Reviewing 1964

I don't tune in to the BBC's Parliamentary Channel very often but now and again there's something quite interesting going on there. Last night I watched part of an extended programme re-running the BBC's coverage of the 1964 election results. I remember some of the events leading up to it. The rules of the game had been changed. Members of the House of Lords could no longer be Prime Minister. So the Earl of Hume (Conservative) renounced his peerage, became officially a commoner, and Prime Minister. I still think of him as one of our least effective holders of that office. His time ran out. He delayed calling an election until the rules of the game forced him to do just that. On the Labour side he was opposed by Harold Wilson.

The election was going to be a close run thing. Alec Douglas-Hume (Con.) went down to Harold Wilson (Lab.). By a small margin.

I was fascinated by the BBC's coverage. It was still the days of black and white monochrome. Richard Dimbleby (father of David and Jonathan) was the anchor man. Others in his team included Robin Day and Cliff Michelmore. Bernard Levin was among those interviewed.

How different were the conventions of those days. More than a certain degree of correctness. The cultivated speech of the 'upper classes'. The general good manners. Speakers did not shout. Nor did they speak across each other. It was all very gentlemanly. Very urbane. It was the men of influence sharing news and opinions.

I lived in that ethos. I read The Times each day - because 'top people read The Times'. It was the best, the most informative, in those days. My speech patterns shared the same idiolect. My three-piece suits were made for me by a bespoke tailor in the City of London.

These were the years when I began to be disenchanted with our politicians. One of reasons for my move to Sydney, Australia, before the ending of the decade.

There, towards the mid 1970s, I experienced an epiphany. The scales fell from my eyes. And I began recognise the great illusions underlaying my schooling and its surrounding culture. There were tiny hints of change in the Swinging London of the later 1960s, but they were nothing like the changes I experienced in the South Pacific world on the other side the globe. When I came back to England on the first day of 1980, I was a very different person. And England had changed perceptibly while I was away.

being there in berlin

They tell me it's 25 years ago. 25 years since the Berlin Wall started to come down. I  find it hard to believe it was so long ago. Yet most of the young men and women who came up to Oxford this term were not even born then.

By one of those strange twists of intention we were in Berlin on the day Germany was reunited. By 'we' I mean our European Seminar in Ethnomusicology. Our proceedings on that day were enhanced by liberal quafftings of champagne. So I remember rather more about our surroundings than about the actual themes from our various contributors.

Going sightseeing. Checkpoint Charlie. The Brandenburg Gate. Little East German cars putt-putting around West Berlin. Picking up a fragment of Wall left over from the demolition .. ..

Who remembers Checkpoint Charlie now?

we have been here before

I dedicate this to the precious memory of Doris Emmeline Rose Cameron (née Hunt)

born 1903, obit 23 november 1997

MY PREVIOUS LIVES

A general understanding

We are not confined to one life on the Earth plane. We have a series of lives here. Our Soul, our real self, lives on from one incarnation to the next until we arrive at that state of progression where Soul gives way to pure Spirit and we are that ideal stage nearer to ultimate and complete reunion with the Divinity. 

Between these earthly lives we continue to live on whatever plane of consciousness we have earned the right to enjoy. These  planes of consciousness range from those nearest to physical conditions on the Earth to those nearest to the Spirit. We may progress to conceptually higher planes (i.e. those nearer to Spirit) or fall back to lower ones (those nearer to the physical).

When our earthly body dies, our soul passes through the Waters of Forgetfulness, and the same applies to the process of being born into our next incarnation. This is why memories of past lives and of living on other planes of consciousness are so frequently washed away. It takes practice to retain memories during the transition from one state to the next. And even then there may be gaps in the sequence or a complete absence of recall of living on other worlds, other planes.

The realisation of our present condition and the knowledge of our need to return to the Ultimate One will come to us in one form or another, when we are ready, either on the Earth plane or from those who teach us on other planes of consciousness. At this point the striving towards the Ultimate begins and the contents and circumstances of past lives are revealed in whole or in part to help us in our progression. Then future passages through the Waters of Forgetfulness are less are less severe in their erasures.

Within certain parameters, the parameters we have earned, we have a choice of parents for each incarnation that is about to begin. A birth chart drawn up by a perceptive astrologer may help us to elucidate the future we planned for ourselves and the reasons for our being born into each individual set of earthly conditions, the tasks we have accepted, the experiences we are prepared to undergo, the knowledge and skills we carry with us. In sum these will encapsulate the stage of progress at the terminal point of our previous incarnation and the use we have made of facilities on other planes before we returned in our new physical transmigration.

* * * * * * *

This is the order and the circumstances in which the past lives I am presently aware of have been revealed.

19th century Europe

At certain times while I was a student at the Royal Academy of Music (January 1945 to July 1947) I gradually became aware that some of the piano pieces I was learning were compositions I had written in a previous life. During the 19th century I had lived in part of the land now known as Germany. German was my native tongue. I was ambitious to be a concert pianist. There was an accident which meant I could never achieve my objective. As compensation I turned to composing music of my own and writing many articles for the musical press. Towards the end of my life, so I have been given to understand, I became interested in Spiritualism which was then in its early years. So far as I am presently aware this was my penultimate earthly incarnation and the work I did - or did not do - then is relevant to some of the conditions and potential into which I was born to a London family in 1927. Of this, more shall follow in due course.

