Charles Arthur Muses (/ˈmʌsɪs/; 28 April 1919 – 26 August 2000), was a mathematician, cyberneticist and an esoteric philosopher who wrote articles and books under various pseudonyms (including Musès, Musaios, Kyril Demys, Arthur Fontaine, Kenneth Demarest and Carl von Balmadis). He founded the Lion Path, a shamanistic movement. He held unusual and controversial views relating to mathematics, physics, philosophy, and many other fields.

Biography

Muses was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and grew up in Long Island, New York. His father abandoned the family when Muses was a young boy forcing his mother to support Muses and a large, extended family on a school teacher's salary. Years later he would remark in lectures that if his mother had not had an overarching faith in "young Charlie" he might never have been able to escape the confines of his impoverished youth.

By 1946, Muses was working on his Master's Degree from Columbia University, New York. In 1949, Muses submitted for approval his Columbia University Ph.D work in philosophy (see preface to the dissertation). The doctoral thesis led with the name of a little-known German-English exegete in idealism, Dionysius Andreas Freher (d. 1728), who through years of study had become learned on the far-famed German idealist Jacob Böhme (d. 1624), the latter being the actual subject of Muses's pre-doctoral studies at Columbia. This was suggested by and confirmed in the subtitle of the thesis, 'An Inquiry in the Work of A Fundamental Contributor to the Philosophic Tradition of Jacob Boehme.' With some modifications (seen by comparing the thesis to the subsequent book), the entirety was published in 1951 under the title 'Illumination on Jacob Boehme: The Work of Dionysius Andreas Freher' by King’s Crown Press (which at the time was a subsidized front for doctoral students of Columbia University). On pp. 151-2 Muses states, “Both Boehme’s and Freher’s outstanding message philosophically is that philosophy is not a dodge, game, or only some kind of artistic exercise, but a solid enterprise of most productive value – able to yield concrete results of a most extended nature in terms of deep changes in attitude and understanding, leading to actions toward and realization of the intrinsic nobility possible to and desired by mankind.” The two-year delay between finishing the thesis work (1949) and its recognition in the grant of the Ph.D. (1951) is not explained.

In 1991 the book In All Her Names: Explorations of the Feminine in Divinity was published by Harper San Francisco. It was edited by Joseph Campbell and Charles Muses. Each contributed a chapter to the book along with Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas. The title of Muses chapter is "The Ageless Way of Goddess: Divine Pregnancy and Higher Birth in Ancient Egypt and China". On pages 136–137, he states, “Similarly, the ancient theurgic doctrine taught that in the dim and mysterious recesses of each human brain are lodged the control centers for transducing a higher metamorphic process in that individual, of which the butterfly, wonderful as it is, is but a crude and imperfect analogue... The acquisition of a higher body by an individual meant also, by that very token, the possibility of communicating with beings already so endowed. The entrance into this higher community and fellowship is one of the principal causes for celebration in the Ancient Egyptian liturgy of the sacred transformative process – sacred because it conferred so much beyond ordinary life.”

Charles Muses edited, Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra, which was translated into English by Chang Chen Chi. The book was first published in 1961, by The Falcon’s Wing Press. Muses states on page ix of the introduction, “In these considerations also lies the true meaning of the most secret tantric path, in Tibet called the Vajrayana or Thunderbolt Vehicle. It is secret only because most do not have enough of the intelligent love-will to find and pursue it. For those who place such a level of high desire first, however, the precious means (upaya) will mysteriously arise in their lifetimes, and they will be able to tread this path of Love-Will-Wisdom, of Heart, Hand and Head harmoniously joined. But heart or love must rule the other two or wisdom will become unwise and the love-will deteriorate again into self-will.”

Muses had no success in attaining a tenured position as a faculty member at an institution of higher education. Forced to give lectures to earn a living, he wrote books and began traveling the world. He continued these pursuits for the remainder of his life.

