By the way, there is a reading project going on, more precisely, it's about to commence on 25th of April and is going to last until July 13th. Unknown number of people on unknown number of Fourth Way forums is going to participate and if you are one of those unknown people reading this blog you might want to join reading Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. You can easily download it from the Internet if you cannot get it otherwise.

Now back to that octaves thread.... Somebody mentions Abraham had seven sons? Must check in the Bible.

Dear Alan,

we have often wondered what that Name which is to be hallowed would be. Angelic communications that I have been engaged in lately indicate, not leaving a trace of doubt, that Father's name is simply 'Father', or maybe 'I'...

I admit that it is strange. But what is not strange...

Is it not strange, for example, that you are in the first place worried about what people will say? Is it not strange, that I am afraid of what you might say? (I think, of course, that it is NOT strange.) And is it not strange, that people are afraid of- this will surprise you-- .................

Doubling (halving) of vibration is a process by the name of octave. In this process, there are two critical passes to make. Though there is something missing, notable change of quality comes about, despite the fact that the vibration doesn't change that much at all, yes, it changes less than usual. Going from MI to FA or from SI to DO in music perfectly illustrates this point.

In these two crises something must be supplied from the outside, something must be added, some help must be given or asked for, something has to be pushed on, somebody has to be encouraged, some pain-killer must be consumed, decision made, declaration issued, special action performed, more effort invested, mind be changed, and so on.

Is there in the color spectrum anything that would resemble this? Yes. I've become thoroughly frustrated trying to squeeze something out of it. Anything else? Well, yes. There are places where color (quality) changes rapidly where wavelength (quantity) doesn't change that much. To us, red is one color, orange another, yellow another. They are all mutualy different qualities. (Proof (one of them): the language we use to name these qualities itself. Quod erat...) Yet, they seem too close - particularly yellow and orange - to make it all into any one-octave=twelve-ticks system, regardless of starting point, inside or outside conventional prescriptions.

This fact leaves us two practical possibilities for constructing an octave over the color scale: B flat has to be declared either DO or FA. And if such a construction succeeds, numerous new possibilities open, such as determining place in thus constructed octave of the color and tone of, say, Platonic year. Time is breath, and breath is regular in and out, and regular rhythm of in and out is vibe, oscillation, and Platonic year is predictably humming umpteen octaves below F with its period of 26000 years or so.

There are only two possibilities that don't leave good honest orange out. The first would make Platonic year into a DO, and the second names it SOL. The first covers the color range in true scientific no-nonsense manner, and the second breaks it and twists it and complicates unnecessarily. (It does other crazy things too.)

Sigh. I personally know which to choose without much thinking. But... is there an objective criterion (or at least something else to rely upon other than personal taste/opinion) on which to base the choice?

Let's look at the possibilities once again. 1st: F becomes DO and B flat becomes FA. 2nd: F becomes SOL and B flat becomes DO.

Ok, we have two possibilities, one question. Let's have two questions! The second question asks: would I accept solution that I don't like if I knew that it was objectively the right one? The third: what is to accept? The fourth: which 'I'? The fifth: is there an 'I' whose very nature is acceptance? Is there an 'I' which can make use of objective standards? How to make it conscious and work from it? Would there be this choice for such an 'I' at all?

Two possibilities, eight questions, one action: cancellation. Did you mention possibilities? I didn't. What's possibility anyway? Somebody mentioned questions? Didn't hear anything. But now that you bring it up, it might be of some theoretical interest. Questions, questions. Wonder what does it mean. Interesting word, question. Maybe it does mean something in some crazy language, you never know. There are many languages.

