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The Sacred Secrets of Songs

Lennon, Fleetwood Mac, Sting, Vangelis, et al.

Revealed in a New Muse

~!~

People of all generations love really good music, but quite often don’t have a clue as to some of the really esoteric, symbolic meanings behind their favorite songs. Great musical groups such as The Beatles, Pink Floyd and many others come to mind. In this article, our focus will be mainly upon the clandestine lyrical exploits of John Lennon, Sting, and Fleetwood Mac.
Mainstream Society may not realize it, but the leaders of spiritual thought have shifted away from the dull, obscure, fading Western churches. Religion is nearly dead, and that’s not Fake News. Yet, in this marvelous, shifting age in which we live, poetic music, seen in the form of lyrics, have quietly slipped into a leading spiritual position in the minds of many. Musical artists, performing as spiritual mavericks, are often quite smart devils in their own right, and routinely place deep symbolic meaning into their musical poetry, as reflections of their own deep philosophical, spiritual beliefs and experiences. One of the precepts of the New Muse Series is the notion that all literature, including lyrics in our case, are the remembrance of a special experience.

‘Literature is the Faint Remembrance of Experience”

Steven A Key

“And I Feel….like I’ve been here before….

And you know, it makes me Wonder… We have all been here before.”

Déjà vu; Crosby, Stills & Nash (a song about reincarnation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCs6Tpd5sFQ

~!~ O’ John ~!~ ~!~

John Lennon's spiritual belief

Orthodox Christianity, quietly dying or morphing, once gnashed its teeth against the famous 1970’s flippant quip by John Lennon, when he casually remarked:

‘The Beatles are more popular than Christ’

O, Jesus! There was a Righteous Uproar from the church’s priests and pews; The media reviews were livid! Yet, while Lennon has since passed over, the slow fade of ‘churchiosity’ has continued unabated, upon the surface of this rapidly spinning planet. Who can believe their atrocious religious stories? Today’s large religious polls taken in Europe, basically declare that ‘God is Dead’; there are few Christian believers, whereas in the States large pockets of evangelical and orthodox Christians still hold out, constituting perhaps 40 percent of the national population, and still heavily influence politics in the USA.

“Christ you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be

The way things are going
They’re going to crucify me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-1OgNqBkVE The Ballad of John and Yoko

“You don’t take nothing with you ‘cept your Soul’

Is it enough to hear of John’s spiritual belief, delivered via his lyrics? No church is required, nor is tithing. John had many challenging, even dark moments in his short, wild and whirling creative life, not unlike every human who has ever lived, yet he managed to overcome many obstacles, to focus upon Love and a mystical fascination with the Universe. Joseph Campbell, author, linguist, and mythologist once remarked that ancient peoples did not search for ‘meaning’ in life as modern analytical folk are wont to do, looking under every stone.

Instead, he said, the ancient ones were interested in primary, poignant psycho-spiritual experiences; he referred to this visionary state of experience as Rapture. This state of Rapture can be seen coursing through the poetic lyrics in the song ‘Across the Universe’, written by Lennon, who considered it his masterpiece, while with The Beatles:

Across the Universe

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

They slither while they pass; they slip away across the universe

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind

Possessing and caressing me

Jai Guru Deva, Om (< I have a teaching-angel)

Nothing’s gonna change my world… Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes

They call me on and on across the universe

Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box

They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

Sounds of laughter, shades of life are ringing through my open ears

Inciting and inviting me

Limitless, undying love which shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai Guru Deva ~ Om ~

John’s beautiful words are indeed rapturous; they send one soaring across the great galactic sky. We might as well be reading the deep words of ancient spiritual mystics, but its often best when they are put to marvelous music, to accompany the rhythm of the Universe.

I noticed a pattern between John’s use of words, specifically ‘Images of Broken Light’, and esoteric author Manley P Hall’s words concerning ‘reflected light’, in an audible recording of his many teachings. Hall, a 33^rd degree Initiate of the Scottish Order of Freemasons, was speaking about this ‘reflected light’ as a form of scrying tool, such as those used in ancient temple ‘reflecting pools’ in Egypt, Sumer, and elsewhere.

Only a few sensitive, spiritually empathic people, such as John Lennon, can perceive and appreciate such meanings, in ‘broken light’. One’s consciousness can be freed, meaning that that extraordinary, extra-dimensional spiritual experiences become available, and come into play. All literature, including songs, are faint remembrances of someone’s special experience, which was later recorded.

“Limitless, undying love Which shines around me like a million suns It calls me on and on across the universe.”

