Liber L. vel Bogus

Two recent events have struck damaging but no doubt not fatal blows to the modern spermaphagic cult of Thelema, also known, not inaccurately, as Crowleyanity. One was an act of God and one was an act of mischief.

The act of God was an electrical fire that destroyed the Scottish manor house of Boleskine on the banks of Loch Ness. This property was once owned by the would-be magus Mr. Aleister Crowley – the ‘Master Therion’ - who purchased it specifically to perform the rites of demonic invocation detailed in the notorious late medieval manual The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. As it happened, though, Mr. Crowley – the self-styled ‘Laird of Boleskine’ - only managed to complete a portion of these rites before he scuttled off to Paris on more urgent business, but he later nominated Boleskine as his central magical residence and made it the ‘qibla’ (direction of prayer) for his followers (Thelamites). To this day, Thelamites turn towards Boleskine in the performance of Thelemic rites and the altar in Thelemic rituals such as the so-called Gnostic Mass is oriented to that location. Unfortunately, the ancient manor is now gutted and the Thelemic qibla is nothing but smoldering ruins. We might assume, or hope, that the purifying potency of fire exorcized the residues of Mr. Crowley’s many stray demons in the process.

The second blow to Thelemic piety was the recent publication of Richard Cole’s long-awaited expose, Liber L. vel Bogus, of Mr. Crowley’s fabrications regarding his so-called Book of the Law. For those not familiar with basic Freemasonry, at the front of a Masonic lodge there sits the ‘Book of the Law’ which may be – in theory – either Bible, Torah, Koran, or other sacred text. Mr. Crowley’s Western esoteric concoctions, to wit the system of ‘Thelema’, inevitably took quasi-masonic forms, and at their centre is Crowley’s own holy writ, Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law, said by Crowley to have been revealed to him by a “praeterhuman intelligence” named ‘Aiwass’ in 1904. In the snazzily titled Liber L. vel Bogus, Mr. Cole details his investigations into Crowley’s account of how and when he, Crowley, received this new sacred scripture.

Crowley put together a carefully crafted, yet remarkably ambiguous and typically vague, myth of his reception of this supposedly holy work. According to this account, the delivery of Liber AL vel Legis through Crowley’s prophetic agency is nothing less than the single-most important event in human history since the discovery of the wheel. It was given to him by direct voice communication by this ‘Aiwass” (there are various spellings and pronunciations but it is usually consonant with the English “I was”) on three days, between noon and 1pm, on April 8th, 9th and 10th in Cairo in 1904. Crowley sat patiently in his ‘temple ‘ – a ground-floor flat in the European quarter of the city – and Aiwass (a “messenger from the forces ruling this planet”) directed him what to write verbatim. This was proceeded by various signs and omens, including premonitions given to Crowley’s new bride, the unfortunate Rose Kelly. Thelemites, by definition, accept the divine provenance of this text and regard it as the definitive guide to the ‘New Aeon of Horus’, a new law for a new era, with Mr. Crowley playing Mahomet to this neo Koran.

Unfortunately, as Mr. Cole documents, virtually no aspect of Crowley’s account of his Book of the Law, stands up to scrutiny. Crowley claims, for instance, that he and Rose stayed in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid and that Rose received premonitions that “They [the gods] are waiting for you.” Crowley interrogated her and even though, he says, she knew nothing about magic or mysticism, [itself a lie] she was able to give uncannily accurate answers to questions about Egyptian god forms. Cole establishes that this account of the interrogation of Rose was most likely a complete fabrication. After that, moreover, Crowley says that they went to the Bulaq Museum in Cairo where Rose identified Horus on the stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu – exhibit number 666. This stele became the ‘Stele of Revealing’ – the sacred icon of Thelemites which is placed on the altar during the Gnostic Mass. Yet, as Cole notes, the Bulaq Museum in Cairo was closed some two years before these supposed events. So it is quite impossible for the events Crowley describes to have taken place. 

The so-called 'Stele of Revealing'

More damning is the physical evidence of the extant manuscripts of the text in question. Upon close examination, Cole has established, the manuscripts bearing Crowley’s handwriting and which are reproduced with all official publications of the Book of the Law, bear an unmistakable watermark that can be dated to no earlier than 1905. It is thus impossible for the Book of the Law to have been “received” by Crowley in 1904 as he so often stated. There have been attempts to hide this fact, Cole claims, but the evidence is clear. The very physical evidence of the case is against Crowley’s account. The story, almost in toto, is bogus.

Instead, what does seem to be the case is that Crowley composed what became his Book of the Law as an off-hand example of automatic writing – then popular among occultists (W.B. Yeats’ A Vision being an example of the same). At the time Mr. Crowley discarded it and neglected it, buried in his prodigious but very uneven flow of so-called poetry and prose, until, at a certain point in his meglamaniacal career, he decided to elevate it to the status of scripture – and thus himself to the status of World-Prophet - and in doing so he fabricated a back-story of its reception from an “Aiwass” in Cairo. By this time poor much-abused Rose was a hopeless drunkard and other points of the tale could not be verified or refuted either way. It became the centre-piece of Crowley’s new religion, based, of course, upon himself.

As reviewers of Mr. Cole’s book have pointed out, much of this has already been known for some time – even in Crowley’s own lifetime. Yet Liber L. vel Bogus brings together the evidence of Crowley’s fraud in a new, cogent and complete form, albeit written in a repetitive and a trifle whiney style. It strikes a savage blow to the very heart of the Thelemic mythos. Thelemites, therefore, must today adjust to not just the demise of their ‘qibla’, the burning of Boleskine manor – and the cremation of the Laird of Boleskine's ghost - but also, and more substantially, to the certainty that their sacred text, Liber AL vel Legis, is not what the Master Therion, prophet of the Aeon of Horus, said it is. 

All the same, it is not clear what Mr. Cole’s motives for these revelations about the Crowley revelation might be. He seems intent on exposing Crowley as a colossal fraud and, in other parts of Liber L. vel Bogus, as a certifiable five-star real-deal psychopath. (He was, it seems, every bit as loopy and self-delusional as Wynn Westcott of 'Golden Dawn' Secret Chiefs fame.) At the same time, though, he seems in admiration of the man. Cole is probably best described as a Thelemic heretic with questionable motives – standard stuff in the mirky and ego-plagued realm of Crowley-admiring occultism. 

The present writer – let it be made clear – is not in the least in the Crowley-admiring category. But he does have a professional interest in the Great Beast as a (perverse) manifestation of the Orientalist spirit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is much about Crowley that is unpleasant, and much more that is altogether nauseating. There is also much that is amusing, and there are, amidst it all, a few strokes of genius. The poetry - bad imitations of Swinburne - is truly aweful. The Simon Iff detective stories are fun. The Book of Lies is a self-mocking romp. Magick in Theory in Practice is a stylistic gem. Liber AL vel Legis, though, is a tiresome quasi-Egyptian paean to self-indulgent individualism – Ayn Rand meets Wallace Budge. 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.' And Thelema as a whole – that is, as a religion - is a joke (if indeed it was not intended to be one from the outset and the world just hasn’t caught on yet.) 

What can one say? If, in all seriousness, you turn your face to Scotland - Scotland! - to make your daily devotions, your religious compass is drastically astray! It is good to see this pseudo-religious relic of the counter-culture knocked out of its smug New Aeon more-evil-than-thou complacency. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Reclaiming the Swastika

The polar significance of the swastika is implied in this depiction since it stands as a separate symbol to sun and moon. It is clearly not a solar symbol here. 

An immediately confronting, or at least baffling, aspect of India, Hindoostan and many other parts of Asia - Japan, for instance - for those not accustomed to such lands is the ubiquitous display of the swastika in nearly all walks of life. The symbol is so completely stigmatized to Western eyes following its misappropriation by the National Socialists in Germany from the 1920s onwards, and has such odious associations, that to step into an environment where it is displayed as an auspicious omen on everything from sacred temples to taxi windscreens requires at least some mental adjustment. 