Franciscan of unspecified time and place

At one of my mother's trance seances, one of her guides told me I had been a Franciscan friar in a previous life. I recall little of this save for some fleeting glimpses of being in a sunny clime, which may have been in Italy, but no more save for a vague impression of myself wearing the rough brown habit and of being generally barefoot walking through open country.

13th century Northern Europe

The year is probably 1985, the place Oxford. Jonathan's coven suddenly increased in size. One of the recently initiated men had connections with a group of friends who shared a house. They in turn had other friends who were keen to advance in the Craft. So it was that one summer's night we assembled in woodland, in a place that might have been deliberately made for private celebrations out of the public eye. It was an entrancing little dell in part of the woodland lying fallow. Some of the young men had discovered it when they went in search of a maypole for setting up on Port Meadow for the festival of Beltane.

On the night in question there were more than twenty of us altogether and among them were three to be initiated to full membership of the coven. We left the main path through the forest, turned onto a tiny track through the trees, went down a sharp but shallow bank and walked alongside a shallow stream until we passed through the candle-lit archway to the dell. Soon we were ready to begin, everyone skyclad under the light of a full moon. It was my duty to introduce each of the candidates to the Initiator and so to the full company. The first initiation passed according to the normal ritual. We danced round her, welcoming her to the coven, welcoming her to the Craft. The second initiation was that of a young man. Arachne presided as High Priestess. People, and there were many there at a Craft gathering for the very first time, soon left the strict bounds of the circle and stood where they could best see what was happening. I found myself a little to one side and became aware of a small band of medieval knights grouped quite near, carrying swords and shields and wearing plain, shining, cylindrical helmets. They were supporters of the young man who had been their leader in a former life. They applauded with the rest as the initiation was completed. The young man in his turn then assumed the role of initiator for his lady companion. As she knelt naked before him to make her declarations I found myself no longer in the woodland glade. I was there and she was there in the round tower chapel of a northern European castle 700 years ago. She knelt before the High Priest of a magical order. I stood to one side as an observer, not a full participant. When she removed her cloak for the most solemn part of the ritual, she was identical with the young woman among the 20th century trees. She was my ward, not a relative but entrusted to my care as I was a man of some authority in those parts. I too was a member of that same secret magical order. It was for us both a moment of great satisfaction and rejoicing. 

As I watched the scene changed. We were no longer in the round tower of the castle chapel but in a great hall. She had been charged with witchcraft. I was with others of similar authority sitting in judgement seats on a raised dais. At the end of the trial I was the last to announce my verdict. The end might have been foreseen. For political reasons, though my heart was against it, I was bound to find her guilty. She was taken away to a dungeon. Days later I saw her there, stripped of her fine robes, wearing only a dirty tattered shift and already suffering from the harsh conditions. I saw her then led through the throng of people crowded in the market place. She went up the steps onto the raised gibbet. She was to be executed. I could no longer bear to look. She had been very dear to me and I had failed to protect her when she most needed protection. I returned from the past to the present resolved to do all I could to help her whenever she needed assistance and to do my best to mitigate the grievous wrong I had wrought in our previous lives together. 

The woodland initiations moved to their festive close. We ate and drank and made merry. I drew the girl and her boy friend to one side and told them in turn what I had seen. At this the youth became very excited. 'Yes,' he said. 'I saw all that in one of my dreams. They hanged her. They broke her legs. She took two days to die.'

South-East Asia and the Siege of Troy

A year or two later a young woman came by invitation to one of our regular meetings when Amber was High Priestess. The young woman was probably in her late twenties or early thirties. Two of the regular men had met her recently and recommended she be admitted to a Full Moon esbat. I felt instant rapport with her. It was reciprocal. As we were preparing to leave late that night the two of us surreptitiously  agreed to meet soon and privately. She gave me her address and, as arranged, I went to see her a few days later. We went into an altered state of consciousness together and a series of shared south-east Asian incarnations pictured themselves. First we were two brothers, brown skinned, out hunting, standing in the fringe of the trees, sighting our prey. We were both quite naked. I remember that both our penes were long, thick and fully erect in the excitement of the chase and anticipation of the kill. At another time we were husband and wife. I was the wife. At yet another time we were brother and sister - I was the brother - ritual dancers at the royal court. On some evenings, the last dances in our programme were a naked duet. On some of these evenings the last dance ended with our making love. It was beautiful and natural. That makes four shared incarnations. There may possibly have been a fifth in this environment but I have no present recall of this.

Even more interesting is our mission to the battlefield at Troy. We are longer part of the brown skinned, south-east Asian scene. This time we are not even related. We belong to different races. She is a tremendously powerful adept, a Greek Priestess sent on assignment to Troy to affect the course of a particular episode during the siege. I was a high-ranking military officer, not Greek, possibly of Persian connections. I remember the head dress I wore. My task was to ensure her success and her safety. In effect I was both her aide-de-camp and protector. I am not aware there were any others in our entourage. We stood on a low hill overlooking the plain of Troy. She worked her magic. The result was as expected.

At a later time, though not so far distant in the same incarnation, we attempted to visit the training school where she had been a novice. I have memories of going there in a small open boat on the sea and into the mouth of a cave, then going on foot to the school. We had just reached the point of beginning to observe some of the young trainee priestesses when the Mistress of the Novices appeared. A gaunt, fierce, peremptory woman. Very angry at the invasion of a man into her sacred domain. I was ignominiously forced to leave immediately while my companion, in spite of her high status, was severely reprimanded in front of the young novices and compelled to remain behind. This act brought our altered state to an unexpectedly abrupt end. I was considerably chastened.