Jai Guru Deva. (You do too.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90M60PzmxEE

John and Yoko Ono

When John Lennon first met Yoko Ono, he was inquisitive of her artwork. He walked into a large, modern art studio, where Yoko’s mysterious ‘artwork’ seemed to be a simple wooden Ladder standing in the middle of the massive room, which contained many other beautiful and diverse artworks. He inquired of her as to the meaning…and she told him to go up the Ladder. And so John, as curious as ever, went up the creaky wooden Ladder at her behest. Near the very top, as he looked up at the ceiling…he saw a very small piece of paper attached to the ceiling; the paper contained a single word: YES. John was stunned…and immediately taken by the beauty of Yoko’s soul embodied in her unusual artwork…and the rest is romantic history; it was a breakthrough moment.

Yoko’s art theme was very symbolic. The power of the Ladder, signifying conscious ascension, and the scrap of paper holding the power word of Yes, signifying positive, emotional creative energy…is also representative of the endless, creative ‘forming capacity’ we have both during life and also after the death of the physical body. When a human creature says Yes to something, they are acknowledging its existence. How we say Yes…and No…is related to our system of values and desires that we carry inside of us. Yes and No…will produce the alternating expressions of our own Yin/Yang itself. We are all presented with endless possibilities as we live our daily lives. All we have to do…is say; Yes….or…. No. Thus, we choose our view; our spiritual Reality. How we view psychic and mystical experience is up to us…not some fragile, white-coated scientist in a sterile lab. We decide.

“The oldest, shortest words – ‘Yes‘ and ‘No‘ are those which require the most Thought.”

Pythagoras

Sting and wife Trudie Styler

Sting’s Synchronicity

When he was with The Police, the musician Sting once coined great lyrics pertaining to a very mysterious, mystical psychic event; The Synchronicity. Let’s look briefly at what is meant by this use of the word ‘synchronicity’.

In the roaring 1920’s, Psychiatrist Carl Jung popularized the notion of psychic synchronicity to refer to those times when ‘coincidence’ is too pale of a word to truly describe the mysterious meaning of ‘connected events’.

Synchronicity can also be seen in Semiology, which is the study of meanings in signs.

Semiology is a part of the larger science of signs, namely; Semiotics.

“Semiotics; the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.”

The Oxford Dictionary

Jung considered that any daily connected-events that occurred in life, without apparent prior cause, were candidates for being considered psychically synchronous, especially if the events were rich in meaning.

In his book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Jung wrote about a strong psychic experience he had with a patient, as an example of a synchronistic event;

“My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably “geometrical” idea of reality.

After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that would burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself. Well, I was sitting opposite her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric.

She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab — a costly piece of jewelry. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window.

I turned around and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the windowpane from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in.

It was a scarabaeid beetle, whose gold-green colour most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, “Here is your scarab.”

This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results.”

Thus, with a special, influential synchronistic event, Jung was able to penetrate his client more thoroughly and understand her deepest desires..

~!~

I too often have remarkable Sync’s, here’s a brief, yet marvelous example.

I sometimes play guitar and sing for older folks. One day I drove over to Joyce’s home, with my guitar, mike, amp, and a folder full of 100 songs. Her house was only a block away, in Beulah Colorado. The weather was nice, I met her on the outside deck of her home, where she was resting in her chair. Carolyn, her caregiver, was inside the house. She’s 85 years old, is on oxygen, and can’t move well, so I greeted her with cheer…I knew she really liked my playing songs for her. Joyce was also very philosophical and spiritual, so I regaled her for a few minutes, concerning a book I was writing, The Colors of Mind in Ancient Times. While I stood and chatted with her on the red cedar deck, enjoying the stunning mountain views, I focused on a wee piece concerning Horus, the ancient Egyptian god and mentioned that this god’s name was also associated with the English word, ‘Hero’.
Then, ready to start my playing session, I reached over and picked up the yellow folder containing the song sheets, which were fully enclosed by the manila folder.

‘Joyce’, I said, ‘Why don’t you pick out the first song for me to play?”

She smiled and nodded her curly, grey head, and then lifted up her arm and felt around inside the folder for a brief moment. Her bony fingers landed upon one particular page. I lifted it up from the folder to see which song she had picked. I was shocked; taken totally by surprise. Holy Cow! It was David Bowie’s Hero! And so, I talked about Sync’s with Joyce for a few moments. We were both amazed. She believes in magic too; we had a special connection; the Sync sort of proved it to me, and her too. I gave her a New Muse book, and she gave me, ‘God is Red’, a striking book that I keep close, as I now live in Southern Colorado, the old Red Man’s territory.

However, as Billy Joel once said, “Life is a series of hello’s and goodbye’s”, and later Joyce moved away to Denver, to be closer to her son and family.

Perhaps the insightful view of the poet is the best to describe the various aspects of semiology, or synchronicity. Sting, the British musician-lyricist, wrote of his views and feelings; I imagine he both read Jung…and had his own poignant ‘sync’ moments; he knew about ‘signs’.

