Birthday of Bob Marley. Respect.

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

February 06 is the birthday of Bob Marley, born this day in 1945.

His music explored and articulated a wide range of subjects, especially overcoming and transcending injustice and oppression. It is rightfully widely beloved by so many because it is so consistently uplifting.

Below are some examples for your enjoyment and hopefully upliftment! Please continue at the bottom for a few additional comments.

"Rastaman Chant"

"Put it on"

"Small Axe"

The spiritual current running through the music of the Wailers is strongly evident on each of the above tracks, as are direct references to Biblical scriptures.

And yet in one of the band's most well-known songs, "Get Up, Stand Up," with its message of individual and social consciousness, there is an overt message decrying the negative role of religion (and specifically literalist Christian religion) intertwined through the song, most notably when Peter Tosh's unmistakeable voice breaks in to denounce "isms, schisms."

Clearly, while the band was rejecting the variations of the religions built upon those scriptures (most of them identified with names or labels ending with "-ism"), and the role that they have played in the oppression of the people, they did not see it as contradictory to use the scriptures themselves to convey a message of greater consciousness, blessing, and hope. See for instance the extensive and uplifting incorporation of scriptural themes in "Small Axe" (above), or in another song from the same album, "Hallelujah Time" (gorgeously sung by Bunny Wailer).

And in fact, watching videos of Bob Marley singing his music (whether live in concert

or in the studio such as in the clip of "Rastaman Chant" included above), it can hardly be denied that he exhibits the characteristics of ecstatic transport when he is pouring out his song.

From the above discussion, it can be said that Bob Marley's music embraces what can be shown to be the original shamanic, uplifting, and consciousness-raising message that is actually contained within the world's ancient scriptures (from around the globe), while simultaneously rejecting the system which has actually taken those same scriptures and used them to teach a message that is often 180 degrees out from the original intent, and which has undeniably been used to oppress, to enslave and to wage war on consciousness.

In this sense, we can understand why Bob Marley's message and music appeals on such an incredibly widespread level around the world: because we actually have a universal, shared shamanic heritage, which certainly has widely different expressions and features in all of the different cultures and geographies and eras of our human experience, but which ultimately can be shown to shared shamanic features, such that we cannot say that shamanic experience "belongs" only to one group or place or time period.

It is the shared inheritance of all humanity.

The shamanic element of the Wailers' music (I believe) is also evident in the lyrics to the song "Put It On," particularly in the first stanza, in which the word "them" functions as a definite article which refers to "spirit" in the singular, but also apparently in the plural, and to which the title of the song almost certainly refers, meaning both "putting on the spirit" and also being in touch with the spirit realm and the (plural) spirits.

In "Put It On," Bob Marley sings:

Feel them spirit

Feel them spirit

Feel them spirit

Lord, I thank you

Lord, I thank you

Feel all right now

Feel all right now

Feel all right now

Good Lord, hear me

Good Lord, hear me

I'm not boasting

I'm not boasting

I'm not boasting

Feel like toasting

Feel like toasting

I'm gonna put it on

In the morning

I'm gonna put it on

In the night

I'm gonna put it on

Anytime, Anywhere

Good Lord, help me

Good Lord, help me

No more crying

No more crying

No more crying

Lord, I thank you

Lord, I thank you

Cuz

I'm gonna put it on

I'm gonna put it on

I'm gonna put it on

Feel all right now

Feel all right now

Lord, I thank you

Lord, I thank you

Lord, I thank you

Feel all right now

Feel all right now

Bob Marley, February 06, 1945 - May 11, 1981.

Respect.

Joseph Hill and the Nazarite vow

Culture: "Why am I a Rastaman?" from Humble African (2000).

January 22 is the birthday of Joseph Hill of Culture, born this day in 1949.

Some of his countless inspiring songs are mentioned in  this previous post from 2012.

