December 30, 2011 · 7:34 pm

Music In Theory & Practice, part 4

Pythagoras

The Harmonic Method

I will just briefly mention this because it is vaguely to do with the theme of associating colours and musical tones mentioned in the preceding blog posts in this series. The main problem with this method is that it was an idea ahead of its time and therefore, as far as I can make out was not taken up in a great way in the past. Ironically however, living in the twenty-first century we are now technologically advanced enough to develop the idea for the future. The basis of the idea lies in Harmonics.

Musicians who play stringed instruments like the guitar or violin will be familiar the concept straightaway – they are the bell-like tones produced by lightly touching a string at the 4th, 5th, 7th, 12th etc frets or the equivalent positions. What you actually have here is a tone which is equal in frequency to that of the open string, multiplied by a whole number. Hence:

Frequency Known as Where on guitar
x The First Harmonic (Fundamental) 0 (Open string)
2x The Second Harmonic 12
3x The Third Harmonic 7
4x The Fourth Harmonic 5
5x The Fifth Harmonic 4
6x The Sixth Harmonic 3 *
7x The Seventh Harmonic 15 *
8x The Eighth Harmonic 17 *

* These harmonics are not as easy to play on a guitar as the other harmonics. But if they were easy, then it wouldn’t be a guitar!

As a sort of aside, it is worth noting that going by Pythagorean Temperament, the various Harmonics would thus be equivalent to: –

Harmonic Note
1st I
2nd I’
3rd V’
4th I”
5th III” **
6th V”
7th b VII” **
8th I”’

** NB: The note-equivalents of the 5th & 7th Harmonics are approximations – probably more suited to a Just Tempered scale, as opposed to a strict Pythagorean one. The strict Pythagorean versions of these notes would be several cents sharper than the corresponding harmonics.

It is here that Madame Blavatsky shoved her oar in: she asserted that the colours of the spectrum correspond to Harmonically to one another, hence:

Harmonic Note Colour
1st I Red
2nd I’ Orange
3rd V’ Yellow
4th I” Green
5th III” Blue
6th V” Indigo
7th b VII” Violet
8th I”’ “The Ghost Ray”

“The Ghost Ray…” Yes indeed, Blavatsky postulated that there was an eighth, mysterious colour of the spectrum, which is where Terry Pratchett got the idea for Octarine from. Hence Chaos magicians have incorporated this into Chaos Magic thinking they are being really ironic, when in fact they are just re-cycling hundred year-old Theosophy!

Anyhoo… now that we have a basis for assigning colours to harmonics, it is possible to analyse the timbre of a musical instrument in astrological terms – e.g. if one particular harmonic is stronger than the rest, one could say that the sound of the instrument is more under the presidency of the corresponding planet or planets than the others. However, in terms of using this for practical magic, this system would have had limited functionality in the late 19th century when it was first proposed. For a particular planetary working one would have to hunt high and low for the particular instruments that sounded just right. Pipe organs would have been more useful in this regard – unfortunately, most organs were not and indeed are not built to accommodate the full range of harmonics as listed above.

Fairlight CMI

So, to fully make use of the system in the 1880s would have been very inconvenient. However: fast forward one hundred years, and the invention of digital synthesisers from the 1980s onwards does now allow one to pick and choose the harmonics with which to imbue your tone. This of course is only if you are prepared to actually synthesise instead of just use the presets. However, such synthesisers can do far more sophisticated things than just “pick a harmonic” – for example, by creating dynamic tones in which the levels of different harmonics alters in real time, thus reflecting that as in music, so in astrology, and so in Life – the influences of the various planets are not constant, but are modulating continually.

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December 26, 2011 · 3:53 pm

Music In Theory & Practice 3: The Hexagram and Middle Pillar Rituals

More rituals scored according to Macgregor Mathers’ system of attributions.

The Lesser Hexagram Ritual

The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, composed by Alex Sumner © 2011.

The Middle Pillar Ritual

The Middle Pillar Ritual, composed by Alex Sumner © 2011.

