Recurring Creativity
"Just as painters get the likenesses in their portraits from the face and the expression of the eyes, wherein the character shows itself, but make very little account of the other parts of the body, so I must be permitted to devote myself rather to the signs of the soul in men, and by means of these to portray the life of each, leaving to others the description of their great contests."
— Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 75 CE
The Prometheans
Marsyas and Phaethon belong to a select group of dramatists, artists and musicians who represent Prometheus or, more accurately, it is they who the archetype Prometheus represents. They brought with them the cosmic flame of inspiration after the antediluvian civilisations arose. They are the ones who risk all, at any cost, to bring the light of art to our earth. They suffer as mortal men and women do, but their great works of art endure long after the rest of us are gone again. We cite the following karmic trajectory from El Aurenx:
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“In the eminence of immortal music, two names tower above all others and rival each other for supremacy — those of Mozart and Beethoven. Beethoven himself admired Mozart and imitated him in his early works, but later in the full force of his own genius he achieved a power of expression surpassing that of all his predecessors and unequalled by any other since. Few suspect that these two have had a long association of similar past lives — as initiates in Atlantis, as dramatists in ancient Greece, and as artists of the High Renaissance..." (Esoteric Biographies, 1997 – 2001)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791), the Austrian classical composer, was a musical prodigy. He composed and performed music effortlessly and prodigiously since the age of six years. He died prematurely while working on a requiem commissioned by the mysterious emissary of a nobleman. Esoteric legend has it that he was poisoned by the illuminati of Vienna for divulging secret lore in his initiatic opera, 'The Magic Flute'.
Mozart was a reincarnation of the ancient Atlantean initiate, Marsyas, the mythic flute-player. In Greek mythology Marsyas challenges the god Apollo to a contest of music, the winner whereof would punish the loser. The Muses give the victory to Apollo who thereupon flays his victim — whose blood flows as the river Marsyas. This myth, like some others, as I shall shortly show, was used in the initiatic mystery schools to teach the dire results of rashly overreaching oneself in the spiritual quest. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 – 1564) was the Italian sculptor, architect and poet who ranks with Leonardo da Vinci as the greatest figures of the Renaissance. He was steeped in Neoplatonic philosophy and was also an initiate of the ancient Mysteries. In his 'Last Judgement' fresco he portrays himself as Marsyas by painting his own face on the flayed figure of St Bartholomew, said to have been martyred in this way. Aristophanes (445 – 385 BCE) was a Greek playwright of satire and comedy. Anyone familiar with the play ‘Amadeus’ will recognise the frivolity of Aristophanes in the character of Mozart. Aristophanes was also an initiate of the Mysteries and indicted for revealing too much of the esoteric doctrines in his plays, like the imprudence of Mozart that reputedly provoked his murder. If Mozart had been a rash, then Beethoven’s was decidedly reckless.
"Ludwig von Beethoven (1770 – 1827) was the German composer who singularly revolutionised musical style from the Classical to the Romantic trends. Despite his deafness he left a monumental musical legacy. He drew his inspiration from above down into the depths of human emotions, but not without tremendous cost to his own soul. In this he was not unlike Prometheus, one of his mythic archetypes, the titan who steals fire from the gods and gives it to mankind, but is punished by being chained to a rock and perpetually preyed upon by a vulture until he is finally freed by Hercules. Beethoven, in his ancient incarnations, had been a reckless initiate who courted disaster in trying to transcend the limitations of his mortal powers, and his deafness was the karmic consequence of his relentless heedlessness.
Beethoven was a reincarnation of the old Atlantean initiate, Phaethon. In Greek mythology Phaethon is the son of Helios, the Sun God. He foolishly tries to drive his father's sun chariot but loses control and sets the world on fire. Zeus intervenes by striking him down with a thunderbolt so that he crashes to earth and dies. This myth was used in the mystery schools to caution candidates against the risks of the initiatic quest. Another such myth is that of Bellerophon who tames the winged horse, Pegasus, and tries to ascend Mount Olympus in defiance of the gods, but is hurled back to earth.
