"I can bring everyone back…everyone…"
Faunus
Two key themes in both 'Club Jaguar' and 'The Story of Gracchus' are 'Time' and 'Illusion'.
The stories are intertwined by the fact that the principal characters, and the principal themes swirl about in vortexes of 'space-time' which obviously indicate the basic illusory nature of 'time' and 'reality'.
Illusion here, of course dos not mean that things are not 'real' in the very simple sense of 'solid'.
Solidity, and other attributes, such as temperature, sound, vision, odour - in fact all the senses that can be experienced - 'qualia' - exist only in the mind.
'Clock time' can be seen - the hands moving on the dial, or the numbers changing on a digital display, but our perception of time is almost totally variable, and lacking in consistency and regularity.
Many ancient cultures such as Ancient Greeks and Romans - have a concept of a 'wheel of time': they regard time as cyclical and quantic, consisting of repeating ages that happen to every being of the Universe between birth and extinction.
The stories are intertwined by the fact that the principal characters, and the principal themes swirl about in vortexes of 'space-time' which obviously indicate the basic illusory nature of 'time' and 'reality'.
Illusion here, of course dos not mean that things are not 'real' in the very simple sense of 'solid'.
Solidity, and other attributes, such as temperature, sound, vision, odour - in fact all the senses that can be experienced - 'qualia' - exist only in the mind.
In philosophy and psychology, qualia are defined to be individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis (Latin meaning 'of what sort' or 'of what kind' in a specific instance like 'what it is like to taste a specific orange, this particular orange now'. Examples of 'qualia' include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characters of sensation, qualia stand in contrast to 'propositional attitudes', where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing. Since it is by definition impossible to convey qualia verbally, it is also impossible to demonstrate them directly in an argument. Erwin Schrödinger, a theoretical physicist and one of the leading pioneers of quantum mechanics, also published in the areas of colorimetry and colour perception. In several of his philosophical writings, he defends the notion that qualia are not physical.Time undoubtedly is the greatest illusion.
'Clock time' can be seen - the hands moving on the dial, or the numbers changing on a digital display, but our perception of time is almost totally variable, and lacking in consistency and regularity.
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| Clepsydra - Roman Water Clock |
Alternatively, the Judeo-Christian world-view regards time as linear and directional, beginning with the act of creation by God, and ending with the Eschaton (end of time).
In general, the linear perception of time may be illustrated by an arrow.
On one end is the past, and on the other is the future.
The present lies somewhere in between.
According to this view, time is a 'one-way street' on which one can only move forward, and never back.
Concepts of Time
The traditional Christian view sees time ending, teleologically, with the eschatological end of the present order of things, the 'end time'.
The cyclical perception of time is much different from the Judeo-Christian linear perception of time.
As an example, whilst the latter places an emphasis on action, the former values reflection, especially of things that have happened in the past.
This is due to the belief that since time repeats itself, it is imperative that lessons of the past be taken into consideration when one makes decisions in the present.
Whilst this generally applies to all ancient cultures, (except the Jewish and Persian), it may be said that variations of this perception of time also exist amongst them.
The Ouroboros - Cyclic Time
οὐροβόρος - the 'Ouroboros' - a Greek word meaning 'tail devourer', is one of the oldest mystical symbols in the world and is the symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail.
Originating in Ancient Egyptian iconography, the 'Ouroboros' was viewed as a symbol representing the travels of the sun disk.
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| Ouroboros |
The 'Ouroboros' also appears in Mesoamerican culture, particularly in the Mayan speculations regarding the nature of time.
The symbolism of the 'Ouroboros' relates to 'introspection', the concept of 'eternal recurrence', especially in the sense of something constantly 're-creating' itself.
It also represents the infinite cycle of nature's endless creation and destruction - life and death.
In mythology, the 'Oroborus' is a symbol representing the Milky Way.
Myth refers to a 'serpent of light' residing in the heavens.
The Milky Way is this serpent, and viewed at the galactic central point, near Sagittarius, this serpent eats its own tail.
Significantly, many ancients used the galaxy to calculate cosmic and earth cycles.
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| Queztacoatl - the 'Feathered Serpent' |
There is also a strange connection between the 'Oroborus' and the Aztec and Mayan serpent God, 'Queztacoatl' - the 'Feathered Serpent'.
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| Zoroaster |
Zoroastrianism is one of the first religions to view time as non-cyclical.
The Greeks - in the Hellenistic sense of the term - had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias, that saw him, at the core, to be the 'prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples' - and Pliny the Elder names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic (Natural History 30.2.3).
The key concept in Zoroastrianism with regard to time is the doctrine of a final renovation of the universe, when evil will be destroyed, and everything else will be then in perfect unity with God (Ahura Mazda).
The Persian term for this suggests 'making wonderful or excellent'.
Zoroaster, of course is the character 'usurped' by Nietzsche for his monumental work, 'Also sprach
Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen', which overturns the teachings of the Persian prophet by denying the possibility of an objective definition of good and evil, ('Jenseits von Gut und Böse'), and suggests the temporal theory of 'Eternal Recurrence'.
