(For other posts on the continuing triumph of entertainment
over truth, see a Log24 search for "Night at the Museum.")
See also yesterday's post When the Men and today's previous post.
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Blade and Chalice at the Museum
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Friday, February 3, 2017
Raiders of the Lost Chalice
Personally, I prefer
the religious symbolism
of Hudson Hawk .
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Wednesday, May 8, 2019
When the Men
In Memoriam . . .
"When the men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go …."
"The I Ching encodes the geometry of the fabric of spacetime."
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Sunday, October 21, 2018
For Connoisseurs of Bad Art
Yesterday afternoon's post "Study in Blue and Pink" featured
an image related to the "Blade and Chalice" of Dan Brown …
Requiem for a comics character known as "The Blue Blade" —
"We all float down here."
About the corresponding "Pink Chalice," the less said the better.
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Saturday, October 20, 2018
Study in Blue and Pink
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Up and Down
Heraclitus, Fragment 60 (Diels number):
|
The way up and the way down is one and the same. ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή hodòs áno káto mía kaì houté |
See also Blade and Chalice and, for a less Faustian
approach, Universe of Discourse.
Further context: Not Theology.
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Grail
Today's online Telegraph has an obituary of The Troggs'
lead singer Reg Presley, who died yesterday at 71.
The unusually brilliant style of of the unsigned obituary
suggests a review of the life of a fellow Briton—
F. L. Lucas (1894-1967), author of Style .
According to Wikipedia, Virginia Woolf described Lucas as
"pure Cambridge: clean as a breadknife, and as sharp."
Lucas's acerbic 1923 review of The Waste Land suggests,
in the context of Woolf's remark and of the Blade and Chalice
link at the end of today's previous post, a search for a grail.
Voilà.
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Arsenal
The previous post discussed some fundamentals of logic.
The name “Boole” in that post naturally suggests the
concept of Boolean algebra . This is not the algebra
needed for Galois geometry . See below.
Some, like Dan Brown, prefer to interpret symbols using
religion, not logic. They may consult Diamond Mandorla,
as well as Blade and Chalice, in this journal.
See also yesterday’s Universe of Discourse.
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Cover Art
The Misalignment of Mars and Venus
A death in Sarasota on Sunday leads to a weblog post from Tuesday
that suggests a review of Dan Brown's graphic philosophy—
|
From The Da Vinci Code : Langdon pulled a pen from his pocket. “Sophie are you familiar with the modern icons for male and female?” He drew the common male symbol ♂ and female symbol ♀. “Of course,” she said. “These,” he said quietly, are not the original symbols for male and female. Many people incorrectly assume the male symbol is derived from a shield and spear, while the female represents a mirror reflecting beauty. In fact, the symbols originated as ancient astronomical symbols for the planet-god Mars and the planet-goddess Venus. The original symbols are far simpler.” Langdon drew another icon on the paper. ∧
“This symbol is the original icon for male ,” he told her. “A rudimentary phallus.” “Quite to the point,” Sophie said. “As it were,” Teabing added. Langdon went on. “This icon is formally known as the blade , and it represents aggression and manhood. In fact, this exact phallus symbol is still used today on modern military uniforms to denote rank.” “Indeed.” Teabing grinned. “The more penises you have, the higher your rank. Boys will be boys.”
Langdon winced. “Moving on, the female symbol, as you might imagine, is the exact opposite.” He drew another symbol on the page. “This is called the ∨ Sophie glanced up, looking surprised. Langdon could see she had made the connection. “The chalice,” he said, “resembles a cup or vessel, and more important, it resembles the shape of a woman’s womb. This symbol communicates femininity, womanhood, and fertility.” |
Langdon's simplified symbols, in disguised form, illustrate
a musical meditation on the misalignment of Mars and Venus—
This was adapted from an album cover by "Meyers/Monogram"—
See also Secret History and The Story of N.