These myths, with their theme of the courageous but tragic hero who defies the gods on behalf of humanity, were first treated dramatically by the ancient Greek tragedian, Euripides (480 – 406 BCE). Unconventional in contrast to his antecedents, Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides felt misunderstood, and was even satirised by Aristophanes. But, as Beethoven was to revolutionise classical music, Euripides changed the concept of drama with a new consciousness of realism that challenged the religious and moral myths of his age. He evinced extremes of perspective in his bitterly realistic portrayal of human decadence and depravity alongside his reverence for the virtues of human courage and dignity. Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) was the great artist who uniquely epitomised the Renaissance in Germany. Under the impulse of the Italian Renaissance he transformed the German and Flemish Gothic tradition and created a new artistic reality. His skill was so masterful that the great humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, praised him thus: ‘He is able to depict things which cannot really be depicted. It would take very little and he would depict the human voice.’ The rashness of his soul, however, showed itself in a streak of vanity. Nowhere is this more evident than in his 'Self-Portrait' of 1500 wherein he depicted himself in the image of Christ.
As a karmic footnote, it appears that Dürer and Matthias Grünewald had once been father and son, namely Euripides and Euripides the Younger. The latter favoured the formal style of earlier tragedians against the revolutionary style of his father and, above all, favoured the great works by Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Aeschylus and Sophocles later returned as contemporary authors, namely Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe, and participated anonymously in co-writing Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. These lives were oversouled by El Amenu and Thanatu and include the incarnations of Count Saint-Germain and Dante Alighieri. We'll look at this group in a forthcoming post.
"The way to do is to be."
— Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, 6thC BCE
From Taoist to Stoic
Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) once recalled how, as an earnest teenager, he discovered the writings of the ancient Stoic philosophers: "It was like being born again." (Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman, 2:71–72).
For him the most important work was the Enchiridion of Epictetus, a compilation of ethical advice and practical precepts, to which Whitman would return throughout his life while revising his own contemplative poetry, Leaves of Grass. Both texts were to be his daily inspiration as a man, a poet and as a mystic.
While scholars have long recognised the influence of classical Stoicism on Whitman’s work, a full account of the extent of this debt has yet to be produced: "[A] number of ideas at the heart of Whitman’s literary vision — his pantheism, materialism, cosmopolitanism, reconciliation of evil and death, and conceptions of both providence and virtue — were strongly indebted to Stoic thought." (Chitrarasu and Hill, 2023)
A karmic overview of his past lives would help, of course, since he was the source of his own inspiration. He was simply paraphrasing himself.
According to Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control so, whatever happens, we should accept it all calmly and dispassionately. However, he adds, all individuals are responsible for their own actions. These we should examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. His teachings were written down and published posthumously by his pupil, Arrian, and influenced later thinkers like Marcus Aurelius (Dag Hammerskjöld). Curiously, Epictetus spent his youth in Rome as the slave of a wealthy freedman who was secretary to Nero. His life thus straddled the lowest and highest in society, the poor and the imperial.
Regarded as the father of American poetry, if not as the greatest of all US poets, Walt Whitman had previously been the esteemed English spiritual writer and contemplative mystic, Walter Hilton (c.1340 – 1396). His best treatise, The Scale of Perfection, is a classic of mysticism not unlike Leaves of Grass with its warm, wise and wondrous words. He was then an Augustine canon, a Cambridge scholar, and ascetic hermit. Already prior to that, as Epictetus, he'd been enslaved, persecuted and exiled (or had left kith and kin to avoid it). His philosophy combined Cynic and Stoic ideals, emphasising freedom, morality and humanity.
Long before that he'd been Diogenes of Sinope (412 – 323 BCE), the wandering Greek philosopher who co-founded the Cynic school. Cynicism was a philosophy based on asceticism, renouncing social conventions, seeking simplicity and self-sufficiency. From the Greek word for a dog, 'cyon', 'cynic' was a derisive epithet for such ascetics who lived as social outcasts, and Diogenes was the most celebrated Cynic of them all. He lived eccentrically on the streets, coarsely clothed, eating scraps. He was openly disdainful of luxurious clothing and acquired learning, exemplifying instead the practical goodness of natural austerity. Far from being despised, he was greatly esteemed and many legends grew around him. Most famously, he wandered the streets in broad daylight saying he was looking for an honest man. Wholly concerned with practical wisdom. he apparently left no literary legacy, although some spurious works were subsequently attributed to him.
"As honest words may not sound fine,
Fine words may not be honest ones.
An honest man does not argue, and
an arguer may not be honest.
The knowers are not learned men,
And learned men may never know."
— Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching
Here again we find him paraphrasing himself without pride or pretension. Having previously appeared as the legendary Chinese sage and prophet of gentleness, Lao Tzu, he lived quietly and taught Tao by example. Alas, his example went largely unnoticed. As librarian in the imperial archives he despaired of humanity's spiritual ignorance and resolved to leave China. Legend has it that he was stopped by a guard at the Great Wall and not allowed to pass until he had recorded all his wisdom. It was thus that he wrote the masterly Tao Teh Ching, the so-called Book of the Virtuous Way of Life, a mystical poem of eighty-one verses, upon which his eminence in posterity rests. It is the most celebrated and translated work of all Chinese literature. Having reluctantly committed the incommunicable truth of Tao to writing, he deserted China and headed westward for some unknown destination. Later legend romanticised that he reappeared in India as the Buddha. This is not entirely fabricated. Lao Tzu was actually an incarnation of the Dhuman-Adamic Laosuphu, second son of Enos el Enoch (not to be confused with the biblical prophet), who oversouled the Adi Buddha the Primordial Buddha (shown here). Esoterically, all Buddhas are of this Dhuman-Adamic lineage; that is, direct descendants of Adam el Daoud.
While 'Lao Tzu' is in fact a title, much like 'Caesar' or 'Pope', this is indeed the original legendary Lao Tzu of Tao Teh Ching fame. He is affectionately known through the ages as the Old Wise Man and the Good Gray Poet.
"The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
— Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1840
Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 – 1961), in a life cut short by circumstances we cannot fathom, still managed to set a benchmark for greatness. Following his tragic death, John F Kennedy said apologetically: “I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century.” (1961)
Three weeks before his ill-fated trip to Africa, Hammarskjöld penned a thought to himself, dated 24 August 1961:
“Is this a new land,
in a different reality from today's?
Or have I lived there,
before this day?”
Death comes to us all, Hammarskjöld knew, but not necessarily at the time of our own choosing: “Do not seek death. Death will find you,” he reflected in his meditative diary (Markings, published posthumously in 1964). Two thousand years earlier, Rome’s wisest emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote virtually the same lines in his Meditations: “It is not death that a man should fear. You will meet it.” Hammarskjöld wanted Africa to have its second chance after colonisation. He wanted Africans to shape their own destiny, eventually. Europe had been through this process itself, three-or-four times before, ever since Attila the Hun came thundering through. Hammarskjöld wanted to give Africa its heart back or, rather, to prevent Congo from being plucked in two. By 1960 the continent had become the great rift valley of the world, divided on the one hand by America and Russia, and on the other by the British, French and Belgians. More than anything else, Hammarskjöld wanted stability, security, and freedom from fear, as well as an end to the Cold War in Africa. In short, world peace and universal order. Plus more silence and time to meditate himself. But the ocean swell had picked him up and so he rose with it. Already in the 1950s, Hammarskjöld had intervened to settle conflicts around the Suez Canal, then a faultline between the West and the East. He also tried to stabilise matters between Israel and the Arab states. How different that could have been today?
Both Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev shared a dislike for Hammarskjöld’s initiatives; for his ability to shape events beyond their reach. This was not new, of course, as world powers have never liked a Swede with attitude. Remember what happened to Gustavus Adolphus, the celebrated king of Sweden during the Thirty Years War? He resisted the Habsburgs and the conquering Catholics in Europe — and was eventually killed doing so. As Adolphus treated Vienna and Rome, so Hammarskjöld handled Moscow and Washington. He was after all the same soul, one and the same Archon, and he wouldn’t bow to either. Curiously, Adolphus and Hammarskjöld share many attributes, both in life and death. They both died with grass in their hands and, allegedly, a wound to the head. If these allegations are proven true, then both men may have been executed. However, beside their remarkable physical likeness, these two men saw themselves as representing the interests of both the nation and the individual; of the ruling elite as well as the common man: “I am born to live and die for the common good and well-being of my people. My destiny is knotted into theirs.” (Adolphus, Coronation speech, 1617). Hammarskjöld too was a man who bound rulers to their citizens and, like Charlemagne, wove their collective desitiny into an inseparable knot. Charlemagne not only united the isolated peoples of Europe, albeit brutally, but also stabilised East-West relations in a peripheral medieval world. Likewise, Hammarskjöld strove for this in a modern context and today his legacy survives through the Council of Europe. Uncannily, legend has it that both men were found seated after death and in possession of a book, and by some unusual coincidence, Dag Hammarskjöld’s three middle names are phonetically similar to that of Charlemagne = Carl Hjalmar Agne.
We trace his other lives under the Archons of Arcturus, including his link to Augustus Caesar (portrayed here at centre of Charlemagne's cross).