ET IN ARCADIA EGO

Important note!

At the time of composing this work (in October 1997) there were many important and extremely relevant things that I didn't know and was to find out about only much later on, from 2007 onwards - particularly through (a) a very active process of clearing myself of the dark force interference and deceptions that affect every single person on the planet, and (b) taking up a method that I call energy testing, which has enabled me with great care and vigilance to obtain normally 'hidden' information from the deepest levels of my consciousness, bypassing the dark force mediation that makes ALL channelling and nearly all dowsing not merely unreliable but dangerously misleading (i.e. even when its 'message' appears on the surface to be one of 'wisdom' and love). For one thing, I eventually came to understand that the historical man who today we know of as Jesus was not called that at all while he was alive. Most or all of the names by which he is recorded in the various scriptures and other historical documents are names that were retrospectively applied to him as part of the process of building up a legend - indeed largely a MYTH - about him.

Also, I now clearly understand that ALL religions and ALL 'spiritual', mystical or metaphysical traditions and 'teachings' are sourced from the dark force, with the clear aim to lure and manipulate people into outlooks and life pursuits that keep them turned away from genuine self actualization - the latter being the one way that people could clear themselves of dark force interference and control and actually become free and fully functioning (i.e. as fully positive, creative, clear-minded and loving beings).

That means that, sadly, the man who became known as Jesus was, as a supposedly great 'spiritual teacher', actually unawarely working for the dark force (as is the case with ANY 'spiritual teacher'), notwithstanding all his undoubtedly high ideals and extremely positive intentions. I say this not as just a crazy belief or warped 'article of faith', but through having found out the hard way - being led myself by the dark force in just that sort of way, towards being a supposedly great 'spiritual teacher' (albeit with serious attempts to destroy me because my clear-mindedness was too much of a threat to the dark force) - and once I'd got clear of all that deception for myself, it was then easy for me to see all the signs of just the same thing going on for ALL 'spiritual teachers', both present and past.

Had I known about these things in 1997, if I'd composed this work at all I'd have done so with a significantly different subtext in mind and most likely a different title, and there's NO WAY that I would have used the words that I did for the canonic Passion Chorale setting, which indeed I now view with good reason as pernicious crap. Those words are all following the conventional dark force sourced notion that we are weak and powerless and need to, or are supposed to, be led towards some future heaven (actually a seriously harmful illusory reality) by some great loving father figure. Such notions are all designed to keep us away from manifesting our underlying true nature (what self actualization is all about) and also get us creating illusory realities in our mindspace, which, particularly at the time of death, lead to our becoming virtually irretrievably ensnared by the dark force and committed to a reincarnational future that would horrify anyone beyond their worst imaginings if they came to really understand what was going on. I explain about this very troublesome agenda of the dark force in The True Nature of 'The Dark Force' and its Interference and Attacks.

So, rather than simply discard this really beautiful work - a needlessly destructive act - I still present it to the world, but with one great big caution, which I give below. It is the same caution that we need to take on board when listening to ANY work that is based on a religious or 'spiritual' theme (which latter is always sourced from the dark force for very troublesome purposes). So, if this work is to be avoided, then so too are Mozart's Requiem and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Handel's Messiah!

My caution is, thus, that we need to regard this work as presenting a legend - a myth in figurative, artistic form, relating to certain serious follies of humanity (i.e. in being led by the dark force into its clutches through 'spiritual' traditions instead of getting into a personal process of genuine self actualization) - and as NOT presenting an outlook or statement of faith that any sane and compos mentis person would hold on to or take up if they really understood what is going on. It is therefore necessary to keep detached from any apparent religious or 'spiritual' subtext of the work and allow oneself to enjoy the music 'as is', just filtering out the 'baggage' that comes with it.

In that way Et in Arcadia Ego can have deeper and more positive 'meaning' as an extremely deeply felt reflection of important aspects of human experience that are beyond simple description, belief or partisanship.

