Lapis Lazuli

In a recent post on these pages – see here – we felt moved to defend the colour blue from those reckless deconstructionists who propagate the bogus assertion that people of earlier eras could not distinguish such a colour. The argument, we explained, is in large measure a linguistic one. One of the languages often cited in this regard is Chinese where the word qing refers to either blue or to green, which is to say that Chinese has no distinct word for blue (or for green). Instead, blue is usually regarded as a shade of green – or is it that green is regarded as a shade of blue? In any case, quite reasonably, the Chinese see blue and green on the same scale. We might also say that yellow and brown are on the same scale, or that red and orange are on the same scale. There is no justification for supposing that people could not see such colours, only that their mode of differentiating them, the words they use, is different to our own. 

In another recent post – see here – these pages also took occasion to celebrate the extensive use of the colour vermillion – or cinnabar – in the Chinese tradition, and especially in sacred contexts such as Taoist temples. Chinese red (vermillion) is not merely lucky to the Chinese, we explained, but actually sacred, and has attained this status from the strongly alchemical themes of the Chinese tradition.

In this current post we celebrate a special application of a shade of blue in the same tradition – the Chinese love of and extensive use of that rich shade of blue usually referred to as ultramarine but which is more accurately described as lapis lazuli, since it is from that semi-precious stone that the colour was traditionally derived. The stone has been mined in eastern Afghanistan for thousands of years and its use spread to China eastwards and to the Levant and ancient Egypt westwards along the great east/west trade routes. In this case, however, it is mainly associated with the Boodhist tradition in China, rather than Taoism, and so also features in Tibetan colour schemes. 

As the present author has remarked in recent posts, entering the Sino-Asiatic world brings one into contact with a flood of vermillion. But it also means encounters with lapis lazuli in the iconography and colourings of temples under Boodhist influence. It is not a colour that features in the temples of the Hindoos. We encounter it instead among the Tibetan Boodhists and then by extension throughout China. The Chinese, we must say, developed a particular love for it. It is a distinctly Chinese blue. 

The Boodha of healing is often shown in lapis lazuli, as above. 

Simplistic accounts will tell you that blue is the ‘colour of death’ in the Chinese tradition, and that it is counted as ‘unlucky’. This is clearly not the case for lapis lazuli (ultramarine) which is, rather, counted as celestial in its significance. It is a heavenly colour. Moreover, just as vermillion (cinnabar) is associated with gold mining, raw lapis lazuli is flecked with gold – like stars – which further underlines its celestial symbolism. In Christian iconography, the outer garment of the Virgin Mary where she is ‘Queen of Heaven’ is thus cast in ultramarine as well.

The pictures on this page are from the great Chinese Boodhist temple at Air Itam south of George Town on the Prince of Wales island. This is by far the largest and most opulent temple complex on Pe Nang. It is situated at a location at the foot of Pe Nang Hill that the Chinese have long regarded as having especially potent feng sui. 

Much of the temple – officially called Kek Lok Si – was initially funded by the illustrious XIXth century Chinese tycoon Cheong Fatt Tze, one of the most famous residents of George Town. His old estate is still extant and is now unofficially known locally as the ‘Blue Mansion’ since Mr Cheong had a particular love of lapis lazuli and painted his mansion accordingly. He had a deep and very Chinese love of this particular blue (even if it was referred to using the same word as green.) The traditional Chinese world features lapis lazuli. Ultramarine - symbolic of heaven - features in traditional Chinese colour symbolism. Readers can find pictures of the ‘Blue Mansion’ in George Town below. 

