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Words Have Two Meanings.....The Mystery of album 4.

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This is an old newsletter of mine from 2003. It may be old but I dug it up from it's grave because I needed to share it with everyone else. Particularly because of the end section about Stairway. It seems to be an incredibly sensitive subject with everyone for some strange reason. I respect that all people's opinions are valid and I hope not to offend anyone but I also hope that we are all trying to work towards a greater understanding of life the universe and everything and have some fun along the way, so hey everyone,lighten up. Freedom of speech and all that, let's not be scared because as bob hoskins used to say,"it's good to talk". : )

Anyhoo, here it is.

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Sometimes words have two meanings.- Special Section.

DISCLAIMER.-The opinions expressed here are entrirely my own, so I hope that no one will take offence to anything said, please accept my apologise for any opinions which offend,as this it not my intention,my intention is to contemplate the meaning of things and I sometimes clumsily step on a few toes trying to work things out,so as I say,sorry if you find offence,please write if you have any complaints.

Stairway to heaven, possibly the greatest song ever written by Led Zeppelin, possibly the greatest song ever written period.When I first encountered the music of Led Zeppelin about a decade ago, I was amazed at the diversity of it, but also with the soul, in fact more than the soul, the magic of it.

You see there is more to the Magic of Led Zeppelin than most people realise.As I said before there are hidden meanings,so here is the story of how the lady turned everything to gold.

Around ten years ago I was part of a religion called the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, or the mormons as most know them(the Osmonds who wrote Crazy horses being probably the most famous members of this church).
Occasionally prophets of the church or persons affiliated with it would give talks and these talks would be recorded and sent out to the members of the church to deliberate,and
cogitate over (flagelate over?.......ahem,excuse me).
One such talk came out at the time, but instead of the usual blah blah, be holy and generally nice(which isn't such a bad idea) the talk was by a guy who had been in the music industry for about twenty years and had encountered just about every evil known to man,woman and child,because the music industry of all industries is indeed ladened with pitfalls and traps galore;and this is what he was talking about.
Certain people in the music industry he said were quite happy to chew you up and spit you out, without a care in the world for your welfare.
(Pink floyd waxed lyrical about the same subject of the dangers of the music business in the song,
"Have a cigar" on the album Wish you were here.)

My friend Farand and I listened to the talk intently as we were both deeply into music and religion at the time.
But there was one part of the talk which suddenly grabbed our attention.
The guy on the tape spoke of an intriguing technique which a few artists had tried called "backmasking". He said that these people were meddeling with very powerful ideas, and that it was important for the youth of the church and even youth as a whole to know what these artists were playing with,and to be aware of how clever and devious this kind of thing could be.
The guy on the tape giving the talk (probably in a hall somewhere or church chapel in front of an audience of church youth) said he would be better able to explain by playing certain pieces of music as examples of what he was talking about with this "backmasking". Backmasking he said was a technique whereby hidden messages are placed into music.The way to do this is by aiming the messages at the sub-consious level of the mind.
How do you do that? By changing the message so that one part of your mind picks up the message,but you don't consciously notice it.
How do you do that? Well there's a whole load of ways to do it.And so he showed us how.
If you speak a message you can hide it in the music by either speeding it up, slowing it down, or playing it backwards((To heaven........)).
Some of the examples of music I remember him playing were.....
Styx's - Snowblind,
(Styx is the river in hell apparently,but I can't clarify this as I haven't been there,I think someone said the catering was bad,but apparently it's quite hot all year round...;-)
The Beatles - Revolution 9, with the old classic of a narrator on the track saying,"Number 9" -which reversed is- "turn-me-on-god-man".
Also the Beatles - All you need is love, at the end of the song where everybody is singing,".....love is all you need"-reversed is, well you can find that one out yourself.....:-)

These Beatles hidden messages reminds me of a lesson at school we once had about the conspiracy of Paul Mcartney related to the Sgt Pepper's Album, something to do with stuff on the cover giving clues of his demise and I think it's in Strawberry Fields at the end where there's a strange voice saying,"I buried Paul", right next to the lyrics," Umpa umpa, stick it up yer jumper", which seems to indicate that it's all just a good joke.The ultimate joke being if you reverse the chorus,you get the message,"the verse is reversed".
It also seems to indicate that some songs have surrealist lyrics because then they can take full advantage of the use of phonetics for "backmasking".
Anyway back to this talk on music messages tape.
There was a Paul Mcartney song he played which had a speeded up voice like a chipmunk in the hidden in the background, which he slowed down and played backwards, if you listen carefully you can quite distinctly hear the words,"..the lord is my shepherd,..I shall not want..etc".

