Michael Bertiaux (b. January 18, 1935). According to Wiki, he is best known for his occult classic, "Voudon Gnostic Workbook", described as: "a 615-page compendium... spanning the sub-fields of Voodoo, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Thelema and Gnosticism". I somehow intuited that this man was someone I needed to acquaint myself with... and, when I pursued the .pdf file link provided, I was really amazed... 

The Magic of Art & The Art of Magic

"Personaje Astral" - oil on board - 1961 - Remedios Varo

"Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the shadows and the strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of the old temples, and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvelous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the strange emblems of our old books of alchemy, in the ceremonies at reception practiced by all mysterious societies, traces are found of a doctrine which is everywhere the same, and everywhere carefully concealed. Occult philosophy seems to have been the nurse or god-mother of all intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute queen of society in those ages when it was reserved exclusively for the education of priests and of kings. It reigned in Persia with the magi, who at length perished, as perish all masters of the world, because they abused their power..."

- Eliphas Levi, from his introduction to Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual, 1856

"Actually, art and magic are pretty much synonymous. I would imagine that this all goes back to the phenomenon of representation, when, in our primordial past, some genius or other actually flirted upon the winning formula of “This means that.” Whether “this” was a voice or “that” was a mark upon a dry wall or “that” was a guttural sound, it was that moment of representation. That actually transformed us from what we were into what we would be. It gave us the possibility, all of a sudden, of language. And when you have language, you can describe pictorially or verbally the strange and mystifying world that you see around you, and it’s probably not long before you also realize that, hey, you can just make stuff up. The central art of enchantment is weaving a web of words around somebody. And we would’ve noticed very early on that the words we are listening to alter our consciousness, and using the way they can transform it, take it to places we’ve never dreamed of, places that don’t exist."

- Alan Moore via a 2013 interview found here.

“In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych, titled “Bordando el Manto Terrestre,” were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in the tapestry, and the tapestry was the world."

- excerpt from Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" (full quote)

Remedios, I told you that I am making you a spell against [the evil eye]. There it is. Last night I had a fever of 38, auto-suggestion perhaps—I do not feel well enough to go out—Come to see me if you can? Can both of you come to drink your tequila? … Leonora.

- Alleged Note from Leonora Carrington to Remedios Varo written on a drawing - found here.

***

Alan Moore, described as "the greatest graphic novel writer in history" - and, a self-professed magician - has been constellating on the web in recent weeks, beginning with the Mysterious Universe article: Artists Manipulate Minds Using Powerful Magic. Well, that's an attention grabber for sure, but, In the article, Lee Arnold is, for the most part, referring to graphic art; pulling examples from the advertising world, and the slick shlock found on television. But, then, the ways and means by which we're manipulated via the televised world is a given; it goes without saying. In reference to magic however, advertising and commercial iconography is the lowest common denominator - the bottom feeder - of the creative spectrum. It represents mere tricks of the trade, a practiced sleight of hand, and not the workings of the "Magus."

But, it got me to thinking about art and magic, and, although Moore was elucidating specifically on the written word - he is, after all, a writer - my thoughts turned to line and form... as they would, in my perennial investigation of a form language.

A Cosmic Nest (w/ footnote) (& A Restored Musical Link)

A Cosmic Nest - digital - 2013, DS
(Click to enlarge.)

"... I also realized (in the dream) that the universe was not infinite, but, was like a round area bordered by a ring of space which was a different dimension bordered by other dimensions. (?) The Saturn-shape comes to mind.

Also, there are other universes next to this one... as there are other galaxies and solar systems. The pattern of eternity (this universe arrangement) would look like a field w/ all these Saturn-shapes polka-dotting it."

- quote (recounting an actual dream) from a 1975 personal journal, via an excerpt from: "Temp L (The Temple Drawings)" - unpublished project record -1982, Dia Sobin



"Many modern theories of fundamental physics predict that our universe is contained inside a bubble. In addition to our bubble, this `multiverse' will contain others, each of which can be thought of as containing a universe. In the other 'pocket universes' the fundamental constants, and even the basic laws of nature, might be different.

Stephen Feeney, a PhD student at UCL who created the powerful computer algorithm to search for the tell-tale signatures of collisions between "bubble universes," and co-author of the research papers, said: "The work represents an opportunity to test a theory that is truly mind-blowing: that we exist within a vast multiverse, where other universes are constantly popping into existence."

- via this Science Daily article, dated August 3, 2011

***

Flat Disks vs. Bubbles

Everybody dreams, and dreams come in a variety of flavors: mundane, romantic, other-worldly, prescient, wish-fulfilling, historical, etc.  The truly transpersonal "cosmic" dreams are rare, but, when you have one, you tend to want to share it. It took me over 30 years to "share" this one of mine... and then, only because it inspired an image, "A Cosmic Nest" (above).

A Day at the Beach

3 scans of a found object - 2013, DS (click to enlarge)

"Shinto teaches that everything contains a kami (神 "spiritual essence"),
commonly translated as god or spirit).

