Moby Dick and Symbolical Journeys
Presented on: Thursday, October 30, 1980
Presented by: Roger Weir
Symbolism
Presentation 5 of 12
Moby Dick and Symbolical Journeys
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, October 30, 1980
Transcript:
...read a couple of paragraphs from a section of Moby Dick, which is pure poetry. It's, um, chapter 92 called Amber Grease. And amber grease is the substance from which, uh, for perfumes the various vintages, uh, um, used to be made. And Melville writes of the experience of being there bent-over tubs and tubs of this amber grease. And they are, have to squeeze it with their hands to keep it from clotting up and pulsing up. And he writes,
Who would think then that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale. Yet so it is by some amber grease is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it would be hard to say unless by administering three or four boatloads of brand **inaudible word** pills, and then running out of harm's way as labor is doing blasting rocks. Oh, and I had forgotten to say that there were found in this amber grease, certain hard round bony plates, which at first, I thought might be sailors' trousers buttons, but after a while it turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squids' bones embalmed in that matter. Now that hidden corruption of this most fragrant amber grease should be found in the hardest such decay, is this not nothing? Me thinks me of that thing of Saint Paul and the Corinthians about corruption and incorruption. How that we are sown in dishonor but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best month. And also forget not the strange fact that of all things adults' saver cologne water in its rudimental manufacturing stages of the worst.
And so, then he goes on to talk about squeezing this, uh, Amber grease. And he writes,
As I sat there at my knees, cross-legged on the deck after the bitter exertion at the windless. Under a blue tranquil sky. The ship under indolent, sail and gliding to serenely along as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues wove almost within the hour. As they richly broke to my finger and discharged all their opulence like fully ripe grapes their wine. As I stopped up that uncontaminated aroma, literally, and truly like the smell of spring violets, I declared to you that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow. I forgot all about our horrible boat. In that inexpressible Burmese substance, I washed my hands and my heart of it. I almost began to **inaudible word** the old Paracelsian superstition that sperm is of rare virtual you in allaying the heat of anger. While bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free of all ill will and petulance or malice of any sort whatsoever. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze all the morning long. I squeezed until I myself almost melted into it. I squeezed till a strange sort of insanity came over me and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers hands in it mistaking their hand for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, friendly, loving feeling, did this **inaudible word** to get that at last it was continually squeezing. And looking up and eyes were filled sentimentally as much to say, oh my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social **inaudible word** or know the slightest ill humor or envy. Come, let us squeeze and squeeze **break in audio** human kindness. Would that I would I keep squeezing forever.
And then he has a, "In my thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw a long rows of angels in paradise. Each with his hands in a jar of **inaudible word or two**." This **inaudible word** vision comes of course, just before the final, um, interlock where the Pequots and its crew having made that, um, unholy pact with **inaudible word** are forever committed to trying to kill the final object of their quest. And this is of course the exact process that we usually find ourselves in when we are living a life especially conscientiously bringing symbolism into our vision. We find ourselves more and more in a position of trying to draw up for ourselves a schemata and diagrams **inaudible word or two** by which we seek to remember constantly in our **inaudible word**. And try to apply these various schematas and so forth to situations which by their own nature flowing in certain patterns and designs. And by exing out that which does not fit in we hope to recreate somehow, uh, through our symbolic vision some sense of what it is that we have dreamed up in our aspirations, in our minds. And of course, this is exactly the wrong process. One which leads increasingly to wishful thinking on one hand. To wish for a kind of a more simplistic world or a more simplistic kind of a personality situation. Whatever it is. Making it easier to transform these wonderful mental ideas **inaudible word** onto reality. And thus, corral to take them according to the way in which we would like. But of course, as we are seeing, all the examples that we have in process here, shows the lie of this approach.
And the opposite to this, a type of **inaudible word** really, is that as we develop a field of inquiry and we had, uh, experience as a **inaudible word**. We had, uh, a myth in Mr. Hall's book say. An article on Isis. Or on Pythagoras. Or we bring in something from The Book of Hopi. Or we have Moby Dick. Or we have slides, like tonight we're going to have a few slides of William Blake, Dante, an example of symbolical terms. As we develop a field of inquiry, our process is not to fit it into any particular scheme whatsoever, but rather to enrich that field of inquiry. And the important part, not yet underscored, is that this **inaudible word** is something which takes place over a duration of what we would call time. And at certain opportune junctures there are patterns, not from our mind, but patterns into the globe of events, which make connections for us. And make various kinds of continuities and parallels occur to us. And precipitate out of this solution of experience, shape, and form. You may find something from the ceremony from the Hopis **inaudible word**. Or something **inaudible word or two** effect of Isis. Or something that you've read in Moby Dick. And perhaps a concept of **inaudible word**. And out of that will come a shape which will be a shape of your experience integrated with the conscious structuring of imagery and the conscious adoption of ideas with rather universal patterns, which we do not structure, but which are there. They are given. They are in operation. And whatever shapes come out of course, whatever revolutions come out of this **inaudible word**, those are the template position. Those are the orientation, the compasses, the guide. Those are the inner star. And as they collect in the living process, the real constellations, the real celestial scope of our own existence comes more and more into the natural floor that we recognize that the shapings, which we find for ourselves occur in others. Both those who like ourselves are companions in a quest together in a situation like this. Or we find great affinity with people in other ages or other cultures and times.
And as this kind of paralleling occurs more and more, we realize that we have got ourselves on the path. That we have come into a recognizable realm of spiritual experience. And that it's stagings, it's unfoldings, its pedaling forth to fullness to has patterns which ignore any other kinds of cookie cutter categorical conceptions in which the mind can dream up. They can **inaudible word** by comparison and fall by the wayside.
