Cubeer Burr, the Great Banyan Tree, and the Gymnosophists

 (painting of Cubeer Burr The Great Banyan Tree by James Phillips)

A famed Banyan tree called in India "Cubeer Burr" was found on an island in the river
Nerbedda, "ten miles from the city of Baroach, in the province of Guzzurat,
a flourishing settlement formerly in possession of the East India Company,
but ceded by the government of Bengal at the treaty of peace concluded
with the Mahrattas in 1783, to Mahadjee, a Mahratta chief.

_Cubeer Burr_ is famed throughout Hindostan for its prodigious extent,
antiquity and great beauty. The Indian armies often encamp around it; and,
at certain seasons, solemn Jattras or Hindoo festivals are held here, to
which thousands of votaries repair from various parts of the Mogul empire.
Seven thousand persons, it is said, may easily repose under its shade.
There is a tradition among the natives, that this tree is three thousand
years old; and there is great reason to believe it, and that it is this
amazing tree that Arrian describes when speaking of the gymosophists in
his book of Indian affairs. These people, he says, in summer wear no
clothing. In winter they enjoy the benefit of the sun's rays in the open
air; and in summer, when the heat becomes excessive, they pass their time
in moist and marshy places under large trees, which according to Nearchus,
cover a circumference of five acres, and extend their branches so far that
ten thousand men may easily find shelter under them" 

(from Cultus Arborum by Anonymous published privately in 1890, sourced from Project Gutenberg 

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=2214966&pageno=14

The Banyan as Temple to the Gymnosophists

1825. -- "Near this village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connexion with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, 'What a noble place of worship!'" -- Heber, ii. 93 (ed. 1844).

Kristen Szumyn in her article "The Barbarian wisdom of the 'theoi andres' : a study of the relationship between spatial marginality and social alterity" writes (after Clement of Alexandria): "Herodotus associates the possession of 'wisdom' (sophias) and 'knowledge' (philosopheon) with one who has extensively 'travelled' (planes) to foreign lands. Such a person is counted amongst the saphistai, the wise men or teachers. The Greek philosopher's visit to foreign countries was a doxographical and biographical topos specifically associated with the attainment of wisdom. The philosophical and religious wisdom attained by such travellers was essentially 'barbarian'. As Diogenes Laertius noted, the later Neoplatonic tradition held that 'the study of philosophy had its beginning among the barbarians... the Persians have their Magi, the Babylonians or Assyrians their Chaldeans, and the Indians their Gymosophists; and among the Celts and Gauls there are the people called Druids or Holy Ones. These marginalised religious teachers and transmitters of spiritual wisdom are associated with the geographical and social periphery of society. This geographical marginality of the wise man is particularly evident in the Neoplatonic tradition of late antiquity; however this notion of the association between the sage and oriental or barbarian wisdom was a concept well established even in early Greek thought."

"

Gymnosophists is the name (meaning "naked philosophers") given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought (sadhus or yogis).

The Digambar Jain monks in India even now remain unclothed; they have been identified as the gymnosophists by several researchers,.Xuanzang mentions having come across Digambar Jain monks in Taxila during his 7th century CE visit to India in the same Punjab region where Alexander encountered the gymnosophists." (from wiki)

Plutartch wrote of Alexander's meeting in the First Century with 10 Gymnosophists in the Punjab:

"He (Alexander) captured ten of the Gymnosophists who had done most to get Sabbas to revolt, and had made the most trouble for the Macedonians. These philosophers were reputed to be clever and concise in answering questions, and Alexander therefore put difficult questions to them, declaring that he would put to death him who first made an incorrect answer, and then the rest, in an order determined in like manner; and he commanded one of them, the oldest, to be the judge in the contest. The first one, accordingly, being asked which, in his opinion, were more numerous, the living or the dead, said that the living were, since the dead no longer existed. The second, being asked whether the earth or the sea produced larger animals, said the earth did, since the sea was but a part of the earth. The third, being asked what animal was the most cunning, said: "That which up to this time man has not discovered." The fourth, when asked why he had induced Sabbas to revolt, replied: "Because I wished him either to live nobly or to die nobly." The fifth, being asked which, in his opinion, was older, day or night, replied: "Day, by one day"; and he added, upon the king expressing amazement, that hard questions must have hard answers. Passing on, then, to the sixth, Alexander asked how a man could be most loved; "If," said the philosopher, "he is most powerful, and yet does not inspire fear." Of the three remaining, he who was asked how one might become a god instead of man, replied: "By doing something which a man cannot do"; the one who was asked which was the stronger, life or death, answered: "Life, since it supports so many ills." And the last, asked how long it were well for a man to live, answered: "Until he does not regard death as better than life." So, then, turning to the judge, Alexander bade him give his opinion. The judge declared that they had answered one worse than another. "Well, then," said Alexander, "thou shalt die first for giving such a verdict." "That cannot be, O King," said the judge, "unless thou falsely saidst that thou wouldst put to death first him who answered worst."

—Plutarch, Life of Alexander, "The parallel lives," 64.,

A selection of references to the Banyan tree:

c. A.D. 70. -- "First and foremost, there is a Fig -- tree there (in India) which beareth very small and slender figges. The propertie of this Tree, is to plant and set it selfe without mans helpe. For it spreadeth out with mightie armes, and the lowest water-boughes underneath, do bend so downeward to the very earth, that they touch it againe, and lie upon it: whereby, within one years space they will take fast root in the ground, and put foorth a new Spring round about the Mother-tree: so as these braunches, thus growing, seeme like a traile or border of arbours most curiously and artificially made," &c. -- Plinies Nat. Historie, by Philemon Holland, i. 360.

1624.-
" . . . The goodly bole being got
To certain cubits' height, from every side
The boughs decline, which, taking root afresh,
Spring up new boles, and these spring new, and newer,
Till the whole tree become a porticus,
Or arched arbour, able to receive
A numerous troop."
Ben Jonson, Neptune's Triumph.

c. 1650. -- "Near to the City of Ormus was a Bannians tree, being the only tree that grew in the Island." -- Tavernier, Eng. Tr. i. 255.

1667.-
"The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd;
But such as at this day, to Indians known,
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade
High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between. " Paradise Lost, ix. 1101.


1691. -- "About a (Dutch) mile from Gamron . . . stands a tree, heretofore described by Mandelslo and others. . . . Beside this tree is an idol temple where the Banyans do their worship." -- Valentijn, v. 267-8.

