COLGR49: Chapter 1 Summary

[Otto]

COLGR49: Chapter 1

The Over-determination of symbols

All Good 49ers . . .

0. Seven X Seven:
Seven is the number of the universe, the makrocosmos, completeness, a
"totality" contrary to a singularity. Seven covers Three and Four, the
numbers of the Heaven and the Earth. So it includes both the Spiritual and
the Secular.
There's much more to read about in any symbolic dictionary. These few
examples are from the German version of J.C. Cooper, Thames and Hudson Ltd.,
London 1978.

1. The original I Ching works with 49 sticks (there is a fiftieth one but
this one is put away).

2. The I Ching (a kind of "random-generator") hexagram No. 49 is Go, "The
Lake above the Fire" -- the sign for moult (lost and renewal) or revolution,
the turning of the oppositions. The youngest daughter (Dui, the lake) is
above the older daughter (Li, the fire), so the "effects" are working
against each other, fire and water are struggling to annihilate each other.

3. 1849 - San Francisco Gold-rush.

4. 1949 - LSD enters the US:
"It arrived on American shores in 1949 (...)."
(Jay Stevens, "Storming Heaven. LSD and the American Dream", 1987, Paladin,
London 1989, p. 36)

5. 49 days between Easter and Whitsunday

6. 49 days in the Bardo according to the "Bardo Thödol" (pp. 41, 43, 94ff
and 119 in Evans-Wentz, "Das Tibetanische Totenbuch", Walter Verlag, Olten
und Freiburg, 1971). The "Bardo" is some kind of limbo-existence between
death and rebirth.

COL49 p. 20 and 21 (Picador ed.): "Book of the Dead" (...) "One of your
endless repetitions."

7. The 7 lucky lottery numbers drawn from 49 numbers each Saturday, Sunday
or Wednesday.

8. Seven years of bad luck for breaking a mirror on p. 27.

Otto