Synchronicity

~With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity

A sleep trance, a dream dance, You will know Synchronicity

A connecting principle, Linked to the invisible

Almost imperceptible, Something inexpressible

Science insusceptible, Logic so inflexible

Causally connectible, We know you, they know me

Extrasensory Synchronicity

A star fall, a phone call, It joins all; Synchronicity

It’s so deep, it’s so wide, Your inside Synchronicity

Effect without a cause, Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause

Synchronicity

With his carefully chosen words, Sting seems to state, rather strongly, that Synchronicities are indeed real…and that they are, perhaps, beyond the keen and measuring capabilities of modern science. Yes, it’s true, you can’t drag a Synchronicity into a physicists laboratory. However, Dr. Karl Pribrum, a prominent holographic-neuropsychologist, postulates that Synchronicities are indeed real, because of hidden quantum-holographic fluctuations, occurring in our brains. Pribrum conceived a new theory, entitled, ‘The Holographic Brain’, which can be considered as a vital piece of The Holographic Universe concept.

“It isn’t that the world of appearances is wrong; it isn’t that there aren’t

objects out there, at one level of reality. It’s that if you penetrate through

and look at the universe with a holographic system, you arrive at a

different view, a different reality. And that other reality can explain

things that have hitherto remained inexplicable scientifically:

paranormal phenomena, synchronicities,

the apparently meaningful coincidence of events.”

Karl Pribrum, in an interview in Psychology Today

As everyone knows, there is always a large group of active, left-brain-dominant skeptics, who adamantly disavow all-things-psychic and this certainly pertains to psychic synchronicity or semiology.

Yet, this author, along with millions of others, has his own signs, his own synchronicities…perhaps you do too.

Yes, It makes One Wonder.

The Hypnotic Fleetwood Mac

Here we find a few notes revealing the cryptic nature of one particular mysterious song; HYPNOTIZED, fashioned by the crafty folks in Fleetwood Mac, in their curious album, A Mystery to Me (1973).

Music lovers are well acquainted with the popular music of Fleetwood Mac, and also their well-known romantic quibbles. Lead singer Stevie Nicks heartfelt explosion on ‘Rhiannon’, a song about an ancient Welsh Witch, who was much larger than life, is Fleetwood’s more surreal lyrical excursions:

Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and All your life you’ve never seen. A woman taken by the wind. She is like a cat in the dark and then She is the darkness. She rules her life like a fine skylark and when the sky is starless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_aYibUx1B8 Rhiannon, Fleetwood Mac

While Rhiannon was one of Fleetwood Mac’s most popular songs, another, less well-known Fleetwood Mac song actually went even deeper into mysticism. That song, on the 1973, A Mystery to Me album, was called…Hypnotized.

Cover symbolism on Fleetwood Mac's Tis A Mystery To Me.

I would never have captured the pattern seen upon the curious album/cd cover, unless I happened to be writing about ancient Egypt, in the upcoming New Muse Book, The Colors of Mind in Ancient Times. First, let’s explain the ancient roots behind the truly crazy-looking scene of a large baboon consuming a delicious cake.

Each detail of the Mystery to Me cover image can be readily explained but first we have to understand a few ancient Egyptian notions. These ideas are largely taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and also the early Pyramid Texts. Apparently, Bob Welch (1945-2012), lead guitarist and songwriter for the Mac, had read ancient Egyptian lore, for key elements of Egyptian thought are depicted upon the seemingly strange cover. Here we Go.

One of the primary gods in ancient Egypt was called Thoth, the god of divine wisdom; the god of divine mind. Through Thoth, a word which later became ‘Thought’ in English, the Egyptians were expressing their belief in a divine mind, which was individually expressed in all creatures, as divine thought. According to the Lore, one of Thoth’s favorite forms was in the baboon. Thoth was said to be, and/or become the baboon. Perhaps this was a recognition of divine mind in the baboon, as is noted in the modern view of panpsychism. If so, this ancient sentiency was due to activity in the right brain hemisphere, where sentiency is located. Thus, the Egyptians revered and adored their own baboons, in prehistoric times. The Book of Thoth was sacred and hardly known to anyone, except his ancient priests. In this Egyptian spiritual view, each and every book ever written by humans was considered a page in the Book of Thoth, thus, the Egyptian historian Manetho said, in 300 BCE, that Thoth had written 36,525 books; basically every book in existence, up to that point, in history. Now, this brief explanation, we can return to discuss the imagery of album/CD cover. Bob Welsh, and the album cover artist were being very shrewd.