In symbolical journey, which is really the specific topic tonight. And, uh, Moby Dick as our great example of one. We come to a place where we find ourselves in a position of trying to understand what it is that we're doing. And the temptation of course, is to try to come to some intellectual conclusion. And it's almost always prematurely. Because the impulse, the emphasis, to integrate is a constant with us. And as soon as we begin to attenuate our senses and mature beyond the natural days, beyond the simply ritualistic phase, and even beyond the mythological language base to the symbolic, the natural occurrence is to try and bring something together. And this is where the sense of time becomes very valuable. Because it may not be for many months or many years until the full reverberation of the meanings, which are maturing in our cells become apparent. And if we are carrying within us a particular ideological prejudice, a certain kind of a categorical formation, which we prefer beyond all others, we tend to structure the perception of our integration along those lines. Thus, seeming to confirm our own intelligence and our own initial supposition.
Whereas the other process letting chaos be chaos. Letting unknown remain unknown. Letting experience, which has not yet resolved itself into anything stable or aligned itself with anything, parallel. But simply observing it, adding it to the field of inquiry, to the spectrum of what it is that we are entertaining. In our perception, in our contraception, in our mobility, letting that be there. Letting it enrich.
There's a, uh...the famous dictum from mis erroneous procedure **inaudible word** is called the categorical imperative. Designated by **inaudible word** which we've mentioned two meetings ago, Immanuel Kant, that before we do anything we must ask the question. What if everyone did this? And of course, very often the answer is if everyone did this, this would be a very terrible thing. So, we do not do it. And the lists of don'ts and should nots and do not from this kind of attitude grows very long, very ponderous, very complex.
On the other side of this is something which might even be called, designated as the existential imperative. What if no one did that? And quite often the answer to that is that the universe would be minus a value. That the field of an inquiry would be lessened not enriched. And so, the temptation constantly. And of course, when we have before us a complete cycle of learning, as is in Mr. Hall's great work here. And we have the chance as we have in here to at least survey some of this great grand circle of meaning. It's very easy for us to forget to try to find and insight that takes us to this center from which then any aspect of this could be illuminated and to try and say something which we dream up. Or we manufacture. Or someone else manufactured and we adopted. And try to impress it on that circle of learning, hoping then that everything will clear up and that which doesn't clear up must not be valuable. And we can dispense of it. Throw it away. Hence the quality of brilliance in the book is it is a far-flung cycle. You will find 20, 25 traditions. And all of them are valuable. All of them are necessary. Because it is a completeness of this cycle that is valuable to us because it affords us the farthest possible spread of a field of inquiry. We may look at anything at anytime, anywhere with value.
Now, as far as, um, Moby Dick, Melville's, um, great symbolical journey here is, has been chosen because it compliments an area of the great book, which without something like the perspective of Moby Dick would remain hidden. And that's what he used to disclose. And that is there is such a difference between the old world and the new world. Between Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia minor. Which formed a continuous civilization for some seven or 8,000 years. And the new world, which has just a small, few paltry centuries of recorded history. And of course, we're not doing disservice to the American Indians. We mentioned that many times of their antiquities. But the case in point is that for the kind of get mind which we have using a language which is European, as English is. Remember we talked about the language type and North America, and about the fact that the California alone had 20 different language families before, uh, any people, peoples of European descent came here. And that, that was more linguistic diversity than all of the European continent. But the fact is old world, new world, there is something distinctive about the new world and about the quality of mind and the quality of experience with that mind can comfortably entertain, which highlights and compliments the old world.
And mostly the tradition in the secret teachings bond to the old world. I guess that quality could be summed up, the title and the book here from Yale university press. Uh, the book has kind of pedantic. It isn't very good but the title of is good. It's called Wilderness and the American Mind. Wilderness. And Moby Dick has within its scope, a fantastic appreciation for the world as largely an unknown. Something which has never been subjected to any of the categories of imposition. And therefore, the world is rather like a joker than any particular card or sequence of cards in the deck. It is unknown. It can play any part. And even the game, the name of the game unknown.
The notion of Wilderness, the fact that at the time that this was written about 130 years ago, 1850, uh, even most of the continental USA. California, of course, was a state but most of the continental USA was still terra incognita to 99% of the population, but the end roads were coming. The development was plain to see. And there were people like Melville or Gauguin or Robert Louis Stevenson who tried to flee to the primitive condition of man before it was spoiled. Tried to achieve an experience of Eden before it was lost forever.
About the time just before Moby Dick was written, for instance, and this was on everyone's mind. Um, but for instance, uh, Washington Irving, very famous, uh, American writer who loves the East coast very well, but had gone to Europe and spent about 17 or 18 years there. **inaudible word or two** with great nostalgia that who has never seen the American West. And so, he left the grandeur of the Alhambra. He left the excellence of London. He came rushing back to the United States, immediately set out on this great expedition. And he wrote a book called The Tour of the Prairies. And in it was the most startling **inaudible word** revelation for him and statements to say. He said if man wants to mature, he shouldn't go to Europe at all, but he should go out to where he matures into the wilderness. Because there's some qualities there which crawls towards that essential nature, that quintessential **inaudible word** in a new way, a new shape. And of course, that shape is always the one which we can contribute. Which we can engender. Which we can harbor. And so that, uh, at that time, and since, and even up to today, the American mind in particular as a spiritual experiencing quester prefers to have an unknown. Prefers to have a horizon of unlimitedness. And so, in Moby Dick we find example of their kind of opportunity.
I wanted to, um, present Moby Dick to you in a way, which I felt was, uh, something which you could not get to yourself. Would never had an experience of. And so, I decided to use kind of text to illuminate it. You can experience the book on your own. And you will, whether it's this year or next year or five years from now. The kinds of images that are in process now will simply surface again and again and become more and more meaningful. But, uh, here's a text that I don't think any of you would have access to and so I'll give it to you. If you've noticed the book is dedicated to a friend of his. Nathaniel Hawthorne another very great American writer. And, uh, when the book was being written in the 18...1850,1851, even for a while, uh, Hawthorne lived just on the other side of the mountain in Massachusetts from, uh, Haw...uh, Melville. And they used to visit back and forth. And they hadn't been friends before then. And there is a series of letters from Melville to Hawthorne which have survived. And I've excerpted out about six or seven paragraphs from a series of letters that come at the time of the composition of Moby Dick to the man of whom it was dedicated to. And has within it the, the kind of germinal experience that Melville was expressing through all of Moby Dick, that it begins in a great wide-open camaraderie. And in its grand Hermetic circling comes into contact with all the great issues and then comes to a beautiful resoling. Almost a precipitating of form to Melville at the end where I think you'll appreciate what he has to say.
