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FOR THE UNINITIATED THIS IS THE LATER RE-RELEASED COVER OF

THE ALBUM  - 'THUNDER PERFECT MIND'  - BY CURRENT 93

HIT PLAY IF YOU WOULD AS YOU READ THE R

EVIEW I WROTE ABOUT THIS ABLUM BY  CURRENT 93

For a Song Titled

IN THE HEART OF THE WOODS

THUNDER PERFECT MIND - A MUSIC REVIEW

Thunder Perfect Mind...Like Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt. Pepper, or Tommy, this album by Current 93 holds distinction as the voice of the pre-millennium tone of the Rock and Roll antigone muses gone mad. The TPM title of three words that come from an newly discovered group of texts found in 1972 that pre-date modern Christianity and possibly are carried over via the oldest of pagan traditions from Europe and Asia. Three words that would encapsule the most important and infamous album of the late 20th century. To its fans a monolithic achievement to reckon with, to those about to experience it a challenge of artistry, and to the rest a testament that has and will stand the test of time musically.

The outfit known as Psychic TV alone spawned many creative artistic collaborations, including Current 93. Not to forget the head of this great divider of the musical seas David Tibet. A master of lyrical propoganda, blending tape loops, synthetic electronics, white noise, sound scapes, primitive chanting, and unearthly atmospheres that haunt the mind, and challenge the ears.

David Tibet was inspired by the Nag Hammadi gospels and to a lesser degree the Dead Sea Scrolls, and eastern mystics from both Shinto and Zoroastrian religons. Inspired by these texts is an understatement. This is something that everyone should give at least one a serious listen to before they die. It has musical merits to listeners of all genres, it has a cult following that cannot be denied, and it maybe the Anti-Requiem mass of modern occultism - an esoteric masterpiece at the turning of the millenium. David Tibet's lyrics are steeped in archaic metaphor and stonehenge retrospective imagery. These lyrics are lain atop a folk tapestry made up of 12-string guitars, pipes, organs, violin, harp, and a twinge of the pseudo-mystical chimes and guitars from beyond the rings of Saturn.

There is a magic about this album that transcends the artistic merits within, no album has touched my heart more upon first listen than 'Thunder Perfect Mind. It gets my highest recommendations.

 Originally planned as a Gnostic version of the Rock operas of the sixties and seventies, but it ended up becoming something metaphysically beyond this realm. Songs range from the haunting and beautiful, like "A Sadness Song," to the apocalyptic and monstrous, like "Hitler as Kalki." All are characterized by David Tibet unusual mesh of chant and theatrical wordplay.

For those who want to explore deeper into the Current 93 experiment herein, you may want to find a copy of the Nurse With Wound sister ablum of the same name 'Thunder Perfect Mind'.

Imperium et Nil...

HIT PLAY IF YOU WOULD ONE MORE TIME

ALSO FROM 'THUNDER PERFECT MIND'

For a Song Titled

A SAD SADNESS SONG

YOU MAY WANT TO LET EITHER OF THEM PLAY WHILE YOU READ A BIT OF THE HISTORY OF THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY, AND TAKE THE TIME TO READ PERHAPS THE OLDEST PIECE OF CHRISITIAN TEXT /  POETRY IN EXISTENCE THAT IS FROM THE TIME OF THE NEW TESTAMENT HISTORIES. IT MAY BE ABOUT THE MAN JESUS OF GALILEE.

AS ABOVE SO BELOW

IHVH

A Brief History of the Nag Hammadi Library and its Discovery

The Nag Hammadi Library is the collection of documents that has been the cause of great controversy since being discovered in the 1940s. The body of documents is as important to the Historical roots of Christianity as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It has been influential all the way to the modern century having inspired not only scholars, but also artists and musicians from around the world. Most notably, Current 93 and Nurse with Wound, who recorded Sister albums around the most important poetic piece of the works "Thunder Perfect Mind". Also the author Phillip K. Dick wrote his master piece "Valis"., around the belief that he was channelling a new Exegesis of thought and human history. In fact Dick dd not live to see he Nag Hammadi made available to the general public, and the detailed understanding he demonstrated in this book is uncanny, if not able to make the most true skeptic ponder the what ifs of Phillip's claims. Also notable is the 1979 novel by Harold Bloom, 'The Flight of Of Lucifer : A Gnostic Fantasy.' In any event, the Nag Hammadi has given great understanding to a period of human history that has had much shadow cast over it. And also gave a much more elaborate insight into the proto-Christian movement known as Gnosticism.

But today their importance has become astoundingly clear: These thirteen papyrus codices containing fifty-two sacred texts are representatives of the long lost "Gnostic Gospels", a last extant testament of what orthodox Christianity perceived to be its most dangerous and insidious challenge, the feared opponent that the Church Fathers had reviled under many different names, but most commonly as Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi library consists of twelve books, plus eight leaves of a thirteenth book. There are a total of fifty-two tracts. These are now kept in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and, as the name suggests, are written in Coptic, although it is clear that the texts are Coptic translations of earlier Greek works. Coptic is the Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet; there are different dialects of Coptic, and the Nag Hammadi library shows at least two. They were found in codex form (book form rather than scroll form). They were discovered in the mid 1940s, just a few years prior to the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls (another reason for the combination of the texts in the public imagination). Included in these texts are The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Mary and other gospel contenders (alas, in fragmentary form--the translation in this volume however is the complete Nag Hammadi text). The Gospel of Thomas has perhaps been the highest profile text from Nag Hammadi; it has been translated and commented upon extensively, particularly in modern scholarship which discusses gospel development. This is probably the most unusual text discovered as part of the Nag Hammadi Library. The only one that is strictly in poetric / psalmic style. It is also the most representative of the differences between these documents view of the early Christian religion, versus the post-Gnostic views in the Church of Rome.