With the decline of Classical civilisation, and the spread of christianity, cyclic concepts of time fell into disuse in the Western world, with the significant exception of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (see Preface).
Lou Andreas-Salomé pointed out that Nietzsche referred to ancient 'cyclical conceptions of time', in particular by the Pythagoreans, in his book 'Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen' (Untimely Meditations).
Henri Lichtenberger and Charles Andler have pinpointed three works contemporary to Nietzsche which carried on the same hypothesis: J.G. Vogt, 'Die Kraft' 'Eine real-monistische Weltanschauung' (1878), Auguste Blanqui, 'L'éternité par les astres' (1872) and Gustave 'Le Bon, L'homme et les sociétés' (1881).
Eternal Recurrence is also mentioned in passing by the Devil in Part Four, Book XI, Chapter 9 of Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov,' which is another possible source that Nietzsche may have been drawing upon.
The Persian term for this suggests 'making wonderful or excellent'.
Hellenic and Nietzschean Time
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| Nietzsche |
Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen', which overturns the teachings of the Persian prophet by denying the possibility of an objective definition of good and evil, ('Jenseits von Gut und Böse'), and suggests the temporal theory of 'Eternal Recurrence'.
With the decline of Classical civilisation, and the spread of christianity, cyclic concepts of time fell into disuse in the Western world, with the significant exception of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (see Preface).
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| Lou Andreas-Salomé |
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| Dostoevsky |
Eternal Recurrence is also mentioned in passing by the Devil in Part Four, Book XI, Chapter 9 of Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov,' which is another possible source that Nietzsche may have been drawing upon.
Time in Classical Philosophy
The Greek language denotes two distinct principles regarding time, 'Chronos' and 'Kairos'.
The former refers to numeric, or chronological, time.
The latter, literally 'the right or opportune moment', relates specifically to metaphysical or Divine time.
In theology, Kairos is qualitative, as opposed to quantitative.
In Greek mythology, Χρόνος - Chronos, is identified as the personification of Time.
His name in Greek simply means 'time', and is alternatively spelled Chronus (Latin spelling), or Khronos.
Chronus is usually portrayed as an old, wise man with a long, grey beard, such as 'Father Time'.
Some English words, whose etymological root is khronos/chronos, include chronology, chronometer, chronic, anachronism, synchronise, and chronicle.
Ancient Greek philosophers, including Parmenides and Heraclitus, wrote essays on the nature of time.
Such philosophers believed that the universe had an infinite past, with no beginning.
Plato, in the 'Timaeus', identified time with the period of motion of the heavenly bodies.
Aristotle, in Book IV of his 'Physica', defined time as 'number of movement in respect of the before and after'.
In 5th century BC Greece, Antiphon the Sophist, in a fragment preserved from his chief work 'On Truth', held that: 'Time is not a reality (hypostasis), but a concept (noêma), or a measure (metron).'
Parmenides went further, maintaining that time, motion, and change were illusions, leading to the paradoxes of his follower Zeno.
Paradox and Illusion
Zeno's paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems generally thought to have been devised by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea to support Parmenides' doctrine that, contrary to the evidence of one's senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion.
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| Achilles and the Tortoise |
If time can be shown to be an illusion, then this necessarily creates problems with our experience of the material world.
This was first explored by the Greek pre-Socratic sophist, Gorgias (c. 483–375 BC) who is quoted by the Roman sceptic, Sextus Empiricus, as having stated that 'nothing exists', and that 'even if something exists, nothing can be known about it'.
In addition he stated that 'even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it cannot be communicated to others'.
Much of the point of the Sophists was to show that 'objective' knowledge was a literal impossibility.
The questioning of the reality of our perception of the material world led Greek and Roman philosophers to suggest the 'Dream Theory of Perception'.
While people dream, they usually do not realize they are dreaming, (if they do, which is unusual, it is called a 'lucid dream').
This has led philosophers to wonder whether one could actually be dreaming constantly, instead of being in waking reality (whatever that may be).
This leads to the suggestion that one cannot be certain, at any given point in time, that one is not dreaming).
In the Ancient World, this philosophical puzzle was referred to by Plato in the 'Theaetetus' (158b-d), and also Aristotle in the 'Metaphysics' (1011a6).
Time and Māyā
To some extent the Hellenistic Greeks were philosophically influenced by Hindu thought, as a result of the contact with Indian culture which occurred when Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), (Alexander the Great), invaded Western India.
It was through this contact that the Greeks became aware of the Hindu concept of 'Māyā'.
'Māyā' pre-exists, and co-exists, with Brahman – the 'Ultimate Principle'.
In Hinduism, Brahman is the highest Universal Principle - the Ultimate Reality.
Brahman is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal that does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman, as a metaphysical concept, is the single binding unity behind the diversity in all.
Brahman is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all. It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal that does not change, yet is the cause of all changes. Brahman, as a metaphysical concept, is the single binding unity behind the diversity in all.