We live, of course, in an age of unwarranted misappropriations at every turn. Consider the recent history of the word “gay”, for instance; once one of the loveliest and most potent rhymes in English verse – “their eyes, their eyes, their ancient glistening eyes are gay” - the word has, regrettably, been hijacked by those who would turn sodomy into a fashionable lifestyle. In such a short time the word has been almost completely ruined. It takes a brave soul these days to attempt to reclaim it. The author notes that Bob Dylan – who has much to answer for on other counts – gave it a good try when he declared himself to be “strumming on my gay guitar…” on his Time Out of Mind long player, and this without the slightest accommodation to the word’s newly approved connotations, but otherwise “gay" is gone. Half of the best poetry in English prior to 1970 now requires mental adjustment. 

Outside of its Hindoo and Boodhist contexts, the swastika is almost beyond repair as well. Hitler (the worst military strategist in history and on the evidence of the newly republished Mein Kampf one of the worst writers too) and his cohort of thugs took one of the most noble of all symbols and dragged it into the pits of ignominy. One fears that it will never be rehabilitated in the Occidental world. This is a dreadful pity because it is one of the most ancient and also one of the most universal of symbols, and is not - or was not - by any means distinctly and exclusively Oriental. It once featured as much in ancient Western insignia as anywhere else, being known to the Celts, the Greeks, the Norse and many others besides. Hitler, with no more justification than a whim, decided it stood for some supposed "Aryan Race" and turned it to his evil ends.  It has now disappeared from Western symbology altogether, even to the point that the paternalistic do-gooders who run the European Union, in predictable fashion, have attempted to make its public display illegal throughout the entire European domain. 

In Japan, we read in recent accounts, authorities have decided to remove it from maps where it has long signified a Boodhist temple. It seems that European visitors are confused. When they see a swastika they think of goosestepping and zeig heils and imagine such locations on the map to be concentration camps. For the Japanese, quite rightly, it represents sanctity and piety. The symbol has been carried across Asia by the Boodhists; it is found throughout Japan in that context. 

Here in India, where the author resides at present, the symbol's Nazi associations are worlds away and the ancient symbology prevails. It is not subject to any post-Nazi sensitivities whatsoever. On a popular level it signifies all things auspicious and is often used for decorative purposes, but it has more precise meanings in such religious contexts as temples and shrines. It transcends the denominational divides of the sub-continent. Hindoos, Boodhists and Jains of all stamps, Vishnuites and Shaivites, all employ it such that it is a more or less general symbol for the holy and the sacred wherever one goes. No single group can claim it, although it is especially replete in Jain iconography. It appears in religious texts, in religious art and in religious ritual. It appears on walls as graffiti and it is inscribed on the foreheads of devotees. To be in India is to be immersed in a sea of swastikas. Although one can see some variations here and there, it is generally the same everywhere with remarkable consistency, namely the equal-armed 'fylfot' cross, or, more technically, the "tetraskelion", defined as a four-armed cross with perpendicular extensions, at 90° angles, radiating in the same direction, usually (but not always) clockwise.

The origins of the symbol are lost in time. Its use goes back to the neolithic era and beyond. It is pointless to speculate about when it was first devised and where. But there is some point in discussing why, and in discussing its meaning and significance. To say that it signifies "good luck" is, of course, completely unhelpful and is the sort of idiotic thing an anthropologist or sociologist or more likely a journalist might come out with. Clearly, it has deeper and more profound and exact meanings than that. But just what they are is subject to some debate and a wide range of views. Readers will discover a whole array of theories, some obviously more plausible than others. There are some outlandish and inventive proposals, along with some that seem more sensible and likely. We can be sure that the symbol had no attachment to "Aryan purity" and the like at its inception, and it certainly carried a more exact meaning than just "good luck", but what? 

On the whole the meaning of the symbol has two possible significances which are themselves not unrelated. The only question is which is earlier and more integral.The possibilities are that (a) it is a solar symbol, and refers to the cycle of the sun and therefore to the turn of the four seasons, or (b) it is a polar symbol and refers to the turn of the constellations (and especially the Great Bear, or the Big Dipper) around the north pole. For many reasons (upon which there is insufficent space to elaborate in detail here) the present author strongly favours the polar signification. Polar symbolism precedes solar symbolism. Rather than representing the sun, the equinoxes and the solstices - the fourfold nature and relevance of which is not in dispute - it represents, in its primal signification, the pole and the turn of the constellations around it. It is, that is to say, Hyperborean; in fact, the Hyperborean symbol par excellence. It becomes a solar symbol by extension and in a later phase of religious symbolism. 

The shift from polar alignments to solar alignments is one of the great movements in early human spiritual consciousness but is not widely understood. Many solar symbols were originally of polar significance. For instance, the common astrological glyph for the Sun originally (and obviously when you look at it) signified the pole and the artic circle, thus:

At a certain point, however, the polar association was lost and the newer solar meaning came to prevail. This has led to a great deal of confusion in religious symbolism and iconography, confusion that is exactly characteristic of what the Hindoos describe as the decline of the Ages or Yugas.

A recent post by the present author on the Hyperborean nature of the cult of Shiva in Benares deals with related matters and makes some relevant points about the symbolism of the swastika in relation to that of the lingam. Please find a link to it here. 

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The present author is an unashamed enthusiast for the swastika and actively campaigns to have it reclaimed from its Nazi associations. (He feels the same about recaiming the word 'gay' from cultural Marxism.) One fears, however, that such a reclamation might be beyond the guilt-ridden and unimaginative Europeans of our time. 

Readers can find below a collection of photographs of this noble symbol the author has taken at various locations around India during his recent travels:

The swastika is often found combined with the primordial syllable, AUM, pointing to its great antiquity and its primordiality. Such associations point to its polar significance and count against a solar meaning in the first instance.  

In this interesting example from a cafe in Benares we see the corresponding symbolism of the swastika with the magic square (Kamea).

The Jain ghat in Benares which features a huge red swastika facing out into the Ganges River. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

A Battle Raging in a Single System - discussions

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A BATTLE RAGING IN A SINGLE SYSTEM

Being wide-ranging discussions on historical and contemporary questions concerning relations between Islam and the West. Like many entries on this blog this is a sketch to be enlarged and developed.

Question: Conflict between Islam and the West is among the defining features of our age. What is your perspective on it?

Answer: It needs to be placed in a larger context, and a deeper context than the merely political. History is a process, a drama of the soul. Most of the important factors and forces are hidden, underground. In any matter like this, where it defines an age, as you say, it is important to step well back and to take a much longer view. And to realize that the political dimension is usually only symptomatic, not decisive. This is especially the case in religious and spiritual conflicts. These are conflicts in the human soul. This is a spiritual history. So what framework do we bring to that? What framework is useful for that?

Question: That is what I am asking.

Answer: In this case we have a situation of profound antipathies, but also of complementarities. Contraries and complements. There are symmetries and forces – energies – that go much deeper than politics or sociology.

Question: You’ve written about ‘historical rage’. What do you mean by ‘historical rage’?

Answer: Just what it says. A rage against the course of history. But in relation to what do you mean specifically?

Question: Specifically, in relation to Islam. You portray Islam as being subject to ‘historical rage’.

Answer: Contemporary Islam. But not Islam, per se. Only Islam in relation to its contemporary situation. Historical rage is a way of describing or understanding the character of contemporary Islam, or at least certain trends or aspects in contemporary Islam. Specifically, Islamism, jihadism, radical Islam. In these things we find a rage against history. Although at a deeper level it pervades contemporary Islam. The jihadis and the suicide bombers are merely acute manifestations of it.

Question: So what does it mean, in that context?

Answer: It just means that there is a sense of grievance, in contemporary Islam, in modern Islam, against the manifest course of history. On a deeper level it means there is a grievance, a sense of injustice, of things not being right, between heaven and earth.

Question: I don’t understand. Can you explain?

