Memory, Magick & “Aleister
Crowley’s The Rite of Mercury” CD Review by Mark Dalton www.eleusive.com
Memory.
It’s a wonderful thing. For many, if not most of us, memory comes
like a gift. We use it without much awareness to keep track of
what we are doing and supposed to do, where we have been and where we
need to go as our lives flow along. We have treasured memories we keep,
as in a jeweled box, treasures we can get out, when we have a moment,
unpack and relive an especially happy occasion. Sometimes
memories catch us by surprise, either as a delight (a friend’s face
from long ago, the rush of first love, a ball caught, chord played,
wave ridden), or as a gut-clenching fright (the sickening crunch of
auto impact, an angry parent’s slap on the side of the head, a slip on
the side of a mountain). Memory just works, most of the time,
seemingly by itself, without effort (although we may sometimes find
ourselves fishing for just the right word, a name, a note, a date).
There’s a
different kind of memory, however. Disciplined, structured
memory. We do well to remember that written history, as near as
we can tell, extends back only, perhaps, 6,000 years. Before
that, memory was all there was. Culture was carried in
memory. Humanity as we know it today, Homo Sapiens, has been
around for at least 40,000 years. People as smart and presumably
as articulate as anyone you know. Relationships as complex and fraught
with peril as relationships are today. Families and clans and
tribes and communities needing organization, boundaries, rules and
protocols to function effectively and to provide for the common
good. Skills to be passed along, histories to recount,
explanations of who we are and where we came from, and why we find
ourselves here, to be passed along from generation to generation.
All this information and structure carried in memory. Committed
to memory in an organized way, to be pulled out quickly and reliably
when needed – not just for enjoyment and reflection, but for survival.
Memory is
integral to the discipline and practice of Magick. Generally
speaking, the more powerful the Magick, the more complex the work, and
the more there is to remember. One of the enormous differences
between an enthusiast of Magick like me (one who reads, studies, and
enjoys unraveling some of the secrets of Magick and the finding of
themselves in the delightful company of others in the alternate stream
of occult history) and a magician, a true magician, is the possession
of a disciplined, highly functional memory. One capable of
absorbing long spells and rituals, often in obscure languages (in the
case of Enochian Magick, not even a human language) - obscure language
and sounds that simply must be memorized as received, without many of
the usual mnemonic tricks speakers use to keep themselves moving
forward through a long recitation.
From my
administrative perch in the mid-levels of a state government
“super-agency” with 14,000 employees, I am surrounded by and, at times,
in danger of being totally immersed in a rapidly flowing stream of
momentarily important but ultimately trivial bits of information,
appearing in front of me by the moment, clamoring for attention only
long enough to be quickly read, responded to (quickly), thrown into
someone else’s stream, tossed into a bucket beside me, or thrown
back. The conditioning caused by years and years of this daily
minute-by-minute “read, respond, route or ignore” activity, shared by
millions of other overloaded office workers in electronic sweatshops
around the globe, is to discourage retention, to let this information
pass in and out of memory seamlessly, with the minimum necessary
comprehension, little or no reflection, and immediate disposition.
This
conditioning, of course, stands in almost exact opposition to the work
of the magician, which is, in great part, to thoughtfully and carefully
read and absorb volumes of information; to internally organize and
reflect upon that information at length; to move from complex detail to
comprehensive understanding; and to retain both these details and the
organizational structure of this information in memory for general and
specific ritual use.
At the recent
NOTOCON VII in Seattle, as part of his excellent presentation on The
Book of the Law, Bob Stein spoke about the utility of memorizing
parts
of the Book, having it literally in mind for quick comparisons and
discussion. Bob bemoaned that fact that memorizing poetry is no
longer a standard part of the educational training of young
minds. The famed Renaissance Magus and Gnostic Saint, Giordano
Bruno, would no doubt agree with Bob on this point. Bruno was
renowned for his gifts of memory, and taught others his method for
organizing memory as he traveled across Europe in the waning years of
the 16th Century. Bruno memorized vast amounts of text, whether
written in Italian, English, French, German, or, of course,
Latin.