Regarding the "big picture" of human experience, the ancient scriptures of the world depict our incarnation in this material world as a case of spirit being "crossed with" matter -- and explain that a major aspect of our mission in this life is to raise up the spirit (in ourselves, in others, and indeed in all of nature) that has been cast down and hidden by matter -- to elevate the spirit. This is the essence of "blessing," as discussed in this previous post.

The opposite would be to press down further into the material, to deny the spirit, to "force" ourselves and others to be more and more confined to the physical, to degrade -- in other words, "cursing."

Here is post containing a video examining in depth the evidence that the story of Samson, in which his hair is shorn off but then begins to grow back, expresses the above concept in terms of the hair. The scriptures explain that Samson was consecrated to the Nazarite vow from before his birth, as part of the command of the angel who visited his parents (Judges 13:5).

That video and the discussion in this previous post both reveal that the hair of Samson metaphorically connects him to the rays of the sun, and esoterically to the invisible realm of spirit: when it is shorn off, it is emblematic of being plunged into matter, incarnated in a physical or "animal" body, represented in other symbology by the horizontal bar of a cross -- and when it grows back that is emblematic of raising the spiritual side, reconnecting with the invisible, immaterial aspect of who we are, which is represented in other symbology by the vertical portion of the cross.

Songs by Joseph Hill explicitly connect his music and the concept of Rasta with the Nazarite vow, and thus with raising the spirit, raising consciousness, and ultimately with blessing.

At the opening of the song "Babylon a-Weep," from the album Trust Me, he quotes Numbers 6 and beginning in verse 2, saying:

For it has been said: "When a man or a woman vow the vow of a Nazarite, no scissors nor razor shall be upon his head" . . . Jah Rastafari!"

In the song "Why am I a Rastaman?" from the album Humble African, he sings:

When I was a boy about eight years old,

There was a certain Rastaman,

And he love all the children

And he treated us like a man.

Even the children that no one cares for,

He call up every one,

And he gave us fruit and treated every one

With a special love.

Many people see I, Many people ask I:

"Why am I a Rastaman?"

For he taught I the love

To give to every one.

Many people see I, Many people ask I:

"Why am I a Rastaman?"

There is no better way to express my love

To each and every one

One Saturday morning

A special thing happen to this man

Here comes Mystery Babylon

To take away the Rastaman

So they root up him herb

And they beat off him fruit

And throw it in a van

And straight after that for three long years

I never see the Rastaman

They took him to general penitentiary

And they send him back as a bald man

But that could not change him

His mind was not in prison

It was only his body man.

From these verses it is very clear that in the songs of Joseph Hill, the concept of the Nazarite vow is emblematic of elevating the spirit, including over the degrading or down-pressing forces of poverty, imprisonment, racism, social rejection and marginalization (all of which focus on confining to the physical, rather than uplifting the spiritual), and that in his music and his life he taught that actively extending love and blessing to every one was the antidote to these forces.

It is also clear from the second song quoted that, although allowing the hair to grow is emblematic of that spiritual concept, it transcends the physical and in the case of the man whose hair was cut off, "that could not change him."

Music and singing, in fact, can also be seen as connecting us to the world of spirit, and have been seen that way around the world since ancient times.

Respect.

The Undying Stars on James Tracy's Real Politik and MemoryHoleBlog!

Big thanks to Professor James Tracy for all that he does in the examination of what has been pejoratively labeled as "conspiracy theory" by those who oppose the kind of critical analysis demonstrated by "outsiders" such as Sherlock Holmes (or Scooby Doo and the gang) and which is often very much resented by "the authorities" both in mystery stories and in real life.

His website, the Memory Hole Blog, is an essential source for analysis of important events from perspectives that not only are not offered by the conventional media but perspectives that voices in the conventional media often tell us we must not even consider.

When we are told that certain hypotheses or explanations of the evidence are forbidden and may not even be considered as possibilities, we can be certain that critical analysis is not taking place -- and critical analysis is a powerful antidote to what we might broadly term "mind control" (more on the broad use of that term in a moment).