The kami reside in all things, but certain places are designated for the interface of people and kami (the common world and the sacred): sacred nature, shrines, and kamidana. There are natural places considered to have an unusually sacred spirit about them, and are objects of worship. They are frequently mountains, trees, unusual rocks, rivers, waterfalls, and other natural edifices. In most cases they are on or near a shrine grounds. The shrine is a building built in which to house the kami, with a separation from the "ordinary" world through sacred space with defined features based on the age and lineage of the shrine."

- excerpt from the Wiki entry for Shinto

High-tide is not the most excellent time for beachcombing, but, neither is the blistering heat of mid-day. So, for my first visit to the shore in a very long time, I chose the hour just before sunset for my foray by the water's edge. There were a few people milling about on the sand, but, like any dedicated beachcomber, I ignored them completely, aware only of their voices drifting around me in the air, in that peculiar way sound is both muffled, amplified and scattered by the ocean's waves.

I saw only one other person by the water - a woman, perhaps Muslim, swathed in black veils, hunched down in the encroaching waves. She was staring at the horizon, her hands folded under her chin in a way that may have been praying. But, as I approached, she stood up and slid off in the opposite direction.

Communing with the ocean is often - and needfully - a very private thing.

I found very little... the beach isn't what it used to be, or, maybe I'm not what I used to be, lacking the awe and raw enthusiasm I had as child, when everything still seemed new and mysterious.

But, I did find one thing... it was sitting in the sand in the path as I was leaving... a rock, but a special rock, in that it was a chunk of beach marble, my favorite sort of rock, and one that I had collected in the past; a collection I had to part with during the course of moving a few months ago. It was like greeting an old friend, but, before snatching it up, I looked around to make sure I wasn't stealing someone else's treasure.

Anyway, above are scans of three faces of the found object. It isn't as silky-textured as the specimens I've found in the past, those of which have been smoothed and sanded by the salt-water for a longer period of time... (and, an example of which is posted below... my only remaining touchstone of that species). But, it's easy to understand why marble is so often the choice of sculptors. Maybe it has something to do with metamorphic process that marble has to go through, it's physiological history, that speaks to the artist. Or, maybe some rocks just happen to "speak" a little more eloquently.

Interestingly, the grey, striated beach marble I find, tends to have one or more roughly pentagonal faces; the pentagon - along with the hexagon - being a favored shape in the organic world, and for the sacred geometer and mason, a symbol of sentient life.

In the Disneyland world of a child's mind and the "primitive", everything is alive, has consciousness, and is sentient to some degree, even inanimate objects. In other words, all is "animated". But, this is still true in many worldviews, up to and including that of Shintoism, an ancient set of spiritual beliefs and practices of which a large portion of the Japanese population, essentially, still adhere to.

Animism is defined as the worldview in which "natural physical entities - including animals, plants, and often even inanimate objects or phenomena - possess a spiritual essence". I suppose, how one defines "spiritual essence" is where a lot of people get tripped up.

But, to the child, the primitive, the artist, the naturalist, the mystic, and even a quantum physicist or two, that quality we call "life" permeates existence... either it's everywhere... or nowhere.

When in doubt, listen to an eloquent rock.

2 faces of an old friend - 2009, DS (click to enlarge)

***

Bonus link (re: how to house a kami): the shrines of friend and art shaman, B. G. Dodson. Guess which one I own? :-)

(Hint: Ever notice how the Shinto symbol, the Torii Gate, resembles a modified giant Pi symbol?)

In Search of An Ancient-Future

Lenticular Cloud, B.C. - Pandora's Box - digital - Dia Sobin, 2008

"It is never any definite experience which gives me pleasure, but always the quality of mystic adventurous expectancy itself - the indefiniteness which permits me to foster the momentary illusion that almost any vista of wonder and beauty might open up, or almost any law of time or space or matter or energy be marvelously defeated or reversed or modified or transcended….that sense of expansion, freedom, adventure, power, expectancy, symmetry, drama, beauty-absorption, surprise, and cosmic wonder (i.e. the illusory promise of a majestic revelation which shall gratify man’s ever-flaming, ever-tormenting curiosity about the outer voids and ultimate gulfs of entity)….the illusion of being poised on the edge of the infinite amidst a vast cosmic unfolding which might reveal almost anything..."

- H. P. Lovecraft, from a letter to James F. Morton, March 12, 1930, borrowed from this beautiful Teeming Brain essay: Autumn longing: H.P. Lovecraft by Matt Cardin

***

One morning, a few weeks ago, I awoke with a strange "realization"... which came in the form of an actual (albeit silent) declaration: I am an Ancient-Futurist.

Ruling out "divine-intervention" (and various psychological disorders), it must've been the punch-line of something I dreamt. But, that's dreaming for you; fragments remain in the conscious mind, but you've lost the big picture. Then again, in the following morning's dream, I learned the (Monty-Pythonesque) historical "fact" that Medieval swords and shields were cunningly fashioned from bread dough. It wasn't exactly a eureka moment, but, in the dream, it almost made sense.

