COMMUNICATION - CONSULTANCY - PERSONAL GROWTH - WISDOM TRADITION
AMYDON-EXETER CENTRE 113
Primordial Wisdom
Re-Membered
To Right Reverend Dom Aldhelm
Cameron-Brown
Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, GLOUCESTER
16 March 1994
Dear Father Aldhelm,
Next Tuesday I hope to hear Rupert Sheldrake's First Bede
Griffiths Memorial Lecture. I read Dom Bede's The New Creation In
Christ - Christian Meditation and Community yesterday, and have
just picked up a 2nd-hand copy of John Main's The Present Christ -
Further Steps in Meditation. I shall probably drop Laurence
Freeman a line fairly soon.
You will, therefore, notice my quotes from Dom Bede on page 11 of
the enclosed copy (the other two copies are mine and Crawford Knox's)
of my response to Changing Christian Paradigms, which is a
much more rewarding book than my forthright critique may by itself
convey.
Another aspect of my Inter-Faith apostolate (and I don't at
all like the term Inter-Faith) was to include a 3-page quote
from Dom Sylvester's Haloes piece in a formal letter I
recently addressed to Archbishop Barbarito, whose personal secretary
responded with good wishes and an assurance my remarks had been
noted.
Bishop Christopher, who saw me for the first time yesterday
wearing a scarlet (Tantric Buddhism) stock and clerical collar under
the open neck of my purple shirt, with a pantal (Raja yoga) over my
heart, a cross (astrological symbol of Nibiru + the Christian symbol)
in my left lapel, a ying-yang symbol (for the balance conveyed by the
Libra in LibrArian), and a silver star-of-David ring on my right
(outgoing) hand now complementing the gold claddagh ring of union
with G-d (as received by Gift) on my left hand, said: "You are a
walking symbol of religon." I treasure those works, especially since
during his homily he had interpreted the miracle by the pool of
Siloë as an instance of the Spirit of Jesus encouraging us, when
appropriate, to "short-circuit" hindrances to our following Him more
closely.
I have just sent him, as I now send you both a video (good for
Easter Vigil, etc.) and my own 55-page Integrity IN Truth. By
all means copy the latter, in whole or in part, as and when it helps
you in your Inter-Faith work.
In the Spirit of Shalom, not forgetting the anguish of mind
that can accompany it in our experience, I am endeavouring to suggest
the time is now for widespread open sharing of feelings, ideas,
concerns, commitments, etc. within the undisguised context I have
attempted summarily to survey, and which includes:
- (1) The 'gods' who created Adam were extra-terrestrials of a
race still today in contact with this planet. (
- 2) Their use of genetic engineering, in vitro
fertilization, and atomic weapons ought to be openly acknowledged
as central, if not decisive, in moral and political debates about
our use or otherwise of the same.
- (3) Since Anu, the supreme 'god' on Nibiru at the time of our
creating, was descended from 22 generations of 'gods' and
'goddesses' of the same race, and since his great grand-daughter,
Inanna-Ishtar, goddess of war and love, during what was officially
known as the (relatively short) Era of Ishtar, caused a great deal
of havoc, debates about gender-discimination, patriarchy,
stereotypes, etc., cannot realistically or fruitfully be conducted
in ignorance of these matters.
- (4) You will notice the great weight I give to Helen M. Luke's
Kaleidoscope. In it she includes (quoted from Charles
Williams) what she, at the age of 88, re-published as what she
chose to describe (I suspect with diplomatic finesse) as the best
and most clearly decisive argument against the ordination
of women priests. I feel you are enough of a psychologist to
discern that in her heart she was signalling her agreement with my
own consequent insight that, granted the pastoral needs of
persons growing up amid our present distortions, women priests are
something the Pope must agree to. Clearly, I respect, as G-d does,
John-Paul's need for personal freedom, but the Spirit's Voice is
not in doubt.
- (5) If the second Pope, St. Linus, was a Welshman and first as
well as third Bishop of Rome, this ought to be more widely known.
In any case, the persistency of this and related claims by various
Christians who have written about that period in history ought
more publicly and widely to be an element in ecumenical sharing.
- (6) If the Druids were British Jews or something like that,
this, too, is now relevant. It is high time we stopped thinking of
myths as not-factually true, and of science as about the abstract!
Although I have never before in writing expressed myself on (4)
above, because my Vocation is that of complementing not replacing
other persons called to give first priority to the needs of the Human
Family as a whole, I shall, of course, not be concealing my position
from anybody.
Re. money, page 55 is relevant. Thanks very much for putting me on
the right track about that a little while back. If it would help for
me to spend part of the Easter Triduum or soon afterwards as your
guest, that might help me transmit less imperfectly some of Dom
Bede's & John Main's teachings about meditation which, unlike Dom
Bede, I, of course, see as fully in harmony with the wise teachings
of St. Francis de Sales. I don't like Fox's habit of respresenting
the theologians of past centuries as squares; I think what it wrong
is reading them, or lazily leaving others to read them, out of
context.
With love in prayer, and asking your blessing and that of the
Benedictine Family…
Pax et Bonum!
To Mrs. Agnes J. Odell
Oast House Nursery, Ash Road, Ash-cum-Ridley
Ash nr. SEVENOAKS Kent TN15 7HS
18 March 1994
Dear Mrs. Odell,
Thank you for your kind letter and thoughtful gift. It was good of
your friend in Wellington, New Zealand, to make you a gift of his
only copy of my Ecstasy and Vendetta (Peter Davies, 1973),
which has been out of print for several years now, but is still
obtainable from most Public Libraries.
You mention having perceived the Church as teaching the God 'out
there' rather than emphasising the God within us all. You may find it
helpful to read Dr. Crawford Knox, Changing Christian Paradigms
and their Implications for Modern Thought, Volume LVII in the
Numen BookSeries: Studies in The History OF Religions, edited
by H.G. Kippenberg & E.T. Lawson, published by E.J. Brill (Leiden
- New York - Koeln) in 1993; ISSN 01698-8834; ISBN 90 04 09670 1.
This excellent book was reviewed by the Rev. John Kerr in the
Scientific & Medical Network Newsletter (No. 52, August
1993), pp. 52-53. In my opinion, as I have just told Dr. Knox (who
lives not far from Exeter, in Ottery St. Mary), it is not so much a
book of theology as I, following Aquinas, understand that discipline,
but rather his personal contribution to the philosophy of religion.
However, Knox is a transparently good man, and his book was
beautifully and clearly written as a labour of love. I highly
recommend it.
Also helpful is John Main OSB's The Present Christ - Further
Steps in Meditation (Darton, Longman & Todd), reprinted 1986.