Buddhist China

In 1987 or thereabouts we were in China for the weekend. My youngest  daughter and her husband were living and working in Hong Kong at the time and this was one of the visits they specially arranged for us. In Guangdong (Canton) on the Pearl River, we took a taxi to a Buddhist temple. It reeked of history and tradition. I wandered off by myself and began to climb the lower levels of the pagoda. The building embraced me with memories of the past. I had been but a small boy when I was presented there. I remained for the rest of my life. Early on, it was one of my tasks to take food and drink to the meditating monks at the top of the tower. They each took seven days to ascend to the summit, stopping for prayer and meditation exercises at each storey on the way. I did not take so long to climb up with their sustenance. 

China did strange things to me - and this is nothing to do with previous incarnations. In one of the public parks, walking through and admiring the beds of cultivated plants, I found myself literally transfixed. The earth's magnetism at that point was so intense it was several long seconds before I was able to move on and catch up with the others.

European courtesan

It may have been in France at one of the royal and aristocratic establishments. It certainly feels in retrospect like being in classical French surroundings with fine clothing, high dressed white wigs for the women, the stink of unwashed bodies contrasting with the sparkle of delectable jewellery and the luxurious furnishings. I was a belle de luxe, a high class, very expensive courtesan, available only to the highest bidder or the highest in rank and even so very much in demand. I cannot place the century or the possible location, but that life is recent enough for me still, when I drift back, to feel once again, how exquisite can be the sensation for the woman of deep penetration by the male organ during sexual intercourse. 

Was this my antepenultimate incarnation in this series? No, I think not. There is a niggling feeling of something as yet unrecalled in between.

Europe in the Great War which began in 1914

Only as I approached my seventieth birthday with thoughts of preparing for my next incarnation did I have this recollection of what was my last life before the present one. 

Many of the details remain unclear. The nature of my death decided that. I was killed in the fighting on the Western Front. Even now I am not completely certain which side I was on, but as I meditate on the circumstances it feels more and more likely that I was a Prussian officer of aristocratic family. A short life. Part of the terrible waste of the future that occurred in those years of mostly unproductive trench warfare.

There is just an inkling that my hobby had been photography. And that, too, connects with part of my present life. So now is the place to give some account of how the system can work. My own experience.

London 1927 and onwards

I chose my parents well from those families able to provide the background into which I should be born early in the last month of the year. My birth chart with the Sun in Sagittarius associates long distance travel on both the physical and mental planes. Both have been amply fulfilled thanks to the devoted care of both my mother and father, their mothers, and various of their brothers, sisters and cousins - as well as some outstanding teachers whom I can never sufficiently acknowledge.

Although we went Sunday by Sunday to the Congregationalist chapel at the end of the street, my parents were also Spiritualists, a belief and a practice into which I was introduced while still at school. There were remarkable instances of physical phenomena and more than one series of transcendent trance addresses given by guides through the voice of my mother in deep trance. This gave me the opportunity of continuing the involvement with Spiritualism which had begun in the 19th century life I have already mentioned.

And I had a another chance to fulfil my dreams of becoming a concert pianist.

My mother had been trained for opera. Her teacher had recommended, as was fashionable at the time, the removal of her tonsils. The result of this was a voice quite unsuited for opera but one of a singing quality able to take good part in the many family gatherings round a piano where nearly all the relatives sang while I played their accompaniments. One of my earliest memories is of sitting at Auntie Lilla's piano in Caerphilly, blissfully playing away and enjoying the sounds I enticed from the instrument. I do not claim I made music in the accepted sense of the term but, as I sat on the music stool (I was wearing hand knitted brown knickerbockers as I remember) it felt the most natural thing in the world for me to play. Another link with the 19th century German life.

I began to have regular lessons soon after that. My mother was my first teacher. When I was four years old we both played a piano duet at the command of Her Royal Highness The Princess Louise at a meeting of the Gordon League in the basement hall of the WhitfieldTabernacle in the Tottenham Court Road. When the Princess came again a year later (she was the Patron of the organisation) she commended me to play again. This time I played a short solo piece by Mozart and sat there on the platform for a while talking to this grand lady.

On my mother's side, there was Jewish blood from her grandmother who had 'married out' and so been disinherited. The names of Rothschild and Von Joel were often mentioned by my maternal grandmother, who lived in the next house to us. This was the distant family connection we had moved away from. Is it too fanciful to feel that this German element was also something to do with my musical life in Germany? A few Jewish or Yiddish words were an everyday part of our family vocabulary. They came in useful years later when I taught in a Grammar School where half the boys were Jewish and one of those in the first form swore at me with a word I recognised - much to his surprise and subsequent discomfiture.

One of my grandmother's sisters served two terms of three months imprisonment in Holloway Gaol for 'reading the cards'. How daintily are these fine webs spun.

And the hobby of photography? Yes, it is there too. When I was still an Elementary School pupil I asked for and received a Kodak Hawkeye 620 Major box camera for an annual prize. Some prints from a day trip to Weston-Super-Mare were later displayed in a glass frame on the wall of the upper corridor. Since then I have climbed the Leica ladder and worked for a short while as a professional photo journalist.