The first excerpt is from a letter dated the 29th of January 1851. Pittsfield, Massachusetts. And this is, it's sort of a beginning of a friendship between Melville and Hawthorne. Remember that in the background on Melville's worktable is this book and all the concerns in it. And increasingly to him the realization as we had, as we saw last week Mugi's dragon. In Mugi's dragon by the tail. And in order to hold that dragon, why you have to be the compliment, you have to become the tiger on the shore. Remember those images. So, this is quite, quite a, an interesting letter. A few excerpts.
As I said before, my best traveling, I will send my best traveling chariots and runners. And it will be at your door provision not only for accommodation, but also for any quantity of baggage. The word welcome all the time will be in my house so be ready the very instant you cross the threshold. Another thing do not think that you're coming to any prim or nonsensical house that is nonsensical in the ordinary way. You must be bored with such **inaudible word** people. You may do what you please. Say, or say not what you please. And if you feel any inclination for that sort of thing, you may spend the period of your visit in bed if you like. Every hour of your visit. In **inaudible word** there's an excellent **inaudible word** sherry awaiting you. And some most potent port. We'll have mulled wine with wisdom and buttered toast with storytelling and crack jokes and bottles from morning until night. So, come and if you don't, I will send constables after you. **inaudible word or two**
The next letter dated the 12th of February, about two weeks later. And this one is the only one in the sequence that's not Melville but to his brother-in-law **inaudible word**. And he writes here,
After a long procrastination I drove down to see Mr. Hawthorne a couple of weeks ago. I found him, of course, buried in snow and the delightful scenery about him all wrapped up and tucked away under a napkin, as it were. He was to have made me a **inaudible word** visit. I had promised myself much pleasure in getting him up in my subgroup room here and discussing the universe with a bottle of brandy and cigars. But he has not been able to come owing sickness in his family. Or else up to **inaudible word** in the universe again.
Who **inaudible word** paragraph **inaudible word or two**.
Next letter in this sequence is the 16th of April, about two months later. He must have **inaudible word** piles high **inaudible word or two**. A little something from April 16, 1851. He's talking about the problem of, uh, character and creating literary character. And this is, uh, Clifford from The House of Seven Gables.
Clifford is full of an awful truth throughout. He is conceived in the finest, truest spirit. He is no caricature. He is Clifford. And here we would say that since circumstances permit which is like nothing better than to devote an elaborate and careful paper to the full consideration. An analysis of the **inaudible word** and significance of what so strongly characterizes all this author's writings as a certain tragic page of humanity. Which in our opinion was never more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne. He made the tragical **inaudible word** of human thought his own unbiased naïve and profounder working. We think that into no recorded mind has the intense feeling of the visible truth ever entered more deeply than into this man. By visible truth we mean the apprehension of the absolute condition of presence thing as they strike the eye of the man who appears **inaudible word** not that they deduce their words to him. **inaudible several words** of the lessons **inaudible few words**.
A little bit later on in this sequence. This is from, uh, from Hawthorne the letter dated the 1st of June 1851. About six weeks after that. He's talking about his, how Hawthorne's reputation is one of one of very careful, right, or wrong. He's being remembered for a book that he wrote called **inaudible two word**. And he says,
But to go down in posterity is bad enough anyway, but to go down to the man as a man who lived among cannibals. Well, I think of posterity in reference to myself I only mean of the babies who will probably be born in the moment immediately upon ensuing my **inaudible word or two** of the goat. And I shall go down to some of them at all in all likelihood. I'll be given to them with their gingerbread. I've begun to regard this matter the same as the most transparent of all vanities. I read Solomon more and more. And every time sink deeper and deeper. An unspeakable meaning to him. I did not think of fame a year ago as I do now. My development has been all within a few years past. I am like one of the scenes taken out of the Egyptian pyramids, which after 3000 years of being the seed and nothing but seeds and planted into English soil develops by itself and grew to greatness. **inaudible several words or sentence or two**.
Later on, same month. Same person writing to Hawthorne. "Until I was twenty-five, I had no development at all. But from my 25th year I date my life." He was thirty years old when he was writing this letter. He did nothing until he was twenty-five. He said,
At twenty-five I date my life. Three weeks have scarcely passed at any time between then and now **inaudible word** I have not unfolded within myself, but I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of the ball. And that shortly the flower must fall to the mold. It seems to me now that Solomon was the truest man who others spoke. And yet that he a little manic the truth with the view to popular conservatism. I've been reading **inaudible word or two** for worship by his **inaudible word**. And I came across this quote, live in the all. That is to say, your separate identity is but a wretched one. Good as get out of yourselves. Spread and expand yourself. And bring to yourself the tinglings of life that are felt in the flower in the woods. That are calling the planet Saturn and Venus and the six stars. What nonsense. Here's a fellow with the raging **inaudible word**. My dear boy, **inaudible word** says to him, you are sorely **inaudible word** with that too, but you must live in the all. And then you will be happy.
And Melville writes, to Hawthorne, "As with all great genius there is an immense view of **inaudible word** in wisdom. And in proportion to my own contact with him a monstrous view of it indeed." **inaudible word** is on this kind of a form of experience yesterday. We're in the old modeling. The old **inaudible word** has dissolved. They have no **inaudible word**.
Rupert later on, the end of June 1851 to Hawthorne. He incidentally called Moby Dick the whale all the way through **inaudible few words**.