I also suspect that if you were to attend an ordinary Sunday service
in two or three local Catholic churches, you would find that, in at
least one of them, things have changed so much that you would be
pleasurably amazed beyond words.
Although your letter mentions my "decision to leave the
priesthood", the publisher's blurb to my 1973 book described me as
having been "released from all the legal obligations of" the
"priesthood", which, of course, is not at all the same thing.
Indeed, towards the end of Chapter IV - Crisis in the Church, I
wrote: "I stated under oath... that I had always been glad to be a
priest, that I would still welcome any opportunity of exercising the
priestly ministry consistent with my conscience, and that I was
seeking only a dispensation from my canonical obligations."
"Ordination," I wrote, "gives the Catholic priest economic
security, a specific role and status in the ecclesiastical structure,
and certain clearly defined rights and duties. The effect of
laicization is that the priest no longer has this security, this role
and status, these special rights and duties. He becomes like
the ordinary members of the Church, save for the fact of his
remaining always a priest" (italics added). At that time,
moreover, and this for me was then the deciding factor, "I had
found... that the non-laicized priest was sometimes not free to
preach the Gospel. He was not free to live his priesthood."
As reviewers in The Sunday Times and the Times Literary
Supplement noted at the time, Ecstasy and Vendetta is a
book from which a person of discernment can learn enormously, but it
is not a quick or easy read. Moreover, for editorial and commercial
reasons it was published in a notably different form than that in
which I had originally conceived and written it. I am, therefore,
sending you a copy of its 1978 complement: Voice In The Darkness -
An Essay in Contemporary Catholic Existentialism. It has no
index, but I have provided (on pages 141-3) an Analytical Summary
that will, I hope, prove helpful. Chapter VI - The Question Of
Evidence took me fifteen years to complete.
Many things have changed since 1978, when I was a full-time
teacher in Her Majesty's Prison, Wormwood Scrubs. Now, although
"unemployed" and dependent on Income Support for my day-to-day
living, I live my unusual Vocation as both an ordained Catholic
Priest and a fully qualified professional member of the Laity by
working in what the outside world calls "a voluntary capacity," while
I perceive myself to be simply attempting to discharge my Mission as
Preliminary LibrArian I+N the Neith Network....
What Earthlings customarily refer to as the entire material Cosmos
is actually only the phenomenal aspect of the Neith Network, I+N the
entire Life of which the Neith Network Library (sometimes more simply
referred to as The Book) is what Helen Petrovna Blavatsky preferred
to call the Akashic Records.
Appointment to the High Office of Preliminary LibrArian is,
therefore, validly conferred by Divine Mandate only and, in
line-managerial terms, the Preliminary LibrArian, whose primary
functions as regards Planet Earth are to Balance the Sacred Books and
Communicate to appropriate others the True Sense of their Initial
Harmony with Primordial Tradition, works under the Hierarchical
Direction of two Extra-Terrestrial Assistant LibrArians, who are in
their turn working under the Supervision of a LibrArian. Some Readers
of The Book believe there is also a Senior LibrArian, whom Nobody has
actually seen, but others deny this....
But for the fact of his canonical laicization by a Rescript of the
Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued by authority
of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and dated 5 February 1971, which
released him from all the onerous duties attached to his official
ministry within the Roman Catholic establishment, the Preliminary
LibrArian's full formal title would have been:
The Extra-Reverend and Reverend, His Benevolence the
Preliminary LibrArian, Father Doctor Colin James Hamer...
and one of Father Hamer's onerous duties would have been that of
providing some clear and unambiguous explanation of the sense in
which it is appropriate to reverence a person deserving of whichever
attitudes we properly qualify as transreverential. In other words,
although 'Extra-Reverend' like 'Extra-Terrestrial' is an ambiguous
term, since it is not immediately obvious whether 'Extra' is to be
interpreted as in 'extra strong' or as in 'extra-territorial', where,
in writing though not in speech, clarity of expression can be
safeguarded by establishing a convention reflecting the logical
distinction between 'Extra Reverend' (= 'not to be revered) and
'Extra-Reverend' (= 'to be revered in excelsis), such a
distinction is, in any case, devoid of any real foundation, since the
whole of G-d's Creation is deserving of honour and reverence, and
those forms of reverence which transcend the phenomenal World are, as
is experientially and evidently already more than clear to Dr Hamer,
are also immanent within it. This is a crucially important point,
which whoever meditates daily using the Aramaic mantra
'Maranatha' will very simply and easily appreciate.
PREPARATION FOR THE OFFICE OF PRELIMINARY
LIBRARIAN
Although relatively few Earthlings at present appreciate this, the
whole Life of the Being, future as well as past, is always part of
that Individual's unique preparation for whatever Task he (or she...
the non-gender-discriminatory distinction between He=Mental and
She=Instinctual appears to have been lost by many, and its retrieval
may take some considerable time) is in any one moment called upon to
perform.
The present Preliminary LibrArian is in one way or another
personally acquainted not only with the Akashic Records, but also
with the Vatican Library, the Library of the Congress of the United
States of North America, the British Library, the Libraries of
several Universities and other Institutes of Higher Studies, whether
Public or Private, Exoteric or Esoteric, both Ancient and Modern.
Moreover, as well as enjoying his still increasing use of the
largest Computer on Earth which enormously facilitates the input and
output of data to and from any-where or -when within the Neith
Network from his personal Terminal at Amydon-Exeter Centre 113, Dr
Hamer is also now comfortably at home with a variety of the more
run-of-the-mill computers nowadays to be found virtually almost
anywhere.
In particular, he has on several occasions visited the smallest
church in England & Wales (that at Culbone, a coastal hamlet now
in West Somerset and formerly a spiritual Centre in West Wales), and
he was presented, when leaving London immediately prior to taking up
residence in Exeter, with the souvenir gift of the then smallest
computer in the World and, indeed, with the first unit sold on the
first day that that particular device came onto the market!
So much as regards the Neith Network Library....
The absence of my legal surname from my Official Signature as
Preliminary LibrArian indicates that, like Melchisedech, my Vocation
to and Mission within that Office is exercised by me as an Individual
Child of G-d without any merely human descent, genealogy, personal
history, race or tribal affiliation.
The '+' above the upright of the second vowel of my
Christian Name:
- (1) invokes the blessing of the Risen Christ, the Beginning,
Middle & End Now of the Entire Play of Creation whether
IN or out of what we perceive as a temporal process;
- (2) has for 300,000 Earth-years or more astrologically
designated and still quasi-sacramentally symbolizes that
Primordial Blessing G-d vouchsafed to Earth IN the Unique Moment
of its Genesis thanks to the providential orbit, influence, nature
and inhabitants of the Planet Nibiru (the Sumerian word for
crossing and, etymologically, the origin of the related words
Nippur, Hebrew and Briton); and
- (3) expresses the signatory's prayer that his individual ego
(represented by the dot over the 'i') be eliminated or at least be
prevented from hindering the effective workings of his higher Self
(represented by the upright stroke of the 'i').