Then of course the classic Queen song -Another one bites the dust - about a guy who gets loaded up on drugs and takes his machine gun out with him for a walk and proceeds to shoot everyone on the street,the words "another one bites the dust" reversed are of course,"start to smoke marajuana".

Since listening to the tape I have found more, like Madonna's - like a prayer -somewhere in the song,I think in one of the acapella parts (just vocals) "life is a mystery,everyone must stand alone,etc" are some other strange messages, also in Madonna's - justify my love there are some more messages about Satan again which was once featured on the channel 4 programme the Word.
So as you can see artists have been dabbling in this kind of thing, including"backmasking"for a while now.
Artists throughout history have found joy in placing more than meets the eye into their work,like the famous picture of the last supper,or H.R.Giger's pictures,or even greek statues and chinese architecture with hidden phi ratios,the list goes on......

I ended up last year actually doing a presentation on backmasking which was met firstly with the same kind of reaction I get from most people when I talk about stuff like this which is a little strange to people's ears.
The usual reaction is,"..no, don't be silly, you're crazy, youve taken this too far, there's no such thing, you're paranoid, etc".
So I did the presentation at Brighton Institue for Modern Music, (which was kindly offered to me by Bruce Dickinson the main man there).
I put the samples from Led Zeppelin and Queen, Madonna etc., in order of the ones most difficult to hear to the clearest, to get the best reaction from the audience.
So the first few were met with,"can't hear it, there's nothing there etc", but then slowly the messages got clearer each time,"hmmm, maybe there's something but it could just be coincidence etc".
Then the best ones.
The reaction you get when the audience finally hear the messages, man, it's amazing. A complete mixed sense of confusion, reverence, (even awe?) go across their faces;the same reaction as when my friend Farand and I first heard them years ago,"blimey, maybe there is something to this..., but what are the possibilities and consiquences of that??"

Stairway to Heaven-Led Zeppelin.

Let it not be said that Led Zeppelin have not contributed to this movement.
These messages which are hidden in the songs are usually very badly done, with no subtlety, no style,
no jou de vivre.
But then; Led Zeppelin's-Stairway to Heaven.
Now this my friends is a true piece of incredible art. Most would not refrain from admitting that this song is an amazing composition,period.However,this song is the backmasking queen..........((May Queen,Easter[Old English eastre, apparently from Eostre, the name of a goddess associated with spring, from Germanic] ))

When we were younger Farand and I were very interested in finding out more about these messages.
When we heard this tape being young church boys we freaked.
So as I say we were fasinated,to say the least,we almost wet ourselves.
Farand suggested that we immediately get back to his place to listen to the "satanic messages".
It makes quite a difference when your looking from a Mormon Christian viewpoint (no offence,many of the people are very nice) to listen to these messages, because you really believe that there is a God and a Devil, so these messages of Satan really curl your toes with reverence and fear, but also with a sense of finding the "holy grail", let me try to explain that...........

If you are anything like me,as a spiritual person you tend to search for the answers to the mysteries of life. Some people end up searching through religion to find this, others through U.F.O. magazines and the such like.(how ever you find it....whirl like a dervish, stand on one leg like an ibis bird...etc)
Most of the stuff you find can be a real drag, and you feel like you are getting nowhere, but then there are those rare moments where you find something that rings true and makes your heart and mind burn, and you fill with questions;............(oooohhhhh.....and it makes me wonder..)
When you realise through these messages that other people feel this way too, and then you contemplate the possibility that maybe they know something more about the keys to these mysteries; you get a sense of reverence that can nigh on scare you, these kind of feelings are rare and incredibly powerful, and can change your perception on life dramatically.
Basically a revelation or illumination the kind of which scientists, spiritualists, but at the end of the day anyone can have and have had all throughout history.
Whether you are David Icke, Paul of Tarsis, or Joe nobody, the flash of inspiration changes you but you are left with a problem. How do you explain this experience to other people, most of which are heavily sceptical?
Answer, you can't; but you can try.