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December 24, 2011 · 6:26 pm

Yale Scientists want to brainwash you into becoming mindless Zombies

“Inception becomes reality: People can teach themselves new skills in dreams” says the Daily Mail. Apparently researchers at Yale University have published a paper on the same in this week’s New Scientist.

Honestly: when I first read the article, I thought that the Daily Mail had raided my site for one of my old blog posts – but no, apparently, despite the fact that lucid dreamers like myself and others have been saying it for years, some scientists have now done experiments on it, which purportedly makes it official. The idea of being able to control ones dreams so as to stimulate ones learning sounds so plausible to me that I didn’t really give it much of a second thought. Until I saw the following throwaway remark – referring to Peter Morgan, the author of the paper:

Morgan hopes to be able to improve a person’s social control and decision-making abilities.

(Emphasis added).

I think not! Is it just me or does this remark sound incredibly dodgy? What the fuck is a person’s “social control” any business of Peter Morgan, Yale University, or anyone else’s for that matter? To “improve” a person’s social control you have to lay down a standard by which it can be judged. In other words, it entails imposing one’s own arbitrary values on someone else. And they intend to control someone’s dreams to do it!!! Never have I heard of such an intrusive idea! Oh wait, yes I have, as a matter of fact: Aldous Huxley first wrote about the same thing in Brave New World in 1932. Fuck me, these scientists ought to be ashamed of themselves.

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December 24, 2011 · 4:29 pm

Music In Theory and Practice – Part 2

S L Macgregor Mathers

Mathers’ corollary to “The Chromatic Method”

Following on from yesterday’s post, I would like to review a similar method which Macgregor Mathers gave to the Alpha et Omega – it is set out in full detail in Pat Zalewski’s book Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn.

Like Case and Bennett, Mathers made an association with colours and musical notes – however he differs in several important aspects. Firstly, Mathers starts with the assumption that Red = F, not C as in the Case / Bennett system. Secondly: there are no sharps or flats in Mathers’ system. Thirdly, the Seven planets follow a scale starting with the F above middle C, and ascending in the same order as the walls of the Vault of the Adepti. Hence:

Hebrew Letter Colour Note
Heh Pe Shin Red F
Vau Red-Orange F or G
Zayin Resh Orange G
Cheth Amber G or A
Teth Beth Aleph Yellow A
Yod Yellow-Green A or B
Lamed Daleth Green B
Nun Green-Blue B or C
Samekh Gimel Mem Blue C
Aayin Tau Indigo D
Tzaddi Kaph Violet E
Qoph Vermilion E or F

This system has its advantages – and disadvantages. From a musicological (read: “snobbish”) point of view, some of the reasons that Mathers gives for adopting the particular peculiarities of this system are suspect and inconsistent, and smack of “dumbing down.” The only reason I can see for starting with Red = F and treating the planets as he does is to make use of the spaces and lines of the Treble Clef. Perhaps if he was confident with leger lines we might have had a whole different secret teaching! It could, of course have been to allow Adepti to play the piano one-handed, the left-hand being left free to hold a ritual implement or something.

However, Mathers’ aversion to sharps and flats is something else. The reason Mathers gives for avoiding it touches upon a problem that musicians have had to deal with for thousands of years, namely Temperament. It is impossible to tune the twelve-note chromatic scale so that all intervals are “perfect” – therefore, historically, several different methods have been proposed including the Pythagorean, “Just Intonation” (like Pythagorean but with easier arithmetic), “Well Tempered” (made famous by Bach’s Das Wohltempierte Klavier), and “Equal Temperament,” amongst others. The upshot of this is that depending on which system of Temperament you are using, the actual tuning of some chromatic intervals might vary by as much as 10Hz – enough to create an out-of-tune “beating” sound, assuming two different instruments had been tempered differently.

How did the Secret Chiefs, from whom Mathers claimed to derive this teaching, resolve the problem of Temperament? Um, well, the unfortunate fact is that although they were willing to lay down minutiae on a whole host of other topics, they conveniently passed on this one: the simplest way for Mathers to resolve the situation was to avoid using sharps and flats.