Professor Tracy teaches young men and women the value of good, open-minded analysis in his work as a university professor, and he provides an extremely important platform for alternative hypotheses, overlooked evidence, and critical examination to take place regarding major events which effect all of us.

The evidence that serious criminal deception may be taking place on a massive scale which is presented in many of the essays on his website is extremely compelling -- and it is not surprising given the evidence that I believe can also be seen connecting this pattern of deception to one with very ancient roots.

Recently, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Professor Tracy on his weekly podcast-radio program, Real Politik with James Tracy, recorded on 11/23/2014 and which aired today (video above). You can listen to the recorded conversation by using the player found on the interview page here, and you can also download the audio file (mp3) to listen to it on a mobile device by "right-clicking" or "control-clicking" on the word "Download" on the interview page or in this sentence.

After our conversation, I continued thinking about some of the valuable subjects that he raised with his insightful questioning during the interview, and wrote a series of connected posts on the topic of critical, honest analysis as an antidote to mind control, including "Analysis: Against mind control, for human consciousness," which Professor Tracy was kind enough to post on the Memory Hole Blog website today (here).

The other recent essays related to the same train of thought inspired by that conversation include:

• "Orangutan, Gorilla, Chimp, Human: Which role are you playing?" 

and

• "Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant on reason, analysis and mind control"

Visitors who are new to the general areas covered in my research, especially regarding "astro-theology" or "Star Myths" as well as some of the outlines of ancient history which I believe are extremely important and which tie in to all the issues discussed above may find the following links helpful, most of which relate to specific references that came up during the recent interview:

• "Star Myth Index!"
• "A thousand times more precious . . . "
• "Piercing the fog of deception that hides the contours of history"
• "The Cobra-Kai sucker punch (and why we keep falling for it, over and over and over)"
• "Commodus and Marcus Aurelius"
• "Ambrose and Theodosius" 
• "The shamanic foundation of the world's ancient wisdom"
• "Happy Anniversary to Moby Dick!"
• "The ideology of materialism"
• "No hell below us . . . "
• "Why John Lennon matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness" 

Also, during the interview, I explained that I am using the term "mind control" very broadly. The term "mind control" can refer to many different ideas, including some very specific techniques which themselves are clearly violations of natural law and human rights, but I am using a very broad definition of mind control here, which might be summarized as follows: "A range of primarily mental rather than physical techniques, often involving deception, illusion, emotion, and ideology employed on a wide scale in order to control large numbers of people, and especially in order to get them to acquiesce to violations of natural universal law perpetrated against themselves or others, support violations of natural universal law perpetrated against themselves or others, or even completely overlook and fail to see violations of natural universal law perpetrated against themselves or others."

I am indebted to the analysis and teaching podcasts of Mark Passio among others for many of the ideas contained in that definition, as well as my own reading of the work of Lysander Spooner on the subject of natural law. For a list of links to previous posts discussing this particular concept, see the links contained in this previous post. For two posts about Lysander Spooner and his work, see for example:

• "Lysander Spooner, natural law, and human consciousness"

and

• "Does writing something on a piece of paper make it a 'law'?"

For those who wish to check out other interviews in which these and other topics are explored, there is an "Interview Archive" which contains video links as well as a collection of links to the mp3 files for easy downloading (the mp3 links are in the right-hand column of the page on most browsers).

There is also an internal-search window which can be used to search the hundreds of previous posts in this blog for specific key words or search terms, located in the upper-left corner of most desktop-style browsers. Also, please feel encouraged to get in touch with me via any of various possible methods, including the modest Facebook page and Twitter handle (@davidwmathisen) that I maintain.