1717.-
"The fair descendants of thy sacred bed
Wide -- branching o'er the Western World shall spread,
Like the fam'd Banian Tree, whose pliant shoot
To earth ward bending of itself takes root,
Till like their mother plant ten thousand stand
In verdant arches on the fertile land;
Beneath her shade the tawny Indians rove,
Or hunt at large through the wide-echoing grove."
Tickell, Epistle from a Lady in England tò a Lady in Avignon.

1771. -- ". . . being employed to con- struct a military work at the fort of Triplasore (afterwards called Marsden's Bastion) it was necessary to cut down a banyan-tree which so incensed the brahmans of that place, that they found means to poison him" (i.e. Thomas Marsden of the Madras Engineers). -- Mem. of W. Marsden, 7-8.

1810.-
"In the midst an aged Banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,
For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,
Straight like a plummet grew towards the ground,
Some on the lower boughs which crost their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung;
Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height."
Southey, Curse of Kehama, xiii. 51. [Southey takes his account from Williamson, Orient. Field Sports, ii. 113.]

1834. -- "Cast forth thy word into the everliving, everworking universe; it is a seed -- grain that cannot die; unnoticed today, it will be found flourishing as a banyangrove -- (perhaps alas! as a hemlock forest) after a thousand years." -- Sartor Resartus.

1856.-
". . . its pendant branches, rooting in the air,
Yearn to the parent earth and grappling fast,
Grow up huge stems again, which shooting forth
In massy branches, these again despatch
Their drooping heralds, till a labyrinth
Of root and stem and branch commingling, forms
A great cathedral, aisled and choired in wood."
The Banyan Tree, a Poem.

Stairs of Gold - Giorgio Tavaglione

"I would do nothing else but pick flowers, and wander through meadows and gardens, gathering all the beautiful and most coloured my eyes and my spirit could see…but it happened that when I picked the first coloured diamonds, my curiosity flew up and I would “know” and I would “learn”.  And while at first my questions were limited only to their aspect, and I would know many Petal-Facets had the Diamond-Flowers I was picking, later I would know their Inmost Secret Light, their Why.

As I could not study all the Flowers my eyes took in, I devoted myself to the nearest ones, trying to understand with them, all the others, seeking inside them the Key that would permit me to open every other Door.

And then I realized that the more I penetrated the “Particular”, the more I descended to the “Depth”, the more I rose to the “General”.  So to understand that infinity of the Flowers around me, I began to study, with great care, One of Them, that could mean the most to me, the nearest one: myself.

And I tried to discover how many facets had that Flower-Diamond; its Cut, its Axis, it’s Colours, its Transparency, its Scent, to penetrate its innermost recesses, the “Secret Rooms” where are preserved the Most Intimate Values, the Hidden Treasures concealed by Veils.

To reach them I found it was anything but simple, because still before entering, I should curb the Beast that guarded them, the Animality always excluded from any Architecture, and any Rationality of Thought, bestial and resentful, because of its inferiority, it must be subdued by Fight and physical Strength or by Command and Moral Strength: once curbed it will be a tractable companion, but like every subdued wild beast, it will always assault us, when hesitating.

After the Beast, there is the Labrynth, consisting of 78 rooms, and 3x7 = 21 Gates; in every Room there are Prizes and Traps, Traps playing on what remained inside us, of the false ideas or the mental distortions that follow us from the preceding rooms, with which we must do away, and the Prizes playing on our Intuition and Illuminations that let us know, on the grounds of what we have learnt till now, what awaits us in the next room and that will be clear only in the future.

The 21 Gates are unforeseen gleams on the future and though one can find some difficult ties to reach and pass them, he has the Certitude of his Growth and the Consciousness of his accomplished conquest, that instill new life into his desire to go on Knowing and infuse him with new courage to face future difficulties.

The Utmost Gate, that closes the Utmost Room, the Sancta Sanctorum, is the Gate of Totality, the Conclusion that leads to our Essence, complete of everything Spiritual and Material.  When we will overcome that Utmost Barrier, we will be Ourselves, at the height of our Beings conscious of our Liberty, both as Individuals and Part of the Whole, Then behind the Veil, stretched between the Two Colums, the Black one and the Red, we will foresee the Roots of the Tree, that through its 10 points, will lead us up to heights where neither the most presumptuous of men can imagine, because those heights are not conceivable or comprehensible by minds not completely free."

- Giorgio Tavaglione: Introduction to Stairs of Gold Tarot Deck.

A lecture given by Alfred Watkins to Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1921

A Lecture given to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, at Hereford,
September, 1921, by ALFRED WATKINS, Fellow and Progress
Medallist (for 1910), of the Royal Photographic Society; Past
President (1919) of the Woolhope Club. With illustrations by the
Author, and much added matter.

http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.u​k/alfredwatkinslecture.pdf

The Cosmic Cycle and the Black Madonna - by Nebankh (Jaq White)

Here's the content of the article I wrote that was published in Astraea magazine a few years ago. Copyright Jaq White.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In this article Jaq White examines the alchemical
symbolism in the ancient phenomena of the Black Madonna.

The Cosmic Cycle and the Black Madonna
Jaq White
“Nature comprehends the visible and invisible Creatures of the Whole universe. What we call Nature especially, is the universal fire or Anima Mundi, filling the whole system of the Universe, and therefore is a Universal Agent, omnipresent, and endowed with an unerring instinct, and manifests itself in fire and Light. It is the First creature of Divine Omnipotence.” (The Golden Chain of Homer Of the Generation of things, Part I Chapter 1 - What Nature is.)

The alchemists and medieval philosophers sought to imitate Nature and the Divine, and expressed the various stages of inner transmutation that leads to enlightenment and the “Philosopher’s Stone”, known as Spiritual Alchemy, through art and symbols. In paintings and illustrations there are depictions of a snake biting its own tail in a circular symbol known as the Ouroboros. In alchemic symbolism this represents, among other things, the final unifying stage of our dual nature, and becoming one with the Divine. It is the symbol of the All, the One. Another way of demonstrating the work needed to attain this inner unity is the image of two serpents apparently devouring one another. In some, the upper serpent is winged, which signifies the Universal World Spirit - the lower serpent signifies matter, the Virgin Earth, the earthly state. The upper winged snake is the Cosmic spirit that brings everything to life, that kills everything and takes all the forms of nature. It is at the same time everything and nothing. When the two serpents are united, they are said to have “devoured one another” and the result is the Ouroboros; one single serpent, devouring its own tail, to express the continuous cycle through the aspect of time.