So all you can do sometimes is put your beliefs on the line, and just take the critisism and flak.
However; it should be considered that there are many things unexplained in life and the best way to understand them usually is with an open mind.
Some people believed ferverently that the world was flat not long ago,indeed you could have been put to death for your beliefs, many were.
If somebody had said to these people that it was possible to make a piece of metal bigger than twenty men hang in the air they would have sent you to the loony bin.
But what is a plane?, or a helicopter?
When you get down to Quantum Physics the question is, what is reality?
But two things in my opinion are to be said about beliefs.
Beliefs should be 1.Encouraged and 2.Supported.
If someone comes up to me and says,"humans have no idea of what intellegence and progress is, animals
are much farther advanced than us humans", it may sound strange to many people, but would it be so crazy?
Animals are known to have incredible and diverse talents, complex social structures, and all within a framework than doesn't upset the balance of nature; looking at the state of the planet after our idea of progress starts to make me think, who's beliefs are right?, nobody's, it's just a point of view,or as Robert Plant said,"It's all just a state of mind".
One such writer with diverse beliefs which have been critisised even to this day is the one and only Mr.Alistair Crowley. Crowley had a deep interest in the "occult", which basically means,hidden;
occult adj. & v.
adj. /, /
1 involving the supernatural; mystical, magical.
2 kept secret; esoteric.
3 recondite, mysterious; beyond the range of ordinary knowledge.
4 Med. not obvious on inspection.
v.tr. // Astron. (of a celestial body) conceal (an apparently smaller body) from view by passing or being in front of it.
[Latin occulere occult- (as ob-, celare ‘hide’)]

Alistair crowley is a strange character, but only inasmuch as the way he has been written about.
He seems to have been tarred with a bad brush by many because he called into question everything,including society,mankind and moralistic views which are still very taboo subjects even today.
Because many of his beliefs were utterly individual,and that doesn't go down well with the status quo
((not exactly 'whatever you want'-more'down,down,deeper and down'-are they still on tour? ;->)),
he was hounded and named the most evil man on earth.
One of the names which Alistair actually used was "the beast 666",which is in reference to the classic bible quotation Revelations 13 v18,which reads....(que thunder and lightning!; James Mason reads solemly.....)
"Here is wisdom.Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:for it is the number of man;and his number is six hundred threescore six."
The common majikal explaination of this is that 666 is the number of man because man,beast,in fact most of the life on this planet is carbon based,the carbon atom being made up of
6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons,so iron maiden are right an wrong at the same time.((6;6,6;the number of....errrm......errrmmm.........;-))

It's difficult to explain Aliester Crowley's philosophies so i'll let the man speak for himself, here is a quote of his to give you an idea of his writings;

-"Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers,

Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the pad.

There is therefore no reason to assign theoretical limits to what he may be, or what he may do."

He was a most excellent philosopher and studied majik deeply. Most of his texts are very complex
indeed, so this is not the work of the most evil man at all,
(look to george.w for that (wasn't it Bob dylan that sang "don't trust your leaders")),
but someone intelligent and taking the flak for incredibly
diverse beliefs,and remember this is back in 1874-1947.
Alistair's most famous quote of course is,"do what thou wilt"which is difficult to understand properly.