'Māyā' is 'perceived reality', - a 'reality' that that does not reveal the hidden principles, the 'true reality'.
'Māyā' is an illusion.
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| The Dreams of Brahman |
Returning to the concept of time in the ancient world, (see above), the cyclical theory of time took the form, for most Greek and Roman intellectuals, of 'Eternal Return' (also known as 'Eternal Recurrence').
This is a concept that states that the universe, and all existence and energy, has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form, an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.
The concept, (as with the concept of 'reality as an illusion'), is also found in Indian, and in ancient Egyptian philosophy, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans, Stoics and Gnostics.
In ancient Egypt, the scarab (or dung beetle) was viewed as a sign of 'eternal renewal', and re-emergence of life, a reminder of the life to come.
Mesoamerican and Mayan Time
The ancient Mayans and Aztecs whose culture and religion play a significant part in the story 'Club Jaguar', took a cyclical view of time.
The Mayans had an understanding of the passage of time that is very different from anything in current Western culture.
It is not entirely clear whether the Maya invented all of the calendars they used, or whether they adopted them from the neighbouring Olmec people, but over a period that may have lasted from 900 to 1,200 years they made a careful and accurate study of astronomical cycles, and used that knowledge as a way to make sense of, and bring order, to the unpredictable world in which they lived.
The Maya recognized that the natural world, the cosmos, and even their own bodies functioned according to observable cycles.
To locate themselves within these cycles they tracked the movements of planets, the moon, and the sun.
They also used a 260-day calendar that many scholars believe to be based on the approximate duration of a human pregnancy.
Another Maya calendar, the 'Long Count', was used to tally the number of days that had elapsed since the mythological date of their creation.
The 'Long Count' is set to reach the end of a 1,872,000-day-long period on December 21, 2012. )
This has given rise to widespread apocalyptic predictions about what will happen.
Evidence from archaeological sites, ancient books, and the modern-day Maya themselves shows that while this one cycle is ending, many others will continue.
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| Mayan Time |
It is not entirely clear whether the Maya invented all of the calendars they used, or whether they adopted them from the neighbouring Olmec people, but over a period that may have lasted from 900 to 1,200 years they made a careful and accurate study of astronomical cycles, and used that knowledge as a way to make sense of, and bring order, to the unpredictable world in which they lived.
The Maya recognized that the natural world, the cosmos, and even their own bodies functioned according to observable cycles.
To locate themselves within these cycles they tracked the movements of planets, the moon, and the sun.
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| The Long Count |
Another Maya calendar, the 'Long Count', was used to tally the number of days that had elapsed since the mythological date of their creation.
The 'Long Count' is set to reach the end of a 1,872,000-day-long period on December 21, 2012. )
This has given rise to widespread apocalyptic predictions about what will happen.
Evidence from archaeological sites, ancient books, and the modern-day Maya themselves shows that while this one cycle is ending, many others will continue.
'Eternal Recurrence' and 'Reincarnation'
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| Zeno of Citium |
Ekpyrosis - ἐκπύρωσις (conflagration) is a Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a great conflagration every 'Great Year'. The cosmos is then recreated (palingenesis) only to be destroyed again, at the end of the new cycle.
This form of catastrophe is the opposite of kataklysmos (κατακλυσμός, 'inundation'), the destruction of the earth by water. The concept of Ekpyrosis is attributed to Chrysippus by Plutarc
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| Orpheus |
Orpheus, its legendary founder, is said to have taught that the immortal soul aspires to freedom while the body holds it prisoner.
The 'wheel of birth' revolves, and the soul alternates between freedom and captivity (hence the alternating themes of 'freedom' and 'slavery' in 'The Story of Gracchus') round the wide circle of necessity.
Orpheus proclaimed the need of the favour of the Gods, - the God Dionysus in particular - and of self-purification until the soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny to live for ever.
An association between Pythagorean philosophy and reincarnation was routinely accepted throughout antiquity.
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| Plato |
There are myths and theories to the same effect in other dialogues, in the Chariot allegory of the 'Phaedrus', in the 'Meno', 'Timaeus' and also 'The Laws'.
The soul, once separated from the body, spends an indeterminate amount of time in region of the Forms (see The Allegory of the Cave in T'he Republic' and Plato's theory of the Forms) and then assumes another body.
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| Virgil |
In Roman literature reincarnation is also referred to also by Lucretius and Horace.
Virgil works the idea into his account of the Underworld in the sixth book of the 'Aeneid' (see above and below).
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| Plotinus |
In the Gnostic 'Hermetica', a Graeco-Egyptian series of writings on cosmology and spirituality, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus/Thoth, the doctrine of reincarnation is central.
Mayan religion also gave prominence to the concept of Reincarnation, and the theme occurs in a number of Mayan myths and legends.
In particular the concept of Reincarnation is associated with the maize plant - which was a staple crop for most Mesoamerican Cultures.
'Breton taught us to destroy the walls of the 'real' that separate us from 'reality', to participate in being, so as to live as if it were the first day of creation....'
Eugène Ionesco
this is an additional article for your further enjoyment of
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