Of course, on the other hand, Mathers might have interpreted “Quit the night and seek the day,” as meaning “avoid the black keys and play only the white keys.”

What we thus have from Mathers is therefore a reduction of the chromatic scale to the F-Lydian mode – ironic, as Mathers complained about using modes as well.

HOWEVER: the very fact that Mathers’ system is completely unsophisticated compared to the Case/Bennett system is in fact its greatest advantage – because it allows Hebrew words to be chanted in simple melodies. This in turn makes it highly conducive to teaching a temple full of initiates whose musical talent may well range from hardened rock-musicians reared on Frank Zappa and Led Zeppelin to, well, drummers. By way of example, I shall now attempt to re-score the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram according to the note-values suggested by Mathers.

The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, composed by Alex Sumner © 2011.

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December 23, 2011 · 7:09 pm

Music In Theory and Practice – Part 1

Starting today I present a short series of blogs on the esoteric use of music in the Western Mystery Tradition.

As I understand it, there are four main methods of incorporating Music into the esoteric practices of the West. These are:

  1. The Chromatic scale method;
  2. The Harmonic method;
  3. The Modal method; and
  4. The Intuitive method.

Each of these embraces dogmatism and pragmatism to differing degrees. The Intuitive Method is the least dogmatic / most pragmatic, and typifies the approach of mainstream composers creating works for the general public, but is not necessarily best suited for a ritual unless it were specifically composed for such. On the other hand, the chromatic method is probably the most dogmatic and arbitrary – but, once learnt, it can be deployed the most quickly to create Qablalistically-correct ritual chants. However a chant thus created would sacrifice aesthetic charm for intellectual rigour, which is a polite way of saying Geekishness.

I intend to review each of the four methods: the Chromatic Method today, and the other three in blog posts in the days to come.

The Chromatic Scale Method

This method has been advocated by Paul Foster Case and Allan Bennett. The basic principle may be expressed thus:

There are 12 notes in the Chromatic Scale; they have a one-for-one correlation to the 12 colours of the Artist’s colour wheel.

The Chromatic Scale

As those who follow the GD teachings know, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet can all be related to the colour wheel, hence on this basis when can then relate them to the chromatic scale as well. This is done by arbitrariliy saying C = Red, C# = Red-orange, D = Orange, etc. A full list would be as follows:

Hebrew letters / Colours / Piano keys

Hebrew Letter Colour Note
Heh Pe Shin Red C
Vau Red-Orange C #
Zayin Resh Orange D
Cheth Amber D #
Teth Beth Aleph Yellow E
Yod Yellow-Green F
Lamed Daleth Green F #
Nun Green-Blue G
Samekh Gimel Mem Blue G #
Aayin Tau Indigo A
Tzaddi Kaph Violet A #
Qoph Vermilion B

Armed with this knowledge you can now grab any music instrument you have to hand, such as a guitar, recorder or a keyboard (if convenient), and start working out how Hebrew divine names would sound if sung to the notes proposed in the table above. Here are some I prepared earlier:

The Qabalistic Cross

The Qabalistic Cross (chord accompaniment optional).

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram

Divine and angelic names from the LBRP

Conclusion

If you are a musician and have stayed with this so far, you will probably have noticed that the use of this Chromatic method does not a pleasing melody make! More interesting, though is the fact the interval between one note and the note represented by its opposite on the colour-wheel is the infamous tri-tone, which historically is known as the Diabolus In Musica of “Devil’s Interval” (the fact that the melody of  “Black Sabbath” by the group of the same name is based on the tritone is not a coincidence!).

Finally I would just like to leave you with this video, in which a group of musicians have set the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram to music using just this method. Although it’s called “Rites of Luna,” from what I can make out in the excerpt shown the lady is just doing the regular Hexagram ritual.

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December 8, 2011 · 10:16 am

The Truth About The Golden Dawn!!!

Disguising myself as a human being, I teleported to London, England, last night in order to attend a talk upon the Golden Dawn. I shall not reveal the precise location of the talk, nor who gave it, for reasons which I fear will become all too obvious.