I have asked my friend Farand recently (he has a deep interest in majik now), what it means;
but it all sounded to complex for me.
The whole quote puts it a little more in context.Instead of just "do what thou wilt",which gets
mis-interpreted as "do what you like",the quote is something like,
"do what thou wilt is the whole of the law, love is the law, love under will,always do thy will".
I think it means that you should always do what feels true and right to you,whatever you feel is your destiny,to flow with the force,something like that....(?,anyone who knows I could do with a better explaination,Faz is never here just when I need to ask him!)
In my study of this hidden knowledge I seemed to get more and more complex information as I went.
So what started as a little newsletter has turned into a blooming novel.There is far too much information to even scrape the surface of all of this stuff so here's a good book to read to tickle your sense of interest.
The book is called,The pyramids of Montauk,written by Preston B Nichols and Peter Moon.
There,that should save me typing 250 pages or so...thank goodness,and if that doesn't whet your appetite then read,The Illuminatus! Trilogy,written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson,then Promethius Rising,written also by Robert Anton Wilson,and finish with any works by Aliester Crowley, James Joyce, G.I.Gurdjieff,and Korsybski.
There;your brain should be feeling like a fried egg now,that will stop you asking questions for a while,so I can finally go and make myself a cup of tea.

"Do what thou wilt"was inscribed on some of the early pressings of Led Zeppelin's third album.
There is little doubt that Jimmy Page was at the time very much into all of this hidden knowledge.
Therefore there is little doubt that Page intended to take this concept MUCH further with Led Zeppelin's Album Four.
So,let's look at the evidence of that.Take a look at Led Zeppelin Four.

There is no title.If that's not an indication of hidden,I don't know what is.

What do the Four symbols mean??? ( UPDATE May 9th - Here is a newly found more accurate definition!)

The four symbols which each represent a member of the band were apparently chosen out of a book of runes.I don't know exactly what they represent,as I can find no books with them in.Farand gave me some pointers.Here are some guesses,maybe you people out there can put me straight on these.

Plant's feather means the scribe(i.e.the lyricist),inspiration(to come to you,"like a feather in the wind") or possibly a reference to american indian culture??
John bonham and John paul jones seem to have gone for the eternal symbols of the family,the trinity but a woman I spoke to recently who happened to have the symbol tattooed on her arm said that it represented the three ages of woman,the mystery goes on.
As for Jimmy Page's symbol, ZOSO, well, goodness, it could mean lots of things.
I think it was specifically designed by Page himself. My references say that it's a mix of star charts and astrological signs,but as I say,the mystery gets deeper the more you delve.

Then there is the man on the front cover,who is he? In fact,what does the cover mean?

The cover is a picture of a man with a bundle of sticks on his back.,this picture of a man is hanging on a wall of a knocked down derelict building.So what does that mean?
I think this is a statement about society and the hermit (who we shall hear of again).
The man in the picture is a man of nature he tills earth and then he gives back,he is the hermit ,in the way of his actions.This plus the derelict wall in a grotty housing estate is as if to say,the hermit,frowned apon as the fool and lowlife of society,he is shunned, feared,looked down apon,yet;his approach to life is perfectly cyclic and in tune with nature.
Progress/society however,has nothing to show but housing estates,so the statement of the front cover is to bring to attention how far we have imprisoned ourselves, and how far away that is from nature,or any sensible state of mind.

Then there is the priestly looking gentleman on the inside cover,whom is he?

He I think,is supposed to represent the tarot card of the hermit (or wise old man),
Now that in itself is a lot so I will try to surmise.Here is a rough explaination which I have condensed from a book on Tarot called,The Sangreal Tarot,written by William.G.Gray.

