King Crimson and Frederick II: The Metaphysical Record ~ The Union of Opposites

CHAPTER TWO

- chapter index -
pg. 1 - The Metaphysical Record | pg. 2 - The Wall on Which the Prophets Wrote
pg. 3 - The Union of Opposites | pg. 4 - Alchemy | pg. 5 - The Crimson King

- page index -
Rubedo | Union of Opposites

site index

Crimson is the third color on the King Scale of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life while the Emperor Tarot card corresponds with the Tree's 15th Path of Wisdom:

"Emperor, The Constituting Intelligence
15th Path of Wisdom
The Constituting Intelligence - Constitutes creation in the darkness of the
world (constitutes the substance of creations in pure darkness). According
to the philosophers, it is itself that darkness mentioned by scripture (Job
38:9), cloud and the envelope thereof.

Colors
Atziluth: blood red
Briah: dark rose red
Yetzirah: rich red
Assiah: crimson

Physical Body correspondence
Head and Face
(The only parts of the body showing on the Crimson King cover painting)

Tarot
Major Arcana - Emperor - Stability, power, protection; aid, reason,
conviction"

- The Clickable Tree of Life

return to page index
site index

"Starless and Bible Black"

"The alchemists call the first stage, or Blackness, Putrefaction. In it the three principles which compose the "whole man" of body, soul and spirit, are "sublimated" till they appear as a black powder full of corruption, and the imperfect body is "dissolved and purified by subtle Mercury"; as man is purified by the darkness, misery, and despair which follows the emergence of his spiritual consciousness. As psychic uproar and disorder seems part of the process of mental growth, so " Solve et coagula "--break down that you may build up--is the watchword of the spiritual alchemist. The "black beast," the passional element, of the lower nature must emerge and be dealt with before anything further can be done. "There is a black beast in our forest," says the highly allegorical "Book of Lambspring," "his name is Putrefaction."

- Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill

"The color red symbolizes the Emperor's fiery nature. Likewise the Emperor's red eagle represents the alchemical tinctura rubea (red tincture) which has the solar nature of gold, as the white eagle of the Empress represents the tinctura alba (white tincture), which has the lunar nature of silver (Crowley 78). These are the goals of the Great Work: first the white tincture must be found, then the red, and finally they must be united (Jung, P&A 232; Silberer 368); this is the mating of Empress and Emperor to beget Temperance, who mixes the wine and water, the red and white tinctures (Silberer 122, 125)."

- The Pythagorean Tarot by John Opsopaus

"Red is the colour of Perfection or alchemic gold; a process sometimes called the "Marriage of Luna and Sol"--the fusion of the human and divine spirit. Under this image is concealed the final secret of the mystic life: that ineffable union of finite and infinite--that loving reception of the inflowing vitality of God--from which comes forth the Magnum Opus: deified or spiritual man."

- Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill

This mating of the empress and emperor, sun and moon, human and divine, finite and infinite, is considered the central archetype in Carl Jung's psychological theories, a concept he referred to as the alchemical union of opposites.

"The Great Work consists of finding the Red Stone, also known as the Philosophers Stone or the Elixir. This (not only a physical substance but also a spiritual one) will transmute everything. Lead into Gold. Man into Superman."

- Alchemists By Anders Sandberg

return to page index
site index

Frederick II, known in his lifetime as "the wonder of the world", was in many respects, a union of opposites. Considering the mythology surrounding his life, he could have been looked upon as the earthly embodiment of the "Great Work," or Magnum Opus. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the unifying theme of the four Sinfield albums is this alchemical union of opposites and, for Peter Sinfield, the life of Frederick will serve as an allegory for the concept in two of these albums.

FREDERICK II AND THE UNION OF OPPOSITES

Lapidem Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Invenies Occultum

Lapidem Visita Interiora Terra Rectificando Invenies Occultum

"A dozen strains and influences mingled in his blood: the force of his grandfather Barbarossa, the political craft of his father Henry VI, the military gift of his mother's Norman blood, a passion for learning, and all the rich amalgam of the old long-civilised state where so far he had passed his life, that Sicily which, even after one hundred and fifty years of Norman rule, was still more Oriental than European, as much Moslem as Christian."