Anywho – I have now been informed of the Truth about the Golden Dawn! So all you people like Chic Cicero, Robert Zink, David Griffin, Nick Farrell, Pat Zalewski, etc etc take note! Here is what I was told (I shit ye not):

  • William Wynn Westcott did not play a major part in forming or running the Golden Dawn. He did not translate the Cipher Manuscripts, and when Macgregor Mathers emigrated to Paris, he did not run the English branch of the Order as Chief Adept in Anglia until his resignation in 1897.
  • Westcott also was a fuddy duddy old man with a long grey beard when the Golden Dawn began, even though he was only 39 years old at the time.
  • Samuel and Moina Mathers translated the Cipher manuscripts themselves.
  • Moina persuaded Annie Horniman to join the GD by saying “Hey, it’s really cool, it’s like dropping acid.”
  • When Macgregor & Moina Mathers emigrated to Paris, they retired from the Golden Dawn altogether and did not really do anything more for the Order (like creating the 5=6 ritual, designing the Vault of the Adepti or coming up with the inner order curriculum) from that point on.
  • Florence Farr was thus left as the sole chief in charge. She and W B Yeats wrote a load of new rituals for the Golden Dawn, which can be found in Regardie’s Black Brick. Probably.
  • George Bernard Shaw was a member of the GD. So too was Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance who, despite only turning up for her neophyte ceremony and then not appearing in the Temple again, was a member of long-standing.
  • No-one in the Golden Dawn who attended a temple outside London ever did anything of note, ever.

So let this be a lesson for you whenever someone purports to tell you the history of the GD!

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December 6, 2011 · 12:47 pm

Get The Magus Trilogy – 3 for the price of 2!

Christmas is coming, so why not fit in some early Yuletide shopping by getting the complete “Magus Trilogy” – pay full price for two books and get the third one free!

The Magus - by Alex Sumner

Front cover artwork © 2009 by the author.

© Front cover artwork copyright the author, 2010

Front cover artwork © 2011 by the author.

To take advantage of this offer, simply order my books from Lulu, and enter the code BUY2GETONEUK305 at the checkout. Please hurry as this offer ends on 7th December 2011.

Thanks! 🙂

 

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November 10, 2011 · 10:50 pm

How To Use Horary Astrology With Tarot

A real Hermeticist would be able to crawl all the way through.

Horary Astrology is the art of using Astrology to answer a particular question. Essentially the astrologer notes the time, date, and place that he or she first heard the question (or if it is on behalf of oneself – when he or she first formulated the question). This becomes the moment the question is “born,” and the astrologer can then draw up a chart for it in the usual manner and interpret it to gain insight into the circumstances in which the question arose, what is likely to happen, and what the eventual outcome will be. Horary Astrology is slightly different from Natal Astrology, although the similarities are such that one who has already mastered the latter can easily learn to practice the former.

The leading text on the subject is Christian Astrology by William Lilly (1602 – 1681). Wikipedia claims that Lilly was the last major practitioner of Horary Astrology. I can asssure you that although it is not so well known as Natal Astrology there are still some of us who practice it today!

Being a Tarot reader as well, I find the Horary art intriguing, as it indicates a way that Astrology may be successfully combined with Tarot, to wit: by making a note of the time, date and place of when a question is asked for a tarot divination, one ought to be able to use Horary Astrology to double-check the results. Presumably if one’s astrological and tarot skills are as highly advanced as one another, one should find that the combined readings come up with the same results. In practice I find that the two types of reading complement one another, with each one providing extra details which are not apparent with the other.

Fifteen card tarot spread

So for example: the Tarot spread which I use most often is the fifteen-card spread, mainly because this was recommended for use with the first deck I ever bought, The Golden Dawn Tarot. The cards in the middle (2, 1, 3) represent the Here and Now. Those on the Right side (4, 8, 12; 7, 11, 15) represent what will happen if the Querent does not attempt to change his or her current course of action. Those on the Left ( 13, 9, 5; 14, 10, 6) however represent what will happen if he or she does attempt to change.  Moreover the top-row represents the short-term future, whilst the bottom row represents the long-term future.