Answer: For Muslims there is a strong sense that Islam has a certain destiny. It is particularly strong in Islam because historically Islam has been a quite extraordinary success. It exploded into history. It began in a small illiterate backwater – late antiquity Arabia – and in a very short time it conquered a large portion of the world. This gave it a strong sense of destiny. God is on their side. God has destined Islam to be an historical success. This is backed up in certain Islamic texts, such as the hadith – the prophetic tradition – that says, the prophet says, ‘My people are the best of people’. Or ‘My Ummah is the best of Ummahs.’ Which means that the Islamic ‘nation’, the Islamic people, are destined to be the very best of people. But this is an expectation that far exceeds the facts, in the modern era. Once it was true. Once the Muslims, Islamic civilization, was the most advanced, the most successful in the world, in history. But from the late Middle Ages onwards Islamic civilization went into decline. So there is something wrong, something amiss between the mandate of heaven – because the Divine will is for the Islamic Ummah to be the best and the foremost, as Muslims see it – and the mundane order. Historical rage is the anger this causes. There is an anger that history has not gone according to a perceived destiny. There is a sense that the destiny of Islam has been thwarted. So something must be done to correct this. This is a deep motivation behind radical Islam. But, of course, it is not exclusive to Muslims. That is only a specific instance of it. Much of Western history, or Christian history, needs to be understood in terms of historical rage as well. On the other side of the coin.

Question: How? Or when? How are the Christians subject to historical rage?

Answer: Historical rage is the great motivating force in Western history. Specifically, in that case, against the historical success of Islam. When Islam was in ascendancy and Christianity was in decline, then we witnessed a similar historical rage in the Christian world. Once again, this is because there was a perceived misalignment between heaven and earth. How could God tolerate the Muslim infidels, followers of that blasphemous pretender, Muhammad… as Christian saw it… how could God permit them to build such a huge, vast and prosperous civilization, as Islamic civilization was in the Middle Ages? In Christian minds, this surely violated the Divine Will. The Divine Will, for Christians, was for all people to come to Christ. And for many centuries it seemed that way. Slowly – not in an explosion like Islam – but slowly, steadily, Christianity was extending itself across the world. But then suddenly, very suddenly, it faced the shocking reality of Islam. Suddenly, Islam stole the whole of North Africa, nearly a third of the Christian world fell to the infidels, the pretenders, the false creed. How could history go this way? In Christians this provoked a rage against history. A violent reaction to the course of historical events.

Question: Can you give an example?

Answer: The obvious example is the Crusades. Historians struggle to explain the Crusades. Especially the first Crusade which seemed like a spontaneous sudden popular overflowing of zeal, directed against the Saracens. It is hard to explain. It was an explosion. And then it became an entrenched pattern of cultural religious behavior. That is hard to explain as well. Time and time again Christian Europeans collected themselves into armies and set off to the Near East to correct history. It was a rage against history. The history in that case was the manifest success and prosperity of Islam. The Saracens had built a vast and enormously sophisticated civilization. It dwarfed Christendom. It humbled Christendom. It made Christendom look like an impoverished backwater of history. Christians found this intolerable. It was an intolerable injustice of history. And they raged against it. Not only in the Crusades though. This historical rage became the centre-piece of the Western project – to right the wrongs of history. It shaped the whole of Western civilization subsequently.

Question: So you’re drawing parallels between the Crusaders and Islamic jihadists?

Answer: In their underlying motivations, which in both cases is historical rage. I'm not making judgments about the justness of their cause. There are nearer parallels. Such as the so-called martyrs of Cordova. These were suicidal Christians in Islamic Spain. They would do things like bursting into mosques, screaming insults and abuse at the Prophet Muhammad, and then of course they would be killed by the Muslims. They set out to be martyrs. Christian jihadists. They willingly martyred themselves in the rage against history. They are so enraged, on a deep level, by the course of history that they sacrifice themselves in order to set things right, to set things right between heaven and earth. This is what motivates the suicidal martyr.

Question: So the Islamic suicide bomber is enraged by what? Western imperialism?

Answer: By the manifest success of Western civilization. Which, in the Muslim religious mind is still Christendom. Only, of course, it is not Christendom any longer. Or not overtly. Which is the great irony. This is where it becomes complicated. Because the historical rage of the West, as a force in Western history, so transformed the West that it actually shed its Christian identity in order to set heaven and earth aright. But yes, the historical rage of the contemporary Saracens, the Mahometans, is directed at the enormous disparity between the West and the House of Islam. The House of Islam is backward, impoverished. They are the losers of history. How can this be? How can God tolerate such a state of affairs, that the Ummah of the Prophet – destined to be the best of Ummahs – is in such a terrible state? They are destined to rule the world. Yet on every front they are the losers of history. In the whole world order they are in the inferior place. It is not right, as they see it, feel it. So the jihadist martyr sets out to correct this intolerable state of affairs. You can label it Western imperialism. It just means Western superiority. Culturally. Scientifically. Economically. Militarily. Artistically. Politically. This is impossible to tolerate for someone for whom the superiority of the House of Islam is a given. Just as it was for Christians in the Middle Ages. When Christians in the Middle Ages were faced with the obvious, manifest superiority of Islamic civilization, it was intolerable. They had to do something about it.

Question: What do you mean the West shed its Christian identity? How did that happen? Isn’t that a contradiction?

Answer: It is the great irony here. In order to defeat the Saracens, in order to set things right, in order to set heaven and earth right again, Christianity itself had to be transformed. Because – and this is the source of the irony – the forms of Christianity that had been created prior to Islam, when there was no Islam with which to compete… these turned out to be entirely inadequate for the task. So, in fact, for Christianity to reassert itself against the Muslims it had to be remade. And once this was done there was no stopping it. Christian history, from the Middle Ages onwards, becomes a series of successive revolutions and upheavals. That is, historical rage upsets the equilibrium of Western civilization in a fundamental way. This is why the trajectory of Western history is so unique. This historical rage – against the Saracens – so disturbs the roots of Western civilization that the entire civilization is utterly transformed.

Question: But I don’t see how this leads to shedding its Christian identity, as you call it. Isn’t that self-defeating?

Answer: It is ironic, at least. The obvious case is the Protestant Reformation. Which is, by this account, a Christian response to Islam. But then this disturbs Christendom in a fundamental way. The split between Orthodoxy and the Roman Church did not damage it in a fundamental way. But the Reformation did. It was damaged spiritually, that is. But, on the other hand, the Reformation enabled Christians – increasingly just ‘Europeans’ – to compete against the Muslims. So it was successful in that sense. Protestantism is a Christian response to Islam. Or we might even say that Protestantism is an Islamicized Christianity.

Question: How so?

Answer: With its emphasis upon the Book. With the doctrine of every man a priest. The rejection of monasticism. The rejection of icons. The prohibition of alcohol. A religion for urban traders. Whereas classical Christianity – which is what I call it – was an agrarian monastic religion. The Protestants remade Christianity in the image of Islam. It is a streamlined Christianity that was able to compete with Islam. The Catholics had a different strategy.

Question: Which was what?

Answer: Conquest. An extension of Crusading. At the dawn of the Reformation the crucial event was the threat of the Turks to Vienna, to central Europe. The Pope proposed another Crusade. That was the typical, age-old response to the Saracens. Crusades. But Luther – this was the crucial turning point in European history – spoke and wrote against the Crusade as a solution to that threat. Instead, he said, the Christians, Christendom, needed to be reformed. Only self-correction could meet the challenge. The Catholics, of course, were forced to do a certain amount of this. Catholicism absorbs, is transformed by, Islam to some extent as well. We see it in architecture. We see it in liturgy. The imitation of Christ. Catholic humanism. That is a Catholicism reshaped by the pressures imposed upon Christendom by the Saracens. But finally the Catholic response, the response of the Catholic world, was geographical. Columbus, remember, set out to find the Indies and sailed westwards. Why? Because the Muslims had closed off the east. The Catholic kings had an idea. ‘We will go around them!’ Columbus set out to circumvent the Muslims, to find a way around the Islamic blockade. The Muslims controlled the great trade routes. This was the source of their prosperity. This is why heaven and earth were out of alignment. So the Catholics discovered the New World. Then, suddenly, Europeans had a vast new source of wealth. After that, everything changed. After that, Islamic civilization went into decline. The Saracens hardly noticed at the time.