- The Imperial Menace to The Freedom Of Religion: The Emperor Frederick II

"Frederick II grew up all but inevitably only half a western European, it might be thought; and even more orientalised by his own tastes than by the chance of the milieu where he was bred. He was extremely intelligent, interested in the arts, active, virile, ambitious, a strong ruler, utterly unscrupulous, and an accomplished man of pleasure. He was as much at home with Moslems as with Catholics, and lived in a half-Moslem court.
The emperor persuaded the sultan to a treaty ceding Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth and the route from the coast leading thither, with all the villages through which it passed. It was certainly the impact of Frederick's personality on the Arab world, and not armed might, that made this treaty possible. On March 18, 1229, the excommunicated emperor crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Before an audience of his own soldiers and the Moslems, Frederick pledged himself to prevent any attack from the West during the next ten years It was, indeed, wonderful. The Crusade principle, the Christian reconquest of the Holy Land, had disappeared. The Christian no longer planned to drive out the infidel."

- Emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen by Ed LoPresti

"Son of a Norman princess and a German prince, and reared in the Arab-Norman kingdom of Sicily, he represents, and in large part he affected, the grafting of a higher culture upon the mediaeval barbarity of Europe."

- J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

"It is difficult to say from which source the work of Aristotle disseminated most, but it must be noted that the reconciliation between east and west was tenuous, and owes much to the liberal expansiveness of the court of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen."

- Postglossators/Commentators In Particular Lucas De Penna by Charles Casassa

"Frederick was a German by descent and master of most of the German world, though his domains included his native Sicily--where, in the 13th century, Greek was still spoken--and there was a significant Muslim population.
Frederick spoke six languages fluently, among them Greek and Arabic. An ardent scholar of philosophy and the sciences, he had read the Koran and was an early biologist. He got on well with Muslim rulers, whom he considered his only cultural equals, and he kept a harem."

- The Situation In Europe by Erik Hildinger

"FREDERICK II succeeded in uniting the thrones of Germany and Norman Sicily."

- The History of Italy

"The court of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia (1194-1250) represented the real place where men and cultures, East and West, languages and literary traditions met and exchanged."

- The Sicilian Poetic School by Giuseppina Brunetti

"The Emperor Frederick II, though under the ban of the Pope, brought together in his various journeys, and especially in his crusading expeditions, many Greek and Arabic manuscripts, and took special pains to have those which concerned medicine preserved and studied; he also promoted better ideas of medicine and embodied them in laws."

- A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology by Andrew Dickson White Ph.D.

"The modern historian recognizes in Frederick the antagonistic elements of a historic constellation in which two epochs meet and clash � the ecclesiastical civilization of the middle ages and the secularized modern world."

- Kurt F. Reinhardt Germany 2000 Years, p. 93

"Castel del Monte, with its extraordinary aesthetic radiance, stands at the crossroads of the Arabic-geometric and Middle-European-Gothic worlds, and represents the ruling spirit of one of the most important emperors of the middle ages."

- Friedrich II and the Love of Geometry

"Witness to the intellectual vigour and distinction of Frederick himself and those around him are the edifices he erected, particularly the classic style of the Castello del Monte--a fusion of poetry and mathematics in stone."

- Encyclopedia Britannica

Frederick also embodied a fusion of ancient and modern in that while he was considered, in some respects, a humanist, his…

"concept of the emperor's function was rooted in the ideology of the late Greco-Roman period and the Judeo-Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages, emphasizing the sacredness and universal character of the office. In the light of it, Frederick claimed preeminence for the emperor over all other secular rulers--undoubtedly an ill-timed claim in an age when separate nation-states were developing. Thus, Frederick's policies, full of intellectual and political promise, were in actuality dogged by tragedy.
(Gu.W.)"

- Encyclopedia Britannica

"Was he the first Renaissance Prince to be a rationalist, accused of skepticism , or was he rather a man of his time, that is a real medieval and traditionalist emperor?"

- Frederick II History and Myth

return to
chapter & page index

Sign the Dreambook Read the Dreambook

Works

Lyrics
&
Poems

Gallery

Guestbook
Archive

Links

Discography

E-mail:
Peter Sinfield
Jon Green

Page One