The “Memory
Palace” technique of training the mind to accomplish such feats, used
by Bruno and the Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci was recently well
described as a technique used by America’s favorite evil genius, the
fictional psychiatrist and cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lector. “The
memory palace was a mnemonic system well known to ancient scholars, and
much information was preserved in them through the Dark Ages while
Vandals burned the book. Like scholars before him, Dr. Lector
stores an enormous amount of information keyed to objects in his
thousand rooms…”
The Rites of
Eleusis are being staged here in the Northwest by a troupe of
musicians, dancers, and actors who have, to a degree, a symbiotic
relationship with Horizon Oasis, and these productions offer a
remarkable opportunity to see Crowley’s Rites staged as Rock Operas,
with all the advantages of modern musical forms, instruments, recording
techniques, lighting and special effects, along with imaginative sets
and beautiful costuming. But that’s not all. These
productions also offer an opportunity to see remarkable feats of
memory, particularly by Jon Sewell, who, along with Melissa Holm, is
the driving force behind these productions – principal composer,
guitarist, primary vocalist, frequent leading man. Setting
Crowley’s complex ideas and lengthy recitations to music is, in itself,
quite a feat – but remembering these complex verbal and musical
structures over the length of an evening’s performance, delivered with
unflagging verve and enthusiasm, is a wonder to behold. Sewell’s
many years of training and experience as both musician and magician are
brought to bear on this task, and he truly shines.
In a recent
conversation, Sewell agreed that staging the Rites of Eleusis indeed
involves feats of memory. The length, complexity and variety of
Crowley’s libretto (for such it becomes in an opera) present a
challenge to the performers. Attaching prompts to memory helps,
according to Sewell. The stage movements mapped out for the
performers helps to prompt what comes next, for example. Setting
the words in a context of music is helpful in itself, as music and
spoken language involve different parts of the brain, and linking the
two in context can help a performer’s memory stay on track.
The form of a
song (as in verse, verse, chorus, verse), if such a form exists, also
helps to break up the song into smaller consecutive pieces that can be
memorized in order and linked together in a chain. However, a
piecemeal form of memorization can also present problems, says Sewell,
if it is not done in order – memorizing favorite sections of the Book
of the Law in a random way, for example, can make committing the
entire
work to memory more of a challenge, when the order of their appearance
becomes of paramount importance.
Attaching words
to images was an early method of memorization for Sewell. He
memorized the Tarot deck, card by card, with each card and its image
prompting memory of the associated characteristics of the card.
This method is similar to Bruno’s “memory palace,” where memories are
associated with, and organized into rooms in the palace – entering each
room along the great palace hallway gives access to different topics
and their more detailed information. Meditation; attaining
certain mental states that lend themselves to “loading” information
into memory, is also important. Working with memory when walking,
sitting in a hot tub or bath, or simply setting quiet time aside for
memory work is important. Memorizing is work, however enjoyable,
and it must be done in a structured and repetitive way to be
successful. Sewell adds that memorized material must also
be maintained – pull it up and work with it periodically – “use it or
lose it” in short.
“Aleister
Crowley’s The Rite of Mercury” has not yet been staged by Sewell, Holm
and company, so this is of necessity a review only of the CD.
First off, I can say with certainty that readers who enjoyed the
previous productions of “Luna” and “Venus” are going to enjoy this
music! To these ears, as a stand-alone CD “Mercury” is a leap
forward from previous productions. The production values
are higher. The performances are more relaxed and powerful.
The arrangements, both instrumentally, and especially vocally, are more
complex and play to the performers’ strengths more
effectively. I’ve listened to this CD many times, both in
my car and at home, and it stands up well as a musical composition – it
is enjoyable and rewarding to listen to on its own. The problems
one often runs into with recordings of musical stage performances – the
music taking a back seat to associated stage pageantry – are almost
entirely absent here. Even the long cuts on the CD easily capture
and sustain the listener’s interest, due to their complex mixes of
instrumental, vocal and lyrical content. “Orpheus Invokes
Hermes,” just a little shy of eight minutes, is one of my favorite
sections, with Sewell’s guitar and vocals right out front, alternating
between exhilarating power chord hooks and intertwining baroque vocal
melodies, a constantly shifting musical tapestry that never lets
up! “The Invocation of Thoth,” another long piece, again sustains
musical interest throughout, leaving one a bit dazzled by this troupe’s
rapidly evolving compositional (Thea and Sewell here) vocal and
instrumental prowess. The overall production and sound are,
again, a treat to the ears. I don’t want to
completely unpack this jeweled box – I’ll leave that happy task to you,
reader and listener. I must call out Daniel Randall’s excellent
work on bass, however – a fine tone and a wonderful counterpoint to
Sewell’s guitar at many points – Melissa Holm’s composition “The
Hexagram Ritual,” with its mysterious sliding fretless bass line and
strong vocal by Andrew Bryce is a high point of this fine collection of
magickal music.
Sewell persists
in referring to this crew as “an amateur theater group,” but the term
“amateur” here harkens back to the Victorian use of the term in the
best sense – “a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity
for pleasure rather than for financial benefit.” The pleasure
that Sewell, Holm and company derive from their loving work is both
evident and contagious. I suggest that
you partake!