Finally, in yet another recent post - see here - these pages celebrated the work of Mr William Butler Yeats, describing him as one of the finest poets of the English language in the modern era. The subject of this present page gives us cause to recall one of his very finest poems, Lapis Lazuli, in which the poet contemplates a Chinese statue made of the stone, and which poem is reproduced for the edification of readers as follows:

I have heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or on shipboard,
Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilisations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in Lapis Lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Every discolouration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

* * * 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Vision of Mr. and Mrs. Yeats

Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Yeats

One evening in the declining years of the XIXth century, at the London lodge of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a famous duel took place. Tensions and mutual animosity between two key members of the Order had finally exploded into armed combat and an actual sword fight – with real swords – broke out on the staircase. One of the members, clad in a kilt and full highland regalia, was Aleister Crowley – a dangerously unstable individual – and the other was the neatly dressed, bespectacled and generally mild-mannered Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats. The two men loathed each other with a passion and clashed whenever they met. On this occasion they actually took to each other seeking blood until other members interrupted and persuaded them to drop their weapons. There was no love lost. Crowley went on to slander Yeats at every opportunity for the rest of his life, and Yeats responded in kind.

As it happens, history has been much kinder to Mr. Yeats. He has a well-deserved reputation as one of the finest poets of the English language in the modern era. His poetic powers grew in strength as he grew older. His later poems are sublime. In contrast, Mr. Crowley is more infamous than famous and – quite contrary to his own estimation of his poetic skills – is regarded by all but a few drug-addled cultists in West Coast USA as a tiresome writer of stale doggerel and some really loathsome pornographic verse. Yeats was once kind enough to admit that Crowley had written perhaps three good lines of poetry in his lifetime but when prompted he declined to say what they were.

Several posts ago, the present writer made mention of an expose of Mr. Crowley’s so-called “holy book”, Liber Al vel Legis. See here. It has been shown that Crowley’s account of the reception of this supposed sacred tome from a supernatural agent named ‘Aiwaz’ is almost entirely a baseless fiction and that, in fact, this ‘Book of the Law’ began its life as an experiment in the art of automatic writing. That is, Crowley composed the work himself, albeit in a mild trance state which is the modus operandi of automatic writing. To wit, the writer surrenders conscious involvement. They write without thinking. Whether from their own unconscious mind or, as they might suppose, from some hither ‘spirit world’ or other, words overflow onto the paper in a type of low-level mediumship similar to what happens in a spiritualist séance. Crowley elevated an item of his automatic writing into an Aeon-making revelation and backfitted a suitable ‘reception myth’ to it in order to pass it off as holy writ. We now know that this was largely a case of fraud.

But Mr. Yeats also experimented with automatic writing, and he too drew upon it in order to construct his own mythos – but without any attempt to turn it into a new religion with himself as the Prophet of Horus. In his case, he took a large body of automatic writing compiled over years and worked it into what he called his System (with an upper case S), a complex corpus of esoteric lore that he subsequently used as inspiration for his poetry. He published this ‘System’ – which occupied him for over two decades - in two editions of a book called ‘A Vision’. It is a key to his poetry, even though his poems stand on their own and need not be explicated through their occult background.

Just as his poetry is some of the best written in the XXth century, ‘A Vision’ is a brilliant synthesis of occult themes in the Western Tradition and one of the most important works of occult philosophy in modern times. It came about through the mediumship of Mr. Yeats’ young wife, Georgie. As she later admitted, she faked the automatic writing at first in order to sooth the heart of her new husband, but she sincerely claimed that, after a while, some manner of ‘communication’ took place through her and with her husband prompting her with questions a vast system (or System) of esoterica flowed from her whilst subdued in a trance. Mr. Yeats collected the hundreds of pages of automatic writing that this random process yielded and painstakingly extracted from it a coherent, organized, profound philosophy of symbols. He used Georgie’s mutterings and scribbles to construct his own poetic mythology, much as William Blake had done before him. Both he and Mrs. Yeats believed that the writings had come from some nameless otherworldly ‘Instructor’ although both admitted that they might just as well have surfaced from the depths of the unconscious mind. Either way, it was inspired.