Question: But you say Catholic religion itself was transformed?

Answer: In many ways.

Question: Humanism?

Answer: Humanism. So, for example, Christ becomes a man to be imitated. This is a muted theme in earlier Christianity, but in the later Middle Ages there is an increased emphasis upon Christ as a man. Earlier Christ was a cosmic figure. You see it very clearly in iconography. In the Renaissance he becomes a man. The emphasis shifts to his humanity. This, I want to argue, is in response to the imitation of the Prophet in Islamic spirituality. Muhammad is the human exemplar. Islamic piety consists of imitating his example. For Sunni Islam. Christians develop a response to counter this. The imitation of Christ. Christ becomes for them the human exemplar. This new emphasis in the later Middle Ages in Christendom is, I think, counter-Islamic. It would not have happened without Islam. That is the point. It would not have happened without Islam. Christianity was remade to counter Islam. So, to give another example, there was the rise of mendicantism in Catholic Christianity – the Franciscans explicitly. Which are a type of Christian answer to the Sufi mendicants of Islam. These things are to be explained as counter-Islamic. Or para-Islamic. Some things are counter-Islamic. Some things para-Islamic. Some things anti-Islamic. The Crusades were anti-Islamic. But without the fact of Islam, its historical success, they would not have happened. Islam transformed Christianity.

Question: I still don’t see how this led to Europeans shedding their Christian identity as you call it. What do you mean?

Answer: Protestantism was an over-compensation. And it unfolds from there. It begins a process of deconstruction. Christendom unravels. But in fact Christianity – in its classical forms – was not well-formed, not well-equipped to compete with Islam. It was first constructed in an environment where there was no Islam. And it was not the Church so much as the secular powers that set out to match the Saracens, finally. It happens on several levels. It is the secular powers, the nobles, that want to acquire the spoils of the Crusades. They want the silks and the spices and the technology and the medicine and the weapons. They want to acquire Saracen sciences. This sets them against the Church. This is played out at length in European history. And these factors converge. The desacralisation that follows from the Protestant revolt. The rise of the secular classes. Each of these forces are anti- or contra- or para- Islamic, and together they give birth to a Europe that is no longer a ‘Christendom’. To put it bluntly, what was once Christendom sold its soul in order to put the Saracens in their place, in order to set history right again.

Question: This is not a conventional reading of European history though, is it?

Answer: Not at all. In some measure it is the ‘secret’ history of European civilization. Historical rage is often, very often, an undercurrent, an unspoken motivation in events. But it is plain enough. I think I read five or six or more histories of the Reformation and not one of them mentioned the Muslims as a factor. Here were the Turks threatening to overrun central Europe and none of these histories even acknowledged that as a factor. Instead, they wrote about the Reformation as a self-contained thing. Luther’s personal struggle, and so on. Abuses of the Church, and so on. And yet, quite obviously, the entire episode was framed by the threat of the Turks. And similarly, you can read dozens of accounts of Protestantism, literally dozens, and not a single author will mention the very obvious parallels between Protestantism – especially Calvinist forms – and Islam. Why not? Islam is the elephant in the room, as they say. It is blindingly obvious but it is never mentioned.

Question: Why is that do you think?

Answer: Because it is a deep psychology in European history, and in Christian religion. Just as historical rage is a deep psychology in contemporary Islam. By that I mean that much of it is hidden below the surface of things. Islamic jihadists will present all manner of explanations for their actions. They won’t tell you they are driven by historical rage. Similarly, in European history it is an undercurrent. It is largely unconscious. But, as in Freudian psychology, it is what is unconscious, unseen, unacknowledged, repressed, that is important. Most of the iceberg is below the surface. Islam is the unseen, unacknowledged factor in European history. That is why, personally, I engaged with Islam in the first place – a journey into that historical darkness.

Question: What is your association with Islam?

Answer: I’ve had a lifelong association with Islam. I grew up in a very multiethnic environment. There were a lot of Turks. I had Turkish friends growing up. Immigrants. I grew up knowing about Turkish Islam. And Albanians. So my association began there. From childhood.

Question: And after that?

Answer: After that I had a much closer association, through family, marriage. It is hard to avoid in multiethnic Australia. There are wives and girlfriends and partners and colleagues and neighbors and friends. Islam is a big minority where I came from. And then I had a professional acquaintance because I was fortunate enough to teach Islamic/West relations – although this was in the context of a course on Western Traditions. Actually, professionally, I am a student of Plato, Greek philosophy, the Western Tradition. But at a certain point I came to understand that you cannot really get to the bottom of the Western Tradition without a deep knowledge of Islam. So - strange to say - my approach to Islam has been through the Western Tradition. I see it as a complement to, or the other side of, the Western Tradition. Both personally and professionally.

Question: Can you elaborate on your personal approach to it?

Answer: Personal things are, well, personal. They don’t really matter, except to me. It is better to concentrate on the bigger picture, the larger scope of things. But I will say – because it’s important – that my interest in Islam, even in its spirituality, has never been anti-Western. It is important to stress that, because these days there is an Islam/West antipathy, an active antipathy, and you will find many people who become interested or involved in Islam – even as converts – are motivated by a rejection of their own tradition, a hatred of their given tradition, by which I mean the Western Tradition. I am not in that category. I have never been in that category. And personally, I have no sympathy for it. I can say that. I have no sympathy for people – malcontents – who look to Islam because they hate the West. On the contrary, my interest in Islam and my journeys into Islam – adventures you might say, explorations - have always been about knowing the West on a deeper level.

Question: But how? Surely Islam is a completely different tradition?

Answer: It is. But also, it isn’t. I don’t think you can really understand the West without understanding Islam. In ways that I’ve already mentioned. The historical rage of the West, that transformed the West. That is a fact of history. But it goes much deeper than that. Very early – in my twenties – I came to understand that, in fact, Islam and the West are a single entity, on a certain level. I adopted a phrase from the Algerian scholar, Hichem Djait. He described Islamic/West tensions as “a battle raging in a single system.” It is an important phrase. That is my starting point. Islam and the West are a single system. But of course they are opposites as well as complements. Like the two sides of a coin, the heads and the tails. Some people might reject the heads and embrace the tails. That’s never been my interest. I’m interested in the whole coin. I didn’t set out to study Islam, or become involved at any level, because I rejected the West. I just realized that there was another side to the coin. It’s a Self and Other problem. Islam is the Other. To understand the Self you need to acknowledge and confront the Other. The academic study of the Western Tradition was lacking in that.

Question: What do you mean?

Answer: You can study the Western Tradition as if it is a self-contained thing. You can study the great works. Plato. Aristotle. The Bible. The cathedrals. Cervantes. Dante. Arthurian Legend. The Renaissance. The Reformation. You can study it all as self-referential. You need never step out of that occidental world. A standard university course – in the old days, at least – did just that. But I came to appreciate that there was something lurking in the shadows. Always. To reach a full picture of European history and the Western Tradition, the occidental civilization, you need to realize the role of Islam in it. Which is sometimes a positive role, and more often a type of shadow, a dark side, lurking in the background. From the early Middle Ages onwards this is true. Or even earlier. As it’s said: ‘Without Muhammad, no Charlemagne.’ There is a certain narrative that ignores Islam entirely. I find it unsatisfactory. As I say you can read entire histories of the Reformation where Islam is never mentioned as a formative factor. I cannot understand the West without Islam. Without Muhammad, no Charlemagne. A battle raging in a single system.

Question: Is that still true today? A battle raging in a single system?