- (4) Its location in this superior position both expresses the
subordination of the LibrArian to the needs of the Readers he is
Called to Serve, and clearly differentiates his status from that
of Bishops whose Names, precisely as Christian Names, follow from
their own uniquely Individual Baptismal Vocations of which,
clearly, they are quite simply the normal and fully matured Fruit
or the Magnetically Arboreal expression (to translate into more
modern terms the Traditional Teaching IN this regard transmitted
to us via the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, otherwise known
as the Pseudo-Denis)....
When you next write to Denis, please give my love and best wishes
to him and, through him, to his New Zealand friends in the
Theosophical Society, the Liberal Catholic Church, and the
International Fellowship of Isis, each of which has its proper part
to play in G-d's Dance IN Love.
Please, too, pray for me. G-d bless you now. Shalom!
To Rt Revd Peter E. Coleman
10, The Close Exeter EX1 1EZ
Monday, 6 June 1994
Dear Bishop Peter,
Yesterday I was delighted to meet you personally, even though only
briefly, and I earnestly pray that G-d will abundantly bless the Work
to which we have committed ourselves in so many ways. Yesterday I
breakfasted in Crediton with a Crediton born infant girl and her
Welsh parents, good friends of mine with a keen interest in sacred
drama. Yesterday Andrew and Lisa Haigh, whom I believe you have met,
were away in Tiverton, so I saw neither them nor young Edward who
will, I trust, teach them many lessons they have still to learn!
The Holy Grail - Tantus Labor non sit cassus! -
Why seek ye?
How seek ye?
Whence seek ye?
Verily It needs must be
Merrily
A-tuned
Within
each ear -
That all may hear
Glad calls
From yesteryear
And sweet delight
of sight
A concord held
Without -
Each moment's place
A movement called
A Dance of Grace!
Euanie Tippett
Yesterday, both in the National Shrine and in Crediton Parish
Church, a parishioner of St Boniface's parish in Tooting, a student
in some of the classes I helped organise for persons with severe
learning disabilities while in ILEA employ in South London, was
pleasantly surprised to meet up with me. Yesterday, too, however at
least one Crediton Roman Catholic was less pleasantly surprised to
notice that I was not concelebrating with Bishop Christopher.
I published what my editor described as my spiritual
'autobiography' in 1973 and, although not in principle opposed to
that book's being re-issued, if ever
appropriate, with a very minimum of amendments, am unlikely ever
again to be called upon to give a public account of my life's course.
The only other party directly involved in the matter of my
reinstatement in any form of official ministry as a Roman Catholic
Priest of the Latin Rite is the Holy See, and copies of my related
petitions to our present Holy Father on 15 October 1979, 13 February
1988 & 20 February 1988, together with copies of other closely
related letters, including a rather unconventional one I addressed to
Archbishop Barbarito on 21 April 1991, were today made again
available to the Apostolic Nuncio, whom I have just requested (in a
5-page letter):
- 1. officially to authorise me to celebrate Holy Mass and
administer the Sacraments at least on the Feast of Christ the
King;
- 2. officially to acknowledge my Vocation and Office as
Preliminary LibrArian [cf Documents 1-3 enclosed].
On 9 April 1980 Mgr David Norris wrote to me that "Rome" is "very
conservative about receiving laicised priests back", and thinks "in
terms of several years rather than of months", etc., but I have just
reminded the Nuncio that no true Roman believes the Holy See lacks
the resources needed expeditiously to resolve any difficulties my own
situation, considered as a casus, may present....
Sapientibus pauca. As the enclosed Documents
quasi-homoeopathically testify, Excalibur, the Sword of St.
Michael & St. George has now been drawn thrice, and while I don't
dissent from Sheila Cassidy's recent claim during a talk she gave in
the Exeter Church of St. Michael & All Angels that G-d "is not an
old man with a beard", as a mystic and prophet in my own rite, I am
always happy to point to the gathering clouds as Our Heavenly
Father's beard.... If they are not his beard, I ask myself,
whose beard are they?
Although Gregory XIV (1590-91) did little to implement Francesco
Patrizi's pro-Hermetic proposals, a proper concern for the needs
inspiring them has found its response in, among other places, the
original French text of the new Catechism of the Catholic
Church.
As I have just written to the Nuncio, both as a Catholic Priest
and as a Priestess of Isis I greatly appreciate the Holy Father's
nuanced "No to women priests" (to identify his letter by the heading
under which it appears in this week's Tablet).
Mindful that the crucially important distinction in the
Catechism is that between 'tradition' and 'Tradition', and
obliged, also in virtue of my own Vocation and Office, to distinguish
between the Church Catholic (St. Augustine's existing since Eden
Ecclesia Catholica, the One Civitas Dei, New Jerusalem
or Neith Network, though the latter term more helpfully avoids any
semblance of being too closely tied to this particular Solar system)
and the almost 2,000 years' old Catholic Church, although I
unreservedly and fully accept Peter's infallible ruling that
"Priestly ordination.... has in the Catholic Church from the
beginning always been reserved to men alone," I also take careful
note that the Holy Father did not write: "Priestly ordination... has
in The Church Catholic from The Beginning always been reserved to men
alone," so that, e.g., John-Paul II's ruling cannot be interpreted as
meaning that the solemn installation of the ultra-virile woman
Pharaoh-King, the 'Divine' Hatshepsut was not a valid Priestly
Ordination and, therefore, naturally apt to constitute her, albeit
most exceptionally, as a Priest - not a Priestess [my also
enclosed Integrity IN Truth - Preliminary Datings, which
places Hatshepsut in 1474 BC and Boniface in AD 675-754, and copies
of which you are welcome to make for educational/pastoral purposes
ad libitum, relates].
On the other hand I claim that, in virtue of this infallible
ruling, Pius IX's application to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of the
honorific title of "Virgo-Sacerdos" must henceforth (and,
indeed, with retrospective effect) whenever translated into English
become "Virgin-Priestess" (or "Virginal Priestess"?) and not
"Virgin-Priest" or "Virginal Priest".
As Teilhard de Chardin's unpublished considerations on the human
dyad in some measure also clarify, it is a Traditional Dogma (and not
merely a Catholic doctrine) that "ordination" is never appropriate
when a feminine form of priesthood blossoms.