Finally, it is notable that Professor Tracy has terrific taste in music, and likes to end his interviews with the inimitable strains of "Elephant Talk," by King Crimson (which is all about the power of language, by the way, as well as the mutability and playfulness of language, an incredibly important area for discussion, related to the "creation of reality," touched on in previous posts such as this one). I happen to have bought that album in the 9th or 10th grade of my indenture to the public school system, and I came across it recently while searching for a completely different album (which I didn't find, but that's ok because I wasn't even thinking about King Crimson when I went looking for that other album).

Here it is (for younger readers, that is called an ALBUM!!!):

Otis Redding (September 09, 1941 - December 10, 1967)

image: Wikimedia commons (link).

On this day in history, Otis Redding and six others left this life in a tragic airplane crash, the cause of which remains unexplained.

Rest in peace. Respect.

"How long shall they kill our prophets / While we stand aside and look?"

October 09, 1940 - December 08, 1980

"Why John Lennon matters in the ongoing War on Consciousness"

The Undying Stars on Marty Leeds' Mathemagical Radio Hour!

Recently, it was my great pleasure to have a conversation with philosopher Marty Leeds, whose fascinating exploration of number, symbol, language, and sacred geometry (among other subjects) has led him to some incredible discoveries, which he shares through his writings, his videos, and his interviews.

Welcome to any new visitors who might be dropping by this site for the first time after hearing that conversation -- hope you'll visit often and explore some of the information that you can find here about topics that you may find to be interesting or helpful.

I really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope that you will also. We actually decided to extend the discussion beyond the first hour, so eventually you should be able to hear that as well, perhaps as part of a subscription model on Marty's site, or through a YouTube video or other method.

Even without that additional material, however, we managed to range over a wide spectrum of subjects. Below, I have put together a list of links to places where those interested can explore some of those subjects in greater depth:

• The "Star Myth Index," which has links to discussions of the celestial foundations of many different sacred stories from around the world, including many from the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament of the Bible.
• Further discussion of the ancient Greek myth in which the giants Ephialtes and Otus (two sons of Poseidon) imprison the war-god Ares in a brazen cauldron for thirteen months, until Ares is rescued by Hermes.
• An extended meditation on the vital importance of Hermes, the "trickster god."
• The "mental model" of the earth-sun model in your dining room. 
• Another "mental model" -- which I call the "earth-ship metaphor" -- which helps explain why the angle of light from the sun changes throughout the year. Another post which tries to illustrate this concept can be found here.
• The reason everyone should use the outline-system suggested by beloved children's author H. A. Rey when looking at the constellations -- and see also this post, which shows how the outlines suggested by Rey (in this case, for the zodiac constellation of Aquarius) can be critical to understanding the celestial foundations of myth -- in this case, in the Old Testament story of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
• Further discussion of the ancient Greek myth regarding the illicit affair between Aphrodite and Ares and the time they were caught in a net woven by Aphrodite's aggrieved husband, Hephaestos -- mentioned briefly in this interview. 
• The zodiac wheel, and how it forms the foundation for many mythical concepts, including the shining "upper half" of the wheel and its correspondence to heaven or paradise or a holy mountain, and the gloomy "lower half" of the wheel and its correspondence to hell or sheol or tartarus or hades or the underworld.
• The zodiac in the human body -- and the related concept of macrocosm-microcosm (see here and here and here for even more!).
• The teaching that the organs in our human body resonate with and are influenced by specific heavenly bodies.
• A discussion of the way that different forms of architecture can make us feel very differently -- and the undeniable fact that buildings in which "education" is supposed to take place in the United States often have absolutely hideous architecture, architecture so hideous one cannot help but wonder if a form of "anti-feng-shui" is being deliberately employed.
• Alvin Boyd Kuhn's exploration of the spiritual symbology surrounding Halloween and All Saints' Day, and the significance of the fact that this important dual-holiday falls forty days after autumnal equinox.
• The amazing fact that Odin's horse, Sleipnir, has eight legs -- appropriate for the fact that Odin in Norse myth is related to Hermes and Thoth and Mercury in other mythologies, and that the planet Mercury (the swiftest in our solar system) orbits the sun in a mere 88 days! This post contains an extended discussion of the fact that all these Star Myths from around the world may in fact be trying to point us towards a worldview that is shamanic in nature.