The plainsong Dies Irae chant was the initial idea that came to me and developed into this work. The very nature of the chant, rather than anything that I might seek to express, determined the mood of the piece, which has a certain sombreness and may seem to a casual listener to be sad and elegiac. I freely admit that my memory of the chant was in fact its rendering in Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Whether I've reproduced even that correctly isn't of consequence, however. I roughly transcribed the original plainsong chant from a recording of a plainsong requiem mass, but found that it was less amenable to my particular treatment than was the 'recollected Berlioz' version, which thus continued to form the main basis of the work, though sometimes with transient reversions to the original plainsong in the odd small detail.

When I started the composition I was reading the book The Tomb of God by Richard Andrews & Paul Schellenberger, which presented apparently strong evidence for the existence of a tomb containing Jesus' earthly remains in a mountainside near Rennes-le-Château in southern France. I was aware of a different and to me more persuasive set of evidence pointing to Jesus' final tomb being in Kashmir, but in the absence of any clear authority on the matter I felt that it was appropriate for artistic purposes for me to address the former scenario too. None of us can absolutely know what the actual historical truth was, for the only way to find out for sure now would be to go back in time to there and see for ourselves what happened for Jesus. No channelled 'information' on the subject (nor indeed any subject) is reliable, either, so there is no point in turning to such sources. (See Better Without Channelling.)

The important point that I had originally meant to emphasise in this work was that, as far as I could ascertain, Jesus survived the crucifixion and was teaching some sort of basic spirituality* rather than what we know as Christianity today (indeed, by definition he couldn't have been a Christian), and important 'spiritual' aspects of his teachings, such as enlightenment, individual responsibility and reincarnation, were subsequently suppressed by the religious authorities. However, regardless of any viewpoint of mine, my musical works are not meant to be acts of preaching, but of presenting scenarios that can be powerful experiences without the need to believe anything (and indeed are all the more powerful for keeping belief right out of it) - just as some Roman Catholic Mass settings are powerful works for myself and many other people who reject the whole Christianity belief system.  My works are thus meant to be experienced with open minds, not partisan attitudes either for or against particular scenarios.

* On the face of it, this was much, much more healthy and helpful than the overtly power / control agenda basis of actual religions, but it was really simply a more subtle dark force snare that was being set for the more aware people, who, deep within themselves, were seeking some means for genuine self actualization and to get clear of the restrictive controls of formal religion, and saw Jesus' actually still distorted attempts to promote genuine self actualization (i.e. distorted into 'spirituality') as their real way forward - because, sadly, they had no available information source to indicate to them that the real way forward was not 'spirituality' at all but something else again, which at that time apparently nobody was openly promoting. So, they followed and revered Jesus instead of getting on with genuine self actualization and becoming enlightened themselves.

Et in Arcadia Ego is contemplative in character, with only a little brief overt drama. For much of the time the chant melody proceeds with no significant tempo variation at a gentle 80 beats per minute. To me, the work is several things. It's a contemplation on death and the impermanence of everything. It's also a contemplation on the alleged tomb on the flank of Mont Cardou in southern France, which has been at the centre of so much mystery and confusion. And it's a contemplation on the extremely well intentioned but actually 'not fully there' attempts of the man who we nowadays call Jesus to introduce people to some semblance of self actualization (most unfortunately distorted into 'spirituality' or mysticism) instead of religion - in the context of the repressive might over the centuries of that icon of power / control agenda and mind control, the Roman Catholic Church, which latter sought to use all means at its disposal to destroy any documentary evidence about 'Jesus' that didn't toe the 'Party line' of the Church's brazenly bogus and false doctrines.

At least 'Jesus' was doing his level best to be honest with people, even though he was in important respects off the rails and leading everyone else likewise astray, thanks to his covert dark force interferences - but that cannot be said in the slightest degree about the Church, whose clear intent was to hide truth (replacing it with doctrine and belief) and to discourage all people from seeking it.