But, back (or fast-forward) to the Ancient-Future, which, at least, is something to conjure with. In actuality, I've always been attracted to ancient/futuristic themes. The 2008 image (above) "Lenticular Cloud, B.C. - Pandora's Box" is an example, a literal translation of the meme. Carved in stone, Pandora perpetually clutches her box of plagues, while, overhead, an unidentifiable aerial object interacts with an ancient structure. It's fairly easy to decipher. But, that particular morning, my unconscious mind seemed to be referring to something less literal, a fertile abstraction from the subliminal realm that begged for a response.

It's not as if marrying the past with the future is all that weird.  In the timeless, non-local realm of the unconscious, the dead interact with the living, landscapes from one's childhood - those which no longer exist - arise revitalized, uncontaminated by any fate that eventually befell them, and, often, even oneself is clothed in a younger countenance, as if, somewhere along the way, the experience and effects of time passing have lost significance altogether.

Not even the conscious mind is utterly persuaded by the minutes ticking away on a clock. The minute our focus shifts from the time-centered televised-world to some personal place where we are emotionally, intellectually and/or energetically engaged, huge chunks of time can fall away leaving us mystified and perplexed. Where did that time go?

But, then again, what is time to begin with? According to the Realists, "Newtonian time" is a structure and a dimension in itself, in which events occur sequentially. According to the Presentists, only the present is real and neither the past nor the future exist. From the standpoint of Eternalism, time is also a dimension, married to space in a "block universe". But, according to this plan, although every moment is real and relative to the observer, time does not "pass"; it is a static vista, and neither the past not the future can be modified.

Practically speaking, the measurement of time is a gentlemen's agreement - its increments, as we know them, are fabrications. We experience the passing of time as growth and decay - the old and the new - now and then... but, through all of it, time has no substance, no physical structure, no meaning in itself. In that sense, it's both subjective and relative. We record it in our lives by the events that occur synchronistically. In that way, time is a series of events that coincide with a designated incremental structure.

Chronometry - the measurement of time - is the the time we're most familiar with as we change our calendars and check our watches. Periodic time covers the cycles of the moon and certain biological aspects of organisms. Sidereal time is measured by the stars. Judeo-Christian time is generally linear with a beginning and end.

Obviously, the Ancient-Future could not exist in a linear time frame. It has more of a chance within the philosophical concepts of the East where time is cyclical and quantic. Or, better still, couched in actual quantum descriptions of time - not to be confused with a Quantum Clock - specifically that of quantum entanglement. However, here we're referring to a particle's speed of light - that is, Planck time - in a theory that proposes time is continuous; or, utilizing  the Chronon, which is a proposed quantum unit of time relative to a particle's charge and mass.

from the Wired article: Quantum Entanglement Could Stretch Across Time

Ultimately, the Ancient-Future - and/or the necessary bridge between the two - is forged In the creative imagination: in the musings of science fiction writers - and the quote from H.P. Lovecraft above is key - the diagrams of sacred geometers, the organic landscapes of fractal artists, or by anyone harkening way, way back to some speculative mysterious source (while often using a timeless, fundamental set of tools, such as mathematics), to steal a glimpse of an equally as speculative and mysterious future. But, the key word here is mysterious; that unknown factor which occasionally pulls us out our televised-world-induced stupor to confront the sheer magnitude of our collective ignorance. There is something almost sacred about this sense of the mysterious (and our ignorance!), but, not in any officially religious sense. In other words: it can't be googled.

Which is not to say I didn't try googling Ancient-Futurist/Futurism... but, apart from some mysterious social networker, an electronic musical composition or two, and another scary Christian hybrid theology, I drew a blank. There is Retro-futurism, which is interesting but not quite the same. There are a few jewelry designers using Ancient-Future as a descriptive term (one or two whose designs resonate). There are theories in the speculative range, such as the paleocontact hypothesis (a guilty pleasure). Design-wise, there's Steam-punk and Cyber-punk, of course... which sometimes hints, stylistically, at what I'm trying to describe; as does Futurism, in a marginal sense.

And, yet, what was I really referring to by the term that fateful morning? "Days of Future Past"? Or, perhaps these "Days of Future Past" (which can be found here in its entirety). Histories of things to come? Archaeology in the inner-galactal realm? Say, a type of psychic archaeology, if you will. Or maybe something as tangible as the event photographed (via the Hubble) below, an actual collision of galaxies, 330 million light-years away (and a fate predicted for own galaxy in the far future...).

Stay tuned. Further explorations will ensue!

When galaxies collide... found here.

Note: It has recently come to my attention that, synchronistically, the ever-intrepid (and ever-prolific) Tam B, over at the previously mentioned blog, seems to be tackling a similar set of themes from a variety of perspectives. But, no, she and I are not comparing notes, and we are arriving at our destinations independently. Meanwhile, check out her latest post: a collection of some real-time ancient-futuristic dwellings!  

Next up: Artifacts from an Ancient-Future... Featuring the Work of Tom Beddard