In 1985, Kluwer-Nijhoff first published Muses' book entitled Destiny and Control in Human Systems. In it he proposes a method called ‘chronotopology,’ which he claims can measure the qualitative multidimensional structure of time. In chapter 5, entitled “Fonts Et Origo: Some Traditions Uniquely Illuminating the Structure and Meaning of Time Systems,” Muses provides historical sources for his claim, “That the nature of time is inextricably bound up with the origins of evil. . .” (p. 128). On page 138, he states, “Thus our world of waiting, disease, aging, suffering, and death stems from the nature of time itself and was part and parcel of the set of implied consequences of the Demuiurge’s Dream – that very brief nightmare that had spawned a reality of evil on awakening.” And Muses states on page 139 that “. . . the God of our universe is a wounded God in heart although Himself recovered. His domain, which before was a universally symbiotic cosmos, had now become the frenetically struggling, predominantly predatory one we all know, with Nature trying still to smile through her travail. There is a mysterious tradition both in Iran and Egypt of the female aspect of this Divinity (Daena in Iran and Isis in Egypt) who did not share the death-dream of her spouse and who in fact helped him revive as the renewed and victorious Horus.”

Musean Hypernumbers, table by Klaus Scharff

Muses also envisioned a mathematical number concept, Musean hypernumbers, that includes hypercomplex number algebras such as complex numbers and split-complex numbers as primitive types. He assigned them levels based on certain arithmetical properties they may possess. While many open questions remain, in particular about defining the relations of these levels, Muses pictured a wide range of applicability for this concept. Some of these are based on properties of magic squares,[1] and even related to religious belief. He believed that these hypernumbers were central to issues of consciousness.

Some research work about hypernumbers was done by the mathematicians Jens Koeplinger and John Shuster.[2][3]

Muses was arrested in Egypt in March 1957 when he tried to remove a number of very valuable artifacts from the country on the argument that he did not realize that a license was required. He was finally convicted in August 1957, but was later allowed to return to the United States.[4]

Selected writings

  • 1951: Illumination on Jacob Boehme. The work of Dionysius Andreas Freher, King's Crown Press, New York
  • 1953: An Evaluation of Relativity Theory after a Half-century, S. Weiser, New York
  • 1955: East-West fire. Schopenhauer's optimism and the Lankavatara sutra. An excursion toward the common ground between Oriental and Western religion, Watkins, London
  • 1962: (editor) The Logic of Biosimulation: Aspects of the Theory of Artificial Intelligence: Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Biosimulation, Locarno, June 27 to July 5. 1960, Plenum, New York pages 115–163.
  • 1965: "Systematic stability and cybernetic control. An introduction to the cybernetics of higher integrated behavior", Rome
  • 1965: "Aspects of Some Crucial Problems in Biological and Medical Bio-Cybernetics", Band II, Elsevier, Norbert Wiener & J. P. Schade editors, Amsterdam
  • 1966: "The First Nondistributive Algebra, with Relations to Optimization and Control Theory", in: E. R. Caianiello: Functional Analysis and Optimization, Academic Press, New York/ London, pages 171–212.
  • 1967: "Hypernumber", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 138, New York, pages 660, 901.
  • 1972: (with Arthur M. Young) Consciousness and Reality. The human pivot point, Outerbridge & Lazard, New Cork
  • 1985: Destiny and control in human systems, Studies in the interactive connectedness of time (chronotopology) (= Frontiers in systems research.). Kluwer-Nijhoff, Dordrecht/ Boston, ISBN 0-89838-156-8.
  • 1991: "The Ageless Way of Goddess: Divine Pregnancy and Higher Birth in Ancient Egypt and China", in: Joseph Campbell, Charles Musès (editors) In All Her Names. Explorations of the feminine in divinity, Harper, San Francisco ISBN 0-06-250629-3, pages 131–164.
  • 1996: The Lionpath - The Big Picture: A Short Path to Regeneration for our time, Musaios. fifth printing, House of Horus, Sardis (B.C. Canada)
  • 1999: The Shamanic Lionpath, House of Horus, Musaios, Sardis (B.C. Canada)

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Hypernumbers-Magic Square
  2. ↑ Elliptic Numbers
  3. ↑ Doubly nilpotent numbers
  4. ↑ Egyptian Gazette, Wednesday Aug 14, 1957 (page 2), La Bourse Egyptienne July 30, 1957, (page 1), The Egyptian Gazette, July 31, 1957 (page 1), Al Shaab June 22, June 1957 (Arabic language), Archives of Consul General Larry Roeder, Foreign Service Lounge, US Department of State, Washington, DC 20520
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