Et In Arcadia Ego

Opus 18 — Timing: 29:05
for two 4-part choirs and orchestra

Also… Short works
extracted from the main work:

Dies Irae & Chorale

Solis Sacerdotibus…

Listen on YouTube…

Contemplation on a tomb, which speaks of 'things way beyond'…

with haunting transformations of Dies Irae chant and Bach's Passion Chorale into the bargain…

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 garbage interference and deceptions that affect every single person on the planet, and (b) taking up a method that I call Helpfulness Testing, which has enabled me with great care and vigilance to obtain normally 'hidden' information from the deepest levels of my consciousness, bypassing the garbage mediation that makes ALL channelling, clairvoyance, and nearly all dowsing not merely unreliable but seriously harmfully 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 wasn't called that at all while he was alive. Most or all of the names by which he's recorded in the various scriptures and other historical documents are names that were retrospectively applied to him as part of the process of building up a legend — indeed largely a MYTH — about him.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 garbage, 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 garbage 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 garbage (as is the case with ANY 'spiritual teacher'), notwithstanding all his undoubtedly high ideals and extremely positive intentions. I say this not as just the expression of a crazy belief or warped 'article of faith', but through having found out the hard way — having been led myself by the garbage 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 garbage).

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 had 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'd have used the words that I originally did for the canonic Passion Chorale setting, which indeed I now view with good reason as pernicious crap, and have changed to give a saner and healthier angle on the picture.

Those words were all following the conventional garbage-sourced notion that we're weak and powerless and need to, or are supposed to, be led towards some future heaven beyond this life (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, would lead to our becoming virtually irretrievably ensnared by the garbage 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 garbage in The true nature of 'the forces of darkness' 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's 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 garbage for very troublesome purposes). So, if this work is to be avoided, then even more 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 garbage 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's going on.

It's 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 supposedly 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.

More recently, using inner inquiry I got pointers to that tomb being, as I rather expected to be the case, of another charismatic 'great spiritual teacher', more or less contemporary with 'Jesus', so that we have a wealth of confusion and mixed messages if we seek through historical records and other data for 'Jesus' in the belief that he was the only (supposedly 'great') spiritual teacher of that time. Of course the Church would do their damnedest to suppress any such notion, to help preserve their dishonest and harmful doctrine (doctrine is an intrinsic dishonesty!), so compounding the confusions and false trails for anyone seeking to establish the relevant historical facts.

The important point that I'd originally meant to emphasise in this work was that, as far as I could ascertain, Jesus survived his 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.

* On the face of it, this would have been much, much more healthy and helpful than the overtly power / control agenda basis of actual religions, but it was really simply a more subtle garbage 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..

Sadly, they had no available information source to indicate to them that the real way forward wasn't '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.

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 in any of its varieties. My works are thus meant to be experienced with open minds, not partisan attitudes either for or against particular scenarios.

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 is a contemplation on death and the impermanence of everything. It is 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 garbage 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 / intimidate 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 isn't 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 is the first of three passages where I've provided my own words. Originally the words I provided for this passage were really just more religious garbage, and in 2012 I replaced those with the current ones.

The other two passages where I've provided my own words originally had additional repeats of the cipher texts and a supposed quotation from Jesus, but my aim in 2012 was to add a saner, more clear-minded perspective, in which all the religion and supposed mystery is seen for what it is, as an unedifying and extremely unhelpful seething mass of different confusions, which through human history and into the present time had been consistently side-tracking people away from genuine self-actualization (which is the only way one could ever open to genuine 'truth' — i.e., the 'truth' of 'What Is').

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.

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 — i.e., the genuine truth that exists beyond all belief — will be known, and the final reflective 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'.

* 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 only straight Biblical quote is a remarkable mistranslation, which is followed by a more correct translation (which, I hasten to add, does not 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.

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 only if they'd 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' didn't even include genuine self-actualization!).

Furthermore, 'Jesus', because of his ignorance of the fullness of how the garbage interferes with people (including himself), apparently made a seriously harmful mess of things by trying to use simplified terminology that ordinary people could understand, to try to describe what it's like to be enlightened and self-actualized. He apparently 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 of the real situation that actually the religions were and still are doing.

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, made the fundamental and quite 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 garbage (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 garbage 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) and the more fundamental problem of the emotional trauma energy of primary archetypes to which we're connected — 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 (and eternal — perish the thought!) 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 — J.S. Bach's Passion Chorale tune)

I look to my own inner core, to show me what is truth.
Now free of all beliefs, I find great clarity!
And when I sometimes falter, by day or depth of night,
I gain new strength from my inner depth, where truth, peace, love, are one. — (original text by the Composer)

6. Tutti (simultaneous themes)

Men: repeat of Passion Chorale (I look to my own inner core…)
Women: cipher text (Solis sacerdotibus…) set to the Dies Irae chant

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)

Why do they seek to hide from me all that might point me to my inner truth?
The only treasure that I know is beyond all belief and story, and is within all.
One day these stories and ciphers will be just dust before the wind of what really is. — (original text by the Composer)

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 didn't 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 won't 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)

Why do they seek to hide from me all that might point me to my inner truth?
The only treasure that I know is beyond all belief and story, and is truth.
One day these stories and ciphers will fall away.
I throw aside all beliefs, all lies, and open to the truth that is seen by open minds!
Beliefs came and beliefs will go, and then will remain the real truth whose day has come. — (original text by the Composer)

Related works

Golgotha to Rozabal

Obtain Scores from the Publisher…

…Or you can purchase from the USA.

	Et in Arcadia Ego for Double Chorus and Orchestra By Philip GODDARD. For Study Score. Published by Musik Fabrik. (mfpg018ss) See more info…
	Et in Arcadia Ego for double Chorus and Orchestra By Philip GODDARD. For Vocal Score. Published by Musik Fabrik. (mfpg018vs) See more info…