So, what we have is the following:
do - yellow (fine yellow)
re - green (excellent green)
mi - blue (great blue)
-- - extra delicate purplish blue
fa - between blue and purple, indigo, and because now almost nothing more is going to happen on this side, you can say violet
sol- not much (quite dark, you see, invisible, so to speak)
la - red (totally reddish)
si - orange-red (marvellous outstanding color)
-- - got you finally, orange

Applying some routine research cosmetics to the data, and unrolling from top to the bottom, ladies and gentlemen, here are nine traditional colors:

yellow
-orange
orange-red
red
black
violet
-indigo
blue
green

If tenth hue, "white", is put over the yellow or below green, cycling shift by 5 in either direction will approximately take you to what is called complementary of a given hue. This is purely accidentaly acquired property of the 9/10 table and was not incorporated on purpose. Thus it must not be understood in a sense that there were white between green and yellow, yet it helps process of visualizing the Table, embedded in white. Don't forget that black is artificialy introduced in the place of SOL due to limitation of our sight, whereas the true hue is probably between red and violet. There are five semitones that are not entered in the table, and with two schocks removed I'm sure that complementary technique would work and could be used to finely tune the hues. All this sounds like splendid perspective for further work, but the Committee on the contrary thinks that now not much more than what is here can be done until we are supplied with either accurate spectrum data or better eyes. Indeed, Committee fully supports the following maxim of one of its founders, Archy M. Medes. Archy said: "Give me the wavelength in terms of three primary colors and I will move earth from its place."

This is now International Focus Committee for Septaparaparshimokonkh Research irrevocable and everywhere valid Standard for this Work until better is found. So, if you are not of those who believe that training and multiplying our troops and arming them from top to toe with most modern humanitary edge-cutting technology is contributing to our security and is essential for creating of necessary conditions for harmonious development of Man, if celebrating colored eggs is not seen by you as summit of year's religious and cultural progress, if you are not thanking God that His Son has gone to the devil so many years ago that He cannot see what you are and what you are doing, these Directives now issued are of no use to you. They are not meant for you and they never were. You could not understand them and they would only be a nuissance to you. But if, by virtue of your state of being, you are obliged to heed them, you belong to a very rarely spread, yet powerful minority. For every member of this Community, this Directive now issued is fully valid. If a member does not, say, connect MI with blue in his thought consciously, then he or she is by virtue of universal operation of Omnipresent Law excluding himself from further development, connected with Focus Committee for this Research, which in turn was from the very first beginnings founded, guided and nourished by this same Committee.

Results of some cut&stretch&align&paste experiment after an Altavista image search "light spectrum". After all, colors of visible spectrum cover the vibrations from, say, 1000, up to twice that much, their range is one octave. By doubling frequencies of twelve piano keys it was attempted to reach into color range and find the correspondeng values.

585 Hz is yellow, it is a well-known double line in Na-spectrum. That also means that those gentlemen from CIE IEEE color comission have got something wrong, or the guy who kindly wrote a program for one or two of those six included spectra got something wrong which I doubt. One of those spectra is also way off the mark, you can easily see which. One of them shows magenta hues on the red end. But overall, it is still possible to build a convincing model.

B and C must be assigned yellowish green or green color. D is indubitably blue. If something is bluish-blue than this is D. C sharp is greenish-blue, you cannot much err about that. A knocks at warm red color or orange-red. G is reddish red, F Sharp, if still visible, even more so. E flat could be indigo or something. Then E must be violet-violet-violet. And then everything is pitch-black and in that darkness somewhere is F.

Yes. Good honest orange is not in the tone scale, not even if half-tones are included. Alchemy, the art of making gold, would then seek it between that B flat and that missing orange. In Bach's times, when 415 Hz was counted A, this was somewhere below B instead.

Speculating and assigning DO to C, we could say that Nature, perhaps via limitations of our sight, cuts or breaks the circle of recurring octaves at MI-FA interval. Interval SI-DO falls then at greenish-green, spring-leaf to summer-leaf green color.

If such well-maybe-it-is-between-that-and-that were the standard in music, everybody could hear that it is false, moreover, music as we know it would not be possible.

There are three possibilities:
- phosphori for screens are not very good at approximating natural hues
- what is written in our school textbooks is wrong
- guys in those standardizing comitees invent new wrong standard every two years

There is fourth:
- mankind is still in its infancy regarding science of color

Color is very high frequency, compared to sound. This must be very small atoms with little mass and a lot of vibration.

