Language of the Birds (LoB)
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Fulcanelli’s Mystery of the Cathedrals refers to the “language of the birds”, a secret or green language by which Adepts would communicate with each other as well as being considered a divine language.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_the_bird
Birds in alchemical engravings represent the principle of volatility and, if so, this could explain the idea of a “spiritual language“. If anyone has researched this topic before and can point me toward sources, that would be much appreciated.
I am wondering whether the LoB is:
- the ability for adepts to communicate with each other on a mental level
- a symbolism based on Nature pursuant to "as above, so below"
- ???
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I think the key to this is that with a certain degree of ajna activation and awakening, one becomes extremely psychic. In respect to the activation of the ChIH, some animals may be seen to have a natural development of it. Upon an opening like this, it is overwhelming at first and one may think one is going insane with the new communicative abilities (as doubt as to whether they are hallucinations as voices in the head). For instance a birds singing is somehow transmuted instantly into your language, and you here them a lot of times in deep gnosis singing to Nuit.
There is also instant psychic communication and reading of one's vibratory level of positivity or negativity, which is identical to one's level of general initiation.
See it is basically the Self's vibration. You are aware that some people "hum haw" around, they are slaves of restriction and obscuration. They emit negative vibes, and try to latch on to the positive to bring it down as they don't want anyone surpassing them (their word or dominance, which is in the mire of falsehood). It is actually important to take note of the people one is befriending early on, because in competitive atmospheres everyone will be seen as jealous of each other and trying to restrict each other. Once the higher level is attained, it is very funny to attune to what is being emitted from a person's vibration. It is this attuning to vibrations by people that could hear truly that has created the world appreciation of birds as conduits of spirit. Thus they were favorite symbols for god speaking to one, and that Odin sees and hears everything, etc. Basically until you are awakened, you won't here them truly which is the same thing as an evil thing hiding itself to not be seen, knowing inherently that its vibration is bad or confused.
I have found them to be most arcane in the early mornings of the spring, sometimes their Nuitian sounds and vibrations are stunningly beautiful, that the human cannot match. Note also the inherent spiritual nature of the bird, that it has evolved itself with the ability to sing so well, and compare it with dogs on the other hand that are stifled in this way. It seems dogs vibrate in Yesod primarily, the deep bass of Set, which the crickets sometimes do too as the scarab, but then reach insane group epiphanies. I myself think initiation is not limited to the human, but is more related to liberation of consciousness, and it is this liberated consciousness that is bursting with life and joy and wants to whistle all day in love and devotion to Nuit (the all), rather than curse it.
There is usually one or a couple birds transmitting the logos through song, I crack up every time I here the one that does the "pretty girl whistle" come on, that must be where it came from. It is also interesting to see the archetypality in the rhythms they use, as in what they have discovered to be the pristine mantras.
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93,
Most cultures seem to view creatures with wings as spiritual - as an archetypal idea, winged figures are very evocative in magick or visualization activities. The Aztecs saw butterflies as the souls of fallen warriors;Egypt gave us Horus, Mut (Maut) and the winged Isis and Nephthys, as well as Ma'at.
I've always suspected wings = a reference to Air = the Ruach in its activated form. There are also Christian traditions about birds' nest-building abilities showing they have access to a secret wisdom. The engineering required for most nests is beyond the intellectual capabilities of any animal save humans, even those animals with larger brain-cases.
A lot of alchemical philosophy seems to have crossed from the Middle East to Europe in early medieval times. I've not seen any scholarly proof of any connection, but the Iranian Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_of_the_Birds uses birds as symbols of different aspects of the human psyche, and I've often thought it had some alchemical meanings in it. In the poem, a wise hoopoe leads many birds to see the fabulous winged beast called the Simorgh; only 30 survive the journey without weakening or failing through having selfish motives.
Another connection between birds and alchemy is the sheer beauty of their colors. They represent an advanced stage of perfection, when the beauty of the world around us begins to reveal itself.
93 93/93,
EM
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93
Thanks to all for thoughtful comments - a pleasant surprise. Just to riff on a few thoughts.
