Understanding Volume 6 Number 9
September 1961
VISTA unit #4: John W. Hopkins of Williams College lectured to this unit during July, on "The Music of the Spheres."

(all issues of Understanding newsletters scanned and posted by Sean at Danielfry.com)

Dr Emiliano Lizardo and Williams College: John Lithgow Visits the Estate

Most of the "parties" I went to were more like "happenings" and those were the parties I enjoyed most. I admit I have been invited to a few, very few what I would call "Hollywood" parties and by friends who were well intentioned and thought I could fit in, but I never felt comfortable at "celebrity events". I could tell you about those few, and how I tip-toed around trying to avoid looking at or talking to anyone I might happen to recognize as a "famous person". If I were to sing songs, or engage in pleasantries, or try to be amusing, I would just embarrass myself. I simply cringe and shrink in such circumstances, and if the room is full of more than three people as it usually is at such gatherings I become tongue tied and just want to disappear into the wallpaper. So even if I had an invitation, which I did albeit very few, I usually wouldn't go to these things.

I'm just used to being around a different kind of person. The absolute most fun I had at a gathering where someone was going to become famous was in the Berkeley hills, where I was living at the time, and it was around Halloween in 1969. It had to have been Halloween, because some costumes were involved. I'd been enticed into walking up the hill to the party because someone had just returned from England, and I thought it might be an actor I knew. But it turned out to be a completely different actor just back from England. He seemed quite proper, you see. Dressed in a harris tweed sport coat and white Van Heusen shirt.

And he, a brother of someone on an extended visit there, was quite well educated I'd heard, from an unnamed Eastern school (as no one would admit to going to Harvard in Berkeley then, not after Timothy Leary and few would admit to Yale after those weird Milgram experiments had been published and written about again recently). So he'd attended some unidentified yet prestigious institution of higher learning, but I figured it was one of those two.

And one guy, who might have been part of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because the party was in their old rehearsal area, showed up with some real deer antlers roped to his belt and he was in conversation with this very proper brother of one of the people visiting there.

My lasting image, shot by the video camera of my memory, is this: The two men standing there, with drinks in their hands: one with antlers roped to his belt as a belt buckle of some kind and the other dressed in a Harris tweed sportscoat casually standing and chatting to him. And sometimes the guy with antlers leaned a little close, to speak over the music, and the guy in the sportscoat would put his hand on the antlers just to protect his abdomen. Once for a prolonged moment he actually held a small prong between his fingers as if to better anticipate a sudden move.

And then the music got a little better and everybody began dancing, including the guy with antlers on his belt and the guy in the sportcoat pranced a bit with someone else on the floor. So others of us start making antlers with our fingers to our heads and spinning.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Now that was a fun party, you see. No pretensions and everyone had fun.

Only later did I learn the guy in the sportscoat was becoming a famous actor on Broadway, and only years later did I finally see him in a film in which he played Dr. Emiliano Lizardo. And that was just beyond perfect, you see, given the location at the time I first met John Lithgow, which had a landlord who communed regularly with space beings by going into a trance and singing to them.

That was the strangest place I'd ever lived anywhere 'til then. Every one and every thing nearly every day was always a bit strange there. But that strangeness soon became an everyday thing. I think I'll concentrate on a wonderful movie yet to be made about the estate. John Lithgow can play Charles, the handyman found somewhere in the Arizona desert, who also communed with space beings between fixing plumbing problems on the estate, who would as he wrapped a pipe with teflon tape tell how he'd invented a carburetor for automobiles that reduced gasoline consumption to nil but that invention was stolen away from him by some secret government agency in collusion with an insidious industry. (The same one that controls the timing on traffic lights to make us use more petrol when we drive about? I would ask. He tilted his head absorbing what I had said, and I suspected he thought so.) And that movie, every single bit of it, would be drawn from real life.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_lithgow
Retrieved 7.1.11

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across Eight Dimensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckaroo_Banzai
Retrieved 7.1.11

Dr. John W. Hopkins and "The Music of the Spheres", 1969

Dr. John W. Hopkins and "The Music of the Spheres", 1969.