Shall I send you a fin of the whale, which by way of a specimen mouthful. The tail is not yet cooked so the hellfire amidst the whole book **inaudible word** might not unreasonably have cooked it all **inaudible word**. And this is the book motto. The secret one, of course. **inaudible few words in Latin** but maybe the rest of it for yourself.
And of course, the phrasing comes from the wonderful Latin. I baptize you in the name of the father and so forth. Melville is this, it's changed a bit here. And of course, the sequence in Moby Dick where all of the harpooners are gathered together by Ahab. And of course, **inaudible word** is almost like a perfect **inaudible word** symbol you want to **inaudible word or two** your perspective and so the **inaudible word** typology **inaudible few words** in some kind of ideational hearing. Is, uh, you have the captain, and you have his immediate counterpoint **inaudible word** is the third **inaudible word**. And over here on your **inaudible word** side **inaudible word** is this counterpoint **inaudible word**. If you factor the first mates and the second mate and the **inaudible word** mates. And **inaudible word** some of you **inaudible few words** and you've been waiting I suppose for some of these things. These are notes, Melville **inaudible word**. Now a proverbial stop **inaudible few words** this is, this is some of his **inaudible several words** and then **inaudible few words** a harpooner.
And because off **inaudible word** symbols whenever they manifest, they're always a **inaudible word or two** there's a compliment to Ahab. **inaudible word** is the primitive to **inaudible word**. **inaudible word** primitive **inaudible few words**. And the **inaudible word** here to Ahab **inaudible word**. Because of Ahab's **inaudible word or two** pivots his cookie cutter capacity **inaudible word** the world for himself only and extend to such points that the unconscious expression of his compliment is but a little cabin boy. And not anyone who would be a harpooner of capable of **inaudible word** of the whale. And of course, poor **inaudible word or two** the cosmic parallel to Ahab is known as the story that lived out a billion years before the oceans rose. And **inaudible word**, characteristic to that kind of squeezed, demented unconscious, uh, pull into the ocean. And as Melville says that he goes under the water. That he must've seen God foot on the pedal of creation he went so far down.
In this world of course, the Pequod itself as the ship, holds this together. And that person who is free to meander round the whole **inaudible few words**. The one who is free by virtue that he isn't included in the structure. He's not a part of the plan. He's left out. Superfluous. Of course, he's the one who **inaudible word** by. He's the one who is not caught in the tragic net.
And getting back now, bringing back to the point that you were holding in suspension. The Latin, uh, when baptized in the name of the father, which was changed. In Moby Dick its where Ahab brings together the three harpooners. And they take off the harpoons **inaudible word** and they fill the **inaudible word** with this. And they toast themselves to the fact that they will, regardless of whatever happens, go with Ahad in quest to killing Moby Dick. And that is the only thing in the world that counts. And they swear Holy or rather unholy fraternity. And of course, this is like a black mass. This is like a black sabbath. This is a going against nature in the sense that this is kind of a formation is not a part of the natural flow. And as **inaudible word** is an imposition from the outside. And of course, it has always a tragic, uh, dae pneuma as the Greeks called it, a final **inaudible word**.
A little bit later. This is November 7th. This is a letter to his brother-in-law again. He says,
Your letter received last night had a sort of **inaudible word** effect on me. For some days passed being engaged in the woods with ax and wedge the whale had almost completely slipped me for the time. And I was the merrier for it. When crack comes Moby Dick himself that you might justly say reminds me of what I have been about for part of the last year or two. It is really and truly a surprising coincidence to say the least. And make no doubt that it is Moby Dick himself. For there is no account that his capture after the sad fate of the Pequod about 14 years ago. Egads what a commentator is this Ann Alexander whale. What he has to say is short and pithy and very much to the point. I wonder if my evil **inaudible word** have raised this monster.
And of course, this is, uh, not immediately apparent to you because you're, you're not adjusted finally to these kinds of, of **inaudible word**. But what he's saying here is that he has created in this book, not a fiction but a reality which enters into our reality, has that capacity. So much so that it is a part of our experience as if we had lived it ourselves. It's a part of our background can become a part of our reality. Just as surely as any experience that we've ever had. And it's a very peculiar sense because the mind which seeks its solace in these kinds of images, which it imposes on the world. Would rather concede of things in terms of a fiction and nonfiction. Something, which you just as you, you read for entertainment. Or something which you read for data or information. But that's a false **inaudible word**. And neither of those two qualities ever obtain. It's never purely data and it's never purely fiction. But we're rather adding to field of inquiry and having experienced the symbolical journey like Moby Dick, fully, is almost the same in terms of reality. As if we ourselves had lived through that.
Faulkner, when he discovered it, he said, that he set his bottle of Jack Daniels down and he said he had discovered that literary figures cast shadow. And he never again wrote a word that he didn't mean. Because just as Melville was beginning to realize here, after he sent the manuscript off, that he had created something in reality. Not just a book. Not just a fiction. And all symbolical have a way coming to birth, of having their Genesis and creating the form. And we may take those journeys, not simply allegorically and not simply in the mode of just something which is entertaining or curious. But for real. I love the children's phrase for real because it is a beautiful way to state the propositional import of what it is that we've really opened ourselves up to. That is to say, all symbolic journeys can add to our actual living reality.
The last letter in this sequence. This of course was written again to Hawthorne about two days later. And he writes,
END OF SIDE ONE
...written again to Hawthorne about two days later. And he writes,
Your letter was handed to me last night on the road going to Mr. **inaudible word** and I read it there. Had I been at home I would have sat down at once and answered it. In me divine **inaudible word** are spontaneous and instantaneous. Catch them while you can. The world goes round, and the other side comes up. For now, I can't write what I felt. But I felt **inaudible word** again, your heartbeat and mine. And mine and yours and both **inaudible word**. A sense of unspeakable security is in this moment on account of you understood the book.