Jesus of Nazareth lived in the midst of an adulterous generation,
and our times are even more markedly degenerate. No "Priestess" (and
I speak as an Individual who by G-d's Special Providence IS, although
unequvocally a male man, Herself a Priestess of Isis by Natural
Growth from within, not by ordination) has ever campaigned to
be granted ordination as a Priest, and if, today, many women in one
fashion or another seek to be ordained as priests or as priestesses,
they, like many men similarly so seeking (not excluding many of
today's Catholic Priests who speak, write and live - at least as far
as appearances go - as if the Catholic Priesthood were merely some
sort of historical priesthood, a social role, a part in a play, a job
or profession!)....
In view of the above, I have in the past written what I have
written to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and others about
this and related matters. The Church in my Book has never had, and
never will have Women Priests. Perhaps, however, pastoral prudence
will one day induce the Pope to authorise not the Sacramental
Ordination but instead the sacramental commissioning of women
priests.
Whether or not my particular mode of playing in and with English
words is to your individual liking, I hope we can grow to know each
other and to work together in the one Human Family in that Great
Vineyard of the Lord which I term Creativity House and the Neith
Network, and wherein I seek by Presence, Witness and Service to
implement as best I can both those aspects of the Rainbow Program I
have mastered and those mysteries within the aenigmatic Beauty of the
Rainbow Programme to which I am privileged to have some degree of
authentic access...
To Baroness Miranda von
Kirchberg
Thursday, 2 June 1994.
Dear Miranda,
If you don't already know it, W. Strehlow & G. Hertzka's
Hildegard of Bingen's Medicine (Bear & Co., Santa Fe,
1988) is worth looking at.
"Hildegard's Gifts for Our Times" in Kindred Spirit, Autumn
(Sept.- Nov.) 1993, pp. 22-25, an article based on Matthew Fox's
Illuminations (Bear & Co.) also deserves mention.
I shall make no special efforts at present to increase my own
extremely slight knowledge of the subject of your biography.
Presumably it would be worth your while consulting, e.g., Justin
McCann's translation and edition of The Rule of St. Benedict in
Latin and English (Burns Oates, London, 1951).
Although Volume 197 of Migne's Patrologia Latina contains
the text of some of Hildegard's writings, it cannot be relied on. The
recent text of the Sci Vias in the red-clothbound series that
is gradually replacing Migne is a much better bet, and contains
several first-class plates in full colour.
W. Lauter's Hildegard-Bibliographe: Wegweiser zur
Hildegard-Literatur (Alzey, 1970) can hardly be ignored.
Francesca Maria Steele's The Life and Visions of St.
Hildegarde with a Preface by Fr. Vincent McNabb OP (Heath,
Cranton & Ousely, London, 1914) is the only English biography I
have found a reference to.
Volume 2 - Subject Part of the 2nd edition of Oliver L. Kapsner's
A Benedictine Bibliography (St. John's Press, Collegeville,
1962, pp. 347-8: entries 6557-6584) mentions 8 Hildegard-related
items, including (6567) Fred B. Kilmer & Josephine I. Dooley's "A
Saint among the Drugs" in American Journal of Pharmacy, Dec.
1927, v. 99, pp. 727-48, and (6562) an article arguing that
Hildegard's Lingua Ignota is, in fact, a 12th C. herbal.
Francis Mershman's article on Hildegard appears on pages 351-3 of
vol. VII of The Catholic Encyclopedia (Caxton Publishing Co.,
London, 1910).
F. Vernet's article on Hildegard can be read in columns 2468-80 of
vol. 6 of the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique
(Letouzey et Ane, Paris, 1920).
From Marianna Schrader's more recent piece in columns 505-21 of
tome VII of the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité
(Beauchesne, Paris, 1969) I learned that Hildegard of Bingen
(1098-1179) called herself 'homo simplex'; authored the
visonary works (1) Sci Vias, (2) Liber Vitae Meritorum,
(3) Liber Divinorum Operum, (4) 300 or more individual
Letters, and (5) various minor works, including 77 Hymns and a
melodrama: the Ordo Virtutum, as well as the Explanation of
the Rule of St. Benedict; the Life of St. Desibod; the
Life of St. Rupert, the Letter to the Congregation of her
Sisters, and an Exploration of Various Theological Themes;
also authored the non-visonary works (6) Expositio
Evangeliorum, (7) Solutiones Triginta Octo Quaestionum,
(8) Liber Subtilitatum Diversarum Naturarum Creaturarum which
actually comprises both the Physica and the De Causis et
Curis, and (9) the already mentioned Lingua Ignota of 700
words (according to one count) together with the Litterae
Ignotae of 25 letters (according to one count). I particularly
liked Marianna Schrader's characterisation of Hildegard in column
507: "Une vibration constamment en harmonie avec la nature intensifie
sa liaison avec le cosmos."
Brief as it is, that quotation witnesses to the vital link between
Hildegard's life and the purpose of overtone chanting as I understand
it. Perhaps you have discussed this with Peter Crossley-Holland?
Gregorian Chant grew out of Jewish Liturgical Music, which, like
Greek Classical Music, grew out of Mesopotamian, i.e., Ancient
Babylonian/Chaldean, Akkadian &, primarily, Sumerian music, which
also seems to me to be the most likely source of both Mongolian &
Tibetan overtone-chanting.
Peter contributed Chapter 1 (pp. 13-17) "Ancient Mesopotamia" to
Part I ("Non-Western Music") of Volume 1 (1960) of THE PELICAN
HISTORY OF MUSIC (edited by Alec Robertson & Denis Stevens),
which seems to be the briefest currently available worthwhile
introduction to this important but relatively neglected field.
There are hardly any specific references to music in Z. Sitchin's
books about Ancient Sumeria, but his bibliographies make up for this.
Peter, who describes our time together at Hazlewood as 'enchanting',
has also very kindly furnished me with bibliographical details of the
following:
Re. Sumerians generally - Samuel Noel Kramer's The Sumerians -
Their History, Culture & Character (University of Chicago
Press, Chicago & London, 1963), especially Chapter 4: "Religion,
Rite and Myth".
Re. Sumerian Liturgy generally - Stephen Langdon's Sumerian and
Babylonian Psalms (Paris, 1909) and Sumerian Liturgy and
Psalms (Philadelphia, 1919).
More specifically - Canon F.W. Galpin's The Music of the
Sumerians and their immediate successors (Cambridge University
Press, 1937) which is mainly about their musical instruments but also
includes a translation and musical transcription of a Sumerian "Hymn
on the Creation of Man" (cf. Chapter 5, pp. 51-69 + pp. 99-104).
