John Lennon and the Hermetic Echo of the Sacred Science
The Beatles contributed to the loosening of bourgeois dogmas — precisely because their music, being somewhat kitsch, worked as a dissolving agent from within, at least when compared to the slightly later Pink Floyd led by Syd Barrett.
But it is not of music nor of social fashions that one wishes to speak.
When the Beatles disbanded, John Lennon moved to the United States with his wife Yoko Ono, and here, expressing his musical vein matured and refined, he wrote songs that can rightly be called contemporary masterpieces. Few, however, know that many of Lennon’s songs teem with hermetic and esoteric elements.
Beginning precisely with Imagine, which at first hearing may appear as an anthem to a trite and banal utopian vision of universal goodness — of Christian or, conversely, Marxian stamp, according to one’s sensibility.
Yet this song may also be read in another way; those accustomed to the Tantra or to alchemical writings will find it composed of themes typical of Hermetism.
The song opens with the verse “Imagine there’s no heaven”, for in esotericism — and indeed also in the Gospels themselves — salvation is to be found on this very earth, if one knows how to find it. It is therefore wholly centred upon the brotherhood of men, on this side of the divisions born of property, nationalism, and religion.
Imagine thus speaks of what the Greeks, and not least Plato, called the Golden Age, which in turn coincides with the Hindu Satya Yuga, the Egyptian Zep Tepi, the Edenic state of the Qabbalah, and so forth.
And finally, even the hope toward which the text aspires seems once again drawn from esotericism itself: that the world may become one.
Imagine may therefore be read as a hymn that draws upon the cardinal concepts of the hermetic traditions — or perhaps this resemblance is but a suggestion.
Another of Lennon’s most beautiful songs is Mind Games, the lyrics of which are here quoted:
“We’re playin’ those mind games together,
Pushin’ the barriers, plantin’ seeds,
Playin’ the mind guerrilla.
Chantin’ the mantra, peace on earth.
We all been playin’ those mind games forever,
Some kinda druid dude liftin’ the veil,
Doin’ the mind guerrilla.
Some call it magic, the search for the grail.
Love is the answer,
And you know that for sure;
Love is the flower,
You gotta let it, you gotta let it grow.
So keep on playin’ those mind games together,
Faith in the future, out of the now.
You just can’t beat on those mind guerrillas,
Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind.
Yeah, we’re playin’ those mind games forever,
Projectin’ our images in space and in time.
Yes is the answer,
You know that for sure;
Yes is surrender;
you gotta let it, you gotta let it go.
So keep on playin’ those mind games forever,
Doin’ the ritual dance in the sun,
Millions of mind guerrillas
Puttin’ their soul power to the karmic wheel.
Keep on playin’ those mind games forever,
Raisin’ the spirit of peace and love”.
This text is composed almost entirely of expressions taken directly from the various esoteric traditions, as will now be shown.
First of all, the planting of seeds is an image that frequently recurs in hermetic writings, for true knowledge cannot be conveyed through discourse: it must unfold of itself within the mind — and within the heart.
The mantra originated in the Indian subcontinent and spread throughout the East. It consists in the rhythmic repetition of syllables or words, accompanied by the turning of the mala — the Hindu or Buddhist rosary. As such, the mantra is not merely a prayer. Above all, OM and a few others are meant to awaken and set vibrating the latent psychophysical energies long forgotten within that featherless biped (as Plato called man).
The Druids were the priests of the ancient peoples of the North — magicians, shamans — about whom very little is truly known, except that to them are ultimately attributed the circular megalithic structures, Stonehenge being the most famous, that dot the lands of Northern Europe. The Druids were, in essence, the counterparts of the Indian yogin.
The lifting of the veil is a familiar expression in esotericism. It refers to the condition in which human beings normally live, bereft of genuine awareness (rigpa in Tibetan). They believe they exist, they believe they know, yet have always lived entangled in the meshes of the conceptual and discursive mind — the veil itself. Human beings live as though asleep, unaware of true reality. It is in relation to this state of avidyā—ignorance, in Sanskrit—that the awakening of Buddhism, the rising of Hindu Kundalinī, and the illumination described by countless esoteric traditions all take their place. Plutarch already reports that at Sais, in ancient Egypt, there stood a statue of the goddess Isis covered by a veil, bearing at its base the inscription: “I am all that has been, that is, and that shall be, and no mortal has ever yet lifted my veil”.
Originally, the Grail was a cornucopia, in the form of a dish or a vessel. Yet even this is already a mythical description, for the esoteric meaning of the Grail is no different from that of the Philosopher’s Stone or the wish-fulfilling jewel: the Grail is a symbol representing the summit of the mental process of transformation that lies at the heart of all esoteric practice. One of its most fitting definitions is given by Wagner in Parsifal: the Grail is “that place where space becomes time”.
The verse “Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind” however poetic and pop it may sound, connects directly with the intermediate levels of the yoga of the mind, described in minute detail by the Indian and Tibetan traditions.
The projection of images in space and time is in itself a basic technique of visualization—a practice that forms the very essence of the exoteric Mahayana Tantra. Yet it is above all the reference to the dimensions of space and time that links this verse to esotericism, for the very possibility of transcending these structures is a constant goal of the various spiritual paths.
The ritual dance in the sun calls to mind the series of āsanas of the Sūrya Namaskāra—the sequence of postures in Indian Haṭha Yoga performed in salutation to the sun—today often practised in its merely gymnastic form even in Western fitness halls. The Sun itself, moreover, is an object of veneration within the Sacred Science of ancient Egypt, where Rā is one of the principal deities and the Aten, the solar disk, was the only god of Pharaoh Akhenaten (and it must be remembered that the so-called Egyptian deities—the neteru—have nothing in common with the personal gods produced by the Western world).
Karma is again an Indian concept, and one largely misunderstood by Westerners. It is neither fate nor destiny, nor merely the law of causality, and still less should it be taken as a kind of supernatural or religious retribution. The wheel of karma symbolizes the truth that a person experiences the events to which he or she has contributed as a cause. Of course, there are accidents wholly unforeseen, whose causes are so remote as to seem inaccessible, just as every act or event has nuances that appear imponderable; for this reason karma is not simply causality in its mechanistic sense. One may say that karma refers to the cosmic process that is the natural unfolding of nature itself, with which individual human actions constantly interact. To grasp karma in its depth, one must be familiar with the notions, as defined by the Buddhist doctrines, of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa: just as nirvāṇa is the liberation from the suffering bound up with existence, so saṃsāra is life enslaved to events—life at the mercy of circumstances—all the more so when one proudly believes oneself to be their master. He who attains nirvāṇa, say the masters, goes beyond karma and sees life as the turning of an immense wheel.
So one must ask: was Lennon a yogi, an alchemist, a Qabbalist? Most likely not — at least, not in the sense of knowing himself to be one. He was perhaps drawn to such themes and, finding them in tune with his own sensibility, gave them voice in song. Yet even that explanation feels incomplete, for the precision with which he touches upon these matters suggests something deeper than a passing fascination.
The dilemma resolves itself if we recall one of the fundamental canons of the traditional sciences: yogin, poets, and adepts all “speak the same truth,” each in his own way, because that very truth arises in the mind of all who are open to it. And John Lennon was simply one to whom that same truth came to mind.
The proof lies in Instant Karma!, with its cryptic words: urging others to live fully, Lennon sings—“Who do you think you are, a superstar? Well, you are”.