The word alchemy is thought to originate from the Ancient name for Egypt (Khem), the Black Land. The Ancient Egyptians were skilful workers in metals - there are scenes of metal-working found at Thebes and other locations, and the best known metals have identifiable hieroglyphic symbols that are defined by the determinative “of the earth/ground”. The Egyptians knew to employ quicksilver (Mercury) in the process of separating gold and silver from the native matrix, and the resulting (black) oxide was thought, allegedly, to possess powers. This black powder was identified with the underworld form of Osiris – those in the underworld are often depicted with black face and hands - and credited with similar magical properties. Alchemy is related to the black of Osiris through the connection of the black (fertile) earth, the belief that all light comes out of the dark, and all life comes out of the black; the colour black is associated with the source of creation. The alchemists were obsessed with the prima materia. They called it the black virgin, because its colour was black and it was virginal in the sense that no alchemical transmutation had been performed on the material.
2
The alchemist Nicolas Flamel wrote that the lower snake is the fixed and constant masculine element, and that the upper snake is the volatile and the black or dark woman. In alchemic terms, the first is linked with sulphur, warm and dry. The other is linked with quicksilver or the cold and moist. This employment of the quicksilver in practical metal-working has been referred to above, with regard to the Egyptians, and the same ideas are at work on the spiritual level, with the two snakes.

In what is believed to be the earliest known alchemical text – attributed to one Kleopatra of 4th Century Alexandria, there is an image of an Ouroboros with its head and upper half portrayed as black, and its tail and lower half shown as a speckled white. This correlates with the upper half or upper, winged snake as the Cosmic Spirit that takes all forms of nature, and is the volatile, black feminine aspect, while the lower half, or lower snake, can be identified with the fixed and constant masculine, the earthly state and matter.

Many well-known medieval alchemists were Christians, and some of the most beautiful illustrations involved symbolism representing well known Christian icons, such as Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Mother Mary, and Adam. They also included Gnostic figures such as Sofia, the female aspect of the divinity, also known as Wisdom. It is pertinent at this point, to mention that in Gnostic beliefs, the Holy Spirit is female.

Many of the grand medieval cathedrals and churches in Europe keep unusual statues of the Virgin and Child - a black-skinned Mary nursing a black-skinned infant Jesus. These are known as the “Black Madonnas”, or “Black Virgins” and tend to be kept in the crypt or some other underground vault.
There are many known examples of statues and paintings of the Black Madonna, perhaps as many as 300 in France alone, and a surprising amount of the paintings and statues have an association with St. Luke, the patron Saint of painters – he is attributed with painting them whilst in the presence of the Virgin Mary, who revealed her mysteries to him during the sitting. He has also been credited with carving at least one of the statues - the wooden statue of Montserrat which, legend has it, was hidden in the Holy Grotto to hide it from the Moors. However, carbon dating suggests the statue originated in the 12th or 13th Century. Hiding the statue to keep it safe is the main reason given for these Madonnas being found in crypts and grottos. The unusual colouring of the Madonna is often explained as due to decay. There are claims that some of the statues were made from a black stone, probably obsidian, that was then given a pale skin-coloured covering to depict the recognised image of the Madonna and Child. As the pale skin colour wore off and the black base was exposed, this Madonna was then relegated to the crypt. In some churches (for example in Poland and Russia) there are iconic paintings of Mary and the Infant Jesus, also claimed to be by the hand of St. Luke, where the blackened skin has been attributed to smoke from candles, or ageing.

Comparisons have been made of the image of the Christian Madonna and Child with almost identical depictions of Isis, Goddess of Ancient Egypt, nursing her infant son, Horus. The Mother Goddess was also widely venerated by Europeans, albeit under many different guises. Nowadays, many of these goddesses are linked with Isis and, in some cases, temples in France have been attributed to Isis; for example, the town of Issoudun is so named because it is believed there was a Temple of Isis under the main hill. If so, the goddess might easily have been assimilated by Europeans into their pantheon of deities due to the similarity with Earth and Mother Goddesses such as Nertha. Pagan temples to Isis and other Mother/Earth Goddesses would in time be replaced by Christian churches, and images of the various Goddesses of the Earth were replaced by images of the Virgin Mary, Mother Mary, or Mary in other guises (Queen of Heaven etc.) Symbolically, caves, grottos and crypts have been associated with the womb – a cave representing the womb of Mother Earth in mythology. There are goddesses connected with the Cave-Mother symbolism, and among these Cave-Mothers we might include Mary, who gave birth in a rock-cut shelter.

Some believe that these statues of the Black Madonna are not Christian in origin; rather, they are representations of Isis and Horus that when discovered, were wrongly identified as the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus – if so, this would certainly create the need for explanations as to why the statues were originally hidden. However, there is another possibility; the Black Madonna might never have depicted Isis but might well be an esoteric - possibly medieval - Christian symbol.

3

The link with medieval alchemy and esoteric or Gnostic Christianity has been demonstrated, and the use of the symbol of the Ouroboros shows an understanding of the Cosmic Cycle, as in the coupling of the above and the below, of matter and spirit in earthly man. The circular motion of the snake eating its own tail illustrates the continuity of time, and endless development.

This Cosmic Cycle is incorporated in the Christian Holy Trinity; albeit in completely masculine terms, with God as heavenly father, heavenly Holy Spirit and the divine son made of earthly matter. This was enabled through the coupling of the male Holy Spirit and the “living” Virgin Mary. In Egyptian mythology, the living Isis only conceives her son Horus after the death of Osiris. He procreates from the spiritual world, when he becomes God of the Underworld. This can be explained in alchemical terms, with the masculine Osiris, the black virginal prima materia and fixed male, uniting with the black, volatile, female, spirit of Isis his wife, conceiving and producing the Divine child Horus,
the Earthly representative of his father Osiris. The serpents have devoured one another, the Ouroboros is realised and so the Cycle continues.

The serpent has long been perceived as an enemy of Christians, and the use of serpent symbolism in Christian iconography is generally to portray sinfulness, temptation, and the fall of mankind. The serpent as a symbol of the Divine state of man would not have been acceptable, and is still not acceptable to many Christians. However, in the “Black Madonna” we have the same trinity expressed. The Black Virgin is, like Osiris, the father and the divine, male essence. The Black Mother is, like Isis, the mother and the divine, female essence, and the product of their union is the Ouroboros, Horus - the Christ.

