The Beatles

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The Beatles were a British pop group founded in Liverpool in 1960. The original members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best, replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962 (originally Richard Starkey).

“Love Me Do” was their first UK hit. This was followed by a string of hits, creating the international phenomenon of Beatlemania in 1964.

Most of the Beatles’ repertoire was officially penned by Lennon and McCartney, although their respective influence on individual songs varied considerably.

The band stopped giving public performances in 1966, turning its energy to the studio–specifically to the rock and roll classic, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Their producer at the time, George Martin, says he had a significant impact on the outcome of this record.

The group split, bitterly, around 1970. Their last studio album, Abbey Road, was recorded with separate sessions being held for each member of the band. This was unprecedented and, to fans, seemed to indicate growing tensions among band members. George Harrison once said that McCartney told him how to play his guitar, which the guitarist resented. And issues over the growing presence of Yoko Ono were splashed over the tabloids and rock media, as was Lennon and McCartney’s growing acrimony.

The Beatles were no doubt fantastic musicians. But was there more to their success? The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung developed a psychological classification system based on four main types. For Jung, the whole and healthy mind strove to integrate the four types of thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Could part of the Beatles’ unparalleled popularity be a result their collectively representing Jung’s four archetypal types? Following this idea, Lennon would be the thinking type, Paul McCartney the feeling type, George Harrison the intuition type and Ringo Starr the sensation type.

The Beatles’ contribution to music will be forever etched in the history of mankind. The so-called Fab Four combined Rock and Roll, simple blues and complex jazz, as well as ‘lounge lizard,’ orchestral and international music forms. Even begrudging or, perhaps, sarcastically tinged respect is implied, for instance, in “Afraid” from David Bowie’s record Heathen (2002):

I believe in Beatles
I believe my little soul has grown
And I’m still so afraid…

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After the Beatles’ breakup, Lennon released several records while residing in New York with his wife Yoko Ono. He continued to enjoy commercial success with songs like “Imagine,” “Mind Games,” “Whatever Gets you Through the Night,” “Give Peace a Chance,” “So this is Christmas,” and “Just Like Starting Over.” But Lennon became more than a mere rock star; he became an icon representing worldwide harmony and peace.

McCartney released a critically acclaimed solo album (where he played all the instruments) and formed the highly successful band Wings, continuing to be a prominent musical force in the 1970′s.

Harrison released the commercially successful All Things Must Pass in 1970 (including “My Sweet Lord” and “Isn’t it a Pity”) followed by several other albums. “Isn’t it a Pity” epitomizes the sense of loss over Beatles’ breakup and laments the end of an era. Sadly, pity turned into acrimony, as witnessed in Harrison’s 1973 tune, “Sue Me, Sue You Blues.” Starr has been in films and recorded singles and albums. His 1974 cover of the Sherman Brothers’ “You’re Sixteen” hit number one in the charts.

In 1995 the single “Free as a Bird” was released. This song was written and hastily recorded by Lennon in 1977. After Lennon’s passing McCartney asked Ono if the remaining Beatles could collectively add to any of Lennon’s unreleased material. Ono gave permission for this single but it arguably isn’t a true Beatles song because Lennon, himself, didn’t agree to its release.

More recently, many Beatles songs have been remixed and re-released, with debatable results. Myself, I prefer the original analog mixes sent to CD (AAD), although others might prefer the digital remixes (ADD).

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Flower Power

Photograph of a Female Demonstrator Offering a Flower to a Military Police Officer, 10/21/1967 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Flower Power is a phrase used by the hippie generation of the 1960s and 70s to convey the idea of peace and love over hatred and war. The flower power movement arose among dissatisfied youths in reaction to the Vietnam war, social problems (such as sexism and racism), and to the system in general.

Among other things it advocated sexual liberation (free love), women’s liberation (replete with the bra burning movement), the use of mind-altering drugs like THC and LSD, and the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity.

Apparently the American poet Allen Ginsberg was the first to use the term in 1965.

In music, flower power was epitomized by musical performers like Tiny Tim, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane and The Moody Blues.

Many see the summer of 1967 as the height of the flower power era. The Beatles released their landmark lp, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, while The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and many other artists cut important records for the history of rock music.

Today, the term flower power has lost much of its original meaning. It’s used, for instance, by fashion companies and TV execs trying to cash in on a new generation’s largely imaginary view of what the hippie era was like. But those interested in learning more about the era can still delve deep into its music, thanks to an outstanding college radio show Dementia 13, which goes well beyond the top 100 of the 1960s and 70s.