Updating Galpin's chronology somewhat and giving more attention to
temple music - Henry George Farmer's "The Music of Ancient
Mesopotamia", which is Chapter V (pp. 228-54) of The New Oxford
History of Music, Vol. 1: Ancient and Oriental Music
edited by Egon Wellesz (OUP, London, 1957). Sumeria is mainly
discussed on pages 231-6.
An extensive bibliography is included in the doctoral dissertation
- Henrike Hartmann's Die Musik der Sumerisches Kultur
(Frankfurt-am-Main, 1960), Part III of which (pp. 184-286) is about
"Die Musik in Sumerischen Kult".
No doubt there will be a worthwhile article entry about Sumerian,
or at least about Babylonian music in the New Grove Dictionary of
Music & Musicians (Macmillan, 1980). Sumeria came under
'Babylon' in the 5th (1954) edition of Grove's Dictionary.
Having shared with Peter an idea of mine that the quilisma
in Gregorian Chant is perhaps best interpreted as signalling
overtone-inclusion, I have since done a minute amount of related
research, viz., I have consulted (in Prinknash Abbey Library): Willi
Apel's Gregorian Chant (Burns & Oates, London, 1958);
Amedée Gastoue's Les Origines du Chant Romain -
L'Antiphonaire Grégorien (Alphonse Picard & Fils,
Paris, 1907); J.W.A. Vollærts' Rhythmic Proportion in Early
Medieval Ecclesiastical Chant (E.J.Brill, Leiden, 1958), who
discusses both the quilisma and the undulating oriscus;
he also refers (p.114) to Dom Mocquereau Le Nombre musical
(Desclée, 1908-1927, especially II, no. 26 & III, no. 65)
which "explains that the mouth-resonance of particular consonants or
dipthongs causes a second sound lasting for a short duration."
In the course of following up some of the above and some of
Sitchin's references in Exeter libraries, I have so far learned, too,
that we cannot rely on material evidence in deciding whether the
origin of music as such is primarily and originarily either (a)
formal or (b) impulsive.
Judging by the number of surviving titles alone, Babylonian sacred
music had a richer and more abundant repertory than either the
Anglican or the Roman Church, and Babylonian instruments were
superior in variety and technical quality to their Greek derivatives.
In Sumeria priestcraft, liturgy, mathematics and astrology were
the core of temple studies and were felt to be integrated - the
distinctions are largely ours. While I cannot know how much of this
you will want to explicitly mention in connection with Hildegard's
life, I am sure you will appreciate how Sitchin's work makes even
more fundamentally important this Sumerian undercurrent in the
unconscious growth of Hildegard's native sense of cosmic unity.
Although some translate the Sumerian balag as harp or lyre,
it was almost certainly a bull-hide, hour-glass-shaped drum sacred to
Enki, while their halhallatu or reed-pipe was associated with
the breath of the Storm god. These two main instruments brought
together the contrasting gigantic steer and crouching reed. Other
Sumerian instruments (some of which have survived in good condition)
included the vertical end-blown flute or tig(i), the
lilis or kettledrum, and the tambourine or adapa.
Naru in Sumerian means 'musician', and both syllables, of
course, lend themselves to overtone-chanting, which may be
significant. Apparently, taking Spring as the fundamental, Summer was
its octave, Autumn the third, and Winter the fifth (although two
different authors change the order of application of this
interpretation).
I am not sure whether Shem (= 'word', 'space-craft', etc.)
is the same Sumerian word as Sem (= 'reed-pipe') from which
derived Ersemma (a hymn or psalm set to be played on the
reed-pipe). Also, I don't know whether any direct link exists between
the Sumerian Gala (= 'precentor') and the New Testament Latin
et gallus cantavit ('and the cock crowed'), but feel such a
link is likely.
It is claimed the Sumerians already had the custom of physically
squeezing the larynx with the hand in order to effect high notes. I
haven't yet tried this method myself!
If none of this helps your own work, please forgive my prolixity.
"May all sentient beings, oneself and others, find constant
happiness through love and compassion associated with wisdom" (Dalai
Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, 27 December 1989)…
To Sister Dominic Savio, CP
Cross & Passion Convent
Parkmount 458 Bury New Road SALFORD M7 0L3
Sunday, 24 July 1994
Dear Edna,
Das Leiden Christi beim hl. Paul vom Kreuz:
Thank you for your recent postcard and for the kind gift that
accompanied it. I notice that, in his Introductory Word, the
Evangelical theologian, Juergen Moltmann, praises Fr. Martin Bialas
for writing Das Leiden Christi beim hl. Paul vom Kreuz (Paul
Pattloch Verlag, Aschaffenburg, 1978) "in simple language and with a
good style." The Mysticism of the Passion in St. Paul of the Cross
(1694-1775) - An Investigation of Passioncentrism in the Spiritual
Doctrine of the Founder of the Passionist Congregation (Ignatius
Press, San Francisco, 1990) is an English adaptation rather than
translation of the German original, but even though its language is,
I suspect, even simpler than Fr. Bialas's own, it falls far short of
the heart to heart directnesss and simplicity of the Italian spoken
and written by St. Paul of the Cross himself.
- Theological tradition may be viewed as bipolar. Besides an
abstract, argumentative theology learned in school, there is a
practical and implicit theology which does not consist so much in
the definition of abstract notions as in the fulfillment realized
in the lives of deeply spiritual persons (See H. U. von Balthasar,
Mysterium Paschale). Each of these poles, independent in
itself, has an important function in the healthy development of
theological thought. If theology is not to remain self-contentedly
estranged from life but rather to retain a historically concrete
relevance, then of necessity it must be open to the acceptance of
impulses which, at times acting as correctives, emanate from the
theological tools employed by great Christian personalities.
- We find such a theology implicit in the existential and
perfected Christianity of St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), in
whom we find some quite extraordinary characteristics. The source
from which his thoughts and actions flow and from which his energy
is derived is contemplation of the suffering Christ. Implicit in
his theology of the passion are powerful elements of a
speculative-mystical and an affective-spiritual theology, with his
original contribution being the balance he achieves between these
two polar positions (These two elements, so powerfully present in
the spirituality of St. Paul of the Cross, are rooted, on the one
hand, in the writings of Tauler and St. John of the Cross and, on
the other hand, in the writings of St. Teresa of Jesus and St.
Francis de Sales.).
- Hans Urs von Balthasar characterizes this aspect of St. Paul
of the Cross's theology as "the most surprising example of a true
fusion" of these two trends in theology (Mysterium
Paschale, 156, n.6.).