It seems that color is very much connected with heat and temerature. The higher the temperature the redder is radiating body. Then more yellow. Very hot bodies appear white, there are all colors present, all the notes and all in-betweens are struck at once. Our sun has surface temperature of about 6000K. This would mean that if zero is where water freezes and an hundred where it boils, then sun surface is rouhly 60 times hotter. Frequency peak of radiated intensity distribution lies at 860 nm and wavelength peak at 490 nm, bluish-violet or bluish-green. It is sad but it is in the nature of things that it cannot be determined exactly where the most power goes off into space. Still, in any case, it is in the visible spectrum, exactly where tiny color octave of human sight is placed.

Logarithm of frequency alias logarithm of wavelength is a natural choice for intensity distribution to decide that question. Older people sneer much at it (Nature takes a pocket calculator and calculates logarithms) but this is how we hear sounds and probably also see color. If logarithms were taken, those Hz's you see on the picture would be equally spaced. This is how we hear. Now the peak is one and the same, and they say it falls near 560 nm, where, so they say, the human eye is most sensitive. This is light green, yellowish green. It is of course questionable how that highly interesting highly precise retinal fact was decided, probably another comitee. But it is very likely to be true to some extent. At the edges everything dissolves into darkness, more accurately, eye cannot see anymore. It is logical that eye sees best in the middle.

What thought strikes us involuntarily? Well, if sun was not made for the eye then eye was made for the sun. Of the thirteen notes, the 560 peak would go close to the seventh note, close to B. In other words, close to SI. But then others say that temperature is not 6000 K but 5000 K, those peaks are shifted to the red end and we are where we were, we know nothing.

In the Ray of Creation, notes are so placed that SOL is in the middle. Sun is the fire radiating light and giving heat, SOL is surrounded by LA and FA. Now our sound conventions are such that darknesss surrounding visible spectrum is at the place of FA or MI-FA interval (if it is not, then it is rightful place of those most violet, purple tinges). The visible spectrum itself, if we cover it with thirteen notes of complete F-next F octave, is centered around seventh note, B. If we take established convention for solmization, that would be SI, DO, or SI-DO interval. It is hard to decide when everything is more or less green.

So, moving towards psychologal side, on upper side of the source we have light, next, vision, sight, then slowing down of vibration, building of systems, systematizing what we have seen, all kinds of seizing around, transforming impressions received, not received passively like light at la; and then the observer, the onlooker, the very one who sees the source.

I approach that going through green stage of valuation, blue applying of the work ideas to myself, violet tinges of experiencing difficulties, what difficulties, real trouble, through self-remembering and non-identifying I begin to feel something, you could say heat of the source, though seeing nothing yet. As soon as one comes above that plane, something definitely new begins to emerge, at least the spectrum shows that. It is a red new start.

-------------

Tradition has it that there are seven colors. If you look at the spectrum nothing seems to indicate that at first sight. But let's try. I'll use one of those standardized diagrams because the spectra I'd assemble are no good for that. The data are wrong to some extent anyway, so let them be wrong according to some standard. I wish I had those optical instruments and camera obscura, let sun in, verify for myself and determine these colors.

do - bright green
(bluish green)
re - blue
(between blue and purple, indigo)
mi - purple
----------here; the circle ends and begins anew!
fa - pitchblack darkened reddish-purple
(darkened purplish red)
sol - red, fundamentally red (mixed with white gives pink)
(red is red is red, what the hell do I know)
la - orange-red
(finally no doubt - perfect ripe yellow, maybe slightly orange yellow)
si - (between yellowish green and yellow green, so says the diagram)
----------here; nothing special, lots of green

Gold located between la and si. It is said that very finely thinned gold goes towards green, si, light comes from the other side too. I've never seen it myself. Also, the third schock from Beelzebub located between sol and la; nothing special: except lots of red.

1.On the diagram, yellow green is more towards greenish yellow than yellowish green. And greenish yellow is more towards yellow than yellow green. And then (after greenish yellow) comes yellow. And then comes 580 nm. And then B flat proudly ushers orange yellow zone which quickly turns orange, which zone is governed and ruled by the mark 590 nm. Just to give you a feeling. Heated bodies begin to become visible at 600 nm, reddish orange. Then they go whiter and whiter. Flames is another story.

