NPPR: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate

[Jasper Fidget]

On
> Behalf Of Michael Joseph

> 
> Not having yet seen a compelling explanation for why a lemniscate should
> so enrapture Shade ("the miracle of a lemniscate"), 

I'm snipping for the sake of space, but this is great stuff, Michael; I
especially like the lemniscate as mitosis idea.  My understanding of Shade's
joy in it had been as a natural pattern from which a spiritual component can
be derived, as in this quote from Max Heindel:

"Humanity as a whole is slowly progressing upon the path of evolution, thus
very slowly, almost imperceptibly, attaining higher and higher states of
consciousness. The path of evolution is a spiral when we regard it from the
physical side only, but a lemniscate when viewed in both its physical and
spiritual phases. [...]

"In the lemniscate, or figure 8, there are two circles which converge to a
central point, which circles may be taken to symbolize the immortal spirit,
the evolving ego. One of the circles signifies its life in the physical
world from birth to death. [...]

"The objective work of physical existence over, the race run, and the day of
action spent, the ego enters upon the subjective work of assimilation
accomplished during its sojourn in the invisible worlds, which it traverses
during the period from death to birth, symbolized by the other ring of the
lemniscate."

http://www.polachek.net/library/Heindel/Heindel,%20Max%20-%20Gleanings%20of%
20a%20Mystic.pdf

Incidentally, Heindel himself may offer some parallels:

Heindel (1865-1919), "the greatest western mystic of the twentieth century,"
was a pseudonym for Carl Louis Von Grasshoff, born to a royal family
connected to the Court of Prince Bismark.  He changed his name when he
emigrated to America.  [You see where I'm going with this.]  When he was
eight, Carl lived in Copenhagen where he had an accident while jumping over
a ditch; his left foot was injured and he would limp for most of the rest of
his life (see p. 133 "The pool of opalescent ditch water had grown in
length; along its edge walked a sick bat like a cripple with a broken
umbrella"; see also pp. 135-136 where this bat is linked to Gradus).  In
1884 he moved to Glasgow and worked as a tobacconist on Argyle Street (see
Lady Anne Campbell, the daughter of the Marquis of Argyle).  Later he
emigrated alone to America (leaving his wife and four children in Denmark). 

http://rosicrucianzine.tripod.com/max_heindel.htm
http://correiorosacruz.netfirms.com/max_heindel.htm

Almost certainly irrelevant is that Heindel's father, Francois Grasshoff,
was a master baker who died in a boiler explosion in his own bakery, which
is how the Great Fire of London started more than 200 years earlier under
the reign of Charles II.  Also irrelevant but interesting is that Heindel
married the daughter of a boilermaker.

Jasper Fidget