The Black Madonna could be another representation of the All, the trinity – and an esoteric Christian symbol of the Cosmic Cycle.

What do the Daimon/Eidolon, Shai the Egyptian god of fate, and the Golden Child of Alchemy have in common? by Nebankh

" Zeus has placed by every man a guardian, every man a daemon, to whom he has committed the care of the man; a guardian who never sleeps , is never deceived. (Epictetus, Dissertation I 14,12)

God is with in, and your daemon is with in." (Epictetus Dissertation I 14, 14)

Heraclitus states "Character is your daemon," in one of his fragments.

Pythagoras:

"Father Zeus, O free them all from suffering so great or show unto each the daimon, who is their guide." (Pythagorean Golden Verse 36)

The paper I'm referring to is here: http://www.theandros.com/daemon.html

"The focus of this paper will be to explore origins and various ideas concerning the Daemon as recorded in works of Philosophers, mythographers and astrologers. The time frame of our search will span almost two thousand years.

The Greek Philosopher Plotinus (205-270C.E.) is located almost right in the middle of this search for understanding of the Daemon. Homer and Hesiod would be at the beginning and we find Proclus, Michael Psellus and George Gemistos known as Plethon near the end of this search.

Plotinus starts his discussion of the guardian daemon in Ennead 3.4. He is concerned in resolving an immanence-transcendence dilemma. Is the daemon operating in man’s innermost mind like conscience or is the daemon as a transcendent being and in no sense as a force innate in and the property of the human soul. Plotinus’ solution rests on Unity, upon the principal that the soul contains the whole intelligible world- in fact that we are "each of us an intelligible cosmos (ordered whole)." From the perspective of Unity we are our own daemon which may be us at a more refined level. The contrast that Plotinus is writing about is between Plato’s Phaedo 107d where the daemon is represented as an individual entity:

For after death, as they say the daemon of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgement has been given they pass into the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. (Phaedo 107d)

In Timeaus 90A of Plato it is identified with the highest part of the human soul. Somewhat implying that our guardian daemon is the level in the hierarchy of being next above that on which we habitually operate on. Hence, though immanent within us, it is yet transcendent to our normal life."

(end of quote)

Shai (Shay, Schai, Schay) was the ancient Egyptian god of fate and destiny. He was both a personification of these concepts as well as a deity - the Egyptians believed that he was 'born' with each individual, yet he was also a god. During the New Kingdom he appeared in the Book of the Dead, shown in the judgement scene in the Halls of Ma'ati. He was a god related to birth in the world and rebirth in the underworld.

The name of the god - shay shaay - comes from the ancient Egyptian word for 'appoint' or 'command'. The word shay shaay could mean 'extent' or 'bulk'. He was the god of the allotted life-span of a human being, relating Shai to the extent - the length - of their life. Another translation of his name could be 'that which is ordained'. Thus, the Egyptians believed that Shai was also related to the 'destiny' or 'fate' or even the 'luck' of a human being. The Turkish word kismet can closely describe the concept of the god Shai.

Shai first appeared in the 18th Dynasty and continued through Egyptian history even under the reign of Akenaten. He was even sometimes given the name Shait - shaayt - and was depicted as female rather than male! He was often partnered with three specific goddesses - Meskhenet, goddess of the birth brick and fate, and Renenutet, the goddess who would give a child his or her true name and Shepset, a hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. He was depicted as a man, a cobra or Shai as a man snake and even as a human-headed birth brick, and most often shown in funeral papyri, near his female partners.

As a god of destiny and fortune, Shai could be a positive or negative influence. He could protect an individual, or he could bring misfortune down on the individual. He could be an ambivalent deity, and the Egyptians believed that he followed a person from the moment of birth through to the judgement in the afterlife. His presence at the weighing of the heart could be either one of helping or hindering the deceased, or even as an unbiased party telling the court what has happened in the life of the deceased. But as Meskhenet and Renenutet were there to help with rebirth of the individual into the afterlife, Shai may also have had a similar protective purpose, rather than being a witness against the deceased. An interesting ancient Egyptian greeting was "Shai and Renenutet are with you."

Shai was originally the deity who "decreed" what should happen to a man, and Renenutet, as may be seen from the pyramid texts, was the goddess of plenty, good fortune, and the like; subsequently no distinction was made between these deities and the abstract ideas which they represented.

But it was not only mortals who had to contend with Shai. It was believed that both he and Renenutet are in the hands of Thoth. To emphasise his divinity, Ramesses II claimed to be "the Lord of Shai and the creator of Renenutet". Yet in the temple of Opet in Ipet-Isut (Karnak), he is mentioned as "Shai of all gods" - the destiny and fate of all gods seemed to also be in Shai's hands. In the Instructions of Amenemope, the scribe suggests that no-one could ignore Shai. Akenaten tried to link Shai with the Aten when he stated that "the Aten is the Shai who gives life". Even Akenaten, who was not the monotheist that people believe him to be (as Assmann and Hornung point out), could not ignore Shai.

Do not set your heart upon seeking riches,
For there is no one who can ignore Shai;
do not set your thought on external matters:
for every man there is his appointed time.


Some here already know I couldn't ignore Shay..

(My research into this subject began on New Year's Day 2000 when I awoke hearing a voice repeating the phrase "The Shay Shay are the people who live life the way it shoud be lived" - I'm not in the habit of hearing voices...)

After researching this I came across author Anthony Peake and his wonderful books on the Daemon / Eidolon. http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=4606

It got me thinking...

In familar alchemical illustrations we see two serpents devouring one another. The winged serpent signifies the Universal World Spirit; the bottom serpent signifies our Matter, the Virgin Earth. The crowned, winged serpent is the Cosmic spirit which brings everything to life, which also kills everything and takes all the forms of nature. It is everything and nothing. This upper serpent has the material serpent by the tail. The lower serpent of matter also has the winged serpent by the tail.

These two serpents also represent the fixed state and the volatile state.

"Through the art of separation one makes One into Two….It is the most volatile and also the most fixed…it is a fire that consumes everything, and opens and closes everything. Cook with this fire until it stops, and you have the most fixed thing that penetrates all things - and one has eaten the other, and this figure [the ouroburos wearing the crown] comes out."
This then symbolises the continuous process of the union of the internal world and the external world, the eternal 'now' with the present 'now'.