Now, the leaves. It seems that they are somewhere at SI when they appear in the spring. Then they go darker and darker as if they wanted to reach C#, bluish green. Then something happens and the leaf goes pale, crosses the SI-DO interval and goes downwards, showing autumn hues. Ideally, it becomes red, then dark. It never crosses MI-FA but rather vanishes in that darkness, becoming soil again. Pfosphorescent fungy decay goes deeper down the scale, light for lower world.

Generally, C# to E is rarely seen in plant(animal kingdom). Excepting flowers at that, the crown of plant development. Butterflies and bird feathers in animal kingdom too. Here is nobility and rarity. Copyright: sky. Blue blood, they say.

From E flat on nature in general will be scarce, not even sky or screen phosphori will divulge it readily. Perhaps when rainbow appears. Here is mystery. I would personally beware of types who say there is no poetry and no mystery. Quite correct, if there is sin against Holy Ghost than this is its indication.

Try to observe one form of distaste of life in yourself. The cause is undirected imagination, where we lie passive to our imagination and bathe ourselves in it. Find one example of being unable to appreciate what you have. The cause is being something being laid down (probably early in life) in rolls by imagination that causes you to expect in a way that does not correspond with what you get. Cure is Work-thought that one's Being attracts one's life and that therefore it's no good blaming life.

A quote from Nicoll. Not much commentary - ha, commentary on commentary (on another commentary of commentary perhaps?) - needed, just some rereading over some months.

Changing theory into practice. It seems to be, mildly speaking, difficult to attain. Everything is wrong within oneself. One imagines one must be all wrong inside. But it is rather a sign that ideas that one gets to know are relatively new. Something one could not come upon aided by one's own power. Then the moment comes (mind that, it does come), when changing theory into practice is not at all difficult. This feeling may withdraw in a second and in the beginning it really does vanish quickly. Then again there is so much theory, so many books yet to read, so many programs for one's life conflicting with each other, and the body is tired, and the head is drained, and No. 1. enemy rears its ugly head and hisses "I'll never do it, sigh", and various everyday regular&irregular obligation presses and lurks and is ready to drive one dead, sick or mad. And what is in fact the aim is not yet clear.
This blog is no Bridge Over Troubled Water (just as that previous brainstorming is no serious study of octaves) and it is no teaching either, one must go drink at other sources for good strong building material (no links: you know best where to seek and it is a law that you will find). What is it then? It is rather heretical conviction that there must be some who have gone before: they must know very well what one cannot yet verify: that one is perfectly able to work it out, no matter what one thinks about it. We must somehow gain that standpoint while not yet standing there. After all, we are not doing it ourselves.
That means, inner stop to fuss&fretting. That means, remember that one cannot lose anything, because one has never got anything of value. One can only lose anger and sadness and depression and feeling of meaninglessness and anxious hurry and wrong valuation. One can only gain ability to discern without long and complicated considerations and to see the value of things for oneself - and that must be real valuation, not like in outer circle where everybody values something else than another.
What does it mean "not to identify with one's own efforts"? Has one ever thought about that? Can one make a big effort and not identify with it? All that POMPE says about it is that effort to self-remember must not be based on expectation of results. Why would one make effort if not for result, whatever the result would be? Something is 'wrong' here.
Well, POMPE says further that effort must be based on insight that one can do it if one tries and if one endeavors sufficiently strongly. Will one try to do it when one sees that that one can do it? That enemy No. 1 for some reason is absent? Of course.
But still, what about result? We introduce another heresy here. It is about that widely spread fable of graduating, or - holy horror of Work student - never graduating. In ordinary school it's no problem to graduate if you know what you got to know, if you have practiced what you had to practice. Graduation is guaranteed. That means, Arjuna, take care of raising state of being and don't mind graduating too much, says Krishna. Why? Because that's the way to not identify with your efforts.
Those who have gone before - do not know about these things? We even know and they don't? Of course they do. If they are clever - and there's no reason to hint their main feature is low IQ, they arrange exams and graduations in such a way that one will not even know about them. I'd personally say "hey, this is an exam" only if I wanted that a person mobilizes all extra effort (including that questionable fret&fuss motor power) they possibly can.
Love your enemy? Not this one. No-one there. It's just a shadow, caused by a wrong standpoint.