I've written a **inaudible word** book and I will feel spotless as a **inaudible word**. **inaudible word** sociology are **inaudible word**. I will sit down and dine with you and with all the **inaudible few words**. It's a strange feeling. No hopelessness in it. No **inaudible word**. **inaudible word** that is it. And irresponsibility, but without life's **inaudible word** inclinations. **inaudible word or two** with my profoundness sense of being and not just an incidental feeling.
And this of course, in a few minutes here **inaudible few words**. This is a watermark page in the fabric of high **inaudible word** reality. **inaudible word** that with someone who has seen through the form to its import. Someone who is **inaudible word or two**. Someone who in, like in the words of Pythagoras realizes that yes geometry is history. And to read the progression of the form is to read the movement of eternity and time itself.
And Melville here, in this own sequence of letters you see **inaudible few words**. I thought that was an interesting perspective on Moby Dick on which you would seriously have a chance to **inaudible word**. And I hope that it gives you a little bit of background on this.
Uh, I want to go over the, uh, the Hopi ceremony with you. But let's take a little break and then we'll, we'll get to that. And then I have some other things I want to, um, share with you. Let's take a break for ten minutes.
And we had two persons doing **inaudible word**. We had three doing **inaudible word**. And we had three doing **inaudible word** and, uh, Justine **inaudible word** is that. And **inaudible word**, she's not going to be coming, is that right?
**inaudible few words from the room**
And Carlee is home.
Uh, um, I think a word of explanation here. Um, what is been done is something which, here is something which, um, is very difficult to perceive having just one experience in this sequence of series. Or two, or three. The process that we're involved in is radically different from the kind of thing where you take an experience, and you start on page one of that experience when and you follow through in sort of a straight line to the end. We're doing something else. We are seemingly jumping around, but we're doing that jumping to stimulate our curiosity. To stimulate our insight into coming into operation. And to quiet down all the associative qualities of mind, which were required to use in our working, waking family lives. Which would be a detriment to our involvement in this kind of process. It is just those **inaudible word** qualities that get us through the day in terms of words and **inaudible word** and so forth that would blind us to that kind of light that we are trying to observe. And it's like that.
And so, I jump around, and I move around. And I bring this material in and try to put it out in such a way that there is no quality of second guessing available to that mundane mind. And so, it's resolution about the second or third or fourth week, is that this is chaos. And that's a **inaudible word**. That's the place we want to have that mind at because it's only then that that mind will sit up and listen and learn. It's only when the **inaudible word** mind becomes a tool for some other quality of presence, with love suspending realms of meaning. But is that quality in ourselves **inaudible word or two**? Which is at home on his **inaudible few words** doesn't meet the land. Doesn't meet the shoreline. Doesn't meet the pleasant **inaudible two words** at all. That involves the **inaudible word or two** and is at home there.
So, the jumping around with material, the using different types of materials to compliment in ways that would not have occurred to you naturally, any of you. And I have to go pretty far afield because we are very sophisticated group. I have to, I have to get combinations of things that would have required, uh, an unbelievable background to match to all of them so that all of the **inaudible word or two**.
And my kind of thing is to find perspective that will be new. Will be totally unfamiliar. That you'll have to address from scratch and build a relationship to, patiently throughout your experience and stumbling and open again. Well, this is something memorable and **inaudible few words**. That to have a **inaudible word** mind is **inaudible word** to have the forms that **inaudible word or two**. The art of memory.
On The Book of Hopi, and the reason for using The Book of Hopi in the way that we're doing it is to **inaudible word** reading it as an anthropological document. The **inaudible word** to reading it as some kind of entertainment or fiction. And so, we have **inaudible word** a ceremonial year, all those cycles, all those ceremonies that **inaudible word** one year journey would be performed by **inaudible word or two**. We portioned out each one of those ceremonies to different people. And its encouraged here to study and read and absorb only that ceremony that you're looking for. You can understand it as deeply as you want. Or you can just, if you have limited time, just read this section in The Book of Hopi. It can't be more than 15 or 20 pages. Hopefully you'll become curious, and you'll read some of the introductory material. Who are the Hopi? Or the more primordial, who are Indians? Or perhaps and hopefully sometime next year or a couple of years, it will occur to you that you can ask that question, um, what is the nature of **inaudible word or two** that it could manifest itself this way in a wilderness. Questions like that. You can **inaudible several words**.
But the important thing is that if you studied only that ceremony, you're going to be curious because we know that it fits into a larger pattern. What is that larger pattern? And so, near the end of the particular course of events we will have all those people who have been doing the various ceremonies come in and the recount in their own words, what that ceremony is. And as we go along through the couple of hours it will take to recount all those ceremonies, the way in which they fit in will emerge right then and there before your eyes. And the work which you will have done will gain its perspective.
Now it would not be nearly so valuable if there were some expert, some anthropologist or some Hopi Indian. Or someone who really knows all the material to the nth degree to give some kind of a very sophisticated understanding of the form. These are **inaudible word** cycles et cetera, et cetera. And then your contribution would look to your own self very naive and not important and out of place. But having the entire cycle recounted in just the same mode by individuals like yourselves who never looked at it before, know very little about it. It will all be in the same **inaudible word** and some of the same composition. Will all have the same tone.
And that's what we're after. We're after to convince ourselves that starting from scratch and with a certain kind of Hermetic quality at play of questing that we can engage circles of learning and spirals of **inaudible word** and infinities of reality. As we are we don't have to wait for an expert. We don't have to wait until we have all the information in the universe. We can just begin at anytime, anywhere and form, uh, a path. And hopefully if we see that this can be done through The Book of Hopi that you will begin to see that we are doing a very similar thing with this great book. I can't tell you how many people have owned this book for years and years and have read about one page or two pages. Because they feel trepidation of who am I to try to understand all of this. And the fact is, is that that's wasting this wonderful type of work. And its wasting all this wonderful work, which we count ourselves out of having **inaudible few words** simply because we don't really have confidence that we would have some way of addressing ourselves to it. We don't have all those degrees. We don't have that **inaudible word**. We don't have that scope. We don't that time.