Now without going into Alchemy too much, the 'fusion' of the two serpents - the fixed and the volatile - is an inner (spiritual) process; part of the Great Work on the Self, one of the aims of which is the unification of (inner) opposites eg Light and Dark, Moist and Dry, Masculine and Feminine etc etc. One of the symbols for successful completion of this inner work is the Ouroboros, another is the Phoenix and still another is The Golden Child.

Some here may have seen my article in Astraea Magazine (Vol.1) on The Cosmic Cycle and The Black Madonna, where I proposed that the symbol of the Black Madonna and Child was a portrayal of exactly the same process depicted in the Ouroboros, but one step further, in that it also depicted the Golden Child (as does the same imagery of Isis and the child Horus, - Divine Son of the Union of the 'material' Isis and the 'god of the underworld' Osiris) and hence could be interpreted as a gnostic/alchemical symbol going back to the time of the days of very early Christianity.

I am wondering if the union of the Daemon and the Eidolon also falls into this category, with the Daemon Ultimate Life of Tony's books being a version of the Golden Child - something we can attain through the Work on the Self, with the assistance of the Daemon making this possible.... The Upper Winged serpent of the Universal World Spirit being associated with the Daemon, and the lower serpent of matter being the Eidolon.
The way I see it is that when the Eidolon and the Daemon are working together as a fully functioning single unit, they become the third 'self', like the ouroboros, or the golden child, or the united Eidolon/Daemonic ultimate life. To live a life as it should be lived.



In all the methods of working on the self, this is the aim, and it's by discovering and listening to the higher self, allowing it to be the guide and to govern the way we behave, rather than the lower self, that this is achieved.

The Crowned Dragon

The Golden Ass - Lucius Apuleius

"The Golden Ass is simultaneously a blend of erotic adventure, romantic comedy, and religious fable, it is one of the truly seminal works of early European literature, with a distinctly Eastern flavouring and a very modern feel. There are very few works with the pleasurable impact of the Golden Ass. Apuleius's images retain their vitality from almost 2000 years ago, losing nothing of their colour and magic. Indeed, the promise of the closing words of the Prologue: Lector, intende: laetaberis - 'Lend me your ear, reader: you shall enjoy yourself' are amply fulfilled. Over the centuries, the Golden Ass has brought pleasure and inspiration to generations of readers and writers, from Shakespeare to Salman Rushdie. A copy of the Golden Ass was one of the few things T.E. Lawrence ('of Arabia') carried in his saddle-bags throughout the Arab Revolt."

The above paragraph is take from a great site dedicated to studying the wonderful book written by Apuleius 2000 years ago, The Golden Ass, a humorous tale still very relevant today  http://www.jnanam.net/golden-ass/
For a free download ebook version of Lucius Apuleius' The Golden Ass, see here:
http://manybooks.net/titles/apuleiusetext99gldns10.html

Iacchus and The Green Language by Nebankh

WIKI SAYS ‘Iacchus was the torch bearer of the procession from Eleusis, sometimes regarded as the herald of the 'divine child' of the Goddess, born in the underworld, and sometimes as the child itself.’
Iacchus is an epithet of Dionysus,^[1] particularly associated with the Mysteries at Eleusis, where he was considered to be the son of Zeus and Demeter. In a Paean to Dionysus discovered at Delphi, the god is described as being named Iacchos at Eleusis, where he "brings salvation".

Iakkhos bearing a torch, seen here with Hekate

The name Iacchus is often associated with the modern name Giacomo, but when we look at the Spanish name, Iago (St. Iago), other links become apparent.

Iacchus was considered the ‘Light Bearing Star of the nocturnal mysteries’ and some of the earliest pre-Christian pilgrimages were associated with travelling ‘to the end of the world’, Finisterre, during their lifetime.
If the pilgrimage has always been associated with the re-birth of the pilgrim, in an alchemic way, as Flammel was taught by Abraham the Jew, I think we can see a direct correlation here. The pilgrim would become Iago/Iacchus, (St. James) the Divine child born in the darkness at the end of the world, though modern pilgrims who walk the route without this knowledge are simply ...walking the route in reverse to see some relics that are probably not even the bones of 'St James'! (see various articles claiming they may belong to Priscillian)

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/telegraph/04camino/04000001.htm

"The route to Santiago was a Roman trade-route. It was nicknamed by travellers ‘la voje ladee, the Milky Way. It was the road under the stars. The pale arm of the Milky Way stretched out and pointed the way to the edge of the known world : to Cape Finisterre. We know that for pilgrims reaching Santiago in the Middle Ages it was as obligatory to venture on to the chapel of Nuestra Senora at Finisterre, the last finger of land crooked into the ocean. One explanation for this is that, there may have been an earlier journey to heaven, more mystical and of far earlier provenance than the church could have expected to acknowledge. The myth then must go back to earlier times and that the first pilgrims may have travelled the camino to Cap Finisterre even before the birth of Christ going as supplicants to some forgotten god."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James 

"One such legend holds that walking the route was a pagan fertility ritual; this however is based on the explanation of scallop shell being a symbol of the pilgrimage.[citation needed] An alternative interpretation is that the scallop, which resembles the setting sun, was the focus of pre-Christian Celtic rituals of the area. The Pilgrims' road seems related to prehistoric cults of fertility arriving to Atlantic Europe from Mediterranean shores[citation needed]. Symbols of Ashtarte, the star within a circle, or Aphrodite,Venus coming on a shell,have been found along the roads to Compostela[citation needed] and among the ancient basques' mythology and legends,those related to Mari, the Mairu and the rising of Megaliths. Joseph Campbell associated the cult of Mari to that of Ishtar and Kali and in pre-Israelites times, the rejected consort of God called "the great prostitute", Asherah There is also claims that the pre-Christian origin of the Way of St. James was a Celtic death journey, westwards towards the setting sun, terminating at the End of the World (Finisterra) on the "Coast of Death" (Costa da Morte) and the "Sea of Darkness" (that is, the Abyss of Death, the Mare Tenebrosum, Latin for the Atlantic Ocean, itself named after the Dying Civilization of Atlantis).[2][3]"