Answer: Of course. That dynamic – Self and Other – let’s use the Jungian term, the ‘Shadow’ – is of course present today. It is not so easily overcome. This is the foolishness of the multiculturalists and the Leftists. They think that this entire history, a whole historical dynamic, centuries of historical rage and counter rage can be overcome by good will and bumper stickers and community love-ins and workshops. Of course it can’t. And it is utter folly to try. I think the forces involved are very deep. A deep psychology, as I say. A deep cultural psychology. That is my main interest. This is something you discover on a journey into Islam. It is not like changing your coat. It is not like choosing a new hairdo. It is much more like Ishmael in Moby Dick. Going to sea is like suicide, you know. Going to sea is death. Islam is the Shadow. It is a dark realm. Not in itself, but in relation to the West. The Other is dangerous. The Other is hidden. The Other is unseen and dark, unconscious. You encounter things you never expected. It is a journey into night. I am speaking personally.

Question: I am not sure I understand what you mean.

Answer: There is a very deep psychology – the psychology of civilizations. The differences between Islam and the West are not superficial. They run very deep. That is what I mean. The historical rage we have discussed – it is a very deep pattern that grips whole civilizations, often unspoken, unconscious, deep and hidden.

Question: But antipathy between Islam and the West has hardly been hidden over the centuries…

Answer: No, but there are still profound undercurrents. The Crusades – they were ostensibly about liberating the Holy Sepulchre from the Saracens. Sure. But that doesn’t explain the explosion of the First Crusade. The spontaneous nature of it. The intensity of it. People throughout Europe literally dropped everything and marched to the Holy Land on a whim. Nothing explains that. And along the way they murdered Jews, and fought the Orthodox Christians and in Syria they resorted to cannibalism. How do you explain that? That outbreak of barbarism? The quest for the Holy Sepulchre doesn’t match the depth and ferocity and intensity and explosive nature of the phenomenon. So you realize that there must be something deeper going on that the given explanation. Some deep psychology. A dark psychology. Islam is the hidden, the occult.

Question: The occult?

Answer: It is a hidden force in European ideas. Islamic science comes into Europe in the form of so-called ‘occultism’. The history of the European acquisition of Islamic science is inseparable from the history of occidental occultism. The word ‘Abracadabra’ is just a corruption of Arabic. All the magic words of Western occultism are corruptions of Arabic. Islam is the occult, the dark, the hidden. It is the darkness of the Other. This is very significant. The study of the occult in Western history is very significant, because often it is there that we see the real movement of ideas, the true currents of cultural exchange. Newton, all those scientists, were interested in alchemy. But what is alchemy but the Islamic sciences? It is heavily encoded. Exchanges between Islam and the West are often heavily encoded.

Question: So your personal encounter has been about Self and Other?

Answer: Yes. I’m a Western man. But there is a hidden side to the West that I set out to explore. Difficult, of course. And complex. A tangle of pathways. My foundation studies are of Plato. But after that there are adventures, journeys, into the whole complex of Western history, and I found it necessary to expand that to include Islam. In that sense I see it as a Western religion, in that broader sense.

Question: And you also studied the Biblical tradition, early Christianity?

Answer: For the same reason. Although again I was fortunate to be in the position where I could teach Biblical Studies at University level, at the same time as teaching Greek philosophy and Islam and the West. They all form a single study, a single quest, if you like. In the case of Biblical Studies and early Christianity, once again, even then, I was interested in Islam. Of course there was no such thing as Islam at that time, but there was already a proto-Islam, in early Christianity there was already an Islam before Islam. And once again it is a hidden history. In that particular case, a history of heresy and forgotten possibilities. I didn’t study Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity according to the conventional patterns. I wanted to see into the shadows.

Question: Is there evil in the shadows?

Answer: More than you suspect. When you dredge things up which have been forgotten, or when you dredge things up from your subconscious, you never know what might come with it. Many lost pathways are dangerous. A confrontation with your own Other is confronting. The same applies when considering whole cultures.

Question: For instance?

Answer: Leaving aside my own personal demons, there are cultural expressions of it. The one I often cite is the vampire myths. Which I think are adumbrations of hidden forces on the borderland between Islam and the West. The vampire is a shadow, a reflection, a projection of Islam. Specifically of the dark Turk. I think that is what the vampire mythology is about. I’ve written about it. Someone put it to me recently – it was an arresting idea - that for a Western person to convert to Islam, to become a Muslim, is an act of suicide. It is an act of spiritual suicide. Cultural suicide. That is true. It is a type of death. Just as, for a sailor, going to sea, setting out to sea – into the Otherness of the ocean – is a death. I am thinking of Ishmael at the start of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Noting here that his name is Ishmael, after all. It is only implied, but he is clearly thinking of suicide, Ishmael, the narrator. Setting out to sea is a death of the Self, immersion in the Other. And of course there is a new psychology that prevails at sea. New laws. New realities. For a Western person to go into Islam is like that. Unless, of course, they are dead already, completely superficial. Islam, for a Western person, is the darkness.

Question: But isn’t it important that we overcome these divisions today? Those are the divisions of the past…

Answer: They are not superficial divisions. The multiculturalist has a dangerously superficial view of human beings. They think that human beings – cultures – are just sludge, and you can shape them or reshape them easily. It is not so easy. There’s a deep hidden psychology to it. Those deep forces won’t be thwarted. They will emerge and re-emerge and go underground and re-emerge again. Only a tremendous amount of destruction and violence can actually change cultures, finally. That is an unfortunate fact. Marx was right about that. Real change, deep change, takes revolution. Terrible violence. You can paste over surfaces but underneath there are deep and terrible forces. These are the forces that animate the ‘battle raging in a single system’. That rage is deep. It cannot be wished away by do-gooders. The multicultural project is doomed because it is so completely naïve. You can’t mix oil and water. The hostilities between Islam and the West are profound, not just long-lived. You can’t paste over them with sentimentality. It is frightening how stupid people are about those things.

Question: Did you experience the journey into Islamic ideas as a type of suicide? A death?

Answer: A hall of mirrors, at least. It is a hall or mirrors of Self and Other. It is easy to get lost in there, certainly. As I say, I never rejected my occidental identity. To study the Other is still a way of knowing the Self. But anyone who converts to Islam – to externalist Islam, street-variety, Koran-thumping Islam – beard and kurta Islam – that’s a death. Sooner or later the bell will toll, on some level. And we are seeing exactly that. Have you seen those young people, boys and girls, teenagers, who leave their safe middle class homes in the middle of the night and run away and catch a plane to Syria to join ISIS or al-Qaeda and post jihad videos to the folks back home? Have you seen that? It is suicidal. It is an act of suicide. They are already dead. Islam, for a Western person, is always a dance with death.

Question: So you are saying it’s impossible for a Western person to convert to Islam?

Answer: No. Many people do it. Most of them are unsuccessful. In most cases it doesn’t last. Because, without knowing it, it involves a deep level of self-violence. It can be done. But at a high price. Generally, I am more pessimistic about conversions to any religion – Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism – than I was in the past. Although there are exceptions, usually where there is a higher spiritual calling involved. In some cases you can move to a higher level. At a higher level religions converge. There is a higher level at which Islam and Christianity converge. That is a level above the level of historical rage. But that is not for everyone. Very difficult. The vast majority of people are better advised to stay with the tradition into which they were born. In my opinion. Experience and age confirms me more and more in that view. You can never not be a Western person. So be a good one. That’s the best advice. But it is, in fact, a very complex thing. The liberal myth supposes that we are self-created beings. No we’re not. Only very superficially so. Converts now – it is very different than in the past.

Question: When do you mean? In the past?

Answer: I have written about this. In the 19th century there were converts to Islam. Among the English aristocracy. Important people. Among orientalists in the British upper class. But that was a very different phenomenon that what we find today. Today, it is among disaffected out-of-work snotty-nosed badly educated and resentful urban youth. In the main. There is always an element of self-loathing involved. And the liberal myth of self-creation.

Question: The liberal myth of self-creation?

Answer: The essence of liberalism – an ideology that unfortunately permeates the West now, and certainly its media and education system - is the idea that only what you choose has value. So you must reject what you were born into. This is supposed to be liberating. So we cheer someone who is born a man but chooses to be a woman. The liberal values self-creation. Whereas the conservative values making the most of what you are given. The liberal myth is that we are self-created beings and the circumstances into which we are born are inconsequential. That is the essential fallacy of liberalism. Whereas those older so-called converts to Islam – most of them – had no such motivation. Their motivations were much different, and much more interesting. But then, they were involved in a very different type of Islam. What I usually call classical Islam. Whereas modern Islam is a very different beast indeed.