The present writer, it must be admitted here, is a lifelong enthusiast for Yeats’ ‘System’ and returns to it on a regular basis. Framed against the great schema of the Platonic Year and replete with the symbolism of alchemy, at its centre is a symbolic arrangement of the twenty-eight phases of the moon. Each phase represents a human type, or an earthly incarnation. In Yeats’ ‘System’ a soul progresses through the twenty-eight phases in a complicated marriage of solar and lunar ‘tinctures’ amidst the turning ‘gyres’ of the cosmos. It is, in fact, to this arrangement that the very title of this web log ‘Out of Phase’ alludes, if readers have not already gathered. The purpose of this post is to alert readers to the same, and to celebrate the ‘System’ of Mr. and Mrs. Yeats as the work of symbolic genius that it is, regardless of whatever process, psychological or otherworldly, brought it to birth. 

These days one hears much about Mr. Gurdjieff’s ‘Enneagram’ types, and of course much more about the traditional astrological types in their modern form – the Lunar Phases of the Yeats’ System deserve greater study still. Literary critics and fans of Mr. Yeats’ poetry are very often perplexed by the occultism of ‘A Vision’ and hardly know what to make of it. The present writer would like to see it more widely known and acknowledged in ‘occult’ and related ‘fringe’ circles – a key work in occidental esoterica. Certainly, it is a far more important and fruitful work than anything that came from the toxic and demented ego-driven pen of the ithyphallic Aleister Crowley.

In the first edition of ‘A Vision’ Yeats explained the origins of the ‘System’ through the device of several short stories. They relate how a certain character named Michael Robartes journeyed eastwards and encountered a group of Arabic Soofis who taught him the secrets of the Mansions of the Moon. Thus, Mr. Yeats confessed the orientalist themes of his lunar ‘System’. Despite being an Irish nationalist immersed in indigenous Celtic mythology, he was an orientalist by nature, adapting Celtic myths to the conventions of Japanese No theatre, for instance, and producing renderings of the Hindoo scriptures, amongst other oriental projects. Like all Western occultism – this being the thesis of the present writer and a constant theme of this blog – the Vision of Mr. and Mrs. Yeats’ making has its roots in the alchemy and astrology of the Saracens, and in the cosmology of Plato (itself considered as ‘oriental’ in this case.) Mr. Yeats concocted the tale of the adventures of Michael Robartes at the insistence of Mrs. Yeats who wanted her role in the project kept out of public purview. In the second edition of ‘A Vision’ however, the truth was told, although Georgie Yeats remained reticent and shy about the whole business throughout her life and wanted to take no credit for it. But in fact, she was the muse of the poet, and it should be said without equivocation that it was to her mediumship – if not to her more conscious participation – that we owe not only the ‘System’ but also Yeats’ finest poems.

In the diagram below we see a summary of the phases of the moon according to Yeats’ very complex system of cosmological and spiritual mechanisms. A key point to grasp is that the types ascribed to the phases do not correspond to the phases of the moon indicated in the astrological horoscope of a given person. This is a common error. Even many of Yeats’ occultish friends laboured long and hard to link the phases to horoscopes. But the otherworldly ‘Instructor’ in the automatic writing sessions was emphatic on this point. When Mr. Yeats asked again how these lunar types correspond to horoscopes, he was told (via Georgie) that they do not. When he asked one more time, the ‘Instructor’ was uncompromising. There is no correspondence, the Instructor said, and don’t ask again! The phases describe sequences of incarnations through a ‘Great Year’ of time, not moon types in common astrology. Just because the moon was at a certain phase at your birth has no direct relation to this scheme.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Kabir the Weaver

There is, it is estimated, some 20,000+ Hindoo temples and shrine in Benares. This is not to mention the mosques and other Mahometan holy places. There is more religion per square inch in Benares than any other city on earth. The city has survived on the religion business for thousands of years. That, and weaving. Specifically the weaving of silk. For many hundreds of years Benares has been the silk weaving centre of India and one of the silk capitals of the world. Benares produces exquisite silks. Every Indian you meet in Benares is either in the religion business, or he wants to sell you a silk scarf.

