More UNITED than we realize!
Palindromes
An email conversation with Chance Gardner, who filmed and produced The Great Work, ended up spinning off into an exchange of palindromes -- those are sentences that read the same way forward and backward. Supposedly the first utterance by one human being to another, in the Garden of Eden, was a palindrome:
"Madam, I'm Adam"
So were Napoleon's alleged last words:
"Able was I, ere I saw Elba"
I'll let Chance post the astounding palindrome he found, if he decides to. Here, though, are three palindromes from the Mystery School tradition. First, the last words of Hypatia, the Greek mystical philosopher who was murdered by a mob of drunken Christian monks:
"Stop, murder us not, tonsured rumpots!"
Then there was the comment of Plotinus to his disciple Porphyry, who was from Syria, on the sudden appearance of an unexpected vision:
"Stop, Syrian, I see bees in airy spots."
Finally, Paracelsus is supposed to have uttered this contemptuous sentence to one of his rivals, who was still mired in the thinking of the Middle Ages:
"See, slave, I demonstrate yet arts no medieval sees!"
"Madam, I'm Adam"
So were Napoleon's alleged last words:
"Able was I, ere I saw Elba"
I'll let Chance post the astounding palindrome he found, if he decides to. Here, though, are three palindromes from the Mystery School tradition. First, the last words of Hypatia, the Greek mystical philosopher who was murdered by a mob of drunken Christian monks:
"Stop, murder us not, tonsured rumpots!"
Then there was the comment of Plotinus to his disciple Porphyry, who was from Syria, on the sudden appearance of an unexpected vision:
"Stop, Syrian, I see bees in airy spots."
Finally, Paracelsus is supposed to have uttered this contemptuous sentence to one of his rivals, who was still mired in the thinking of the Middle Ages:
"See, slave, I demonstrate yet arts no medieval sees!"
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by chance gardner on -
First impressions are so important, and imagine the pressure on Adam to not be the First Guy In History to be shot down for an ill-conceived or poorly executed pickup line. "Madam, I'm Adam". BOOM! And the rest is history.
It's true, what JMG said. Our conversations have occasionally meandered into the silly, and like always, he has astounded me with the warehouse-like storage space in his head, and his ability to see that I was playing with a shiny toy and to show me where I could find more and shinier.
My palindrome is this:
"Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas".
When I first brought this up to JMG, I accompanied it with the observation that Satan himself must have come up with such a fantastically intricate palindrome. As a fanatical guitarist myself, I have found myself asking for this very thing on many an occasion...
Then JMG lowered the boom, opened up the door to the warehouse and displayed the remarkable collection above. As always, I am in your debt Mr Greer!
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Permalink Reply by John Michael Greer on -
I had an unfair advantage -- since the day sometime around age seven when I realized that the name of a store, "Albertson's," read backwards worked out as Snostrebla -- I pronounced it "snoster-blah" -- I've been entranced by palindromes. It was a five-star day in my childhood when I first learned that the word "racecar" reads the same way forward and backward.
But the Satan one is good -- unexpected, and weird. Besides, I think I've been to that concert. ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Vanese Va Voom on -
Are we not drawn onward to new era?
My meager, yet appropriate contribution : )
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Permalink Reply by John Michael Greer on
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That's a classic!
Then there was my response after reading The Book of the Sub-Genius:
"Sir, I soon saw Bob was no Osiris."
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Permalink Reply by Cosmic Claire on -
Superb Vanese!
You could make this the motto of TGN:-)
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Permalink Reply by Ash on -
Just for giggles, I wanted to share...
"Weird Al" Yankovic - Bob
I'll have to see if I can come up with my own.
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Permalink Reply by Hierophage on -
One of my favorites was the classical "devil's riddle" used by Debord in his film of the same title:
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni ("We enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire")
I'm also particularly fond of the Greek Christian:
NOMON O KIONOS EXE SON OIKONOMON ("Whoever you are, always let the law be your guide.")
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Permalink Reply by Cosmic Claire on
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When I was studying for my diploma in Art Therapy I read 'The Hidden Order of Art' by Anton Ehrenzweig, about how the unconscious manifests itself in all our works. One such creation was a piece by JSBach (I forget which) that is the same played backwards as forwards.
Ehrenzweig discussed how it would be near impossible to construct this using purely rational means and suggested that it was likely to have been the product of intuitive and unconscious creation, perhaps he tweaked or polished the final result intellectually, but basically it was inspired from inside.
This is a very nice example of how the unconscious mind learns patterns that are embedded from conscious activity, anyone with any basic knowledge of JSB knows that he was a great improviser who liked playing with all possible variations when he was making his compositions, looks like his unconscious mind took this to its logical extreme!
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Permalink Reply by Hierophage on
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It was Bach's Crab Cannon from his Musikalisches Opfer (Musical Offering)
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Permalink Reply by Cosmic Claire on
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Thanks Hierophage:-)
Perhaps I'll request them to play it on Radio 3 sometime, maybe Late Junction! Only trouble is my listening habits are so erratic I'd probably miss it....
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Permalink Reply by Jaefar S.A.B.N.W. on -
w rbbk f kbbr (Al Qoor'aan 74.3) w...(4)
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