After the opening exposition of the original plainsong Dies Irae up to 'Judicanti responsura', the music consists of a series of canonic renderings, with some variation, of my altered version of the chant, separated by interludes, which latter are either homophonic chordal renderings of the chant, or different material. In fact, despite the apparent sombreness and elegiac character of the work, those who listen more deeply will find that it is not a sad work at all; it comes from an aspect of consciousness and of experience that transcends all mundane emotions. Upon contemplating death and impermanence the really aware and clear-minded person feels a rapt inner peace and joyfulness, combined with a limitless empathy with all people, rather than the various painful and negative emotions that our worldly cultures expect of us.

At one point quite early in the work, sandwiched between stormy renderings of the Dies Irae chant, emerges a setting of J.S. Bach's Passion Chorale*, which in this canonic form, full of clashes between the choral parts, has a spaciousness with a transcendent and timeless quality that lifts it into a very different realm of experience from the simple Earthly sadness of Bach's original chorale. This chorale then is worked together with the Dies Irae chant before the second stormy outburst of the latter. Apart from my variations of that chant and the brief appearance of the Passion Chorale, there is only one other melody -- an original one exotically harmonized in parallel minor chords, which is used in three of the interludes. On its first and second appearances the vibraphone picks out the notes of the first full phrase of the Dies Irae chant out of the new melody and its harmonization.

* As already noted, I nowadays dissociate myself from the words that I put to that music, and may well at some point find more suitable words to fit to the music there.

The final rendering of the chant in the work, in a chordally harmonized canonic form, is a sort of processional, which surges forward, expressing an unyielding conviction that one day the truth will be known, and the final sad echoes of it in the orchestra reaffirm that, yes, one day the truth will be known...

The words are taken from several sources, and three languages are represented. Apart from the cipher texts and ironic use of the Dies Irae text from the Latin Requiem Mass at the beginning and in two stormy passages a little later, all the texts are used to focus on teachings of Jesus that were excluded from or misrepresented in the New Testament of the Bible. In particular we have teachings of Jesus* on reincarnation and looking within oneself for 'salvation'. The only straight Biblical quote is a remarkable mistranslation, which is followed by a more correct translation (which, I hasten to add, doesn't mean that the original text, or indeed what 'Jesus' said, is necessarily correct!). The French texts are ciphers (or parts thereof) which, according to Andrews and Schellenberger, were part of the means by which the secret of the alleged final tomb of 'Jesus' was preserved and passed on through the centuries.

* I remind here that these quotes of Jesus are NOT meant by me in this work to be taken as teachings, but rather to be seen as parts of a picture (i.e. in sound) - in an important sense like very tastefully placed graffiti on a wall, that give some sort of beauty and 'meaning' to the particular wall without any need or indeed intent for the viewer to take any of those writings as a personal message to himself.

The motto 'et in Arcadia ego' had been used in various paintings and documents in earlier centuries to help draw the attention of cognoscenti to works in which certain geometric constructions had been encrypted, which, it has been claimed, were effectively maps showing the location of the site on Mont Cardou where the Great Secret of the Knights Templar was allegedly buried - which had generally (outside the Knights Templar), but, as far as I can tell, wrongly, been assumed to be Jesus. 'et in Arcadia ego' is actually an incomplete Latin sentence, because it lacks a verb. It should really read 'et in Arcadia ego sum', which means "And I am in Paradise".

As far as I can ascertain, what the historical 'Jesus' himself was teaching about 'paradise' or 'heaven' was confused and contradictory, for on the one hand he was telling people that it was something that is already here within us, and on the other hand he was also telling people that it was something that could come to them after their death if they had lived in a harmonious and positive way. While the former notion was getting close to what genuine self actualization is about, the latter notion was extremely harmful and perpetuating the seriously harmful deceits of the theistic religions generally, which claim that some sort of 'heaven' or 'paradise' state awaits people after their death if they'd done the right things while alive (and those supposedly 'right things' don't even include genuine self actualization!).