Wiki also has this:"In Fulcanelli's Mystery of the Cathedrals the pilgrimage to Compo-stella is decoded as a metaphor for one of the processes for making the Philosopher's Stone, namely the method using antimony. This method will produce stellated crystals in the arm of the retort, which are then further worked upon. A common misunderstanding which mislead many, including Newton, is that the "stellate regulus" of antimony is the matter to be used.
The pilgrim's shell was a motif used by the alchemist Jacques Coeur on the many buildings he erected, and was his personal motif; it is also the shell upon which Venus rides as she rises from the sea (morning star = stellated matter); this ocean is green, the color of many Venusian minerals, but it's meaning is deeper. Basil Valentine said that the alchemists called their first matter by the name of anything green to confuse the ignorant, but in truth there is such a first matter that is a green esculent water. Venus represents the generative force, the power of attraction/repulsion which brings forth the cosmos. Her water is that of the Fire of Desire which motivates this push and pull. The shape of the calabash carried by the pilgrims is another clue to the source of this green water.
It was also common for churches to place holy water in a container shaped like this shell, although it is unlikely most clerics would know why. This holy water (imbued with the Spirit) was another metaphor for the Mercury of the Philosophers."

Fulcanelli wrote:
'This goal is a strange substance, which the Chemistry of men ignores, which they have never analyzed, and which they will perhaps ignore forever. It is a substance which university theses do not describe, and whose very name makes the profane smile. This substance is the “Chrysoprase”, the Philosophers Stone.

To obtain these fine crystals, of the color of ruby, to which the shadows instantly reflect back their mysterious luminescence, the artisan of the Great Work will have met strange companions along the way: such as the Archons who stand watch over the successive thresholds of the intermediary worlds, the better to bar the way to the seeker, innumerable and symbolic personalities: the Crow and the Swan, the Lion and the Dragon, the King and the Queen, etc., each of which poses their particular enigma for him to solve!

It is only after having understood the secret meaning these that the pilgrim will finally see rise, shining in the heart of the metallic shadows, the Star of Compostella, which announces the end of the golden periplus.

Yet, divorced from any rational basis, and without any possibility for industrial application, the procedure employed nevertheless constitutes a real spiritual enrichment for the Hermeticist, since Life will eventually deliver one of its greatest secrets to him. Now transmuted by this second Revelation, the Initiate finally becomes the Adept, and, in the plane of his inner spiritual alone, with the Arcana finally conquered, he can finally become transformed, to become and remain forever: the Illuminated One.

As the mysterious Stone engenders and multiplies itself in continuous mathematical progression; the Illuminated One, in his turn, transmits his own spiritual light to those who, intelligent and docile prima materia, will themselves accept the need to die as lead in order to be better reborn as gold…
The pilgrimage of St. Iago of Compostella, is one of those enigmatic myths of the quest of the Great Work.

Pilgrims wear a scallop shell as an emblem, also called mérelle. And in the
middle of the matras, as the beginning of The Work, upon the finally decomposed prima materia, a crystalline silver star must appear and float upon the surface – a first indication that the Operator is on the right path…'
This is just a potted version, and the Green Language is worth a study on its own.

There are political reasons which are always to be found at the root of this kind of 'Christianising' event.

'It's not hard to see how closely the fates of Spain and the pilgrimage are entwined. Most of Iberia falls to the Moors, some resistance is offered by the Carolingians but their descendants become preoccupied with their own power struggles, Christianity is limited to coastal regions in N Spain, beset by marauding Vikings. Moors are part of the Arab and African world; Christians, part of Europe. Which way will Spain go? Into this situation steps the Church. Very conveniently, the tomb of one of the more important apostles is discovered right in the far NW corner of the peninsula. The pilgrimage is strongly encouraged by both church and state, promoted by monastic orders such as Cluny, and policed by orders of knights. The reconquest of Spain is billed as a crusade because it is the home of Santiago, almost as important as the Holy Land. And the pilgrimage is an integral part of efforts to link Spain with Christian Europe. Without the Moorish invasion, Santiago would probably not exist. And without the links beyond the Pyrenees, in which the pilgrimage played a leading role, Spain might very well now speak Arabic and Galicia might very well be part of Portugal.'
http://pilgrim.peterrobins.co.uk/santiago/history_background.html



Oh and one last little snippet of interest...The relationship between the geographical area of the ancient Galician Finisterrae and the cult of Saint James was established shortly after the discovery of the apostle's tomb. Local traditions, possibly from the Swabian era (5th-6th century A.D.), indicate St. James the Apostle's connection to this area. In the 10th century A.D., new tales appeared regarding his presence and, halfway through the following century, the definitive version was set down in Book 3 of the Codex Calixtinus. Thus, Fisterra has become a solid part of the European Pilgrim's Way of St. James.The various stories of how St. James's body was carried to Galicia mention the pagan town of Dugium (Duio), which lay on the isthmus of Fisterra, and from which various remains have disappeared. According to the Codex Calixtinus, when the disciples of Zebedee came ashore at Padrón, Lupa, queen of that area, sent them to Duio so that the Roman legate would authorise them to bury the Apostle. The legate threw them into jail, intending to kill them, but they were freed by an angel and escaped. When the soldiers in pursuit of them were about to catch up with them, they crossed the bridge of Nicraria (which has been identified as the Roman bridge at Ons, now sunken beneath the waters of the Barié de la Maza reservoir). Providentially, the bridge collapsed just as the soldiers were crossing it.

Steppenwolf: "The Genius of Suffering" by Hassan M. Malik

"Like Goethe, a Hesse novel is an integral part of a broader paradigm, which reflects the author's maturing thought, morals, and ideas at that particular point in his life. Hesse wrote Steppenwolf when he was about fifty years old. His health was on a decline, and he had divorced out of a failed second marriage in a relatively short period of time (Ziolkowski, 108). He was also visiting Dr. Carl Gustav Jung for psychoanalysis (Ziolkowski, 109). Hesse's opposition to the upcoming Second World War, his failed marriage, his search for self, his deteriorating social life, and a strong influence of Jungian ideas it appears, have contributed to the development of this novel.  Hesse elaborates how the road to realization of the self can fill up with extreme pain, suffering, misery, affliction, and twinge, if the multiple aspects of self are ignored and the self is reduced to only two extremes of persona – Haller finds his nirvana through the realization that he must broaden the horizon of his thoughts to encompass the thousands of possibilities offered to him by Bourgeois, which he has always despised."

