Semiotics is the study of language or any other symbol system that conveys meaning. The Bible tells us that God spoke before all things, and in this way he created both heaven and earth. It was from the Divine Word that the Cosmos came into being.
One of the great themes of esoterica is that of the alphabet giver and "namer" of things. Adam is, of course, the one we think of when we think of the "giving of names" to things. In terms of the study of Semiotics, the question is: did he name things based on what they WERE, in ESSENCE, or did he simply create a convention, and arbitrarily name them whatever appealed to him?
This is an important issue because conveying things in language is very much like the game in which one person whispers something to another, and on down a line of people, and at the end, the last person announces what was said, and it often bears no relationship whatsoever to the original statement. Being able to communicate the TRUE meaning of something is of paramount importance not only in terms of the thing being said remaining as clear and undefiled as possible, but also in terms of the rapport between the speaker and the listener.
According to the Pythagoreans, the true language was mathematics, and sounds were simply a transformation of mathematical principles into an exchange medium. In this sense, the "sound vibration" of a word had a mathematical nature that could convey something much higher than just the ordinary understanding of the world as it applied to objects in our reality.
But this leads to a problem because there are many languages, and they utilize sounds in different ways, and this leads to the question of which language is the one that truly conveys the deepest, or widest meaning of a word?
The theories of Semiotics propose that there are two levels, or "planes of articulation." At the level of any given language, such as Greek, English, Chinese, or whatever, there is what they call the "Expression plane" that consists of a lexicon, a phonology and syntax. In other words, the Expression Plane is the selection of words that belong to that language, the sounds that the selection of words produce, and the way they are arranged to convey meaning. That is the first plane. The second plane is called the Content Plane. This is the array of concepts that the language is capable of expressing. This last is rather important because, as we have all heard at least once in our lives, Eskimos have many words for snow while people who do not live in an environment where snow and ice are the dominant features, may only have one or two words for these phenomena.
So it is that the "Content Plane" of a language becomes crucial to what can be discussed in that language. Whatever a group of people experience the most becomes part of their awareness, and thus the Content Plane of their language is accordingly modified. In order for the sounds of speech to be meaningful, the words formed out of these sounds must have a meaning associated with them. In other words, the sounds relate to the Content.
This brings us back to the example of the sea slug that a kind of "associative learning" could take place when a mild shock was delivered with the puff of water. The slug learned to associate the puff with the shock and when the puff came alone, the slug withdrew. For the slug, the Content of the puff of water was "pain." Words are similarly learned. And, as we have also discussed, the pyramidal neurons in the Ammon's horn gather the input of other sensory neurons and fire if two separate inputs arrive at the same time. Once fired, it is easier to fire by one of the two inputs that originally fired it, but not by another input. In this way, we also learn the meanings of words, we establish the Content Continuum of our understanding.
The Content Continuum represents the Universe or reality to which our words relate as we are capable of conceiving it. Thinking about this factor, we begin to get a glimmer of the idea that our ability to associate words, to derive deeper and broader or multilevel meaning from them in our process of understanding, is directly related to how we, ourselves, interact with the Cosmos.
The words we use, individually and collectively, and the way we use them, are very deep clues to our perspective and comprehension of the Universe. Our words and the way we use them reveal the totality of our experiences - mental and physical and emotional - our sensations, perceptions, abstractions and so forth. Keeping in mind, of course, that no purely verbal system ever achieves total communication; how do you express in words the scent of a rose? We are always required to supplement words with "helpers, " which may include expressive gestures, or even producing a metaphoric example, or finding a basis of comparison to convey meaning. Nevertheless, in our reality, language and words are clearly Divine, and are the rungs on which we may climb to the Stars.
As noted in the example of Eskimos and snow, there are experiences recognized by other cultures and capable of being expressed in their languages, which we neither recognize nor can we express them. The same problem poses an even greater difficulty when we consider realms of pure thought, or the hyperdimensional reality in which our reality is embedded. In dreams we revert to using words in the "universal" language, a Content Continuum wherein the sound is still connected to the object it designates. This is a clue to the phonetic cabala, of which Fulcanelli speaks; this is also the language into which I was initiated by the Cassiopaeans.