In the **inaudible few words** mind has an infinity of good arguments of why not to do it. It will never run out of excuses, and they are all **inaudible word or two**. And so, we do the old thing. You know Hermes was a thief before he was a wise messenger of the Gods. And the same to do is to go and steal back your life. That's the perspective. Get outside of the jail.
**Comment from the room** Let me ask you something **inaudible word** about that.
Yeah.
**Comment from the room** I have a daughter who's an attorney and I have gave her the **inaudible few words** of the book **inaudible few words**
Yeah.
**Comment from the room** **inaudible few words** to compliment it.
Yeah.
**Comment from the room** And I think it was the end of the first year, because I know it was **inaudible word**. Keep it in your house because if you keep it in your house they are going to see it and ask about it.
Yeah
**Comment from the room** And it is amazing the effect it had on people. Because that book it **inaudible word or two** was different **inaudible several words**. You won't find it in **inaudible word** house. **inaudible few words**. He was fascinated with the book. 12 years old. Looking at the script. He **inaudible few words** for a report at school. And for his thirteenth birthday I dictated **inaudible few words**
Isn't that wonderful.
**Comment from the room** He was so thrilled. When I realized that a boy that age **inaudible few words** and I know how intimidating adults are. A thirteen-year-old **inaudible several words**. And the information in that **inaudible few words**.
Yeah. Well, that's good. That's excellent.
Um, I've **inaudible word** on two readings, uh, introductions. Uh, some of the people are, have you, have you exhausted those? Some of you started with a person and some started with a tradition.
**inaudible comment from the room**
Yes.
**Comment from the room** Ok we've been talking about the theatre of the mind **inaudible several word**. And it just so happened I looked at the pages and I have the **inaudible few words** of the written word. Are you expecting a overview, a conversation of that **inaudible word**. Or are you expecting or is it acceptable to zero in on one aspect? Or is that **inaudible word** with a minimum of words.
Right.
**Comment from the room** **inaudible several words** out of the blue.
Right. And my best answer to that is that I have no mental picture whatsoever of what you should do. And whatever it is that you do do will be just right.
**Comment from the room** Even if it is just...
However.
**Comment from the room** address it...
Absolutely.
Just to show you that this is the way in which the Hermetic spiraling works. Before this meeting last week no one was here that was doing **inaudible word**. And as I was coming out someone said, no one's doing **inaudible word**. Shall I, do it? And I said, no. Don't do it. Because if no one is there to do it we want to learn that too. We're ready to learn whatever it is that is there. In whatever form that it's going to manifest. Because the important thing is that we don't understand what these ceremonies are, but we begin to get a glimpse at what it is we are doing. And what we are doing is we are putting together our experience with others **inaudible word or two**. Simple things like that. And you can call them by much more sophisticated things **inaudible two words**. And we're developing a field of inquiry where we are just trying to enrich it with as many things as we can. And occasionally we'll begin to observe that this is meaningful. Out of this **inaudible word**, and it rises, I think the old image is of just as if it were a flower in a **inaudible word** that rises up and suddenly you have the image of a flowers. It's not a mental picture of it. But an image of a flower. That something has opened. Something has become meaningful. And sure enough, within five minutes or an hour ago or a day something happens that are externalized and confirms that to us. And we begin to say, wait a minute, what is this a script? Is this a plan? How come? How come this happens over and over again.
The fact is, is that all of these traditions speak the truth. They're all true. That all this happens exactly as they say. It's just that we have a view here of 10 to 12,000 years of worldwide human history. And we only live 60 or 70 years. So, we only experience, have enough time to experience, a little bit of it. But if we experience the whole cultural cycle like this it is as if we have lived 10 or 12,000 years because it brings back into our realm, just like Moby Dick creates the reality. We recreate all those realities for ourselves. And we get the kind of statement that Goethe once said that a person isn't ready to be civilized until they are 5 or 6,000 years old. Life is **inaudible few words** it takes that long to figure out decent ways to get out of things. Much less what to do.
**Comment from the room** Now when I came to **inaudible word**
Yeah.
**Comment from the room** I read about four paragraphs from **inaudible word or two**. I noticed that I don't comprehend it all.
Alright.
**Inaudible Comment from the room**
From Roger **inaudible word or two**
**Comment from the room** Come back to it later on.
Absolutely. Come back to it later on.
**Comment from the room** **inaudible few words** read through the whole thing **inaudible word or two**.
It's useless to go on. Just suspend it. But don't write it off. Just mark it with unknown. It's alright to have unknowns. I want to encourage you people not to read the American Indian Symbolism. Save that for the end. Save that for the end. Um, for those who have read, uh, on people, starting with the person, person oriented, I think the thing to do is to move up to something that will challenge you. The whole section starting with CX111, this, starting with 113 this is about The Kabbalah and The Secret Doctrine of Israel. And there are four, there should be four sections I think with the tarot. Fundamentals of Kabbalistic Ceremony, The Tree of the **inaudible word**, Kabbalistic Creation to the Keys of Man and Analysis of the Tarot Cards **inaudible word**. Five, five sections. Those five sections. Read, read in that sequence.
And those who have started with the persons...I'll just put this up for you. Um, start with The Mystic Christianity, which is CLXXVII. That's 177. 177, Mystic Christianity. And on through the **inaudible word** and crucifixion. **inaudible word or two** the apocalypse. Those two and then to come up here to, um, the second on uh, uh, flowers and insects. And, uh, yeah, this is it. Yeah. Fishes, Insects, Reptiles and Birds. These are the natural phenomena starting with, uh, 85 and you could do about three or four sections of that. 85 part one and two and 89. Flowers, Plants, Fruits, and Trees. You want to have that natural energy. Stones, Metal and Gems. And don't go into Ceremonial Magic. Yeah. Up to The Grail and The Magic of Metals and Gems.