do sunday (Day of Days) doing the work -three lines -inseparable from studying, the doctrine or teaching as means for actualizing the door of access for higher influence, schocks (stresses), foundation, higher meanings of 'hospitality', kindness to 'strangers', work school but not way of the world, no nonsense, no new age, no magic etc., no exoteric religion, no theo- antroposophy which worse than black magic, in music do has distinct resting feel, home feel, it's absolute origin; do as direction; like "here thou shalt start and here thou shalt return"

re monday remembering, reminding yourself, religion, recurrence, relativity, Revelation (the ending of the Bible), repetition=refining, reprocessing, building of routine, remedy, (sphere=cosmos), solid foundation=rock, sacred character of the Work, irregularities as means of preserving & communicating knowledge, repentance, reaction to events, alchemical reaction, retort, reaction vs. action (initiative), problem of representation of knowledge, being present (at home), living in the presence of the Work, oral teaching, schools of repetition in Egypt means for keeping flame alive, curved line as restriction, the Ray, revolution, rotation, rhythm of resting and action, reserved place=temple, pure, clean

mi tuesday the middle between extremes = balance, balancing by opposites, descending by ascending, expansion by shrinking, taking by giving, memory, misery = our place in the ray, earth as pain-pin? factory, the miraculous standing out of the rest, mystery, knowledge as means of transformation of being, metanoia (change of mind), earth=pulverized rock, possibility for growth; minimizing the representation=economy of expression, meeting as foundational action of the members of the group, means for staying practical, minimizing, making less as means for staying useful, lines meeting in point, planes meeting along line..., contacting, coinciding, dimensions, not mixing different scales, separating mine from yours

breathing

fa wednesday faith, fantasy (imagination), discerning false and real (personality vs. essence), fate as the law of essence, Gurdjieff Foundation = group in general, planets (cooperation, focus), food diagram, fire, under retort, friction, warmth, danger of failure, of fall, facing(confronting)-self-observation, forces, effort, fireplace symbol of home, pharaoh, fight against False Personality, phases of proceseses; when you hear fa it sounds "differently", it's something "new"

sol thursday aim, Absolutes, cosmoses, solemnity of the Work, healing, (quality of) source of energy of the group - energy question in general, vibes, solution: liquid necessary, literature as source, holy character of the Work as the Whole. In music, sol (with si and perhaps re) tends towards do, creating maximum tension right before the end of given piece/phrase

la friday law (3,7), different number of laws, law of: accident, cause and effect, fate, will, straight line represents free moving along in both directions of as well as universal validity of the law (rays), flashes of RealI, light, lux, lantern, lateral octave, lattice (aspect, part), music (harmony of the spheres), dynamics, study of lying, laying the foundation, laziness not existing in reality, in fact something unnatural, uncritical self-observation, no real organ or centre really existing for False Personality to function, in last analysis it is fictious altogether, unnecessary talking, scale, relativity, common language as prerequisite for understanding, study of the system as learning such language
  
si saturday system, time, relativity, studying of work ideas, objective art, six, conscious influence stands central, well, it's no longer mi, symbols (enneagram, 1 to 6, digits: 1 to 10), science as polar opposite of religion, sin as missing the mark, the significant, seeing the essential, separation, vision, simplicity sign of understanding, sympathy(affinity), "let the old self sink" if want to follow the grail, sieve - filtering of the material, discarding unusable or non-fitting parts, by discerning or destruction, teaching as the "great sieve" (the Voice of Silence), of the separation, synthesis, synergy, circle (group as circle, closing, opening of circle, symbol of eternity), one cycle, special place=temple, special knowledge and personal instruction of the teaching, sealing hermetically, separation, statics, death kiss of God, sleep, stop exercise, homesickness, maximizing effects, saturation, over-abundance, genesis

first conscious schock, almost destroying Egypt

do exodus, ordering it all into an organic structure if we want something practical

gathering the material
ordering it (very big problem)
using what is built

which requires

(1) envisioning everything at the same time, be present everywhere, looking at everything together
(2) fleshing sequence out of it, by bringing it to focus one by one, separately

but in reality this is an illusion. What is needed is

(1) lifting one's eyes to the hills whence help comes (quite an act, and continuous to that)
(2) let God fix the rest, being conscious that everything happens mechanically, real development consisting ONLY in growth of one's willingness to cooperate