As the C's dropped "word clues" and encouraged me to search for the "mosaic" meaning, I discovered many amazing things. At one point, I stumbled on a little book by a gentleman named Abraham Abehsera. He points out that there seem to be two "universal dictionaries" in which words from all languages are grouped according to their meanings (synonyms) and sounds (homonyms). That is to say, whenever the same or a similar sound is given to different objects in two or more languages, a precise relationship between these objects is being indicated by the Universal language. He theorized that the sum total of languages forms a puzzle in which the image - the true meaning - may only be recovered through reassembling words having the same sound.
The fact that in English, for instance, morning and mourning have the same sound could have been just a coincidence. When German and English both reproduce this coincidence by using the same sound to say morgen (morning) and morgue (chamber where the dead are laid), Hebrew the same group of consonants BQR, to say morning and tomb, and Chinese the same syllable mu, to say evening and tomb, we may legitimately ask what lies behind this repetition. What have morning and evening time to do with mourning, tomb and morgue? [Babel, the Language of the 21st Century, Abehsera]
Abehsera then establishes a mathematical model for comparing words, or a "four language unit" that suggests that a deep common experience between a certain period of time and death related themes. And, as it happens, hundreds of other sound-relationships develop these themes, such as dream and drama, traum (German for dream), trauma, bed, bad, mita in Hebrew which means both death and bed, and so on. Words then become the mode of access to the right half of our brain as opposed to the flat and precise use of words typical of the left brain. Speech can then become a synthesis of the Universal Content Continuum the by a study of the Expression Plane.
There are, of course, many so-called "one way words" that may seem to be sharply defined, and necessarily so for the purpose of describing "events" in our world. But when dealing with what are called "state vectors" in physics, or all possible events given a certain set of parameters, the phonetic cabala is a similar "state vector" to thinking multi-dimensionally. Like pieces of a puzzle, words have been inextricably interwoven into our reality since the dawn of human history. To find the living unity behind language, without negating diversity, is like assembling a body with all its different parts, each of which does different things, and without one of which, the body would be lacking. The greater the number of words for any given object, the more precise a definition can be made about it in terms of the Content Continuum. If there are a thousand ways to say "apple, " by knowing all the associations, we can access that higher realm of thought from whence the idea of an apple has a deeper meaning for man. In this sense, all languages are necessary because they are all complementary. They all tell us about the extraordinary wealth and diversity and limitless possibilities of the Universe in which we exist. What is more, such study of words enables us to interact dynamically with the surrounding reality itself. Word studies develop hyperdimensional awareness which "binds" us to higher realities.
For the reader to simply read the Cassiopaean Transcripts and to assume that they have received the information that was intended to be conveyed; to read any part of it and assume that one has a grasp of a principle, or that it means this or that in a "one way" sort of context, is to miss the important process. The process of "initiation" consisted, in part, of the encouragement of the creation of a far vaster system of "associations" than normally prevails, most especially among those who have followed rigid scholastic or ritualized programs. By expanding the associative memory, the very practical result is that synaptic relationships are created in the Ammon's Horn, and they are "sensitized" to perceive the reality in a multidimensional way. At another level, expanding the associations of things that "occur together in time, " with other things that do likewise, the perception of time changes fundamentally. And we begin to realize why the alchemist Fulcanelli insisted that word studies were the key to unlocking the great secrets.
06-21-97
Q: Well, I think that a HUGE key is in the tracking of the languages...
A: The roots of all languages are identical...
Q: What do you mean?
A: Your origin.
Q: You mean Atlantis?
A: Is that your origin?
Q: You mean Orion?
A: Interesting the word root similarity, yes?
Q: Well, the word root similarities of a LOT of things are VERY interesting!It is AMAZING the things I have discovered by tracking word roots...
A: The architects of your languages left clues aplenty.