Question: Different motivations? What were their motivations?

Answer: Look at a ‘convert’ like Lord Farook, for instance. A British aristocrat. You see pictures of him, Lord Farook, in his highland kilt and regalia. Not looking like much of a convert. Compare that image to that of one of these contemporary jihad punks with their beard and their seventh century Arabia attire, dressed like the Taliban. Those older ‘converts’ were not converts in the modern sense. They weren’t driven by a rejection of their own tradition. On the contrary, they were driven by the fact that their own tradition – the Western tradition – had recently acquired, conquered, the Islamic world. That is to say they were orientalists. The historical rage was over. All was right in heaven and earth again. And so, at last, it was safe to play the Other, embrace the Other. That was the remarkable thing about the Orientalists.

Question: What was?

Answer: For the first time in history, the first time in European history, Europeans looked with real sympathy and interest at the Saracens. They could do so because the historical misalignment had been healed. Christendom was triumphant. Islamic civilization had been conquered. And so, now, the Muslims became objects of interest and fascination and Europeans were free to admire them. But this changed again in the 20th C. In the 20th C. – one of the most important and salient features of the whole century – Islam was resurgent. It is one of the great facts of our time. Resurgent Islam. Historical rage begins again. People like Edward Said – he reignited the historical rage. The wonderful and unique thing about the Orientalists – that Edward Said deliberately overlooks – is that, for the first time, Europeans looked upon Islam without seeing through the lens of historical rage. I’ve only ever been interested in the Orientalist vision of Islam. Not resurgent, modern Islam. Not political post-colonial Islam, which is repugnant. In post-colonial Islam historical rage begins again in new and more dangerous forms. It is a new monster. That is where we are today.

Question: Today we see the return of old animosities?

Answer: Yes. In new forms, or in new configurations of old patterns, one should say. Which demonstrates how deep those animosities run. It is a battle raging in a single system. That is the important thing to grasp. That is the frame you need to apply to the problem in order to understand it at a deeper level. Many people, of course, are caught in an Us versus Them framework. In order to stand outside of that you need to see it as a battle raging in a single system. You need to think of Islam and the West as a single system, albeit consisting of two vast and opposing civilizations. Today, with Islamic civilization much diminished and caught up in an historical rage about it. In the West, counter animosities. I'm not opposed to people who hate Islam, Westerners who hate and fear Islam. In some ways I'd be more concerned if people didn't.

Question: And yet many people in the west have a sympathetic view of Islam.

Answer: But we are also seeing deep hostilities. Which is what one would expect. And they are not overcome very easily. The narrative continues to play out. History is not over yet. The dynamic is not completed yet. Now we see a new chapter. The most interesting phenomenon now is the convergence of liberal Leftism and Islam. They would seem to be odd bedfellows. But in fact the socialist stream in Western history has deep roots in Islam too. When you sit in a mosque, on the large empty even space of the floor - there is socialism. It is no accident that the hammer and sickle so nearly resembles the hilal, the crescent that symbolizes Islam. Since the collapse of communism there are new configurations emerging. The system continues.

Question: The single system?

Answer: Yes. It is a very useful frame in which to place contemporary events, as well as earlier history. It is quite obviously a single system. Ideologically but also geographically. Geographically Europe doesn’t end at Sicily. Europe extends all the way to the Sahara desert, geographically. The Mediterranean basin is a single world. If you remove the political and religious and cultural boundaries, it is a single geographical system. It is a single world. But it has been bifurcated. The last time it was a single political entity was under the Roman Empire. The Roman project was to unite the geographical reality of the Mediterranean basis. And of course it lasted several centuries. And Christianity was part of that project. Specifically it was to unite the eastern and western ends of the Mediterranean. But the rise of Islam ruptured that unity. It was ruptured in both directions. The Saracens took North Africa, and then later they took the eastern Roman Empire, Asia Minor. So the geographical world of the Mediterranean was ruptured. The single system was bifurcated. Recent events have reminded us of this.

Question: What events?

Answer: The immigration crisis. Thousands of North Africans travelling across the Mediterranean and pouring into Europe. And thousands more from the eastern Mediterranean travelling westwards into Europe. Suddenly you realize what a compact system it is, geographically. But politically and religiously and culturally it has been bifurcated. It has been cut in half. It is now a coin with two sides, heads and tails. And there is endless tension between these two sides, and they are tensions that run very deep and are not easily overcome. The Muslims took North Africa in the blink of an eye, and yet it is as if it is completely indigenous there. It is as if Islam is in the soil itself. You cannot just remove it. And no amount of social engineering will wish away the tensions and divisions – deep, real divisions – between Islam and the west. People are not just sludge that can be shaped by social policies. There are much deeper dimensions. As we will discover.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Song of the Reed

Even though orientalists developed an early and deep fascination for the so-called ‘Whirling Dervishes’ and for the figure and teachings of Balkhi (also known as Rumi, the Roman), the founder and master of this order of dervishes (the Mevlevis), they were unusually slow to bring the works of the Master – the key works of Mevlevi spirituality – into European languages. Portions, samples and selections were translated, but the task of translating entire works, and in particular the voluminous and rambling Mathnawi (Rhyming Couplets) of Rumi, was delayed until well into the Twentieth Century. 

Even then, it was not done especially well. It was not until Nicholson’s eight volume edition of the Couplets was published between 1925 and 1940 that there was a passably decent rendering of this masterwork of Soofism from the original Persian into the English language. 

All the same, Nicholson’s version has its deficiencies; it is scholarly and faithful to the Persian but it often misses the tenor, the flavor, the perfume, of the original. This is not a question of scholarship, but of essence - the spirit, not the letter. In this regard, the works of the Roman are notoriously elusive and difficult to capture. Translations, as such, are typically dry and bloodless and the nearer they are to the Persian the more this is so: often, paraphrases, or “renderings” – loose “translations” - are nearer to the intention and feeling of Rumi’s words. Mevlevi spirituality has a distinct tone, an inner quality that evades lexical exactitude; it is moe a music than a collection of words.

The difficulty of translating Rumi is apparent from the very first few lines of the Mathnawi. There are now dozens of versions of these lines in English but anyone who is acquainted with the true qualities of the Mevlevi path – the spirit rather than the letter - will know how inadequate they are. The problem is precisely that of describing the quality of a piece of music – in this case the music of the reed flute or ney. This breathed instrument, used in Mevlevi ritual, has a beautiful, haunting, mournful quality, and this is exactly the tone of the spirit that moves in Mevlevi spiritual life. But how can it be captured in the far less musical and more prosaic sounds of modern English? The keynote of Mevlevi spirituality is homesickness, the yearning of the soul that is, as St. Paul put it, in the world but not of the world. It is on this note that the Mathnawi begins.

Below are numerous renderings and translations of the first four lines of Rumi’s masterpiece. Some are manifestly horrible. Some have as much grace as entries in a telephone directory. Others might be described as valiant attempts even when they fall well short of anything we might reasonably call poetry. It is only four lines of a work of over 50,000 lines, and yet, as readers will see, no one does it especially well. Again, this is not a question of staying close to the original Persian; it is a question of setting the right tone, hearing the right music, from the outset. To judge this readers should avail themselves of some recordings of the ney flute. The first section of the Mathnawi is the ‘Song of the Reed’ and it speaks of the spirit, the Divine Breath, that animates the ney. Do any of these versions come near to the subtle qualities of the music of the ney?

The argument or the meaning of the four lines can be summarized as follows. Readers will see that many translators and renderers are not even successful in conveying this much:

1. The reader (or listener) is urged to listen to the reed and to hear its complaint or lament.

2. The reed speaks. It explains that its music has moved men and women to a deep sadness because it, the reed, has been torn from the reed bed and is homesick.