One final link. This one, speculatively, with my penultimate incarnation. I was one of those called up for peacetime National Service once I had passed the examinations for my Associate Diploma at the Royal College of Organists. It felt no more than I expected, and I write this with no false pride or modesty, when I was selected for officer training and subsequently received the royal commission. When I last heard of it I was still a Class Z reservist, though I doubt it now has any positive relevance.

There is a codicil to this. On the day I was demobilised I examined my prospects for the future. If I aimed to be a first-class pianist, I would need to practice for four hours a day. Then I thought again. There were hundreds of first-class pianists. Was I content to be one of them? Certainly not. Well then, to be better than a first-class pianist I would need to practise for six hours a day. Did I see myself practising the piano for six hours a day? No, I did not. It was time to take another decision. I went up to Oxford where I was awarded a College Organ Scholarship. To my practical work I added a certain expertise in what would now be called musicology. In later years, when I was based in Australia, I had the good fortune to branch out into ethnomusicology without, be it said, losing any of my performing or general musicological abilities. 

To sum up then .. ..

The revelation of episodes in a former life 700 years ago on the mainland of Europe was an instant process where I was moved back in time and space during a fairly short part of one evening. Moreover, there was instant confirmation of the execution from an independent source.

The episode in the Chinese pagoda is similar in that this was another instant revelation, a real experience of déja-vue. I had lived in this place before, but the time scale was absent.

The collective recall of a sequence of incarnations with the person concerned is the only instance I have experienced of deliberately seeking knowledge of former lives during the course of a 'working' for that purpose. The South-East Asian vignettes gave an approximate idea of the place, though I am not able to be more precise. Again the time scale is completely lacking except that I have usually assumed they preceded the visit to the Siege of Troy and its aftermath in the novices' school. This is not necessarily so.

Information about my life as a Franciscan friar was channelled. There is a historical terminus antequem non but no more than that while only the quality of the light leads me to conclude that I was in Italy at the time.

So we come to the European courtesan, which relies on a visual impression with colour but no sound, and the Time before Last which became apparent in parallel with my thoughts about the final years to come of this incarnation and the preparations I should make for the next.

Here then is a possible sequence of past lives - those I am aware of. There are certainly others as yet unexplored.

South-East Asia (in company with a 20th century acquaintance)

the Siege of Troy (including my South-East Asian relative)

Buddhist China (could this have been before Troy?)

13th century in Northern Europe (also including a 20th century friend)

Franciscan (in Italy?)

European courtesan

music in 19th century Europe

Europe in the Great War which began in 1914

London 1927 onwards

As for next time - I think I may be going back to China again. There was once in the past a future projection of myself as a medical doctor but this has been supplanted by a very different scenario. I am now looking well into the future, probably involving a long stay on another plane of consciousness to prepare me for the work that must be done. I shall not have yet another chance of turning into a concert pianist. I consciously abandoned that desire at the end of my military service. Instead I may carry with me skills I have learned in communication - a handful of European languages and no small ability in computing as well as writing, teaching and public speaking. I expect to be used at a high level in something to do with World Government. I hope that at the time of transition through the Waters I am able to carry with me the knowledge of the past and of the lessons of the life which began here more than seventy years ago.

word total 3904

first version 9 & 10 december 1999

postscript :: not long after writing the above I became aware of another incarnation, one that fits very snugly between the end of the 19th century German venture and the beginning of the Great War episode. It involves participation in one of the magical orders and I’m not free to say any more than that at the present time.

francis, oxford, october 2014

images of god

I am re-reading Karen Armstrong (1993) A History of God. In the introduction, she writes of God as a product of the creative imagination and of the need for individuals to begin by creating a sense of him for themselves.

It reminds me of the old Greek story of Demeter and Persephone, when Demeter was so occupied with searching for her lost daughter that she neglected her duties as the Mother Goddess. The crops failed. Young animals died for lack of sustenance. Zeus grew distraught. People were no longer able to sacrifice to the gods. No longer did sacrificial smoke rise up to link mortals with the immortals. The gods' continuous existence depended upon the continuation of that link.

I find that helps to explain the inclusion of both JHVH and the Elohim in Genesis, the first book of Moses. And it compensates, at least impart, for the lack of answers toy question : Is the God of the New Testament the same as the God(s) of the Old?

the news at 1310

Here is the news from London at 1310

Top story tonight is a shakeup in the Royal Household. The barons have taken matters into their own hands and appointed 12 peers as Lords Ordainers to control the country until the King reaches his maturity. A man at the centre of the dispute has been named as Piers Gaveston. He is alleged to be in a too-close relationship with the king and to have overmuch influence at court. 

Now here is some of the rest of the news ..

1312

:: Shock has been expressed throughout the world of chivalry at the sudden action of the French King Philip IV who has abolished the internationally renowned Order of Knights Templar and seized their funds. This brings to an end two centuries of service freely given by the noble order.

1313

:: From our Chief Social Correspondent in Italy comes the news of the birth out of wedlock of Giovanni Boccaccio. It is said that even in thousands of year’s time he will be known as the author of the Decameron, a collection of stories told to amuse and entertain each other by a group of young people temporarily self-exiled in the country to avoid the plague in the city.

1314

:: There’s been more trouble with Robert the Bruce in Scotland. At Bannockburn, forces commanded by King Edward II have been forced to withdraw, leaving Scotland in what amounts to a state of de facto independence.

:: And in France there is now a new king. He’s been crowned as Louis X but he’s alleged to be also known as Louis the Quarrelsome. 