-"The hermit symbol represents the essential individuality.
Not the "personality self"which only appears during embodiment and should not last much longer than a lifetime,but the spiritual self or immortal identity.It is the part of us which does not normally die but remains intact indefinitely.....They act ((hermits)) as guardians of the secrets....The hermit of course signifies that remote and distant part of ourselves which seems so far away when we are young ((hmmm,I don't know if I'd agree with that )) yet we come closer and closer to it as we get older,and are only likely to encounter it directly after we have died or gotten clear of our earthly bodies ((I don't suggest doing this early )).....In pictorial versions of this card,the hermit usually has one red glass panel in his six sided lantern to show the light behind the blood and the light is six rayed to illustrate the immanent union with god as symbolised by the hexagram ((hexa(six)gram(line) being the jewish "star of David" or Star tetrahedron, read Pyramids of Montauk or work by Drunvalo Melchizedek the Flower of life, for more references to this))....The chief characteristic of the Hermit is undoubtedly his isolation. A chemist speaks of isolating anything when he has discovered how to remove all contaminants and everything which is NOT the substance itself. All that remains must be the pure essential element only......Indeed the practical process by which the Hermit attains his "splendid isolation",and the Self-spirit achieves its independent individuality, is very much the same in physical and metaphysical ideology......The Hermit is usually seen as someone who shuns the company of others, but this tarot card should be seen as one who has risen so far above the common level that there are few enough souls around to afford him any company at all ((few who understand him)).......Hermits are not inhospitable, though their food may be very plain, their beds somewhat hard, and their cells ((huts/rooms)) rather chilly.They are always prepared to give all they have in the service of the sangreal((service of love/will,do what thou wilt)).....This connection may only be an attenuated consciousness while we live in an earthly body, and we should not expect to be very close until after physical death has taken place.....This does not mean we need not try to make any contacts with our Hermits until we are dead...That is to say, communication with our higher sources of consciousness and inspiration is possible if we direct attention in that direction. Since Hermits are contemplatives, the methodology of contemplation is best suited to contact the type of consciousness they deal with.To the unthinking observer there seems no idler type of occupation than contemplation, whereas precisely the opposite is the case. Externally silent and motionless individuals should be loudly and actively making themselves clear on inner levels."
From reading that desription I seem to get a distinct impression that there has been a modern version of the hermit represented recently.
Who lives alone?Who holds the secrets?Who has food that is plain and humble surroundings?
Who is very old?-"When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not. Hmm?","For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained! A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind."

However, there is more to this inside cover than meets the eye.
If you place the cover near a mirror so as to get a symmetrical shape (i.e. so that you have two hermits on a hill, one facing left,one facing right) then a different face appears.The hermits on the hill form to be antlers or horns,and the rocks in the hill itself form to be the details of a face of an animal (much like H.R.Giger's pictorial work.) It is said to be a "bovine " face, bovine meaning...

bovine // adj.
1 of or relating to cattle.
2 stupid, dull.
bovinely adv.
[Late Latin bovinus from Latin bos bovis ‘ox’]

There seems to be several faces in this symmetrical picture and I can only guess as the meaning of these references.

Next there is a man on sleeve, who is he?

I think that again he is the scribe,in other words the lyricist,robert plant.

So from this utterly intended theme running completely throughout the cover and sleeve, where do you logically go next to hide your messages?;
of course,you take this further by hiding it in the lyrics.
Ergo; The Stairway (...aaaahhhhhhh..backwards...) to Heaven.

Jimmy Page was completely into Aliester Crowley.
(I would like to say that at this point in the newsletter my computer crashed, losing all the text I had written,leaving me with a file of 0 bytes, just as I wrote the words occult. Never let it be said that there is no such thing as coincidence.
I spent one day in shock of losing it, and two days getting quite drunk after I realised that the most likely senario was that I would never see this newsletter again. After all the hard work I had put into it I felt very upset. Luckily a friend of mine (Graham the Samurai Silicon Soldier) came by with a very clever Norton Undelete program and managed to scan my entire hard drive for parts of the newsletter.After painstakingly piecing these many parts back together (twenty or so pages of random paragraphs which I placed all over the floor), I finally managed to get the newsletter back to about 15mins before I saved it.Labour of love alright.)
Much of Crowley's work was coded intricately, so Page was probably inspired by this.
Jimmy Page even went as far as to buy Aliester Crowley's old house, where Crowley performed many majikal rituals,the church-house was called boleskine, I don't know what this means apart from a guess from the oxford dictionary......

bole1 // n.
the stem or trunk of a tree.
[Middle English from Old Norse bolr, perhaps related to baulk]

baulk /, / v. & n. (also esp. US balk)
v.
1 intr. a refuse to go on. b (often foll. by at) hesitate.
2 tr. a thwart, hinder. b disappoint.
3 tr. a miss, let slip (a chance etc.). b ignore, shirk.
n.
1 a hindrance; a stumbling block.etc.