3. The reed says that it wants or needs listeners whose hearts are similarly torn by separation and homesickness. They will understand its song.

4. The reed makes the general statement that everyone who is exiled from their home longs to return.

* * * 

NICHOLSON

Listen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations—
Saying, “Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, 

my lament, has caused man and woman to moan.
I want a bosom torn by severance,
that I may unfold the pain of love-desire.
Every one who is left far from his source
wishes back the time when he was united with it.


JONES 1772

Hear, how yon reed in sadly pleasing tales
Departed bliss and present woe bewails!
'With me, from native banks untimely torn,
Love-warbling youths and soft-ey'd virgins mourn.
O! Let the heart, by fatal absence rent,
Feel what I sing, and bleed when I lament.
Who roams in exile from his parent bow'r,
Pants to return, and chides each ling'ring hour.

REDHOUSE 1881

From reed-flute hear what tale it tells;
What plaint it makes of absence' ills.
"From jungle-bed since me they tore,
Men's, women's, eyes have wept right sore.
My breast I tear and rend in twain,
To give, through sighs, vent to all my pain.
Who's from his home snatched far away,
Longs to return some future day.

WHINFIELD 1887

Hearken to the reed-flute, how it complains,
Lamenting its banishment from its home:--
"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearnings for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return.

ARBERRY 1961

Listen to this reed, how it makes complaint,
telling a tale of separation:
"Ever since I was cut off from my reed-bed,
men and women all have lamented my bewailing.
I want a breast torn asunder by severance,
so that I may fully declare the agony of yearning.
Every one who is sundered far from his origin
longs to recapture the time when he was united with it.

TURKMAN 1992

Listen to this Ney (the reed-flute) that is complaining
and narrating the story of separation.
Ever since they (the people) have plucked me from the reedland,
my laments have driven men and women to deep sorrow.
I want someone with a chest (heart) pierced by abandonment so that I may tell him about the pain of my longing.
He who falls aloof from his origin
seeks an opportunity to find it again.

GUPTA 1997

O man! Hear the flute (an instrument made out of reeds)
which in wistful tone complains of being separated from its native
place, the reed-bed.
"From the moment they cut me off from my source,
I have been wailing, which has moved everyone, man or woman, who heard me, to tears.
"I wish my heart to be torn into pieces so that they could tell the tale of pangs of my separation and of my
longing for going back from where I came.
"Anyone who is thus removed from his spring,
waits every moment for an opportunity of returning to it.

HELMINSKI

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
how it sings of separation:
Ever since they cut me from the reed bed,
my wail has caused men and women to weep.
I want a heart that is torn open with longing
so that I might share the pain of this love.
Whoever has been parted from his source
longs to return to that state of union.

SHAHRIARI 1998

Pay heed to the grievances of the reed
Of what divisive separations breed
From the reedbed cut away just like a weed
My music people curse, warn and heed
Sliced to pieces my bosom and heart bleed
While I tell this tale of desire and need.
Whoever who fell away from the source
Will seek and toil until returned to course.

NASR 2000

Listen to the reed how it narrates a tale,
A tale of all the separations of which it complains.
Ever since they cut me from the reed-bed,
Men and women bemoaned my lament.
How I wish in separation, a bosom shred and shred,
So as to utter the description of the pain of longing.
Whoever becomes distanced from his roots,
Seeks to return to the days of his union.

GAMARD 2000

Listen to the reed (flute), how it is complaining!
It is telling about separations,
(Saying), "Ever since I was severed from the reed field,
men and women have lamented in (the presence of) my shrill cries.
"(But) I want a heart (which is) torn, torn from separation,
so that I may explain the pain of yearning."
"Anyone one who has remained far from his roots,
seeks a return (to the) time of his union.

LEWIS 2000

Listen as this reed pipes its plaint
unfolds its tale of separations:
Cut from my reedy bed my crying
ever since makes men and women weep
I like to keep my breast
carved with loss to convey the pain of longing.

Once severed from the root,
thirst for union with the source endures

LEGENHAUSEN

Listen to this reed as it complains,
As it tells of separations in its strains:
Ever since I was torn from the land in which I grew
Men have been weeping to my piping, men and women, too.
I want a breast torn apart by parting
So I can tell it of the pain that accompanies my longing.
Whoever stays too long away from his own country
Searches for reunion, and his search is made daily.

TAMDGIDI 2003

Listen to how this reed is wailing;
About separations it's complaining:
"From reedbed since parted was I,
Men, women, have cried from my cry.
"Only a heart, torn-torn, longing
Can hear my tales of belonging.
"Whosoever lost her/his essence,
For reuniting seeks lessons.

TILLINGHAST AND SHAFAK

Listen, how this flute complains; how it tells of estrangement.
It says: Ever since they cut me from my reedy bed, 

men have cried and wailed when I cried - and women too.
I want a heart wounded by separation, so I can tell the pain of
longing.
He who is cut off from his essence looks for the time of reunion.

MOJADDEDI 2004

Now listen to this reed-flute's deep lament
About the heartache being apart has meant:
'Since from the reed-bed they uprooted me
My song's expressed each human's agony,
A breast which separation's split in two
Is what I seek, to share this pain with you:
When kept from their true origin, all yearn
For union on the day they can return.

WILLIAMS 2006

Listen to this reed as it is grieving;
it tells the story of our separations.
'Since I was severed from the bed of reeds,
in my cry men and women have lamented.
I need the breast that's torn to shreds by parting
to give expression to the pain of heartache.
Whoever finds himself left far from home
looks forward to the day of his reunion.

HOLBROOK 2010

Listen to this reed flute as it tells its tales
Complaining of separations as it wails:
"Since they cut my stalk away from the reed bed
My outcry has made men and women lament
I seek a breast that is torn to shreds by loss
So that I may explicate the pain of want
Everyone who's far from his own origin
Seeks to be united with it once again

SADRI 2015

Listen to the reed-flute as it complains,
The tale of separations it explains.
"Ever since they tore me off the reed bed's bowels,
My wailing has moved man and woman to howls.
I want a bosom, by separation's agony torn, torn,
So I may speak of the yearnings' pain I have borne.
He who is separated from his quintessence,
Will seek the times of his re-acquaintance.


Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Danielou's Shiva & the Primordial Tradition

Often counted as a “soft” Traditionalist after he became a sympathetic reader of some of the works Rene Guenon in the 1940s, the French musician and teacher Alain Danielou spent most of his adult life living in the Asi Ghat area of Shiva’s sacred city, Benares, where he adopted Shaivite religion and lived as a Shaivite Hindoo. The present author has just spent over a month in the same city trying his best to come to terms with Shaivism and towards that end purchased and read a copy of Monseiur Danielou’s Shiva & the Primordial Tradition from the Asi Ghat bookstore hoping that it might shed light upon the key aspects of Shaivism and, as the title promises, its place in the ‘Primordial Tradition’ of integral religions. Regrettably, the book does neither to any depth. It is a strange and disappointing work. Danielou presents Shaivism as a type of Dionysian phallicism and by the ‘Primordial Tradition’ he largely means the doctrine of the Four Yugas. The book does not go much further than that but is padded out with chapters, not always entirely relevant, on diverse topics such as dream interpretation, poetics, music theory and homosexuality. It offers, that is, a view of Shaivism very much through the prism of Danielou’s own personal preoccupations. At its core, though, is his account of Hindooism in a broad sweep, its origins and its history, and this, at least, is worth considering, even if one suspects it is highly stylized and warped in favor of his particular preferences. Certainly, there are very different accounts available; Danielou presents a French convert’s partisan Shaivite version of the roots of the Hindoo faith.