Furthermore, 'Jesus', because of his ignorance of the fullness of how the dark force interferes with people (including himself), made a seriously harmful mess of things by trying to use simplified terminology that ordinary people could understand, to try to describe what it is like to be enlightened and self actualized. He did know something about that from the teachings he received in the Buddhist community in the Ladakh - Kashmir region and quite likely India during his biblical 'missing years'.

So, instead of talking of non-duality and clarity, and distinguishing between enlightenment / self actualization on the one hand, and experiences and emotional states on the other, he made the usual total confusion that actually the religions do of the real situation, because instead of explaining to people about their true nature as manifestations of a non-dual fundamental (and, you could say, 'universal') consciousness, which is 'the Ultimate' as far as anyone can tell, he sought to lure people into accepting his teachings by still talking of 'paradise' or 'heaven' (i.e. in his particular terminology) as a sort of bait for them and not talking of the much more subtle concepts of opening our awareness to our underlying non-duality and getting into tune with 'What Is' - which is what genuine self actualization is about.

He also, apparently, also made the fundamental and pretty catastrophic error of the theistic religions generally in making out as though there were some benevolent fatherly presence that is higher than us - which completely scuppers any possible direction to genuine self actualization and opening to the real 'Ultimate', which is none other than our own deepest level of consciousness.

The very concept of 'paradise' or 'heaven', as well as any notion of an external 'God' or 'Spirit', comes to us from the dark force (through the religions and 'spiritual' traditions), for the purpose of luring people into illusory realities that ensnare the people so that they don't become enlightened or self actualized, and instead become increasingly captives of the dark force because of their emotional attachments - including attachment to notions of experiencing great happiness, joy, bliss, peace and so forth, and being loved and 'spiritually fondled' by some sort of loving father figure.

We find the real happiness and joyfulness and inner peace NOT by trying to find or attain it but by progressively clearing out from ourselves the issues - primarily emotional traumas (including those of any attached lost souls) - that block us off from the underlying vibrantly, joyfully positive, creative and loving true nature of every one of us. When you achieve that, through a genuine self actualization process, you come to understand what a trivial and mind-numbingly awful proposition 'paradise' or 'heaven' or having some sort of ongoing external father figure really represents.

---

Words sung by the choir

(Words in square brackets are my own alterations or insertions.)

1. Opening chant: basses

• Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla,
  Teste David cum Sybilla.
  Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Judex est venturus,
  Cuncta stricte discussurus!
  Tuba mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum,
  Coget omnes ante thronum.
  Mors stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura,
  Judicanti responsura. -- (part of the Dies Irae text from the Latin Requiem Mass)

2. Altos

• BERGERE PAS DE TENTATION QUE POUSSIN TENIERS GARDENT LA CLEF PAX DCLXXXI [=681=six-huit-un]
  PAR LA CROIX ET CE CHEVAL DE DIEU J'ACHEVE
  CE DAEMON DE GARDIEN A MIDI POMMES BLEUES, A MIDI -- (cipher text)

3. Basses

• SOLIS SACERDOTIBUS, ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU.
  A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT.
  ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU. ET IN ARCADIA EGO[, EGO SUM]. -- (cipher text)

4. Tutti (stormy)

• Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla,
  Teste David cum Sybilla.
  Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Judex est venturus,
  Cuncta stricte discussurus, cuncta stricte discussurus!

5. Tutti (in canon -- Bach's Passion Chorale tune)

• I vow to thee, my teacher, to be at one with thee.
  Upon all suff'ring beings, O shine compassionate light!
  And when we oft-times falter, by day or depth of night,
  Impart upon us blessings, that we may know our end. -- (original text by the Composer)

6. Tutti (simultaneous themes)

• Men: repeat of Passion Chorale (I vow to thee...)
• Women: cipher text (Solis sacerdotibus...)

7. Tutti (stormy)

• Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla,
  Teste David cum Sybilla.
  Tuba mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum,
  Coget omnes ante thronum, coget omnes ante thronum.