Now, the reason then, just to empathize this it is very difficult for a lot of people to apprehend. The reason why we don't have sophisticated, written, typed up lectures amending material is that is not what we're after. Where we have it here in beautiful form. We're trying to develop, uh, an exploration dynamic by which we may go in and play in these fields of information and find out that's what we don't have. We already have the books. The information has always, always been available throughout most of our lifetime. We're trying to get to it and it's difficult to get to it.
In fact, and I'm sure Mr. Hall with a smile, it's almost as if we've backed ourselves into a corner this century where it's more difficult to get to what already is there then to get the information developed in the first place. The problem a hundred years ago is what to know. And now the problem is how to get ourselves to what there is that we do know. It's a different problem. And it's also one that's more illusion tone. That if we, we fall prey here a game called the game of parentheses. We would contemplate thinking that well this is the case and we're in control of that. Where, as a matter of fact, we are not. And, uh, then we try to enlarge our perspective again by making a larger set of parentheses take in the real **inaudible word or two** and those are not quite adequate. And this kind of process happens time and time again. For instance, any logical system like a computer program or a logic. Any logical system that grows expressive enough, has enough elements in it to be able to actually say something meaningful instead of yes or no and so forth, out distances its own capacity to prove itself. So that you have to have an auxiliary system to in order to make sure that it's, at **inaudible few words** is, is true and balanced. And so constantly you're finding that, uh, logical systems as soon as they become useful have outstripped the capacity to be rational. In the strict sense of the word. And this is a typical natural function of the egotistical mind. As soon as we're big enough to control the segment of the world, we have already lost touch with the very basis with which would permit us to control anything at all. We have this case in point. To some I suppose this will just be of interest and to others I think it will begin to ring some bells.
I have a few images here. Uh, do we have time for it? Or do you want to...
**inaudible comment from the room**
Just **inaudible word**
What I've done **inaudible word** is a symbolical journey that is using a symbolic vision to look back on our experience. Not so much in retrospect but as we're living it. It is a very difficult thing to get used to. And it requires a knack of seeing. And so, I brought in, consciously, different examples to augment what we're already doing. And I have two examples here. I have an example from Japan, and I had an example from England.
And the example from Japan is 6 or 7 slides from Hiroshige's Tokaido series. And Tokaido was a road from Tokyo to Kyoto. And it used to be **inaudible word** like a road between what we would say in terms of, uh, importance, between New York and Washington D.C. The largest city and the capital city. So, it was a major thoroughfare. But the curious thing is, on one hand Hiroshige he was the last great landscape artist in the orient. He died in 1858 Japan modernized right after that. So that European images, even though they're only about a hundred years old, 130 years old, look to us like medieval images. Because the Japan within 10 years Japan was already changing and was insisting Hiroshige's images were quaint beyond description.
But the important thing is, is that he had no pretension philosophically. He simply was trained to record things as they are. And so, we have an artist who gives us natural images of symbolical journey without any kind of interference with something that he would like us to see. He just presents it as it really was. And in a very peculiar way, because one, and this, this is one, one way to see Melville's test. Uh, art creates reality. It's not **inaudible word or two**. If you look at Hiroshige images for several hours, immerse yourself in it. Look at them for long minutes and translate and study them and walk outside. You begin to see with his eyes. And for a couple of minutes, it's almost an incredible thing that you're looking with Hiroshige's eyes at **inaudible word**. Because the eye in the act of seeing composes.
One of our great photographers from this country is Edward West. And he said composition is the strongest way of seeing. And when we really do experience and we really do see we have an artistic sense of composing while we see. We look and in the looking see. This process of shaping and the **inaudible word or two**. And this is why, uh, **inaudible word** find the emphasis. And people who had done long years of meditation, long years of contemplation on an essential **inaudible word or two**. Because there's so much quality in the very act of seeing and doing that, they have no need to jump up the **inaudible word or two**. The simple realm just flows in.
The second thing that I have in here is William Blake. Towards the end of his life, he was a great visionary. He, uh, **inaudible word** met him several times. One of these times we'll do a course on William's life. But, uh, he was a talented youngster. And, uh, he saw spiritual visions before he was a teenager. And his parents **inaudible word** didn't have much money realized that they had a usual child, so they sent him to art school. And, uh, at that time, the emphasis was not on painting, but on a practical art. So, he learned the art of engraving. He was going to be an engraver of watches and things like that. But in order to learn the art of engraving he was apprenticed from age 16 to 21 to a man who had a commission to produce a series of plates, several hundred plates of Westminster Abbey. And so, this talented visionary teenager was put into Westminster Abbey for five long years to engrave in detail every aspect of it. And of course, Westminster Abbey is just the most miserable kind of a place. Its architecture. And William Blake was there in his 21st year they unearthed the tomb of Edward the Confessor. The last King of ancient England before the Normans took over. And when they raised the sarcophagus top there was a cloth inside almost like the Shroud of Turin. And when they pulled it back there was an image of Edward the Confessor on it. And of course, William Blake was right there, and no one could tell him for the rest of his life that spiritual being that **inaudible word or two** reality with a negative image. So that if that's true than anything that he would **inaudible word** here, and it's backwards and it **inaudible word** out right on the page is real. Spiritually real. And therefore, we can tell ourselves things about the spirits to artists and mediums. Almost as if you were an 18th century **inaudible word**.
Towards the end of his life, he tried to **inaudible word** the great symbolical journey that, uh, that is, um, uh, Dante. Dante's Divine Comedy. But Blake, unfortunately, was very old. He didn't live long enough. And most of his illustrations to Dante are what we would call sketches. But that's all to our advantage because we can see in the sketches the kinds of things that we ourselves might do. They're doodles. They're sketches but they are images which reverberate. We've seen them in our dreams. We've seen them in visions ourselves. And there they are. And there's something peculiar about this.