Having presented this thesis in the opening paragraphs of his
first Chapter (p.27), Fr. Bialas explains the methods he adopted in
his own research, provides some account of the historical background,
offers detailed evidence in support of his claim, and concludes (pp.
202-3, 205):
- According to St. Paul of the Cross, one essential effect of
this contemplative immersion of the self in the passion of Jesus
consists of the fact that the soul, in being "penetrated" by love
and pain, "thoroughly makes the passion of Jesus its own". This
participation in the love and the pain of the passion of Jesus,
however, may not be acquired through a person's own effort.
Neither does it depend upon a certain technique of meditation, nor
is it a necessary consequence of contemplation. Rather, it is a
pure gift of G-d, what is called in spiritual-mystical theology
gratia gratis data. It is for this reason the saint, when
speaking of the effects of meditating upon the passion, spoke of
"infused pain or infused torments" (pene infuse, tormenti
infusi) or about the "impression" (impressione) of the
passion of Jesus in the soul. This conceptual framework and its
express content seem to indicate the Passionist founder
contributed a note of originality to spiritual-mystical
literature, since a similar observation may scarcely be found in
any other source....
- The balance we find in the spiritual doctrine of St. Paul of
the Cross is astonishing. On the one hand, he indefatigably
encouraged meditation, recollection, and deeper immersion in the
spiritual-mystical realm. On the other hand, he required of those
he directed an ever stronger and more decisive practice of
virtues, as has already been mentioned to some extent in
connection with Paul's application of the spirituality of Tauler.
This polarity between spirituality and the practice of virtue was
also found in Paul's passion mysticism."
Although, admittedly, implicitly clarified to a certain extent by
what is stated in other parts of his book, both passages above
quoted, when meditated and reflected upon with sufficient care,
indicate that their author's degree of theological maturity falls
somewhat short of that eventually exhibited by the Passionists'
Founder himself, and that notwithstanding the latter's having himself
been very much "a man of the people, living with and among the
people" (p.66) in Italy, at a time when "95% of the population were
illiterate..., many parish priests omiited sermons..., parents told
many a child to care for cattle or perform other chores on Sunday
afternoons..., priests themselves all too frequently had only a
scanty knowledge of theology..., there were too many Church feast
days, since, on these days, work was prohibited, people did not know
what to do with their time. This resulted in men spending most of
their time in public houses drinking wine and playing cards; women
left many domestic chores undone.... Repentance was the theme of
processions held during Lent and Holy Week. Public
self-flagellations... were a constituent part of these processions
(pp.87-9)... Exaggeration... found expression..., and... St. Paul of
the Cross also used self-flagellation during his sermons (p.94)....
Entries in his spiritual diary... (to use the words of J. Ratzinger)
manifest quite well 'the melancholy, fears, and temptations specific
to one consecrated solely to G-d'." (p.152).
Writing to Sr. Maria Cherubina Bresciani on 18 December, 1743, the
founder (p.156) distinguished three degrees of perfection:
- Great perfection is found in resigning yourself in all things
to the divine will (al divino volere); an even greater perfection
is to live abandoned, with complete indifference, to the divine
good pleasure (nel Divin Beneplacito). Still, the pinnacle
of perfection is to nourish yourself on the divine will in a
spirit of pure faith and love (cibarsi in puro spirito di fede
e d'amore della Divina Volonta).... Meus cibus est ut
faciam voluntatem eius, qui misit me, et ut perficiam opus
eius.
Even though he has taken note of the "immediacy" which
characterises "the third and highest degree of fulfilling G-d's will"
(p.157), he fails, I think, to provide any adequate account of it.
This is at least partly because he has not yet attained to a
sufficient understanding of the nature and purpose of theologising,
but readily admits (p.217):
- We do not pretend to give an exhaustive definition of the task
of theology. Yet, it seems right and proper to locate this task
between the two poles of conceptual and existential thought.
Etymologically, theology means the study of G-d. Defined as
such, theology's first premise is that the human spirit's
primordial question regarding the existence of G-d may be answered
affirmatively. The cognitive act leading to this fundamental
option is structured in a bipolar manner. One element in this
structure consists of the argumentative-syllogistical act of human
reason. Because this type of cognition is executed on a purely
abstract and theoretical plane, the human subject is actively
busy. The second structural element is of another kind. It lies in
the domain of the personal. Therefore, the human subject, after
having stretched his intellect, assumes a passive-receptive
attitude of openness and lets himself be impressed [italics mine]
by the inner power and dynamism spring from the "Object" of study
(J. Ratzinger in his article Ich glaube an Gott, den
allmaechtigen Vater comments in this regard, "What is being
spoken of here is direct experience: the knowledge of G-d and the
avowal of G-d represent an active-passive occurrence, be it either
of a theoretical kind or of a practical one; this is an act of
Betroffenseins [this concept cannot be translated adequately].
Thought and action may respond to it, or it may be freely
refused".) This Getroffensein calls the human person to do
something and requires an answer on the subject's part. We call
this answer faith. Faith is, however, possible only when
the subject is open to G-d and G-d himself "communicates" to the
individual person the fundamental cabability of being a "listener
of the word".
What Martin Bialas and Josef Ratzinger (as Bialas understands him)
here imply is, I believe, quite compatible with the significantly
richer and more all-encompassing position more recently (and, I
suggest, much more clearly and helpfully) adopted by Dr. Crawford
Knox:
- The instance is sometimes quoted of the man who claimed that
when he visited a certain congested city "on G-d's work", he
always found a parking place waiting for his car. He attributed
this to his faith and G-d's caring response to it. Such claims
have been dismissed derisively even by devout churchmen on the
ground that G-d would not get involved in such trivialities. Such
dismissal of the claim implies, however, not only that G-d is able
to intervene but has some system of priorities. But if these
priorities do not include the trivial, neither do they include
many personal tragedies nor do they include the prevention of the
wider horrors that constantly afflict this world, sometimes on a
gigantic scale. And it requires mental ability approaching
'double-think' to accept that a G-d who could stop such horrors
but does not do is, is a G-d of love.
- Such objections, however, no longer apply if... the dynamic
plenitude of G-d is such that he is always present in creation,
sustaining it and always seeking to redeem and guide it further
into his life wherever and whenever it opens itself more fully to
him. On this basis, normal life, with both its trivialities and
extremes of good and evil, marks the continuously varying point of
balance between the limits of where creation opens itself to the
creative love and reason of G-d that seeks constantly to sustain,
redeem and guide it further into his life, and where, beyond these
limits, creation shuts itself off and deviates blindly and often
wickedly from his love and reason. On this basis also, we need to
recognise that creation is an almost infinitely complex system,
interlocked one part with another at many levels; and that the
scope for G-d's sustaining and guiding powers to prevail must
depend not only on the openness of individuals but also on the
openness and so on the responsiveness to the guiding powers of the
Holy Spirit of the continuously varying situations in which they
find themselves. (Changing Christian Paradigms and their
implications for modern thought, E.J. Brill, Leiden - New York
- Koeln, 1993, ISBN 90 04 09670 1, Volume LVII in the Studies in
the History of Religions [Numen Bookseries] edited by H.G.