8. Tutti (canon)

• SOLIS SACERDOTIBUS, ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU.
  A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT.
  ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU. ET IN ARCADIA EGO[, EGO SUM]. -- (cipher text)

9. Women

• Blest are the solitary and chosen, for you shall find the Kingdom.
  You have come from it and you shall return unto it;
  You have come from it and you shall return unto it; shall return unto it. -- (Jesus in Gospel of Thomas)

10. Tutti (canon)

• SOLIS SACERDOTIBUS, ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU.
  A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT.
  ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU. ET IN ARCADIA EGO[, EGO SUM]. -- (cipher text)

11. Women, with wrathful interjections from men

• (women) Except ye be converted and become as little children,
  ye shall not enter into the Kingdom- ["of God" cut off] -- (Jesus in Matthew 18:3 as in the New Testament, with apparently deliberate mistranslation)
• (men) They do business with my word
  and they will propagate harsh fate;
  propagate harsh fate! -- (Jesus in Apocalypse of Peter)

12. Women

• If ye be not reborn,
  ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; the Kingdom of Heaven. -- (Jesus in Matthew 18:3, correctly translated)

13. Men & Altos

• If someone asks you: 'Where are you from?', answer:
  'We came from the light, from where the light originated by itself.' -- (Jesus in Gospel of Thomas)

14. Tutti (canon)

• BERGERE PAS DE TENTATION QUE POUSSIN TENIERS GARDENT LA CLEF PAX DCLXXXI [=681=six-huit-un]
  PAR LA CROIX ET CE CHEVAL DE DIEU J'ACHEVE
  CE DAEMON DE GARDIEN A MIDI POMMES BLEUES, A MIDI -- (cipher text)

15. Women

• Seek not the Law in your scriptures,
  for the Law is life, whereas the scripture is dead.
  The Law is the living word of the living God to living prophets for living men.
  In everything that is life, is the Law written.
  You find it in the grass, in the trees,
  in the river, in the mountain,
  in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea,
  but seek it chiefly in yourselves.
  God did not write the Law in books, but in your heart and spirit. -- (Jesus in Gospel of the Essenes)

16. Women & Tenors

• Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end [of all things]?
  For where the beginning is, the end will be [also].
  Bless'd is he who will take his place in the beginning;
  he will know the end and will not experience death. -- (Jesus in Gospel of Thomas)

17. Basses (return of first part of opening chant)

• Except ye be converted and become as little children,
  ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of God. -- (Jesus in Matthew 18:3 as in the New Testament, with apparently deliberate mistranslation)

18. Tutti

• If ye be not reborn, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. -- (Jesus in Matthew 18:3, correctly translated)
• Verily, I say unto thee: except a man be born again and again,
  he cannot be readmitted into the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. -- (Jesus in John 3:3 -- corrected translation)

19. Men -Women (dialogue)

• (Men -- Nicodemus:) How can a man be born again and again when he is old?
• (Women & Tenors echoing Nicodemus:) Can he return into his mother's womb and be born again?
• (Men -- Jesus:) Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again and again; again and again.
  (John 3:5,7 -- corrected translation)

20. Tutti (multitudinous canon)

• BERGERE PAS DE TENTATION QUE POUSSIN TENIERS GARDENT LA CLEF PAX DCLXXXI [=681=six-huit-un]
  PAR LA CROIX ET CE CHEVAL DE DIEU J'ACHEVE
  CE DAEMON DE GARDIEN A MIDI POMMES BLEUES, A MIDI -- (cipher text)

21. Final tutti (canon, quasi processional)

• For where the beginning is, the end will be [also].
  Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning;
  he will know the end and will not experience death. -- (Jesus in Gospel of Thomas)
• A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT.
  ARCAM DEI TANGO, IESU. ET IN ARCADIA EGO[, EGO SUM]. -- (cipher text)
  (I touch the tomb of God, Jesus. And in Paradise I am.)