The backdrop is the skyline, the tidal ocean and the shoreline, indicating the ever-present, day-in-the life. Upon this setting we find a large baboon, and a book lying on the beach, with a bite taken out of it. The ravenous, dribbling baboon is deliriously eating a luscious cake. His full attention is focused upon the cake, not the book. See the Symbolism now? Welch’s use of imagery was keen; humans in society are no longer interested in divine wisdom, after taking a wee bite. No, humans are fully intent on having their cake and eating it too. Thus, humans simply become animals, and forget their divine origin. The luscious cake represents the left-brain addictive brain, with its lust for the dopamine transmitter; this constitutes its ‘reward system’, which dominates so many people today, who have lost their way, and have little or no spiritual interests. Picasso might simply call them apes, as he once named his callous critics. Welch, now gone over, provided a wealth of ancient insight with his own special wisdom, published as a album cover, with its meaning hiding in plain sight.

Below, to explain the hidden meanings in the song Hypnotized, a segmented commentary is provided to the reader, for the purpose of explaining each remarkable mystical verse.

Hypnotized

~ It’s the same kind of story that seems to come down from long ago

Two friends having coffee together When something flies by their window

It might be out on that lawn Which is wide, at least half of a playing field

Because there’s no explaining what your imagination

Can make you see and feel, Seems like a dream ~ They got me hypnotized ~

Commentary: The lyrics of the first verse immediately capture our attention. What is invisibly flying by the two coffee-sipping friends, that surprises them so? Is this a line about sensing unseen UFO’s, or possibly an imaginative synchronicity between two friends? The cryptic verse doesn’t intend to give too many details.

~ I remember a talk about North Carolina and a strange, strange pond

You see the sides were like glass, In the thick of a forest, without a road

And if any man’s hand ever made that land then I think it would’ve showed

That’s why it seems like a dream Got me hypnotized ~

Dig this!~Fleetwood Mac Guitarist Bob Welch once said that, one day in 1969, he and his friends were riding dirt-bike motorcycles in a large forested area near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He described a thick forest with bike trails worn through the woods. Deep in the middle of the forest was a large clearing. They had ridden their bikes there many times before, but today, when they reached the clearing, they were shocked to see a huge, perfectly round depression in the ground that was roughly 80 – 100 feet in diameter; a small pond of water had formed from recent rainfall. The dirt-bikers stared the strange crater in jaw-dropping silence. In amazement. Welch later said it was as if a giant iron ball had been pressed into the ground, buried halfway, and then lifted out. The dirt in the indentation was ‘smooth as glass’. There was not a bump or a ripple anywhere. Of course, they debated, and at first thought that it had somehow been man-made…perhaps dug out with bulldozers or special equipment. But there was no sign of equipment nor the tracks of heavy machinery in the pristine forest. There was no way to get any machinery there! There were no roads, just narrow dirt-bike trails. The guys got spooked and sped out of there. Later, Welch would write about this event, as one of his paranormal experiences. Years later, radio talk show hot George Noory, would interview people who had very similar experiences, as they too saw a strange circular depression in the middle of the wild woods, in the ‘thick of the forest’, in other locations of the United States, where only hikers and bikers can go, unless you’re traveling in a UFO.

~They say there’s a place down in Mexico

Where a man can fly over mountains and hills

And he don’t need an airplane or some kind of engine

And he never will.

Now you know it’s a meaningless question

To ask if those stories are right

‘Cause what matters most is the feeling

You get when you’re hypnotized

Seems like a dream. Got me hypnotized ~

In the 1970’s it was a bit risky to talk of ‘men flying’ over mountains and hills, but now, today in 2020, the public has become more understanding of hallucinogenic plants, such as Ayahuasca, the plant favored by indigenous plant shamans living down in Mexico. This tradition continues to this day and folks such as author Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods) continue the special practice of ingesting sacred plants and mushrooms. Those taking these substances often experience flying episodes as one of the many possibilities while having an extended consciousness. Taking Ayahuasca or psilocybin mushrooms is not absolutely necessary, nor the only modality for humans to ‘fly over mountains and hills’. Also in the 1970’s, the United States government had sponsored a dramatically new psychic program, Stargate, which was cloaked, hidden, and deemed ‘classified’ by the Pentagon and CIA for many years. The main thrust and purpose of the Stargate project was to secretly and mentally spy upon enemy personnel and equipment for the American government surveillance system. The Stargate program was actually a Congress-approved special project in response to the Soviet Union’s own secret military psychic unit. Remote Viewing was the term used by the American government to describe how a naval officer could sit in a room in San Francisco, and, enter a trance,with eyes open and staring, could accurately describe live events and hidden scenes anywhere on the globe, effectively mentally flying to the chosen target location. It is possible to use remote viewing or RV, to simply travel over mountains and hills, if that is the desire. Some RV training is required, and this developed skill is akin to the more spontaneous OBE (out-of-the-body experience). The ability to do mental projection should not be underestimated, since it, in a way, indicates proof for life after death, or having consciousness without a physical body. Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, once informed his monks that whoever transcended the body and looked down upon it, would never die. The strength of your belief determines your immortality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDzXbdxeeHI Hypnotized; Fleetwood Mac Loop it.