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The Sinatra Code
|
From The Da Vinci Code, Chapter 56 Sophie stared at Teabing a long moment and then turned to Langdon. “The Holy Grail is a person?” Langdon nodded. “A woman, in fact.” From the blank look on Sophie’s face, Langdon could tell they had already lost her. He recalled having a similar reaction the first time he heard the statement. It was not until he understood the symbology behind the Grail that the feminine connection became clear. Teabing apparently had a similar thought. “Robert, perhaps this is the moment for the symbologist to clarify?” He went to a nearby end table, found a piece of paper, and laid it in front of Langdon. Langdon pulled a pen from his pocket. “Sophie are you familiar with the modern icons for male and female?” He drew the common male symbol ♂ and female symbol ♀. “Of course,” she said. “These,” he said quietly, are not the original symbols for male and female. Many people incorrectly assume the male symbol is derived from a shield and spear, while the female represents a mirror reflecting beauty. In fact, the symbols originated as ancient astronomical symbols for the planet-god Mars and the planet-goddess Venus. The original symbols are far simpler.” Langdon drew another icon on the paper. ∧
“This symbol is the original icon for male ,” he told her. “A rudimentary phallus.” “Quite to the point,” Sophie said. “As it were,” Teabing added. Langdon went on. “This icon is formally known as the blade , and it represents aggression and manhood. In fact, this exact phallus symbol is still used today on modern military uniforms to denote rank.” “Indeed.” Teabing grinned. “The more penises you have, the higher your rank. Boys will be boys.” Langdon winced. “Moving on, the female symbol, as you might imagine, is the exact opposite.” He drew another symbol on the page. “This is called the ∨ Sophie glanced up, looking surprised. Langdon could see she had made the connection. “The chalice,” he said, “resembles a cup or vessel, and more important, it resembles the shape of a woman’s womb. This symbol communicates femininity, womanhood, and fertility.” Langdon looked directly at her now. “Sophie, legend tells us the Holy Grail is a chalice—a cup. But the Grail’s description as a chalice is actually an allegory to protect the true nature of the Holy Grail. That is to say, the legend uses the chalice as a metaphor for something far more important.” “A woman,” Sophie said. “Exactly.” Langdon smiled. “The Grail is literally the ancient symbol for womankind, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the goddess, which of course has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. The power of the female and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the rise of the predominantly male Church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean. It was man , not God, who created the concept of ‘original sin,’ whereby Eve tasted of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the sacred giver of life, was now the enemy.” “I should add,” Teabing chimed, “that this concept of woman as life-bringer was the foundation of ancient religion. Childbirth was mystical and powerful. Sadly, Christian philosophy decided to embezzle the female’s creative power by ignoring biological truth and making man the Creator. Genesis tells us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Woman became an offshoot of man. And a sinful one at that. Genesis was the beginning of the end for the goddess.” “The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in codes as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned nonbelievers, and forbidden pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” |
Happy birthday to Harrison Ford.
One for my baby…
∧
One more for the road.
∨
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Friday, April 15, 2005
Friday April 15, 2005
Leonardo Day
In memory of Leonardo and of Chen Yifei (previous entry), a link to the Sino-Judaic Institute’s review of Chen’s film “Escape to
Click on the above for details.
Related material
from Log24.net:
Saturday, December 27, 2003 10:21 PM
Toy
“If little else, the brain is an educational toy. While it may be a frustrating plaything — one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them — it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled; you don’t have to put it together on Christmas morning.
The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometimes they’d rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs. The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated. If you don’t play some people’s game, they say that you have ‘lost your marbles,’ not recognizing that,
while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain.
One brain game that is widely, if poorly, played is a gimmick called ‘rational
“I took the number twenty-four and there’s twenty-four ways of expressing the numbers one, two, three, four. And I assigned one kind of line to one, one to two, one to three, and one to four. One was a vertical line, two was a horizontal line, three was diagonal left to right, and four was diagonal right to left. These are the basic kind of directions that lines can take…. the absolute ways that lines can be drawn. And I drew these things as parallel lines very close to one another in boxes. And then there was a system of changing them so that within twenty-four pages there were different arrangements of actually sixteen squares, four sets of four. Everything was based on four. So this was kind of a… more of a… less of a rational… I mean, it gets into the whole idea of methodology.”