1316

:: In Avignon the new Pope is to be remembered as John XX. He is said to condemn the self-indulgence of modern liturgical music. Others allege he is living too grand a lifestyle in the papal palace. There’s more than a hint of heresy in the air.

1317

:: The French monarchy is simplifying its rules of succession by adopting the Salic Law. The effect of this will be to ensure future heirs to the throne will all be males.

The next news from London is scheduled for 1320.

francis cameron. oxford, 01 september 2014

This is London with news from the 14th century.

We begin with a dispatch from Dr L Kip Wheeler of web.cn.edu ..

Throughout the whole of the thirteen hundreds more and more of the upper classes, the scholars, and the lawyers are speaking the Middle English tongue of their people rather than the Norman French tongue of their ancestors. 

The mystery plays are coming out of the churches and being performed by guilds. There are more actors, more spectacles, outdoor stages, and comic elements. So much is going on.

Now here are the headlines of the rest of the news.

1300

:: There’s a new king in Poland. He will be known as Wenceslas II.

:: In France, Guillaume de Machaut is born. Posterity will know him as a great poet and composer of music. [He lived until 1377.]

:: We hear of a new manuscript in the Old French language. The title is reported as The Travels of Marco Polo. We wait to hear further news.

1301

:: At Caernarfon Castle, Edward, the son of our King Edward, is created Prince of Wales. He is the first English prince to hold that title. 

1303

:: In France the squabble between King Philip IV and the Pope over the exercise of papal authority in French sovereign territory appears to be over. It is reported that Pope Boniface VIII has died as a result of injuries sustained during his recent abduction by a French emissary and his subsequent rescue by a squad of Italians from Anagni.

1304

:: In the Tuscan city of Arezzo a new poet has been born. He will go far. [Francesco Petracco lived until 1374.]

1305

:: There are reports of a major upset in the Papacy. Pope Clement V has moved his headquarters from Rome to Avignon. So begins the Babylonian Captivity. It will last for almost 70 years.

1306

:: The rebel identified as Robert the Bruce has been crowned King of Scotland in the place called Scone.

1307

:: In Scotland, our King Edward has died while on a punitive expedition against the rebel Robert the Bruce. 

:: He is succeeded by the Prince of Wales who becomes King Edward II and will rule for 20 years.

:: In Ravenna, the Florentine born Dante Alighieri has begun to compose his great poem La Divina Comedia, a task which will occupy him until his death in 1321.

1308

:: The Holy Roman Emperor Albert I has died and will be succeeded by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII. 

:: In the days of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor ruled a great swathe of territory but that began to be fragmented as the inevitable result of the Franks having no custom of primogeniture. And even in the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned in Rome on Christmas Day, it was Pope Leo III who placed the crown on the new Emperor’s head. It’s not going too far to suggest that, for much of the time since, the Pope, as the head of the Universal Church, and the Emperor, as the head of the senior temporal power, have been at loggerheads with each other. It can be a messy business involving military force on the one side and the weapon of supernatural sanctions on the other. Ah well! They do say God is on the side of the big battalions.

Stay tuned for our next bulletin at 1310.

francis cameron

oxford, 31 august 2014

from week two to week three

As I begin my journey from week 2 to week 3, I carry with me a backsack of ideas and unanswered questions. 

What prompted Dante to compose La Divina Comedia?

Was he writing for an intended readership? If so, who were they? And how would they get hold of copies of his manuscript?

I’ve approached Dante’s composition in the way I inherited from the teachers of musical history in my school and student days. For most of the time each composition was examined and dissected as an isolated artefact with scarce reference to context or comparison with other works. 

This is really not good enough. I must approach the Canterbury Tales in their place on the tapestry of their surroundings. In fact it would be a good idea to show the panorama of the whole of the 1300s from a London, English point of view.

I’m going to try to do this as though presenting headline news in the manner of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I’ll do this a bit at a time and post each segment when it is ready.

francis cameron

oxford, 31 august 2014

la divina comedia

La Divina Comedia is the station for the second week of my pèlerinage into the thirteen hundreds of our time.

Last week I was in the territory of the ars nova, the New Art of those who notated musical settings for the Latin liturgy of their faith. I enjoyed transcribing from facsimiles of their manuscripts when I was an undergraduate in the Faculty of Music at Oxford. 

Now I am utterly transported into the dolce stil nuovo of the land and language of Tuscany. For me, this is where the Great Renaissance begins, though my schoolmasters spoke only of 1453 and a battle on the Golden Horn.

And so I come to La Divina. It is immense. A staggering achievement of one man. Dante Alighieri. Its ramifications, its intricate twists and turnings, its multitude of multicoloured characters, are far more than I can possible encompass outside of years of study. And so I move back until I can see the outline of the structures.

Dante writes of Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso. This resonates. I turn my mind to his imagery.

Pergatorio is, as I was taught, where the souls of the Catholic departed go to be judged when they die. I understand what they are saying. Up to a point. With a different slant. And a different address. For my soul, my psyche, has its true home in this realm I know as Yesod and which is called by many other names. The Summerlands. On the Other Side. Heaven. I came into this world from Yesod. And to Yesod I shall return.

There are those of us who tell of the journey from Yesod to incarnation as a descent to the material world of Malkuth. The Kingdom. Dante’s Inferno. Hell. I’ve had something like that in mind since I was eight or nine years old. I rarely speak of it in those terms. When I do I am met with blank stares of incomprehension.