By his account, there are two ancient indigenous traditions in the Indian sub-continent: Tantric Shiva worship, which he presents as an animistic and “shamanic” nature religion, and Jainism, which he presents as an atheistic ethical system. According to Danielou, these two streams represent the authentic genius of India, but they have, he asserts, been distorted and befouled throughout the centuries by overlays of intruding traditions, most notably Vedic religion and then, more recently, Mahometism and British/Western culture. In this sweeping history he presents Buddhism as a mutation of the Jainist stream which was then re-Hindooized in its Mayahana forms and proceeded to colonize the souls and minds of Asia, all the way to Japan. Back in the sub-continent he portrays Vedic religion as an alien, authoritarian creed that secured, he asserts, only a nominal place in the evolving Hindoo mix; in fact, he says, a resurgent Shaivism reconquered India and left Vedism as a fake veneer. Shaivism – and its Samkya cosmology, which includes yoga – is, he insists, the real Hindooism, even when it is dressed up in Vedic forms. Vedic religion invaded, caused its mischief, but was re-Shaivized in subsequent revivals of the underlying indigenous cultus. He is equally dismissive of the manifestations of Vishnu worship, the cults of Krishna and Rama, which take the form of bhakti spirituality, a sentimental and exoteric form of religion which, he says, misrepresents Hindooism in the modern West.

All well and good. It is an intriguing if contentious overview. Its effect is to make ancient Dravidean Shiva culture the original India and the Vedic Aryans hostile intruders. For Danielou, Shaivite Tantra is a means to return to the authentic and autochthonous layers of Hindoo spirituality – and anything that ever went wrong in India was, by his account, imposed by outsiders. This includes traditional Indian aversion to homosexuality, a subject obviously close to his heart because he was himself a homosexual and it was with his partner Raymond Burnier, that he first travelled to Benares and decided to make home there. Although he mentions in passing that Jainism (which, remember, was one of the two ancient, original streams of Hindooism) has a strong taboo against homosexuality, and he also notes that all forms of oral sex are regarded as unclean in India, he says that homopobia is a trait of the “anglicized upper class” and spends a whole chapter setting out Lord Shiva’s homo- and bi- tolerant credentials. One gets the impression, in fact, that this is in large measure a reason for his embrace of the Shaivite creed, just as it is a reason for his undisguised disdain for the Catholicism into which he had been born. It is obviously important – crucial – for Danielou that Shaivism is, in his experience, pro-sexual while Catholicism (and European culture generally) is not.

This general bias goes further. Not only does Danielou characterize Shaivism as Dionysean – a cult of ecstasy – but his homoerotic interests are to be seen in his particular focus upon Shaivism’s phallic nature. The present author spent weeks in Benares being assured by priests and devotees alike that Shaivism is not “phallic worship” and that this is a shameful misconception entertained by sex-obsessed Westerners, and yet upon opening Monsieur Danielou’s account he reads that the Shaivic creed is phallic worship pure and undisguised. “The symbol of Shiva, the Creator of the world, the image worshipped in his temples, is the erect phallus,” he writes. And elsewhere, “The phallus is the emblem, the sign of the person of Shiva, of whom it is the image." This is no doubt true on an immediate level, but Danielou gives no thorough account of the further symbolism of the lingam and the many filters of piety through which the vast majority of resoundingly conservative Hindoos view it. The present author wrote about this in a recent post. Danielou’s Shaivism, certainly, is a long way from what this writer witnessed in the temples of Benares. Although he dresses it up as an esoteric “primordialism” Danielou presents a sexo-yogic version of Shaivism that is much nearer to the doctrines of Rajneesh and the neo-tantric New Agers than anything one is likely to see in the actual religious life of Benares as it is practiced today. One wonders what the decent pious Hindoo families that line up outside the Golden Temple in Benares – the very centre of the Shaivite world – would make of Danielou’s assertion that "It is in the region of the sexual organs that one attains pure knowledge,” or “The godhead can only be perceived through… its linga.”

It is all somewhat twentieth century. One can hear prefigurings of contemporary neo-tantra in such assertions as:

Tantric rites and practices, open to all without any restriction of caste, gender, or nature, are meant to permit anyone to draw closer to the divine through these three passages - on the levels of existence, consciousness, and sensual pleasure.

The book is further marred by quite unnecessary and inflammatory tirades against what Monsieur Danielou calls “monotheism”; there is an entire chapter in which his contempt and lack of feeling for the whole Abrahamic tradition is on display. The idea of the personal god, he writes, is nothing more than the cosmic inflation of human egoism, the poison of egoism writ large. “The notion of a god,” he writes, “a divine personage, is a projection of the notion of individuality, of a being that says "I." Monotheism is merely the deification of the notion of individuality.” He sets this ego-worship against the true religion of phallic worship. “Worshipping the linga means acknowledging the presence of the divine in what is human,” he writes. “It is the opposite of anthropomorphic monotheism that projects human individualism on to the divine world.” Once again, one feels that Monsieur Danielou’s own homoerotic obsessions and his own revolt against his Christian upbringing have been cast as an esotericism that he discovered in mystic India. “Associating the demoniac with the sexual,” he says, “is peculiar to the Christian world.” And therefore “Churches,” he declares, “are conservative and not liberating.” He projects this view back as a conspiracy theory that may have been daring once but which is today drearily commonplace:

The history of the Christian world is sadly filled with witchhunts that have served as a pretext for attacking initiatic organizations.

By “initiatic organizations” he means those that understand and maintain the worship of the sacred phallus. This is the cornerstone of his account of Western spiritual history:

Numerous sects did their utmost to maintain a Dionysian type initiatic tradition in the Christian world but were ferociously persecuted for political reasons, which have nothing to do with truly religious values. Organisms whose aims are purely spiritual are thus persecuted when civil and ecclesiastical authorities seek to establish their total hegemony over souls. The Catholic Church has played this sinister role throughout the ages…

But what of the good elements in Christianity and other religions? He is only able to reconcile himself to certain aspects of other religious traditions by proposing a general thesis that attributes all good things to Shiva worship. “In the final analysis,” he writes, “all initiation is ultimately connected with Shaivism, or with its kindred Dionysian or Sufi forms. Traces of such an origin can be detected in authentic initiatic groups in the Christian, Vedic, Taoist, Buddhist, and Islamic worlds.”

In many places these arguments become nothing less than outlandish. At one point he speaks of a mysterious and unnamed political cohort of “… India persons clothed in the monastic dress, of astonishing intelligence and culture, who, [have]… set up a traditionalist party… against Gandhi, Nehru, and the Indian Congress Party… which, at the right time, will take power and reestablish the traditional order…” Worse than this fantasy, in the chapter on music – an art to which he devoted his life - he argues that the Shaivite esotericism – his “primordial tradition” - is today found in the decadent fervor of discos and rock concerts! He writes:

… in the modern West, music with certain features close to those of ecstatic music is no longer found in places of worship, but in quite different places like discos, where dancers experience the kind of hypnotic isolation that is needed for mystical experience... The gods are much closer in the exaltation of rock concerts than in the faded canticles of the churches… just as vagabond hippies are much closer to the mystical wanderers… than frustrated monks snug in their… monasteries.

Vagabond hippies as the new Traditionalists? By this stage the present author had realized that Shiva & the Primordial Tradition was not going to offer the sort of penetrating and insightful introduction to Shaivite spirituality he had hoped. Rather, this was a tome that instead explained a great deal about the disaffected, resentful, unkempt, lazy, ill-educated and bedraggled feral youths from Germany and France - with their Om tee shirts, dreadlocks and degrees in Queer Studies - who laze about in the cafes of the backstreets of Benares smoking pot, torturing a sitar and taking yoga classes – these, apparently, are Danielou’s cherished inheritors of Shaivite primordiality, by his account the great indigenous treasure of India.

Needless to say this has nothing to do with the ‘primordial tradition’ of Rene Guenon. Nor does it have much to do with the Shaivism one can witness as a living tradition in the temples of Benares and on the ghats of the River Ganges. Alain Danielou and his boyfriend spent forty years living in the sacred city. He taught at the Benares Hindu University, and in the schools established by Rabindranath Tagore, and was decorated by the government of India for his services to music. On the evidence of this work, though, his Shaivism was a very personal avant-gard creation – largely a construction of his own prejudices and demons - the shortcomings of which has been badly exposed by the passage of time. The title promised so much more. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black