We have to look primarily for change of approach, change of method. No new method, no new results. And the old result is heap of disjointed, unigested facts and no unification. The main obstacle to proposed new method is fear. It sounds so heretical that we can be convinced we will be crucified in all the ways pious Christians have devised through the centuries as justification for envy and suspicion as God-given human essence, plus we will become neither saint nor Jesus because of it. But that is really all there is to it, the only obstacle. Face it and you are done. If it is God's will, let them do it. And God is simply, for our limited consciousness, what can enable development. What hinders it is the devil.

But this is not method, you will say. This is simply capitulation.

Precisely. We agree.

Let us ask you one thing, though. What will you say if you see that it works?
Let us ask you another thing. Do you realize that the mob and religious authority is ALWAYS shouting "crucify him"? Consult some biographical material on the people whose pictures and figures are in your schoolbooks and in the streets of your town. All those memorials to those great men are set up by the same force who killed them. We once revised heap of scrap from ancient great or maybe not so great personality to use those rare pieces of it all that perhaps could be used and further developed, by the way, in our opinion the only homage this personality would appreciate, if at all, if they would be still alive that is. Instantly, the mob reacted with hanging out their portrait, investigating their biography and paying them 'respect'. Gigantic campaign was raised to divert attention from those pieces we presented. So, do YOU want to be part of the mob or not?
Let us put another question personally to you. Do you realize that when you work certain things will become particularly clear to your mind? For example, what strength you must have if the mass beast is so afraid of you? Do you realize that when you deny that you are worth less than others or more than others consistently you, maybe by immunity against certain flatteries and threats alone, represent danger? It is totally imaginary, non-existent danger but you still represent it.
Do you realize that it is big difference if one person puts off Tom and Jerry and takes Ouspensky in hand or if ten persons do it? Do you realize that same force that fills Amazon with "here you can buy all the books of the Fourth Way" with an aside "bringing us enormous cash" works, MUST, as far as we know, very cunningly work AGAINST people actually getting on with the ideas of the Work? Only one gesture is required on the third line, and it is exposing oneself with all integrity there remains to all attacks and distortions of the "mass storage controllers", to use an expression from computer world. Only one sort of abstinence, abstinence from saying "here is me, please look at me and do the same", which is the easiest abstinence there is because you know that the other can do it far better or their way can be altogether different. It can be done because and only because you are not doing it. It is done by far bigger Powers and not by you. It is tremendous success which can never be yours, though, we must say, it reaches further than millions and fame of this or that renown actor and further than that of the top executives of biggest networks. It is not about heroism of rebelling individuums in war against general community, it is about transforming the community because individuum IS the community. Think globally, act locally is simply ugly in comparison. Every program put together by man is nothing against it. Against what? Against third line of Work.

Put simply, the main bulk of the work for humanity is not necessarily done by those who, considered in terms of space, position and riches, have means. We would probably be totally astonished if we saw the real picture of real contribution, seeing only, up to the time being, that the work HAS been done and IS being done.

Initiation, says ANMOTU, is connection to new ideas, to new circles of ideas. These ideas, it says further, can easily be explosive, they are arsenals of sheer power. We sincerely hope you can see why.

Enemy is simply someone who hasn't access to the same idea you have access to. This is ok so because it would damage him. Observe also how otherwise incomprehensible "love your enemy" regains its right very naturally in this context.

(Well, think in this connection once about your morning newspaper. We are not against reading newspapers, we read them almost regularly ourselves, we are just suggesting little inquiry about your feelings about the manner you are being 'initiated' by them, about force they develop and about where YOU are being led by their paid writers and their 'mirrored' contents. Yet after we became little clearer about these questions ourselves, we must admit that our way of reading them noticeably changed.)