(There are a few stanzas where the documents were damaged and rather than translate for us, the holes in the text have been left in tact, so as not to unduely influence the reader any particular direction in thinking.)

From the Translated 

The Nag Hammadi Library

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

---

Translated by George W. MacRae

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am <the mother> and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great,

and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father

and the sister of my husband

and he is my offspring.

I am the slave of him who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.

But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.

And he is my offspring in (due) time,

and my power is from him.

I am the staff of his power in his youth,

and he is the rod of my old age.

And whatever he wills happens to me.

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold

and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,

and hate those who love me?

You who deny me, confess me,

and you who confess me, deny me.

You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,

and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.

You who know me, be ignorant of me,

and those who have not known me, let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.

I am shame and boldness.

I am shameless; I am ashamed.

I am strength and I am fear.

I am war and peace.

Give heed to me.

I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.

Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,

and you will find me in those that are to come.

And do not look upon me on the dung-heap

nor go and leave me cast out,

and you will find me in the kingdoms.

And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who

are disgraced and in the least places,

nor laugh at me.

And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.

But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.

Be on your guard!

Do not hate my obedience

and do not love my self-control.

In my weakness, do not forsake me,

and do not be afraid of my power.

For why do you despise my fear

and curse my pride?

But I am she who exists in all fears

and strength in trembling.

I am she who is weak,

and I am well in a pleasant place.

I am senseless and I am wise.

Why have you hated me in your counsels?

For I shall be silent among those who are silent,

and I shall appear and speak,

Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?

Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?

For I am the wisdom of the Greeks

and the knowledge of the barbarians.

I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.

I am the one whose image is great in Egypt

and the one who has no image among the barbarians.

I am the one who has been hated everywhere

and who has been loved everywhere.

I am the one whom they call Life,

and you have called Death.

I am the one whom they call Law,

and you have called Lawlessness.

I am the one whom you have pursued,

and I am the one whom you have seized.

I am the one whom you have scattered,

and you have gathered me together.

I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,

and you have been shameless to me.

I am she who does not keep festival,

and I am she whose festivals are many.

I, I am godless,

and I am the one whose God is great.

I am the one whom you have reflected upon,

and you have scorned me.

I am unlearned,

and they learn from me.

I am the one that you have despised,

and you reflect upon me.

I am the one whom you have hidden from,

and you appear to me.

But whenever you hide yourselves,

I myself will appear.

For whenever you appear,

I myself will hide from you.

Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].

Take me [... understanding] from grief.

and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.

And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,

and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.

Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;

and out of shamelessness and shame,

upbraid my members in yourselves.

And come forward to me, you who know me

and you who know my members,

and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.

Come forward to childhood,

and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.

And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,

for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Why do you curse me and honor me?

You have wounded and you have had mercy.

Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.

And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away

[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.

[...].

What is mine [...].

I know the first ones and those after them know me.

But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,

and the finding of those who seek after me,

and the command of those who ask of me,

and the power of the powers in my knowledge

of the angels, who have been sent at my word,

and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,

and of spirits of every man who exists with me,

and of women who dwell within me.

I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,

and who is despised scornfully.

I am peace,

and war has come because of me.

And I am an alien and a citizen.

I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,

and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.

Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,

and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.

On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,

and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

[I am ...] within.

[I am ...] of the natures.

I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.

[...] request of the souls.

I am control and the uncontrollable.

I am the union and the dissolution.

I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.

I am the one below,

and they come up to me.

I am the judgment and the acquittal.

I, I am sinless,

and the root of sin derives from me.

I am lust in (outward) appearance,

and interior self-control exists within me.

I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone

and the speech which cannot be grasped.

I am a mute who does not speak,

and great is my multitude of words.

Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.

I am she who cries out,

and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.

I prepare the bread and my mind within.

I am the knowledge of my name.

I am the one who cries out,

and I listen.

I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].

I am [...] the defense [...].

I am the one who is called Truth

and iniquity [...].

You honor me [...] and you whisper against me.

You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)

before they give judgment against you,

because the judge and partiality exist in you.

If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?

Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,

and the one who fashions you on the outside

is the one who shaped the inside of you.

And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;

it is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you hearers

and learn of my words, you who know me.

I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;

I am the speech that cannot be grasped.

I am the name of the sound

and the sound of the name.

I am the sign of the letter

and the designation of the division.

And I [...].

(3 lines missing)

[...] light [...].

[...] hearers [...] to you

[...] the great power.

And [...] will not move the name.

[...] to the one who created me.

And I will speak his name.

Look then at his words

and all the writings which have been completed.

Give heed then, you hearers

and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,

and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.

For I am the one who alone exists,

and I have no one who will judge me.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,

and incontinencies,

and disgraceful passions,

and fleeting pleasures,

which (men) embrace until they become sober

and go up to their resting place.

And they will find me there,

and they will live,

and they will not die again.

         Selection made from James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990.           

AMEN

The Buddha, Siddhartha says,

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything simply on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."