Kippenberg & E.T. Lawson, pp. 177-8.)
Within a theological context, one can do no better than to relate
that passage, in its turn, to something Fr. Bernard Lonergan, SJ,
first wrote in 1942 about St. Thomas Aquinas:
- The thought of Aquinas on gratia operans was but an
incident in the execution of a far vaster program. If on the
surface that program was to employ the Aristotelian scientific
technique against the die-hard traditionalism of the current
Christian Platonists and, at the same time, to inaugurate
historical research by appealing to the real Aristotle against the
Parisian Averroists, in point of fact no less than in essence it
was to lay under tribute Greek and Arab, Jew and Christian, in an
ever renewed effort to obtain for Catholic culture that aliquam
intelligentiam eamque fructuosissimam (DS 3016) which
is the goal of theological speculation. Within the frame of so
universal an undertaking the treatment of any particular issue
could not but be incidental. The works of St. Thomas do not
include a De gratia et libero arbitrio. They are made up of
the two great strategic campaigns - the Contra gentiles and
the Summa theologiae - to think out the Catholic position
in philosophy and to put new order into the sprawling theology
dominated by the Lombard's Sentences. Supporting these vast
movements were the successive drives of the Quaestiones
disputatae, the forays of the Quodlibetales, the
emergencies met in the Opuscula; finally, the base of all
these operations lay in the commentaries on Holy Writ and on
Aristotle where, I think more than elsewhere, the wealth of the
theologian and the stature of the philosopher stand revealed.
- It is not to be regretted that St. Thomas did not adopt a
specialist viewpoint, for it is the nemesis of all specialization
to fail to see the wood for the trees, to evolve ad hoc
solutions that are indeed specious yet profoundly miss the mark
for the very reason that they aim too intently at a limited goal.
There is a disinterestedness and an objectivity that comes only
from aiming excessively high and far, that leaves one free to take
each issue on its merits, to proceed by intrinsic analysis instead
of piling up a debater's arguments, to seek no greater achievement
than the inspiration of the moment warrants, to await with
serenity for the coherence of truth itself to bring to light the
underlying harmony of the manifold whose parts successively engage
one's attention." (Grace and Freedom - Operative Grace in the
Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, DLT, London - Herder &
Herder, New York, 1970, pp.139-40.)
One fruit of this non-specialist method and viewpoint was that
Aquinas never fell victim to the sort of quasi-Cartesian bi-polar
trap in which Bialas's thought seems to be more than a trifle
uncomfortably gripped. A second extract from Lonergan, this time from
something first published in 1947, may help:
- Later Aquinas wrote that there are two actions, one that
involves movement (in the sense of incomplete act), and another
that does not, as when G-d causes grace in the soul. On the latter
he remarked, "Quod quidem difficile est ad intelligendum non
valentibus abstrahere considerationem suam ab actionibus quae sunt
cum motu".... As causal efficiency does not require external
matter and movement, so also it need not go forth: there is a
"processio operati" of the inner word within the intellect. On the
other hand, actio that remains in the agent does not
involve efficient causality inasmuch as it proceeds from form,
species, or informed potency; for that procession is not
"processio operati" but "processio operationis";... operation is
more perfect than form, and only an instrument is less perfect
than its effect. The idea that efficient causality occurs in this
type of actio has, I fear, little more basis than a failure
to distinguish between the two different ways in which Aquinas
defined his potentia activa....
- While we have seen that the terms, operatio and
actio, sometimes mean simply act or being in act and
sometimes mean the exercise of efficient causality, we now find
that the precision of trinitarian theory led Aquinas to
distinguish exactly between these two meanings with regard to the
operation or action of intellect; when that operation is meant in
the sense of act, it is termed intelligere; but when by
operation is meant that one act is grounding another, it is
termed dicere....
- Another scheme of analysis stands in more immediate conformity
with Aristotelian thought.... It is in accord with the general
doctrine, "quidquid movetur ab alio movetur," that intellect
actuated by species should not produce its acts of
understanding, just as the will actuated by a habit does not
produce its act of willing the end; on the other hand, just as
will actually willing the end moves itself to willing the means,
so intellect actually understanding is able to utter, constitute,
produce its inner word of definition or judgment.... The
procession of the act of understanding is only a "processio
operationis," while the procession of the act of defining or of
judging is a "processio operati".... "intelligere se habet ad
intellectum in actu, sicut esse ad ens in actu"; for the ens in
actu is not [emphasis added] the efficient cause of its
esse....
- The importance of recognizing the Aristotelian, as well as the
Avicennist, scheme of analysis becomes fully apparent, however,
only when one turns to the Thomist theory of the object.... The
precise relation between object and act was described by Aquinas
in terms of efficient causality. There were two opposite cases. On
the one hand, the potency in question may be receptive, and then
the object produces the act. On the other hand, the potency in
question may be efficient, and then the act produces the objects
as its term.... The former of these alternatives has been forced
into oblivion by neglect of the Aristotelian scheme of analysis
with a consequent misinterpretation of the implications of the
Avicennist scheme....
- Omnis enim actio vel est potentiae activae vel passivae.
Obiectum autem comparatur ad actum potentiae passivae, sicut
principium et causa movens; color enim inquantum movet visum, est
principium visionis. Ad actum autem potentiae activae comparatur
obiectum ut terminus et finis; sicut augmentativae virtutis
obiectum est quantum perfectum, quod est finis augmenti
(ST, I, q.77, a. 3 c.)....
- We may perhaps be permitted, after this somewhat lengthy
preamble, to point out that Aquinas as a matter of fact actually
does say that sentire is a pati and that
intelligere is a pati, and then to present our
daring hypothesis that perhaps Aquinas meant what he said....
- Meeting the objection that the divine essence cannot be the
object of created knowledge because the judged is to the judge as
passive, he answered that on the contrary the sensible and
intelligible objects are to sense and intellect as agent inasmuch
as sentire and intelligere are a pati quoddam
(De Ver., q.8, a.1, ad 14m.)....
- Not only sentire and intelligere but also
velle can be a pati. For with respect to the
interior act of the will, the grace of G-d is operative and the
will of man is "mota et non movens" (ST, I-II, q.111, a.2 c.).
