Da Vinci Code
I bet you all thought I’d gone for good eh? Well, bad luck - it was just a server outage on the host’s end.
So I’ve been noticing this Da Vinci Code mania (difficult not to but with the ‘Sleep Alert’ gone to eleven some people might manage it) and it strikes me it has a strong connection (at root level) with Edward Campell’s (see below) theories of ‘the Hidden Guardians’.
But fear not - I am not about to discuss the brawling obscenity that is both book and film slavering mindlessly under the title given above: no, I am just hacked off to the nth degree with having to hear unmitigated nonsense about this irrelevancy at every turn so I thought I would do some posts about the real mystery of Rennes le Chateau.
Only this isn’t it (maybe tomorrow) because it got me thinking of something else - or continuing thinking about the ‘abandoning esotericism’ theme - and yes, I cantie it in!
It strikes me that such things as the DVC and the earlier Holy Blood, Holy Grail have a mass appeal because they touch on a truth: that there may be a group of people who are ‘behind the scenes’ and who have - for want of a better word - wisdom. Of course, in popular myth these ‘secret people’ may be good or bad (or, as Campbell points out in relation to John Fowles’ The Magus, neutral) but the point is that they have access to a different type of knowledge.
This idea is implicit in Gurdjieff too - not only with the Sarmoun Society but in the concept of the Cathedral Builders (and even megalith builders) of Europe. The idea being that the great works of art of the past (again the tie in with Da Vinci) such as the great gothic Cathedrals, the pyramids and other architectural monuments may be the products of a ‘school’. The subtext of course is that a genuine school would be capable of creating ‘objective art’ and works of such mastery that they are renowned through subsequent history.
I have always believed this - and it was one of the key factors (ie most attractive) that drew me to esoteric studies in the first place. And here’s the tie-in: that’s what we all yearn for - the magic, the ‘more-ness’ than everyday life. All us ‘seekers’ look for it (it is of course on one level the ‘Grail quest’ itself) and judging by the response to the original Baignent/Leigh books and now, Brown’s, a lot of other people do too.
But - and here is the great disappointment - it really isn’t like that. You are never going to find that group that is capable (or even tries) to work towards some modern equivalent of the Gothic Cathedrals. Never going to be part of that experimental Pythagorean school. Never going to see a ‘Rennaissance’ of great art works in the traditions of the masters.
That’s all fair enough in a way and there are obviously reason for it that I will never be able to comprehend. But it’s the paltry coin that we are palmed-off with as a substitute that seems to be the slap in the face.
Perhaps. as Campell implies in his book, one can only work when ‘the Solar Wind blows’ - and perhaps we are now in a period of stasis because the wind is still. That may well be true - Shah stopped his groups apparently a long while ago and this may be significant in this regard. What I am wondering about is all the rest of these groups which show all the signs of being ‘far from satisfactory’.
I’ve fulminated enough on this issue now though. Time to move on. Austin Osman Spare anyone?
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