Follow the link below to read the full article

http://archives.hassanmalik.org/steppenwolf

Angry Nerds - How Nietzsche is misunderstood by Jared Loughner types.

"The attraction of Nietzsche to socially maladjusted young men is obvious, but it isn't exactly simple. It is built from several interlocking pieces. Nietzsche mocks convention and propriety (and mocks difficult writers you'd prefer not to bother with anyway). He's funny and (deceptively) easy to read, especially compared to his antecedents in German philosophy, who are also his flabby and lumbering targets: Schopenhauer, Hegel, and, especially, Kant. If your social world fails to appreciate your singularity and tells you that you're a loser, reading Nietzsche can steel you in your secret conviction that, no, I'm a genius, or at least very special, and everyone else is the loser."

Read the full article at Slate
http://www.slate.com/id/2281133/

The Uncooperative Subconscious Mind: Saboteur or Scared Parent?

The Uncooperative Subconscious Mind: Saboteur or Scared Parent?


When your subconscious mind does not cooperate with your plans, though it may feel like a saboteur, in reality, it’s more like a scared parent. It’s been tracking your beliefs. You’ve scared it into thinking you need to be rescued (by your defense strategies). It also believes your physical survival is at stake in any emotionally painful situations, when it’s not..
Read the full article at PsychCentral
 

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2011/01/the-uncooperative-subconscious-mind-saboteur-or-scared-parent/

Has Psychology Killed Philosophy?

"How can we lead meaningful lives in an age when the broad culture no longer embraces a single vision of religious truth? In a remarkable new book, All Things Shining, philosophy professors Sean D. Kelly of Harvard and Hubert Dreyfus of UC Berkeley undertake a rollicking survey of three millennia of Western thought, contrasting the ways that Homer, Aeschylus, Dante, Melville, and others found meaning in their worlds. The main challenge we face today, they write, is to find a convincing response to nihilism, a position that they identifying particularly in the writings of David Foster Wallace."
- From Psychology Today ~ follow link for rest of article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/extreme-fear/201101/has-psychology-killed-philosophy

The Universal Conversation

 

"Yet with all this hunting, snaring and trapping the Bushman's relationship with the animals and birds of Africa was never really one of hunter and hunted; his knowledge of the plants, trees and insects was never just the knowledge of a consumer of food. On the contrary, he knew the animal and vegetable life, the rocks and the stones of Africa as they have never been known since. Today we tend to know statistically and in the abstract. We classify, catalogue and sub-divide the flame-like variety of animal and plant according to species, physical property and use. But in the Bushman's knowing, no matter how practical, there was a dimension that I miss in the life of my own time. He knew these things in the full context and commitment of his life.
Like them, he was fully committed to Africa. He and his needs were committed to the nature of Africa and the swings of its wide seasons as a fish to the sea. He and they participated so deeply of one another's being that the experience could almost be called mystical. For instance, he seemed to know what it actually felt like to be an elephant, a lion, an antelope, a steenbuck, a lizard, a striped mouse, mantis, baobab tree, yellow-crested cobra or starry-eyed amaryllis, to mention only a few of the brilliant multitudes through which he so nimbly moved.
Even as a child it seemed to me that his world was one without secrets between one form of being and another. As I tried to form a picture of what he was really like it came to me that he was back in the moment which our European fairy-tale books described as the time when birds, beasts, plants, trees and men shared a common tongue, and the whole world, night and day, resounded like the surf of a coral sea with universal conversation."
Laurens Van der Post - The Lost World of the Kalahari

Project Gutenberg

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"The Theory and Function of Duende" Federico García Lorca

In his brilliant lecture entitled "The Theory and Function of Duende" Federico García Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. "All that has dark sound has duende", he says, "that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain. [...] All love songs must contain duende. For the love song is never truly happy. It must first embrace the potential for pain. Those songs that speak of love without having within in their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at a...ll but rather Hate Songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the air-waves are littered with them. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil" (Nick Cave)

http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.htm

García Lorca - Theory and Play Of The Duende

Translated by A. S. Kline © 2004 All Rights Reserved.

This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

The Glass Bead Game

Taken from http://www.glassbeadgame.com/

WHAT IS THE GLASS BEAD GAME?
Herman Hesse's Nobel Prize Winning Novel,
The Glass Bead Game
lays the foundations for an Artistic/Conceptual Game, which integrates all fields of Human and Cosmic Knowledge through forms of Organic Universal Symbolism, expressed by its players with the Dynamic Fluidity of Music. The Glass Bead Game is, in Reality, an Age Old metaphor for what has been called, the "Divine Lila" (Play or Game of Life). This metaphor has been expressed by every great Wisdom Tradition known to man, and its players, the Magister Ludi (Masters of the Game), use as their instruments Ancient and Modern modes of Symbolic Wisdom traditionally presented through Sacred Art, Philosophy, Magick and Cosmology. For a more detailed elaboration of our vision of the GBG, see:
THE GLASS BEAD GAME

The Fountain ( death is the road to awe )

C. G. Jung and the Alchemical Renewal by Stephan A. Hoeller

"Today, more than twenty-five years after Jung's death, alchemy is once again a respected subject of both academic and popular interest, and alchemical terminology is used with great frequency in textbooks of depth-psychology and other disciplines. "

http://www.gnosis.org/jung_alchemy.htm

Mack the Knife Sung by Lotte Lenya

MACKIE MESSER Mack the Knife

This classic Bertolt Brecht song (music by Kurt Weill) is from "Die Dreigroschenoper," which was first performed in Berlin in 1928. The now classic "Mack the Knife" is just one of several popular tunes from the "Threepenny Opera." Knef's version only uses six verses of the eleven in the original "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer." Marc Blitzstein wrote an English adaptation of the "Threepenny Opera" in 1954. Lotte Lenya appeared in that off-Broadway production (and in the original Berlin production). Louis Armstrong made his famous version of "Mack the Knife" in 1955. Bobby Darin's version was a hit in 1959. [Note: Bertolt Brecht's (1898-1956) lyrics are an adaptation of Elisabeth Hauptmann's German translation of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera."]NOTE: This translation is NOT the Marc Blitzstein English version made popular by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, and others. It is a literal translation of the original German. - Hildegard Knef - MACKIE MESSER

And the shark, he has teeth
And he wears them in his face
And MacHeath, he has a knife
But the knife you don't see

On a beautiful blue Sunday
Lies a dead man on the Strand*
And a man goes around the corner
Whom they call Mack the Knife

And Schmul Meier is missing
And many a rich man
And his money has Mack the Knife,
On whom they can't pin anything.