Even now, as I sit here making these words, my psyche is free to connect with Yesod and from there to connect with the higher planes of Netzach and Hod. The Power and the Glory. Dante’s Paradiso.

Inferno   Purgatorio   Paradiso

Malkuth   Yesod   Netzach & Hod

For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, for ever and ever .. 

So mote it be.

francis cameron, oxford, 29 august 2014

my inner senses tell me

My inner senses tell me my notional Week for William of Occam is nearly over. It’s time to write the epilogue and ring down the curtain.

I have a feeling I’ve learned more about myself than I have about Occam. I’m certainly not the same person I was a week ago.

But enough of that! What of our William?

The village of Ockham, in the English county of Surrey, has a website which claims William as one of its sons : “the proponent of Occam’s razor. “ We don’t know his exact date of birth. The best we can say is 1287/1288. At this distance it’s not all that important.

When he was seven - or maybe it was fourteen - he was taken into the Ordo Fratrum Minorum - the Greyfriars, the Franciscans - to be educated at their London house. 

Round about the year 1318 he is in their Oxford house studying theology at the university ; and from there he returned to London.

He comes across to me as an outstanding thinker. The kind of man unwittingly burdened with colleagues of lesser ability. They who so readily feel inadequate in his company. These are they who deceitfully go about to undermine and discredit any who are the more able. They spread rumours. Suspicion.

And so it came about that, in 1323, William was called before the provincial chapter to explain himself. 

And matters did not stop there. He was remanded to the supreme ecclesiastical court : Avignon - where Pope John XXII luxuriated in the gothic splendour of the Palais des Papes. Our Franciscan faced serious charges of heresy.

I’ve come across John XXII before. He merits - if that’s the right word - no more than a line or two in the better studies of medieval music. His complaint has survived the centuries. He inveighed against the singers in the papal choir for their newfangled fashion of vocal hockets. Like hiccups.

Now, at that time, there were Franciscans in dispute with His Holiness. Saint Francis of blessed memory had preached the gospel message of holy poverty. Franciscans - individually and collectively - should own no property. They observed John XXII living in ostentatious splendour. No hint of poverty there. This was palpable heresy.

1328. Confrontation. Occam is commissioned to further investigate and report. He finds among John’s own writings clear evidence of recalcitrance. This is not simply heresy. It is stubborn heresy. Ergo : John has effectively abdicated. He is no longer Pope!

Oops ..  for the Franciscans this is a no-win situation. Time to pack up and go. Under cover of darkness. Time to seek shelter in the retinue of Ludwig of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor.

William of Ockham remains in München for the rest of his life. He died in 1347.

I am amazed at the breadth and depth of his scholarship. The magnitude of his output. Why is he not given more space in the histories? Perhaps it is that, after expounding on Aquinas and the Summa, there is neither space nor incentive for more.

// and here I compose a sad cynical internote :: Thomas Aquinas belongs in the previous century. The 1200s. I have seen his tomb in Toulouse. In the Church of the Jacobins. He was of the Order of Preachers. The Dominicans. The domini canes. The Hounds of the Lord. The Black Friars. The Inquisition which wreaked such havoc in fair Languedoc. 

// I stood at the foot of Montségur and wept for the destruction of the Cathars. //

 .. maintenant, à nos moutons

I read on. I am familiar with some of this. I observe glowing embers of Greek origin. 

R. W. Jepson, M.A., Headmaster of Mercers’ School gave us 6th formers his one term, one period a week class on Clear Thinking. I’m glad he did. Syllogistic Logic comes up in computer programming. IF x AND IF y THEN z. But If x AND NOT y THEN NOT z. QED.

QED. And that reminds me. Yes, reminds me. Old Age is replete with memories. A year in the 1930s. Possibly 1936. Mr Moulden’s class in St Mary’s (Church of England) Elementary School. Geometry lessons. And a textbook which began with the statement : a point has position but no area. It was Euclid. It was axiomatic! Something ‘given’ with which there is no questioning. 

Ockham had his axioms. For him, God was axiomatic. Though he might not have put it quite like that. God is the great ‘given’. With which there is no questioning. It’s a deep held comforting belief. 

I feel the vortices of my mind whirring around. Explore the whole of my past experience as I can, there are questions which remain stubbornly unformulate. I cannot, at this distance of space and time, tune in to the mind of the 14th century. Here am I. 86 years old and living on the edge of mainland Europe. I do not doubt the axiomaticity of Ockham’s God. I cannot explain, to my own satisfaction, the processes by which he reached that premise. 

Oh, yes! Glowing embers of Greek origin. This is not what we were taught at school. Not at all an attribute of the ‘Dark’ Ages. Yet here they are. Present. Well studied. Well understood. It was not until 1977 when I rode the train tracks of Western Europe that I really began to appreciate the multicultural ambience of Norman Vikings in the Mediterranean. The scholars of Toledo - Muslim Jew and Christian - patiently, together, transcribing, transmitting, jewels of learning from one culture, one generation, to the next.  

My story now is ended. My time is up. There is so much more of ‘presence’ in the writings of our William that fascinates me. But I’m too old to begin a doctoral study. Besides, I want to move on.