I spoke to a guy recently who says that boleskine isn't standing any more
(it's apparently rubble ruin now).
Jimmy bought the house on the misty shores of loch ness in Scotland.
Jimmy Page said of the house,
-"there were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it. It was also a church that
was burned to the ground with the congregation in it. And that's the site of the house.
Strange things happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley.
The bad vibes were already there."

Which if I'm not mistaken is where "Stairway to Heaven" was written.

So, what of the messages in the lyrics? For that we turn to the true masterpiece of work,
Stairway to Heaven.

When Farand and I heard these messages for the first time, it was like magic, it inspired awe.
But trying to share the experience is nigh on imposible because it is usually shot out of the sky because people just don't have any belief anymore. Many discount the messages as sheer and utter nonsense, which is awkward and painful.

In honour of what I believe, I would like to re-create those majikal moments when Farand and I first heard these haunting backwards messages. But remember, we really thought it was frightening because we really believed when we were young in what the church said, so what we were doing was listening to the voice of something which could bring the devil and his demons into our room.Needless to say; it chilled us to the bone..........

Back in the day we used to push records backward against belt turntable.
(Disclaimer - If you try this be sure you have a deck that won't break if you do this and a copy of zep four that is replaceable,if you are careful and gentle you can do it like this but I suggest using a computer if you can,it's a better idea really).
You can reverse the song with a computer using a sound editing program such as cool edit pro available from www.syntrillian.co.uk

There aren't any references that I know of because these messages aren't supposed to exist, so not all of these messages will be as easy to hear as each other,
...but if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last......


So the Messages then.

From the beginning of the song............

The first line; literally- :

There's a lady who's sure - (is backwards) - I wish we hear it.

Then the second part of the first verse-:

When she gets there she knows,if the stores are all closed,with a word she can get -(is backwards)- I wish there was a book for all our thoughts,wishes,I wish it...

Second part of the second verse-:

There's a songbird who sings,sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven-(is backwards)- The lords now must see his superb forces.

Beginning of fourth verse-:

If we all call the tune - (is backwards)-I wish the Lord forgive me.

Beginning of fifth verse-:

It's just a spring clean - (is backwards)-666

Second part of the fifth verse-:

Yes there are two paths you can go by,but in the long run,there's still time to change the road your on -(is backwards)- Here's to my sweet Satan,the one little path,would I,which there is power in satan.

End of the fifth-:

And it makes me wonder - (is backwards)-there is no escaping it

Second part if the sixth verse-:

The piper's calling you to join, him - (is backwards)-I wish, the lord turn me off away

First line of the last verse-:

And as we wind on down the road - (is backwards)-The world that I know now is ending.

The last line,again,literally-:

.......To heaven - (is backwards)-ahhh backwards.

 

If you use a computer to do this then do yourself a real favour and just listen to the whole song backwards in its' entirity. It is beautiful and strange heard this way, and in my mind loses none of its' integrity, but gains a whole new perspective.

The song becomes (when played backwards) almost like a musical version of being born and then fading eeriely/serenely? into death.

To hear the messages separately, just open stairway to heaven in an audio editing program like Cool Edit Pro from Syntrillium Software .
Then, find the lyrics above in the song. Once you have found them, highlight / select those parts of the song and reverse each one.
However, as I have said above, it is better to just reverse the whole thing and listen to it all backwards.

To do that then in Cool edit pro:

1.Start Cool edit pro.

2.Go to FILE,OPEN,then select your copy of "stairway to heaven" on your hard drive or whatever,then OPEN the file.

3.Then,go to,EFFECTS,and select REVERSE.

4.Play the file by pressing the play button,which looks like .; enjoy.

 

Well it's time for me to say goodbye and farewell. It's been amazing to see this newsletter develope from just a quick discription of the grey horse gig to this blooming great epic tome which has taken me weeks to write (not helped by my computer crashing,and me losing it all!!!).
As Robert Plant says, All of my love.
See you soon for the next installment......of the ongoing saga which is....
BOOTLED ZEPPELIN THE TOMES OF WARD.
See you soon...;-)

Our Next Gig is the on Saturday the 23rd of August at Gander on the green in Bournemouth.
Hope to see you all there......take care, byeeeeeee..........

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