SETH, TYPHON AND THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

SETH, TYPHON AND THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

There is an added story to the wonderful time I spent at the V&A. It is all the more remarkable as it brings a very real sense that the universe does indeed work in our favour, especially when we are passionate enough to appreciate the teachings......
For some time I had been intrigued by the Wheel of Fortune, in particular the symbolism contained in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. I understood the card academically but not on a deeper or sentient level. I had been turning the essence of it's possible meanings over in my mind; then I was asked by Mona Choo to take part in the Psychometry project at the V&A.

After the curators workshop I was invited to psychometrise a very special object, this object had eluded it's curator & she was baffled as to it's possible purpose.
So, there I was, barely able to breathe with excitement as I followed the lady down the corridors & into the denizon of the museum. I remember standing unable to move as my eyes feasted on the artefacts on walls, tables & glass cupboards. Plates, pots, paintings, statues, a veritable curiosity shop & all the while curators & technicians were busily restoring, dusting or painting all kinds of paraphanalia.
I was led to a tall blue standard of what was a supposedly Egyptian sculpture. I proceeded to run my hands over the column, the base & the head.

I sensed that this sculpture was ancient & it had almost experienced two lives, one where it was loved & revered, the other where it was loathed & despised. I had images of it outside a building with archetraving & columns. People sitting on steps in a hot sun. There was a desolate feel to all of this.
It transpired that the curator did know it was Seth,the storm & desert God of the 15th dynasty ruled by Hyskos, but that was it......
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Seth started out in life as a revered God. The Valentinians saw Seth as the first of the race of the perfect ones, the spiritual in opposition to the material Cain & the Psychic Abel.
Obliquely, in Egyptian history he was seen as the great enemy of principle gods, Osiris, Isis & Horus.
Lucy Lamie tells us that'' Seth/Typhon is the principle of all that burns, consumes, he has red hair for example, for he represents the desert, rocks, arid & sterile.''

Jean Doresse explains;'' Seth is identified with the greek genie, Typhon, son of Tartarus, serpents body, Ass's head, a feature which recalls an African animal, the headless demon, eyes in the shoulder, Akephalos.''
It was the Greeks who finally demonised Seth, turning him into Typhon, whereas he started out as an object of reverance, his link to the war on life & death that humanity has been waging for millenia & his teaching that death cannot be overcome, it is imporatant to remember that fate plays a part in our ultimate survival & in antiquity one would have felt that our life really was in the hands of the gods. It is here that we see our link to the Wheel of Fortune.

Typhon represented Earth cycles, related to a comet called Typhon, after a king of the same name. It was once seen in Egypt, a blood red colour, it's globe modest & swollen & was some time in the north. Ethiopians & Persians witnessed it also & endured all necessities of evils & famine.
Typhon, emerging form deep space. He came to be known as the destroyer or regenerator. Creation being but continuous change in the form of matter.

Sethi's (followers of Seth),believed in darkness, mist & tempest, it was then that Seth was identified as evil or the devil......there is also the concept that Typhon/Seth in original could well have been feminine.

Whatever one's standpoint may be on the subject, my meeting with the standard of Seth was hugely beneficial to my understanding of the mighty WOF. Disruption & chaos are the building blocks of order, sometimes we have no control over these factors. Our life is a constant cycle of breaking down the margins & regenerating the form. Whatever one's plans maybe they are incidental to the turn of the wheel & the biological, spiritual & mental processes at the mercy of the great Queen,  Nature.

Psychometry at the Victoria and Albert

Back in 2009 I was fortunate enough to be asked to take part in a series of workshops and lectures with Mona Choo, the artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert museum.
Mona was interested in exploring a new way of historical objects and clothing telling their story, their unique past. Very often we observe the object from a 2 dimensional perspective and apply a meaning to the object from data that is observed by a 3rd party. The idea of  supposedly inanimate paraphanalia speaking of their physical existence seemed to add a whole new dimension to perceiving and experiencing history.
It was to this end that Mona asked me to come along to the V&A museum and take part in a series of talks and workshops illustrating how various pieces from the museum could indeed give us insights of their journey.www.vam.ac.uk/blogs/monachoo.com; but from a more interactive and holographic viewpoint.
We decided that offering talks to both curators and the public on the subject of psychometry and working with items housed in the museum would be an ideal format for experimentation in the notion of history being understood from a multi dimensional platform. In other words, history becoming alive!!
So, what is psychometry? It is the art of  divining information about people or events associated with an object solely by touching or being near it.
Therein lies the belief that everything is energy. Even the most fixed and solid of objects has the capacity to 'be' energy, we could take it further by saying that everything is Spirit and by it's very nature Spirit must express itself. To the sensitive ear and heart that expression can be translated into very real terms.
The pragmatist might suggest that Psychometry is a way for the lover of the paranormal to seek out an animistic experience, but whatever one's standpoint happens to be, Psychometry is profoundly interesting.
In each of our palms are energy centres or chakras. By holding something between the two palms and tuning in we can receive all manner of information as to the travails of that something. Actually this is not a linear experience. The object generally wants to offer insights as to the salient points of it's life, ( which is in continuum, without any physical death),and may or may not have anything to do with it's owner.
I receive a lot of the information from images and sensations.
The workshops were a lot of fun to do and not only that, it provided me with a great moment to really add a depth and breadth to my work. I remain in gratitude to Mona for that opportunity.
It was fascinating to hear about Coco Chanel's jacket. A piece wall paper and where it used to hang, a lock of hair and a Samurai sword to name but a few of the objects offered to be psychometrised.
By touching and engaging with these objects one could become absorbed in their tale peculiar to themselves,  a tale which embodied the time and the place, a chapter, a moment, shared by owner and object alike. One could get a real 'feel' of what it must have been like to have been around at that point.
I can only hope that in the fullness of time we will be able to witness history from a truly organic and satisfying perspective and I also hope that it might be possible for psychometry to play its part in that.