And it's this quality of Hiroshige and William Blake, the kind of journey of Dante, uh, um, journey. When you put that into parallel something like Moby Dick, The Book of Hopi and The Tao-Te Ching and Mr. Hall's great book. All these cycles. And you realize that ourselves is the focus there bringing these qualities out. You find yourself standing in line in the supermarket and suddenly instead of looking at the sprite or something, different kinds of thoughts, different kinds of qualities of perception start coming. You start looking through the plate glass of a window and you see the crescent moon looking like Isis' crown. Well, that's called beginning to wake up. And the more you do the more you see because you're just literally surrounded. Immerged in an ocean of meaning, which is there all the time. And eventually you have that vision.
And I think for the last slide in here is Blake's Vision Paradiso of the woman in paradise who is in this chariot. And the chariots method of moving is a whirlwind of circular forms that are mainly eyes. And that, that's the way that a spiritual image would move. A chariot that has a whirlwind of eyes **inaudible word or two**. It's a wonderful, beautiful way of speaking.
And we don't have much time. Let's see what we can **inaudible few words**.
**inaudible few words** up a little bit. Always there's a companion. The **inaudible few words** There's a quality here **inaudible word** spiritual **inaudible few words** being **inaudible word** and the sand and ocean. And the section up here **inaudible few words**. And those walking the other way are struggling against the wind. And the kite flying with its string below with **inaudible word or two** of the dynamic of that **inaudible few words**. It's just a very simple image yet when we begin talking about it. In the angle of the curve in the kite string and the **inaudible word or two** and those that just compliment almost mirror like images of **inaudible word**. And the lake in the background is like the mirror. It is...you can talk forever. You can develop a **inaudible word** galaxy of meaning.
The typical thing... selected these out because the, uh, one of the images here is very much like Melville in **inaudible word** Moby Dick **inaudible word or two**.
Here are all these wonderful mountains. And you can see the **inaudible word** of people on the right. **inaudible few words**until they are almost just the color of **inaudible word**. **inaudible word** really belongs **inaudible few words** of, of natural horizon so that he blends in. And the object here of the most interest is that which is presented in a negative **inaudible word**. And that is that white ice cream cone type shape that is not **inaudible word**. And I think by far the highest thing in this **inaudible word**. There's almost a **inaudible word** in the back. In this same way Moby Dick constantly looms suspended in the book in the symbolical journey. The way **inaudible word** looms in the **inaudible few words**.
Here again **inaudible few words** in the **inaudible word** of human beings **inaudible several words/maybe a sentence or two**.
**inaudible few words**. I'll have to go back and to the **inaudible word or two**. The movement of the **inaudible word**. Your eye can roll off in the foreground and constantly **inaudible few words** come up.
**inaudible word** phenomenon composing while **inaudible word** this.
And here the **inaudible word or two** synchronicity of **inaudible word or two**.
And here's the phenomena that **inaudible several words**. Now **inaudible few words** The image here **inaudible few words**. You can't help but **inaudible several words**. You give up complaining **inaudible several words** too beautiful for words.
**inaudible comment from the room**
You see how the moon has risen up and there's a whole ocean of **inaudible few words** has transcended. And very often the moon is thought of in that way. It's like a **inaudible word** risen free and **inaudible few words**.
This **inaudible word or two** when somebody asked **inaudible word** if he could draw **inaudible word or two** he said that **inaudible few words**. I wouldn't **inaudible word or two** that this was a psychological presentation. An artistic **inaudible word** and spiritual vision. **inaudible word or two**
This is just a series of, um, sketches. These are images of symbolic **inaudible word**. I'll just go through them. And we can...
You see the **inaudible few words**. Even his **inaudible word** form we have a better chance to address **inaudible few words** and somehow of those stars in the sky we can say that **inaudible word** suspended **inaudible few words**. And yet there's something **inaudible few words** reverberating around.
This **inaudible few words** in all these different images of **inaudible word**. In reading from Moby Dick Melville **inaudible word** constantly images. He'll give us images of the whaling **inaudible word**. And they're not superfluous. They're to help us acclimate ourselves to that world. **inaudible word or two** images of people in the crew. Images of their relationship to the sea.
And then there are **inaudible word or two** deeper meaning, symbols like Moby Dick that come before **inaudible few words**. And those symbols begin **inaudible word or two** ordinary in terms of meaning the to any space that we can learn and **inaudible word** that we can learn indirectly. And the direction takes the development and the development **inaudible word** the journey.
**inaudible several words**. You can just barely see here in the sketch **inaudible few words** a gaping lattice **inaudible few words**. These were all there by 1825 about the time that Moby Dick was set.
And here of course is, uh, **inaudible word** and Melville were both **inaudible word or two** Old Testament people **inaudible few words**. That is to say to them the Old Testament of The Bible was a fundamental source of spiritual **inaudible word**. Now you can say that the use of metaphors **inaudible few words** that this is like a, uh, **inaudible word** light the flames of **inaudible word** the landscape and **inaudible few words** that somehow this could be **inaudible word or two**. All that **inaudible word or two** all that kind of jargon **inaudible few words** and yet possible **inaudible few words** is our capacity to immediately give what is there and just do that. Because we want to keep, in our field of inquiry, our **inaudible word** apprehension **inaudible few words**. We have something else **inaudible word or two** and not just an understand but rather **inaudible several words**.
**inaudible word or two** this wonderful symbol from the Hopi Indians. **inaudible word** the Navajo Indians **inaudible word**. And looking, this here is a design **inaudible few words** inside a basket. And I've been looking all over Los Angeles to find a Navajo basket that has it in and nobody has them. Oddly enough. But I have several friends scouring collections and, uh, I hopefully, before this course is over, I'll bring them in.
This is the most masterful presentation of the **inaudible word or two**. That there is nothing in particular that **inaudible few words**. So that the **inaudible word** is engendered by the virtue of the paths taken **inaudible several words**.
END OF RECORDING