Here then is a table of comparison between Horary Astrology and Tarot, specifically the fifteen-card spread.

What Horary Astrology 15 Card Spread
The circumstances in which the question arises is determined by… Luna, which represents the question itself. Its position in the chart gives information relating to the nature of the question. The distance of Luna from the last planet it conjuncted can be used to work out the date of a past event which has led to the current situation, or whether the cause is too remote in time. If Luna is “Void of Course” (i.e. it does not form a major aspect with any other planet before it leaves that particular sign), it indicates “Nothing will come of this question.” The central three cards, 2 – 1 – 3. The first card usually indicates the prime or main meaning whilst cards two and three aid in its interpretation (NB: in GD spreads, there are no “reversed” cards. Instead a card is “well-dignified” or “ill-dignified.” Dignity is determined by whether nearby cards are of a harmonious or inharmonious nature.)
The development of the question in the short-term is determined by… It depends – a horary figure admits some versatility. If the Querent is the astrologer him- or herself, the position of the Lord of the Ascendant will generally indicate what is likely to happen. The “Lord” of the Ascendant or indeed of any other given house is the Planet which rules it. In Horary Astrology Planets tend to represent actual people or things in the life of the Querent.If the Querent is someone else, then they will be represented by the Lord of the Descendant. If however the Querent is not asking on his/her own behalf but on that of someone else (e.g. a relative) or of something related to the Querent, then a house is selected to represent it and the Lord of that is examined. E.g. the tenth house relative to the Ascendant represents the Astrologer’s mother; the eleventh house relative to the Descendant (i.e. the fifth) represents the Friend of a querent where the querent is someone else, etc. The cards along the top row. The three on the right represent what will happen if the Querent does nothing in particular to changer his/her fate; the cards on the left represent what will happen if they do try something. Each triad of cards is interpreted in a similar manner to that above, with the left and right cards determing whether the middle card is well- or ill-dignified.
The end of the matter is determined by… The fourth house, and its ruler. Also, in a manner similar to that mentioned above, the position of Luna can also be used to determine when in the future a decisive event will occur. The cards along the bottom row. Those on the right can be imagined as being what will arise as a consequence of those on the right top-row; similarly with those on the left, mutatis mutandis.
Miscellaneous extra information is given by… Lilly’s work, cited above, gives examples of how a Horary figure may be used to extra effect in certain particular cases, e.g. finding lost items. A complete list of all the possible applications would be to long to put here. The number of each different type of card may also add another layer of interpretation, for example: the number of Aces, the number of Court Cards, the number of Trumps, and the number of cards of a particular suit. Personally, I only look upon the number of a particular type of card as significant if it is noticeably greater than the average number one would expect from an evenly shuffled deck. I.e. out of fifteen cards, the average number of

  • Any one suit is 2.7;
  • Trumps is 4.2;
  • Court cards is 3.1;
  • Aces is 0.8.
The relative merits of each type of divination are… Horary astrology aspires to give a more mathematical or precisely vision of the outcome of the question. Being somewhat arbitary it provides a tough yard-stick which forces the diviner to consider factors which might not have been apparent in a more subjective system such as tarot. Whilst not having a mechanism for being as definite as to dates etc as a Horary figure, I find the tarot cards provide more nuances of meaning than is suggested bylooking at the planets alone (this may just be a personal opinion.)

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November 9, 2011 · 12:45 pm

How To Use Satanism To Market Your New Book

Aleister Crowley (1875 – 1947)

Aleister Crowley has been condemned for many things such as leading a debauched life of sex, drugs and Eastern mysticism, and for making the Occult popular today. He has also been praised for many things, such as leading a debauched life of sex, drugs and Eastern mysticism, and for making the Occult popular today. He has of course also been made the subject of a number of unfounded allegations, of which I thought I had all heard – until now. Whilst reading the Evening Standard (hey! I was bored) yesterday, I came across the newest allegation, in a full page article luridly entitled: “Were six bizarre deaths, linked to curse of King Tut, actually the work of this notorious Satanist?”