I am interested in The Conference of the Birds, as well as the idea of “transmitting the logos through song”. In this context the birds seem to represent less of the rationalizing and duality-bound intellect and more of the liberated consciousness. Where Adam McLean has noted animals in alchemical engravings, with their four legs, symbolize the principle of fixity whereas birds symbolize volatility, I am reminded of the pedantic academic vs. playful adept. Perhaps the key lies in the fluidity of sounds, the spontaneity and freedom of expression, to what otherwise sounds like twittering nonsense.
Fulcanelli brings up the phonetic cabala - a sort of Cockney rhyming slang for adepts - in connection with the LoB, pursuant to which the secret meaning is found in sounds rather than literal meaning of words. Thus the name of his disciple Canseliet discloses “quand sel y est”. Orpheus instructs his wife: follow my voice, distinguishing between surface appearances and essence, and his fatal look back can be interpreted only as a failure to believe in himself. But I am not convinced the key to the LoB - the language of the adepts - lies in the phonetic cabala or *any rules *for that matter. Otherwise how do you explain AC forgetting the phrases to some invocation and reciting **Greenland‘s Icy Mountains **to great effect?
If anything, the LoB suggests the secret is where you least expect to find it. Usually that means right under your nose.
93 93/93
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@h2h said
"Fulcanelli’s Mystery of the Cathedrals refers to the “language of the birds”, a secret or green language by which Adepts would communicate with each other as well as being considered a divine language ... If anyone has researched this topic before and can point me toward sources, that would be much appreciated."
The following is an article by Rene Guenon on the symbolism and meaning of the Language of the Birds:
www.worldwisdom.com/uploads/pdfs/28.pdf
"...this conquest essentially implies the reintegration into the center of the human state, that is, into the point where communication is established with the higher states of the being. It is this communication which is represented by the understanding of the language of the birds ..." -Rene Guenon
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In respect to the language of birds, I read a review on amazon.com stating that in Mary anne atwoods "A Suggestive Inquiry Into the Hermetic Mystery" that one would discover her secret meaning if one was familiar with the language of birds, but of course I am not, and found her book to be incredible thick, word wise, that is. So I am curious, this LOB, or green language if thats what its called, does this mean that one can uncover occult implications within the text itself, or just mean that one is adept at alchemical symbolism?
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An interesting read concerning this lost sacred language is in Mitzi De Whitt's book "Nearly All and Almost Everything" where she mathematically ties together the 22 Shruti, 22 Tree of Life paths and Gurdjieff's Fourfold Works.
I think that Rudolph Steiner had some very insightful things to say about this also. Primordial vibrations manifest in the physical and how they were used to commune with higher divinities.
It is also interesting how Just Intonation tuning is the scale of nature.
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93,
"this could explain the idea of a “spiritual language“."
There is a language of 'geometry'. It feels like it's all inside you somehow. (Although once in an experience I [to abbreviate] realized I was in the middle of a solar system and could 'feel' everything, every relationship, the space as a thing too, and that a Universe was literally "an Idea incarnate.") I don't know how that relates to verbal languages though.
I often have had a problem with english, particularly when I'm feeling "in the center" as I call it (in spirit, some might say). It's like sound has a geometric shape underlying it, and the shapes have meaning (maybe from the above, not sure). And the meanings that english means 'in sound' is completely not what it means in 'truth' (the geometries). Obviously, this is a little difficult to explain.
Often I've needed a sound that I can feel inside me, in working with ... energy, but I can't find a consonant to make it work. I go through the whole alphabet. It feels like a couple of them combined plus part of another. It sounds so impossible when put in words like this.
Sometimes in my inner-world work, I am given something like a name, and I can feel that a given sound has 'depth'. Like in vowels, as if it is twice the "amount" of that sound somehow, but deep not 'wide' (wide as in stretched out 'in time' as holding or doubling the vowel would be in ordinary language).
It's almost as if, in a certain state of reception, language becomes 3D-plus, but the actual body of it in our reality is ever a flatlander.
I haven't the vaguest idea how this might related to birds. It's simply a response to the part about what might be a spiritual language.
93 93/93,
RC