Yes, it does.
See Art Wars, Poetry’s Bones, and Time Fold.
Friday, December 26, 2003 7:59 PM
ART WARS, St. Stephen’s Day:
The Magdalene Code
Got The Da Vinci Code for Xmas.
From page 262:
When Langdon had first seen The Little Mermaid, he had actually gasped aloud when he noticed that the painting in Ariel’s underwater home was none other than seventeenth-century artist Georges de la Tour’s The Penitent Magdalene — a famous homage to the banished Mary Magdalene — fitting decor considering the movie turned out to be a ninety-minute collage of blatant symbolic references to the lost sanctity of Isis, Eve, Pisces the fish goddess, and, repeatedly, Mary Magdalene.
Related Log24 material —
The Da Vinci Code, pages 445-446:
“The blade and chalice?” Marie asked. “What exactly do they look like?”
Langdon sensed she was toying with him, but he played along, quickly describing the symbols.
A look of vague recollection crossed her face. “Ah, yes, of course. The blade represents all that is masculine. I believe it is drawn like this, no?” Using her index finger, she traced a shape on her palm.
“Yes,” Langdon said. Marie had drawn the less common “closed” form of the blade, although Langdon had seen the symbol portrayed both ways.
“And the inverse,” she said, drawing again upon her palm, “is the chalice, which represents the feminine.”
“Correct,” Langdon said….
… Marie turned on the lights and pointed….
“There you are, Mr. Langdon. The blade and chalice.”….
“But that’s the Star of Dav–“
Langdon stopped short, mute with amazement as it dawned on him.
The blade and chalice.
Fused as one.
The Star of David… the perfect union of male and female… Solomon’s Seal… marking the Holy of Holies, where the male and female deities — Yahweh and Shekinah — were thought to dwell.
Related Log24 material —
May 25, 2003:
Star Wars.
Concluding remark of April 15, 2005:
For a more serious approach to portraits of
redheads, see Chen Yifei’s work.
Star Wars.
Concluding remark of April 15, 2005:
For a more serious approach to portraits of
redheads, see Chen Yifei’s work.
Friday, December 26, 2003
Friday December 26, 2003
ART WARS, St. Stephen’s Day:
The Magdalene Code
Got The Da Vinci Code for Xmas.
From page 262:
When Langdon had first seen The Little Mermaid, he had actually gasped aloud when he noticed that the painting in Ariel’s underwater home was none other than seventeenth-century artist Georges de la Tour’s The Penitent Magdalene — a famous homage to the banished Mary Magdalene — fitting decor considering the movie turned out to be a ninety-minute collage of blatant symbolic references to the lost sanctity of Isis, Eve, Pisces the fish goddess, and, repeatedly, Mary Magdalene.
Related Log24 material —
The Da Vinci Code, pages 445-446:
“The blade and chalice?” Marie asked. “What exactly do they look like?”
Langdon sensed she was toying with him, but he played along, quickly describing the symbols.
A look of vague recollection crossed her face. “Ah, yes, of course. The blade represents all that is masculine. I believe it is drawn like this, no?” Using her index finger, she traced a shape on her palm.
“Yes,” Langdon said. Marie had drawn the less common “closed” form of the blade, although Langdon had seen the symbol portrayed both ways.
“And the inverse,” she said, drawing again upon her palm, “is the chalice, which represents the feminine.”
“Correct,” Langdon said….
… Marie turned on the lights and pointed….
“There you are, Mr. Langdon. The blade and chalice.”….
“But that’s the Star of Dav–“
Langdon stopped short, mute with amazement as it dawned on him.
The blade and chalice.
Fused as one.
The Star of David… the perfect union of male and female… Solomon’s Seal… marking the Holy of Holies, where the male and female deities — Yahweh and Shekinah — were thought to dwell.
Related Log24 material —
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