Though not stated so explicitly, the same is true with respect to
the act of willing the end as conceived in the De Malo and
the Prima Secundae; for in these works the will moves
itself only inasmuch as it is in act with respect to the end, but
to that act is it moved by an external principle, G-d. Finally,
what is true of these later works with respect to willing the end,
is true more generally in earlier works in which there appears no
mention of self-movement in the will." (Verbum - Word and Idea
in Aquinas, DLT, London, 1968, pp. 123-33.)
In his Introduction to Universal Wisdom - A Journey through the
Sacred Wisdom of the World (Fount, London, 1994) Dom Bede
Griffiths notes that "the religions of the world are meeting today in
a way they have never done before" (p.7), acknowledges that "myth is
not a fanciful story about the beginning of the world or some
supposed divine event; it is the concrete presentation of the reality
of the world as manifested in the imagination and engaging all the
faculties of the human being" (p.14), appreciates that "for the
ancient world there was no separation between mind and matter,
between the phenomenon and the noumenon, the material world and the
power and intelligence which governed it" (p.16), and finds that "in
Eternity the Son is begotten of the Father and conceived in the womb
of the Mother, the Holy Spirit, just as in creation the Father sows
the seed of the Word in matter, and the Holy Spirit, the Mother,
nourishes the seed and brings forth all the forms of creation"
(p.41).
If Dom Bede is correct, Aquinas's teaching that agere est pati
quoddam seems to be true not only in regard to the created
universe of what Lonergan calls 'proportionate being', but also and,
indeed, primordially of Being as such.
There is much more I might add, and very much more that needs to
be (and, in many respects, already has been) added by others, but I
trust I have written enough to express my sincere gratitude and
appreciation for your kind gift, and to manifest my abiding
willingness to assist in any way I can you and others truly seeking
to know G-d and to walk IN Love…
To Doctor Peter Plichta:
Friday, 13 August 1999
Dear Doctor Plichta,
Holistic Meaning & Value of The Prime-Number Cross
After reading four times the published English-language translation of your excellent God's Secret Formula - Deciphering The Riddle of The Universe and The Prime Number Code (Element Books 1997 hardback ISBN 1-86204-014-1; 1998 paperback ISBN 1-86204-358-2), I gratefully, unhesitatingly and enthusiastically agree that you have, I+N Truth, "discovered" (op.cit.,p.210) "the significance of the prime numbers in the resolution of cosmic theory".
I understand this to mean that, just as chemistry (which had been introduced into Spain by the Moors c.1150 A.D.) had to wait until Mendelieff "invented" the periodic table to become a "science" in the Aristotelian sense of "a systematic understanding of things through their explanatory causes", so mathematics-cum-physics may now, thanks to your persistent hardwork and achievements, become truly "scientific"
You quote Professor Rupert Lay SJ as describing The Prime Number Cross (which I have not seen) as both "fascinatingly written" and "mathematically flawless." No doubt he is correct on both counts, and G-d will most surely bless you for all the self-renunciation and dedication and you have so generously given to your lifelong search for living Truth.
As regards God's Secret Formula in English, it is well translated and, sincerely, I feel we may apply to the entire text what you have so sensitively written about your experience when Professor Böhme examined you in pharmaceutical chemistry (pp.100-101): "Each sentence… was chosen for its clarity: I chose each word not only for its communicative power but also for its beauty. This was my contribution to the play that was now being performed…"
The great play now being performed on the wider stage is, I believe, called Leela by Hindus, and, as you have noticed, it is a magnificent performance and entirely without coincidences.
I am pleased to tell you that you can read more detailed references to your work on the Internet if you visit my:
www.hagarqim.ndo.co.uk/numbers.htm
Unlike your original German work, the English version of God's Secret Formula as currently available is not "mathematically flawless", and since, as you know, very many readers are scarcely numerate nowadays, it may help if I refer to your attention the following (presumably typographical rather than translation errors):
p.81, line 3, 7th word, should read "finite" not "infinite".
p.117, line 3, 2nd expression,should read "29" not "25".
p.124, line 2, last expression, should read "1" not "81".
p.166, line 14, 8th word, should read "or" not "of".
p.204, §5, line 4, 5th word, should read "full-tanked" not "fully-tanked".
The Index lists "John of the Cross St." and refers readers to pp. 120, 163; these say nothing whatsoever about this Spanish mystic!
There are also, I believe, a number of factual errors in God's Secret Formula which are almost certainly also present in your own original German-language draft of this still insufficiently noticed and potentially most important book. Please allow me to mention the few my own lifetime's study has permitted me to discern (obviously, not all of these are directly important within the immediate context of your own aims and objectives, but each of them has its own objective claims to attention):
On p.170 you refer to Kant as having, "probably", been the one philosopher to treat of space and time: (1) Aquinas's Commentary on Proclus somewhere implies as many different times as there are temporal subjects of experience. (2) J. D. Solomon importantly acknowledged "timing" rather than "spacing" as primary within human phenomenal experience, cf: jds.htm and jdsplus1.htm.
On pp. 55, 60, 83, 140-41 & 155 you refer to the origins and status of our Earth and its Moon, on p.85 you mention the "Asian origin" of all races, and on p.116 you express an opinion regarding the origin of the biblical 6 day's Creation story: Zecharia Sitchin has published in English 8 full-length books and also 3 excellent video-tapes referring to these matters in a context which may still be new to you, although I believe his books are also published in German, but which has now become an important part of my present Lebensraum, fundamental Gestalt, Weltanschauüng - or, as J. D. Solomon much preferred to put it, Welthineinsgehörung. If you are unable to acquaint yourself directly with Sitchin's work, there is also what I hope is a helpful introduction to it at sitchin.htm, with additional references at, for example, amydon1.htm and www.hagarqim.ndo.co.uk/truth.htm.
Were I not now focussing especially on your own and Zecharia Sitchin's very considerable contributions to humanity's present progress through the game-and-dance of Leela, I would have begun by pointing to my own succinct statement of the principles of Nuptial Theology at http://www.hagarqim.ndo.co.uk/neith.htm, naturally within the general context of all my other webpages and all those other many resources to which they refer… As Zecharia Sitchin states, "we are not alone"…
As Zecharia understands German well, and as I shall be sending him a copy of this letter, you may welcome his address: 310 West 86 Street, New York, NY 10024, USA.
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
© The Neith Network Library 2005
Webmaster: H.B. ExtraReverendDoctorColinJames Hamer, The Rainbow Programme
Creativity House, 9 Oxford Street, St. Thomas, EXETER, Devon EX2 9AG, U.K.
Updated 13:13 13/6/2005..
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