// Coming next week. Twice nightly and with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. Direct from The Roadside at Ravenna. Waiting for Beatrice. Dante Alighieri. La Divina Commedia. In a deeply moving verse translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

francis cameron, oxford, 27 august 2014

discovering lord lytton's wicca

Towards the mid 1970s, when I was enjoying post graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Sydney, we had to read about witchcraft. There was E E Evans-Pritchard’s seminal work on Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (of course!) plus the three intriguing books from Margaret Murray.  

Then, in the King’s Cross Village of central Sydney, I came across the Craftsman Bookshop. Such a real frisson. This was where I bought a copy of the 1971 first edition of Stewart Farrar’s What Witches Do. It’s now in its 4th edition with additional material from the Alexandrian archive – but without the photographs, some of which had included skyclad covenors.

December 1999 saw the publication of Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon  which introduced me to Gerald Gardner and the events which led to his going public after witchcraft ceased to be illegal in 1951. Hutton’s Triumph filled in many of the gaps in my knowledge and prompted me to set out on my own researches. 

In chapter 13 of Bracelin’s 1960 biography Gerald Gardner: Witch, I read these words :

“ ... he was stripped naked and brought into a place “properly prepared” to undergo his initiation.

“It was halfway through when the word Wica was first mentioned: “and then I knew that that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived”.”

Now I was fascinated by how the word ‘Wicca’ came into modern use. (Gardner had spelt it with one ‘c’ : ‘Wica’. But then his spelling did tend to the idiosyncratic.) It was easy to discover that when our AngloSaxon forebears wrote about a male witch, in their Old English tongue they spelt the word ‘wicca’. A female witch was a ‘wicce’. Both words were pronounced much as we pronounce the word ‘witch’ today, save that there were two syllables with the stress on the first. So ‘witch-cha(h) and ‘witch-che(r). So far, so good. Could it be that one of the initiates in that 1930s coven had studied English Language and Literature at one of the older universities where undergraduates were expected to read Old English texts in the original? And was ‘wicca’ (now pronounced as ‘wikka’) a safe word for use in the outside world when ‘witch’ would have attracted the wrong kind of attention? We are unlikely ever to know.

But now! Here’s something I came across when I was looking for something else! It dates from the first half of the 1860s.

“It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha ... “

“Hilda, who, despite all laws and canons, was still believed to practise the dismal art of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper of the dead).”

These two snippets come from the first chapter of Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, written by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron [lived 1803 to 1873]. A very interesting man who assures us his ‘romance’ has a foundation of good solid research. 

He’s probably better known for The Last Days of Pompeii, 1834, (which I read from my father’s rather handsome copy sometime in the 1930s). 

Lord Lytton is probably less well known generally for his tenuous links with Rosicrucianism. For example, the introduction to his 1842 novel Zanoni tells how in his younger days he felt the desire to make himself acquainted with the true origins and tenets of the singular sect known by the name of Rosicrucians. 

He must have had a certain reputation for that particular strand of occultism. In 1867, when Robert Wentworth Little founded the English Rosicrucian Society, he appointed Bulwer-Lytton as Grand Patron – apparently without consulting him beforehand.

I recall Gerald Gardner’s reported discovery of The First Rosicrucian Theatre in England while he was exploring his new neighbourhood after the move to Highcliffe. So perhaps – but only ‘perhaps’ – there was a link there leading back to Lord Lytton’s awareness of the Wicca.

It would be poetic to describe my abiding interest as a quest. Curiosity is a better word. I now know that the name Wicca, in close association with the word witch, appeared in print in the 1860s. I have a feeling there are loose threads here just waiting to be picked up and woven. Perhaps more strands of the web will clamour for attention one day - when I am looking for something else.

francis cameron, oxford, 26 august 2014

it was the january of 1938

It was the January of 1938. I was just ten years old. 

We lived in the London borough of St Marylebone.

On Mondays through Fridays I was a boy at Mercers’ School in the City.

On Saturdays I was a Junior Exhibitioner at the Royal Academy of Music.

On Sunday mornings and evenings I played the harmonium for the services of a Spiritualist Church in the front room on the first floor of a building along the Harrow Road. Sometimes we stayed for the after circle where I began to develop a certain measure of psychic sensibility.

This opening up of psychic sensitivity, coupled with substantial convincing experiences of the soul’s continued existence between one physical incarnation and the next, has been an important part of my perception ever since (except for the years immediately after I chose to convert to the Roman Catholic Church, when I put aside all indulgence in such ‘sinful’ activities, and devoted myself to leading the life of a Good Catholic).

I was moving toward my mid-40s and living in Sydney, Australia, when a far-reaching sequence of events in my professional life released me from the bonds of the itinerary I was following and showed me where to pick up the trail again on the far side of Catholicism and Imperialism.

I was free. Free to live my own life. Free to think my own thoughts. Free to return to a personal exploration of planes of perception beyond the physical.

And so it has gone on. At varying speeds and with varying levels of insight and understanding. Of late I am finding levels of perception beyond the surface meanings of words on the page. Symbols on display catch my eye with their immediate depictions. Then the mind comes into play. My inner eyes open. The doors of perception stand wide. A deeper meaning is revealed. And, beyond that, further insights.

And so it goes on .. and on .. per omnia saecula saeculorum ..

francis cameron, oxford, 26 august 2014

come again, sweet love

You will know, dear reader, how it was, with no visible twinges of regret, I fled the noxious purlieus of the 4th century and, sweeping through a thousand years with scarce a hint of dust on the  skirts of my cloak, I alighted onto the languorous embrace of the beguiling youth and moyen age of the 14th century.