Jenny Towler was found
With a knife in her chest
And on the wharf walks Mack the Knife,
Who knows nothing about all this.

And the minor-aged widow,
Whose name everyone knows,
Woke up and was violated
Mack, what was your price?

And some are in the darkness
And the others in the light
But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see

But you only see those in the light
Those in the darkness you don't see

  *Strand - Name of a street in London, not the German word for "beach."

Listen to a wonderful recording of the German version, Mackie Messer, below, sung by Lotte Lenya

The character of Macheath, later to become Mack the Knife, first appeared in The Beggar's Opera by John Gay (1685-1732). Gay was a popular English playwright and poet, a friend and collaborator of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.

The Beggar's Opera is a comic ballad opera, the first of its kind, and took London theatre by storm. Gay uses lower-class criminals to satirize government and upper-class society, an idea that has been used often ever since. A century and a half later, the title characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance note that they are more honest than "many a king on a first-class throne." And in our time, wasn't it Bob Dylan who wrote, "Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you a king?"

The main character of The Beggar's Opera is a swashbuckling thief called Macheath. He's a dashing romantic, a gentleman pickpocket, a Robin Hood type. He is polite to the people he robs, avoids violence, and shows impeccable good manners while cheating on his wife. The character is usually understood as partly a satire of Sir Robert Walpole, a leading British politician of the time.

The Beggar's Opera was a success from its first production in 1728, and continued to be performed for many years. It was the first musical play produced in colonial New York; George Washington enjoyed it.

We now skip about 200 years to post-WWI Europe and Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), a distant cousin of this SDSTAFFer. World War I had a revolutionary impact on the arts. The avant-garde movement, in despair after the war, embraced the concept of the anti-hero. Gay's play was revived in England in 1920, and Brecht thought it could be adapted to suit the new era - who's more of an anti-hero than Macheath? So in 1927 he got a German translation and started writing Die Dreigroschenoper, "The Three Penny Opera."

Brecht worked with Kurt Weill (1900-1950) on the adaptation. He did far more than just translate Gay's play, he reworked it to reflect the decadence of the period and of the Weimar republic. Mostly, Brecht wrote or adapted the lyrics, and Weill wrote or adapted the music. Gay's eighteenth-century ballads were replaced with foxtrots and tangos. Only one of Gay's melodies remained in the new work. The play parodies operatic conventions, romantic lyricism and happy endings.

The main character is still Macheath, but Macheath transformed. He's now called Mackie Messer, AKA Mack the Knife. ("Messer" is German for knife.) Where Gay's Macheath was a gentleman thief, Brecht's Mackie is an out-and-out gangster. He's no longer the Robin Hood type, he's an underworld cutthroat, the head of a band of street robbers and muggers. He describes his activities as "business" and himself as a "businessman." Still, the character does manage to arouse some sympathy from the audience.

So, we finally get to your song, the "Ballad of Mack the Knife" (Die Moritat von Mackie Messer) from The Three Penny Opera. The song was a last-minute addition to appease the vanity of tenor Harald Paulson, who played Macheath. However, it was performed by the ballad singer, to introduce the character. The essence of the song is: "Oh, look who's coming onstage, it's Mack the Knife - a thief, murderer, arsonist, and rapist." (If these last two startle you, be patient for a couple paragraphs.)

The Brecht-Weill version premiered in Germany in 1928 and was an instant hit. Within a year, it was being performed throughout Europe, from France to Russia. Between 1928 and 1933 it was translated into 18 languages and had over 10,000 performances.

In 1933, The Three Penny Opera was first translated into English and brought to New York by Gifford Cochran and Jerrold Krimsky. There have been at least eight English translations over the years. In the 1950s, Marc Blitzstein wrote an adaptation, cleaning up "Mack the Knife" and dropping the last two stanzas about arson and rape. At the revival in New York using the Blitzstein translation, Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill's widow, made her comeback - she had a role in the original 1928 Berlin production.

Blitzstein's sanitized adaptation is the best known version of the song in the English-speaking world, and undoubtedly the one you've heard. Louis Armstrong popularized it worldwide in 1955 with an amazing jazz beat. Bobby Darin's 1958 recording was #1 on the Billboard charts for many weeks and won a Grammy as best song. It's been sung as ballad, jazz, and rock by many of the greats, including Ella Fitzgerald and Rosemary Clooney.

In the 1970s, Joseph Papp commissioned Ralph Manheim and John Willett to do an adaptation/translation that would be "more faithful" to Brecht. So, if you were surprised at the notion of arson and rape, here's Willett's translation of the last two stanzas, omitted from the Blitzstein version:

And the ghastly fire in Soho,
Seven children at a go-
In the crowd stands Mack the knife, but
He's not asked and doesn't know.
And the child bride in her nightie,
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumbers-
Mackie how much did you charge?

Having hit the heights with Louis Armstrong, it's only fair that we also recount the depths reached in the 1980s with the McDonald's TV jingle, "Mac Tonight." Selling Big Macs - how have the mighty fallen.

Got a question, Harmon Everett?
Get behind old Lucy Brown.
Oh the line forms on the right, dear
Now that Cecil's back in town.

— Songbird

To Know - To Understand - To Be

You have no business to believe me.
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. . .
If you have not a critical mind, your visit here is useless. ¹

G.I. Gurdjieff

"To my mind, those who swallow the Gurdjievian cosmogony whole, and those who reject it out of hand, are equally wrong and, above all, equally superficial. Those who study Gurdjieff, alive or dead, without either fear or respect, are equally naïve. From such a man one takes and rejects, one is both wary and receptive. One struggles with him. To struggle with Gurdjieff (and not against him) is to understand him, to know him, and, in the end, to love him." Pierre Schaeffer, Paris, 1954
From The Old Man and His Movements.

Gurdjieff - A comprehensive reading guide with numerous links to his work

http://www.gurdjieff-bibliography.com/Current/index.html

How to talk to the unconscious mind

The conscious part and the unconscious part of us, although clearly forming a total 'whole', appear to work as separate autonomous systems. The more we can relax with this idea, the more we can encourage the specific part of ourselves that is best suited to deal with specific circumstances to take the reins and manage that process. What does this mean?
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/articles/uncommon-hypnosis/how-to-talk-to-the-unconscious-mind.html