It is my opinion that Marty truly embodies the ancient concept of "the philosopher" -- as I think you will agree if you listen to an excellent show he and Greg Carlwood recorded over at The Higherside Chats this past August (and which has been quoted in this previous post). Through his curiosity, analysis, insight, contemplation, and synthesis, he has found compelling evidence that number and language and geometry and symbol were all used by ancient sages to convey profound spiritual truths to humanity. In his interviews and teaching, he explains how important it is to learn from nature, and how the book of nature is the best teacher of philosophy.

The importance of the areas that Marty explores and teaches in his books and videos is attested to by the ancient tradition regarding the sign which was said to have been posted above the entry to the ancient Academy of philosophy founded by Plato, which supposedly read "Let none who is ignorant of geometry enter here."

What is perhaps most interesting is the fact that the deep teachings he finds encoded in the very letters and numbers and words themselves are also the same teachings which I believe can be found in the stories and scriptures and texts and traditions which are in turn made up of those words and numbers! In other words, the symbolism is taking place at the "microcosmic" level inside the words and letters at the same time that it is taking place at the "macrocosmic" level of the myths or stories which are built out of those words and letters! This fact very much parallels the teaching that individual men and women themselves seem to contain and embody and reflect the entire universe -- each person is a microcosm of the infinite macrocosm of the universe.

These metaphors -- whether they be metaphors which are formed in number or in gematria letter-symbolism, or whether they be metaphors which are found in the Star Myth stories that are based on the motions of the heavenly bodies whirling across the infinite reaches of space -- all seem to be "bringing down" the invisible and ethereal world into the physical and material world where we can perhaps "wrestle with them" more easily, and in doing they point us towards that world of spirit, and in a sense "drag our consciousness" back up with them into the invisible realms.

This is a concept I have written about in an essay entitled "Clothing spirit with matter and raising it up again: How metaphor transcends and transforms the material realm." Later, when I began to read Marty's book

Peacock Tales: The Alchemical Writings of Claudia Pavonis (volume one), I was struck by this line towards the beginning of the book: "Like with any creative endeavor, the true goal is to bring the ethereal down to the material and thus lift the corporeal up to the ethereal" (19). Clearly, his book is here articulating the very same concept! 

You can see why I was so excited to have an opportunity to have a conversation with Marty on his show.

Finally, Marty ended this episode with some haunting music by Portland artist Whim. Appropriately enough for the microcosm-macrocosm theme, he chose a song called "Small Infinity," which you can listen to below. To hear more of her music, visit Whim's website here.

<a href="http://whimmusic.bandcamp.com/album/small-infinity-ep">Small Infinity - EP by Whim</a>

Happy Birthday to Bootsy Collins!

Happy Birthday today to Bootsy Collins: singer, bassist, songwriter, and space traveler! (October 26)

You can hear his distinctive and pioneering bass on any Parliament song and almost any Funkadelic song, and he continues creating, receiving, and bringing out new music from the celestial spheres, such as Tha Funk Capitol of the World album, which can be played in its entirety at his

official website. 

The entire mythology of the Funk revolves around the message that all men and women are somehow descended from the stars, which also happens to be true (mythology being one of the most profound ways to convey truth, along with music).

Given the starry nature of Bootsy's music (and his sunglasses and Space Bass), one must wonder if his name is somehow related to the important and Funky celestial constellation of Bootes.

In any case, his influential bass-playing has inspired whole generations of musicians, who are all undoubtedly grateful for his creative genius and his decision to land on this planet when it was passing through this particular point on its orbit! Wishing him many happy returns of the day! 

video links: Mirrors Tell Lies, Stretchin' Out.