Alas and alack, dear reader. Plus de la même chose. The squabble continues but now the canvas is both larger and more intimate. Then it was the headstrong Bishop of Mediolanum in the red corner and the Imperator, the Supreme Commander, of the lands stretching from the rising of the sun until the going down of the same, in the blue. And the Bishop - we know him now under the cultae of Saint Ambrose of Milan - stretched forth his hand, called on the overwhelming force of his supernatural powers. And the Imperator, the Supreme Commander, Theodosius, the last to rule the whole shooting match from the Bosphoros to Land´s End, lay prostrate and grovelling at the holy man´s feet. Game. Set. And match. The progenitor of many more to come. With additional subtly complications.

So I sit in the best seat in the house, waiting for the curtain to go up and the play to begin. The scene is set. A stately room in the papal palace. Waiting in the wings is His Holiness himself. John, the 22nd of that name. Still in his dressing room - a closet in München - is the Holy Roman Emperor. He comes on after the interval. And, eagerly awaiting his grand entrance, is the King of France. (Is there going to be a threesome? Tut! Hush! Behave yourself!)

Sound the trumpets! Let battle commence! Bring on the glittering cast of thousands. The conclaves of cardinals splendiferous with opulence. Intellects of Franciscans with their Rule of Holy Poverty. And then, the last brilliant, Goeterdämerung of the Templars. Don´t forget the Templars. Never forget the Templars .. ..

You know, this really could make compulsive, primetime, Sunday evening viewing. On one of the better channels. Of course.

francis cameron, oxford, 24 august 2014

why do I keep going back?

why do I keep going back to the middle ages? it’s something to do with mercers’ school in the 1930s and early ‘40s. a preRaphaelite medievalism with knights in shining armour mounted on snowy white steeds galloping off on a quest to find the holy grail and to rescue fair maidens in distress. By no means the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. but then it was a time and a western world of delusion. when I invented not so much as a better mousetrap, no one was going to come calling even though I lived in a log cabin in the depths of a forest. and the great and glorious british empire on which the sun never set was not the great omnipotent deliverer of enlightenment to the “poor ignorant natives” in the far corners of the globe. even when we’re broke we like to pretend. let’s go out and buy a couple of aircraft carriers. on tick ..

then there were medieval studies at the university of sydney where I was invited in to make up the numbers and possibly go forward to the establishment of a faculty. that was a good start to an area of history I’d not previously explored. pity that the department of classical studies insisted we begin our history in 1476 and not a day before. only in my silver years did I begin to sort out why so much happened as it did and how the bishop checkmated the imperial king .. .. but, please, let’s not go back now to the 4th century. it behaves like an incubus

and my 1977 half sabbatical when I went off to europe to its libraries and monasteries in search of the earliest manuscripts of latin liturgical chant and also of contextual artefacts in the towns villages and countryside. the joys of a eurail pass and the beautiful intercontinental trains which could begin in Barcelona and end as a morning commuter in Oslo in good time to be let in before the official opening time to see the viking ships and discover it was not all rape and pillage. they had musical instruments, for odin’s sake ..

francis cameron

oxford 23 august 2014

It’s the time of year when I see the practice nurse for the first stage of my six-monthly checkup. It’s a little early this year. I generally go rather nearer the Autumn Equinox. But there are times later on when my kalendar promises to be fuller but not hectic. 

So, yesterday I went. Ten past ten in the morning. And fasting. And I did so want that blessed cup of tea when the alarm woke me at ten to eight. So I deferred until after the appointment. Then to Zappi’s for a latte and a pain au chocolate.

Time, I thought, to get organised. Get away from the interminable 4th century. And do something differnt. Something new.

Thinking of something new reminded me of Ars Nova, a treatise concerning new possibilities for composing music, written by Philip de Vitry in the 14th century. I prefer to think of the 14th century as the 1300s. The 13 hundreds are also identifiable as the trecento. I decide to focus on the trecento until the Winter Solstice. Be content with what I can achieve in that period. And then do something else.

I begin to sketch a time line. Books immediately to hand suggest inclusions. Then I find myself myself looking at William “The Razor” of Occam. Born, perhaps, in the village of Ockham (Oak Hamlet) in late 1287 or early 1288. Died, without a doubt, in Munich on the night of 9/10 april 1347. 

It’s more than 30 years since I last looked at anything about Occam. There was something on the open shelves of the Radcliffe Camera and passing references, a sentence or two, elsewhere in my reading. Computers? Ha! Who now remembers the Sinclair ZX81? Google? What Google? The World Wide Web? Oh boy!. Get real!

At this year of grace,  researching for leads, is so much easier. Our William was a Franciscan who studied at Merton College. Merton College is metaphorically a few steps away in the centre of Oxford. 

Then he went to Avignon. I remember an evening between trains in Avignon. I went looking for the pont. Sur le pont d’Avignon. Found, instead, the Palace of the Popes. This was the Avignon Papacy in real life. Like a stage set. And in that palace in Avignon there once was a Pope John XXII, well known for his two lines in the standard histories of music for his diatribe against modern composers and the damnable choirmen who sang hockets like hiccups. 

This is going to be fun. The Franciscan and the Pope were at loggerheads. Some say they accused each other of heresy. The friar was excommunicated and did a midnight flit to Munich. Where he stayed for the rest of his mortal life. 

Well worth a visit. As they say in the Michelin Guides.

francis cameron

oxford, 23 august 2014