It was from these word studies as well as the above remark, that I began to realize that the process of expanding associations of words was literally the process of learning the higher density language. And it most certainly was not, as some suppose, a process of "memetics" or "deriving new meanings" from word associations. Oh no! It was the process of assembling words into mosaic structures through which the mind could access the original meaning that was inherent in the structure. It was a process of "restoration" of the original language of supernatural wisdom that was present in mankind "before the fall." Studying words and myths is a process of archaeologically excavating a marvelously ancient, prehistoric, almost extinct parent language - the language of the Gods. [...]
A lot of people draw lines in the sand of their minds and establish very early on what kinds of things they will or will not consider. We have done it ourselves. Not too long ago, proposing the idea of "aliens" as "real" in ANY sense was so far outside of our own reality that it wasn't even within hailing distance. So we know how this works. Since we had decided, a priori, that such a thing was impossible, we simply never exerted any effort really looking into it, much less examining it in a systematic way. That door was firmly closed in our minds.
But it's a curious thing, this Universe we live in. It seems that the doors we close in our minds leave other doors in our lives wide open - and things come through those doors that are not altogether friendly. Just as a particular definition or association of a word may be unknown to an individual, leaving a sort of "blank spot" in their mind - a point of ignorance which may one day cause them embarassment if they are challenged in a situation where that particular definition is the right one - so it seems that such "blank spots" in our awareness of the possible associations of events in our reality leave us open to their effects on us without any ability to define or understand the real "meaning."
I wrote the first volume of Amazing Grace for the explicit purpose of describing my life during the many years when my "definitions" and "associations" of reality were strictly circumscribed by the "dictionary of life" I was using. When things happened in my life, they were ever and always interpreted by this "dictionary" written by Christianity, and the linear, uniformitarian view of the world. If the interpretation didn't quite "fit" the event, the event was either distorted in my mind, parts of it covered up, shoved under the rug, or I just ignored it. I didn't realize that whoever writes the "dictionaries" that we use to understand the events of our lives have written them with only one or two basic definitions, and have left out a whole host of associations or other definitions that more fully explain the word/event. In a sense, the dictionary we use to define our lives is like a children's dictionary where the simplest and most juvenile definition is given. This leads us to interpret our lives and the world around us in a Cosmically Juvenile way. Even great scholars and "experts" of all kinds continue to use the Juvenile version of the Cosmic Dictionary when it comes to defining and intepreting the facts of their lives and the "real world."
When the average person puts on their power clothes and goes to the workplace, or puts on their Jerry Garcia tee shirt to settle down with a brewski for the big game, intimations of mortality, or immortality are not allowed to intrude. Sure, everyone has a little "strange story" to tell maybe once in their life, maybe even an ghostly encounter, and it is always whispered in hushed or embarrassed tones if it is mentioned at all. The very idea that there are layers, or depth and breadth to our reality that may not be part of the dictionary we have been brought up to use is strictly hidden. Everyone has "agreed" to use the Juvenile Dictionary, and anybody who proposes to use one with more definitions, more semiotic "content" is attacked.
Why?
Well, because our basic reality is defined by a Juvenile Dictionary, of course! That means that Juvenile Reactions are part of the "right" definitions. People who evaluate life based on this Juvenile Dictionary tend to feel overwhelmed by more Semiotic content. It is too much for their brains, too much to think about, too much to handle, and they begin to feel oppressed by their awareness that there may, indeed, be more to the world than they supposed. This awareness of so much "unknown" territory makes the person who has circumscribed their reality into comfortable zones of what is or is not "right" and acceptable, feel a terrifying sense of vertigo, and they want, at all costs, to close that door of awareness. So, since they can't destroy the universe that IS, they seek to get their revenge against the symbolic target of awareness - the individual who has pointed out that there are other definitions and other dictionaries.
Most of ordinary humanity - the vast majority of people - use the Juvenile Dictionary. They have adopted, and internalized, and "made real" this narrow view of the world, and woe to anyone who points out that there ARE other languages, there ARE other definitions, there IS a wider Semiotic Content Plane. But what is important is that no one is born to be forever stuck in a circumscribed Semiotic Content Plane. They are first taught, and then they actively choose to select what defnitions of their experiences they will accept and which ones they will edit out.
Gurdjieff was right: People get out of life what they put into it.