These two industries - religion and weaving - come together in the figure of Kabir, the city's favorite son. It is uncertain in exactly what year he was born, and the whole matter is mired in legend to the extent that we cannot be sure about anything about him, but every tradition asserts that he was born in Benares, and most traditions assert, furthermore, that he was the son of a Mahometan weaver. Accordingly, by tradition, and on the evidence of the images and metaphors in his poems, he was a weaver. He wove silk throughout his long life.

There is no need to rehearse his full biography here. It is very well known. He is the most quoted poet in India - outside of the sacred canon - and he enjoys an enthusiastic readership in the West as well. He is counted as one of the major figures in the Bhakti (devotional) movement in early modern Hindooism and is widely revered as one of the great mystics of the world. He was persecuted and condemned for his irreverent attacks upon official religion and advocated a devotional non-dualism rooted in Advaita Vedanta.

The context of his opposition to religious formalism is to be found in Benares. The city is filled with pilgrims and devotees, and they busy themselves with temple attending and ritual observances. It is easy to imagine that a certain temperament of the spirit – such as we find in an especially pure and natural form in Kabir – could rebel against the cults of external practice and insist that the real temple is within. He links this to the non-dualist doctrine that identifies the self with the Self, atman with Brahman. His poetry explores the paradoxes that follow from this truth. He advocates a path of love.

The modern enthusiasm for Kabir, however, is responding to a different context altogether. The present author views it with suspicion. There is no question that the “real” Temple is within, and that external observances are empty without the participation of the heart – all religion, finally, is internal – but what would modern people know about any observances anymore? It is strange to find people who have never been to a church or a temple or a mosque in their numb secular lives reading Kabir and cheering every time he slags off the Brahmins and the Imams. Kabir was criticizing an age of excessive ritual; why he is so popular in an age of no ritual at all? When he sings “you will not find God in cathedrals, or masses, or synagogues…” why do modern readers thrill with approval and agreement? What would they know about a stultifying ritual formalism? 

In Benares, where the author presently resides, though, Kabir’s critique has an obvious and legitimate relevance. One sees sadhus who are devoted to severe austerities as a means to salvation. One sees Brahmin priests muttering long incantations of Sanskrit before images of the Monkey God. There are statues and idols and icons at every turn. One does not need to be occupied with it all for very long before one needs to be reminded that, in the end, all that is really required is a simple movement of the heart. Men go to extraordinary lengths in search of God, but in reality God is always present and easily accessed – no contortions and austerities required.

That is not a modern man’s predicament. Modern man is senseless with comfort and ease and remote from any real religious feeling. He has never experienced austerities or tied himself into contortions. He doesn’t go on pilgrimage. He doesn’t fast at Lent or go to Mass on his knees. He reads a poet like Kabir through the lens of his ego, seeking approval and endorsement for his spiritual indolence. Kabir, today, is just a baby boomer’s excuse not to go to Church anymore and to indulge in the thought that he will be saved just for being nice.

* * * 

The author has collected together lines from various Kabir poems on the theme of the inner path in the City of Temples, and has strung them together as follows:


WHEREVER YOU ARE IS THE ENTRY POINT

Wherever you are is the entry point.
Throw away all thoughts of imaginary things
and stand firm in that which you are.

Whether you are in the temple or in the balcony,
in the camp or the flower garden,
every moment your Lord is taking His delight in you.

If God is within the mosque, 

then to whom does the rest of the world belong?
If Ram is within the image which you find upon your pilgrimage,
then who is there to know what happens outside?
Hari is in the East, Allah is in the West.
Look within your heart,
There you will find both Karim and Ram;
All the men and women of the world are His living forms.
Kabir is the child of Allah and of Ram:
God is my Guru, God is my Pir.

You don't grasp the fact that 

what is most alive of all is inside your own house;
and you walk from one holy city to the next with a confused look!

Kabir will tell you the truth: 

go wherever you like, to Calcutta or Tibet;
if you can't find where your soul is hidden,
the world will never be real to you!

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

The home is the abiding place;
in the home is reality;
the home helps to attain Him Who is real.
So stay where you are,
All things shall come to you in time.

If a mirror ever makes you sad
you should know that it does not know you.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black