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I Ching

Critical Mass I Ching by Payton Chung via Flickr

The I Ching (English: The Great Book of Changes) is an ancient Chinese book of divination which, in its most recent form, is based on ideas from Taoism and Confucianism.

Implied throughout the I Ching‘s worldview is the notion that one’s individual condition is intricately linked to the dynamic workings of nature (to include the cosmos and the Will of Heaven).

The earliest surviving version of the I Ching evolved out of Chinese nature philosophy and was written on bamboo strips. As legend has it, this first incarnation of the I Ching dates back to the mythical Emperor Fu-hsi, c. 2850 BCE. It was composed of eight trigrams (three lines each), which themselves might have been of foreign origin.

Around 1150 BCE, King Wen, who became the Duke of Chou, composed 64 hexagrams of six lines each (two trigrams) with short commentaries. Each hexagram apparently represented an archetypal situation. And each line of the hexagram is based on a binary system (either a solid or broken line) and is attained by selecting a single yarrow stalk from a randomly arranged heap and going through a specific set of operations.

The I Ching influenced Lao Tzu’s composition of another great Chinese work, the Tao-te-Ching, around 500 BCE. During the fifth-century BCE Confucius turned his attention to the I Ching and contributed to the “Ten Wings.” Each Wing is a commentary on an aspect of each hexagram.

Since then, the tyrant emperor Ch’in Shih Huang Ti ordered the burning of the I Ching and all Confucian commentaries, but some copies survived.

Around the third-century the scholar Wang Pi refashioned the book, emphasizing its wisdom instead of divinatory purposes (in contrast to the opportunistic court magicians of the day).

In the 17^th century a Jesuit priest introduced the book to the philosopher Leibniz. Leibniz substituted the solid and broken lines of the hexagrams with “0″ and “1″ and found them to be arranged in a binary system that counted up from 0 to 63.

It’s noteworthy that computer programming uses binary code—the same ancient logic found in the structure of the I Ching.

In the 1960′s the I Ching became popular in the West, and tossing three Chinese coins six times became a viable (and marketable) alternative to the ancient method of selecting yarrow stalks.

Just before this, the psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote a forward to the sinologist Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching. Jung also mentions the I Ching in relation to his concept of synchronicity.

The Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen and other notables have, at some time in their lives, became fascinated with the I Ching’s attractive combination of depth and simplicity. Numerous interpretations and self-help books based on the ancient texts are available today and recent attempts have been made to connect the underlying philosophy of the I Ching with the notion of karma as found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

As for the ever skeptical John Lennon, he had this to say in the song “God” on the album, Plastic Ono Band:

I don’t believe in I Ching… I just believe in me.

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Libra

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Libra (September 22-October 23) is the seventh and a fall sign of the zodiac. It’s symbolized by Weighing Scales and associated with the planetary ruler of Venus, and its element is air.

In Roman mythology the scales represent the balance of justice, symbolized by Astraea who holds them today in various courthouses.

Libras are said to be decent, balanced people genuinely concerned with ethical behavior. Jimmy Carter, John Lennon and Barbara Walters all fall under this sign.

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1886 sculpture of Astræa, signed "A," possibly the work of August St. Gaudens. Old Supreme Court Chamber, the Vermont State House, Montpelir, Vermont. August 2007 via Wikipedia

Mind Abuse

John Lennon bronze sculpture with his current removable glasses via Wikipedia

Mind Abuse is a fairly recent term relating to a wide variety of phenomena where a person or institution psychologically manipulates a victim or victims into accepting beliefs and performing actions that a third party or parties, representing the moral majority, deems unhealthy and destructive to the victims’ true character and, perhaps, his or her greater society.

Standard examples would be so-called cults and suicidal spiritual movements.

However, some like John Lennon and Elton John make the case that all organized religion exemplifies mind abuse by deflecting pressing concerns about this world to another world (Lennon), or by encouraging hateful discrimination (John).

Organized religion could also be seen as a kind of mind abuse if upper level officials in a religious hierarchy had knowledge of unsavory practices within that hierarchy but withheld that knowledge from tithing believers and lower ranking clergy (who, in this scenario, would invest their lives in a lie or partial lie).

The idea of “mind abuse” is potentially useful for bona fide victims but also problematic in some cases. For instance, what if the status quo sees something as “abusive” when, in fact, it’s liberating for a believer? Clearly, some kind of social value judgment is involved here. Whether or not this value judgment is always correct is occasionally open to debate.

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