Apparently this is the theme of a new book published this week called London’s Curse: Murder, Black Magic & Tutankhamunby a chap called Mark Beynon, whom the Evening Standard describes as a “historian.”  The Curse of Tutankhamun has been the subject of books before, but this new work focusses on some half a dozen deaths allegedly connected with it. Amongst those cited are:

  • Captain Richard Bethell, personal secretary to Howard Carter – died in his sleep whilst staying at his Mayfair club in 1929.  Beynon alleges that he was “smothered.”
  • Lord Westbury, father of Bethell, died from falling from a sixth-floor window in St James, 1930. Beynon states that he kept Egyptian artifacts which his son had given him. NB: Lord Westbury was 78 at the time.
  • E A Wallis-Budge, the famous Egyptologist, died at home in Bloomsbury in 1934 aged 77.
  • Aubrey Herbert, Lord Caernarvon’s half-brother, died in a hospital in Park Lane in 1923. Wikipedia states that he died from complications arising from an extremely bizarre dental procedure, although Beynon said that he had recently visited Luxor as well.

Now Howard Carter first breached the seal of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922, only fully entering the tomb in February 1923. The original idea of The Curse arose from Lord Caernarvon dying just three months after stepping inside, in April 1923. Thereafter, a number of deaths of people connected with the expedition in relatively quick succession poured fuel on the notion.

Hence: although Aubrey Herbert’s demise looks pretty ominous, the other deaths cited begin to look increasingly improbably due to the remoteness in time from the opening of the tomb (Howard Carter himself died in 1939). Also note that two of the people in the list above were in their late seventies, so Lord Westbury’s demise could have been an accident due to his infirmity.

Ah, no! Says this new book. They were in fact all murdered by notorious Satanist Aleister Crowley! Indeed, Crowley rushed over from North Africa to London in 1923 to murder Aubrey Herbert, and then plotted the deaths of the others over an eleven (!) year period. Now here is the kicker: the reason that Beynon concentrates on these as well as certain others is apparently because that their places of death, when plotted on a map of London, form a Pentagram, which is obviously a Satanic symbol.

Where can I begin to pick apart this notion? Well for a start there is an allegation in the book that “Crowley murdered his servants while in India.” I presume this is a reference to the infamous Kangchenjunga incident in which one of Crowley’s fellow mountaineers and two servants died not through being murdered but in an avalanche. (Crowley did attract notoriety for this, not for causing their death but for not going to help them after they had suffered their accident, thus breaking the code of honour commonly observed by mountaineers). However the most glaring flaw in the whole scheme is the inclusion of Wallis-Budge. Wallis-Budge retired from the British Museum in 1924, only a year after the opening of the Tomb, and was not directly involved in the Expedition. Crowley would however have had reason to be grateful to Wallis-Budge, as the latter was the pre-eminent translator of classic Egyptian texts such as the Papyrus of Ani (aka The Book of the Dead).

It seems fairly obvious to me that Wallis-Budge’s death has been included for the sole purpose of finding fifth point for the overly-contrived Pentagram-theory. Indeed, poor old Aleister Crowley seems to have been picked upon simply because he was the most famous occultist around the time of the alleged events. Never mind that there were other students of the Egyptian mysteries alive during the whole time period! I suppose it was probably too difficult to actually find evidence against one of the more obscure occultists of the time period, although were Mark Beynon a real historian, in the academic sense of the word, this kind of task would be par for the course.

All in all, the attendant press-hype is a good example of how to use Satanism to market your new book.

THE NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES OF ALEX SUMNER – NOW AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON AND ITUNES (the author would like to point out that rather than scholarly historical works, his books are most definitely fiction!)

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November 4, 2011 · 10:47 pm

Alex does Manchester

Manchester! Home of Joy Division! The Fall! And has one of the greatest football teams ever! But enough about Tranmere Rovers, for I, Alex Sumner will be up there the weekend of 26th – 27th November. I am in the process of sorting out a venue which will accommodate all the fans that are expected to turn up, but I will keep everyone informed. Message me to be kept in touch.

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