This lecture was held at the beautiful and nearly brand new Hotel Miyako in San Francisco, which had just finished completion and was opened for business in 1968. The Hotel Miyako had been written about and advertised in Bay Area newspapers, one of their suggested rental possibilities advised availability of space for scientific conventions.


Dr. Hopkins called "The Music of the Spheres" the "Huisoc" and implied it was a ceremony. I am not certain of the spelling of "Huisoc" in English as this is a word delivered to Dr. Hopkins from the space beings in a language only he and they understood. But the name of the ceremony involving the "music of the spheres" was pronounced by Dr. Hopkins as "WHEE-sock" (with the first syllable "WHEE" emphasized, and the following syllable "sock" de-emphasized and somewhat swallowed as was the tradition of some spoken languages indigenous to Native American cultures. I am taking a liberty with linguistics by spelling the word "Huisoc" with the first syllable "Hui" pronounced as in "Huichol" (the metaphysical tribe in Mexico).

After a substantial catered dinner of sliced beef Au jus and tender squash in butter sauce served by pleasant waiters to all those seated at dining tables spread with brilliant well starched tablecloths, in a banquet room downstairs at the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco, the ceremony began. As I recall, large bouquets of flowers were placed about the room, and at least one fresh bouquet was set on every table. Altogether, there were no more than ten tables with no more than six people each at each table for this event.

First was an Invocation by Alice Bailey, which was printed out, and handouts, though few in number were passed around, so people shared the sheets of paper. These were mimeographed copies, the text displayed in purple ink. Mr. Hopkins in a deep voice recited the Invocation, while others read silently along. As I recall, Dr. Hopkins had selected his favored passages from the Invocation and I don't believe it was the entire Invocation as shown below, but I'm not certain which stanzas he may have excluded or included though I am tempted to say any stanza devoted to "light" was recited.

(The Invocation I should explain was The Great Invocation, a mantra given in 1937 to Bailey by Djwhal Khul)

THE GREAT INVOCATION
Through Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul

Let the Forces of Light bring illumination to mankind.
Let the Spirit of Peace be spread abroad.
May men of goodwill everywhere meet in a spirit of cooperation.
May forgiveness on the part of all men be the keynote at this time.
Let power attend the efforts of the Great Ones.
So let it be, and help us to do our part. Stanza One 1935

* * * * * * *

Let the Lords of Liberation issue forth.
Let Them bring succour to the sons of men.
Let the Rider from the Secret Place come forth,
And coming, save.
Come forth, O Mighty One.

Let the souls of men awaken to the Light,
And may they stand with massed intent.
Let the fiat of the Lord go forth:
The end of woe has come!
Come forth, O Mighty One.
The hour of service of the Saving Force has now arrived.
Let it be spread abroad, O Mighty One.

Let Light and Love and Power and Death
Fulfil the purpose of the Coming One
The WILL to save is here.
The LOVE to carry forth the work is widely spread abroad.
The ACTIVE AID of all who know the truth is also here.
Come forth, O Mighty One and blend these three.
Construct a great defending wall.
The rule of evil now must end. Stanza Two 1940

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let Light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men -
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

Stanza Three - 1945
Retrieved 7.14.11 http://www.greatdreams.com/invctn.htm

The traditional invocation was followed by a small inspirational talk by Dr. Hopkins, which was delivered with some warmth and intimacy to the audience. He was, after all, an effective public speaker. And the feeling generated throughout the room and generally felt by all was that a benign event was about to unfold from this atmosphere of kindliness, gentleness, and that Dr. Hopkins felt some real affection for the beings he was about to contact.

Dr. John W. Hopkins prepared himself at the podium and soon fell into a trance which allowed him to communicate with the space beings. With eyes closed, he began singing the "music of the spheres", which was sung in the language that only he and the space beings understood, and so I find difficult to describe. His singing (as this was melodious song and not repetitive or echoed or prolonged chant) continued for at least ten minutes, perhaps longer as I had neglected to keep track of chronological time in any way.

When his communion with the space beings had ended, at least for this point in time, Dr. Hopkins, with his eyes still shut, shook his head several times as if to clear his head from this dizzying experience, as if he were pulling himself back to earth after going into trance. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times as if to pull this plane of existence into better focus, and sweetly smiled at the audience and delivered a deep, satisfied "sigh" as if to say, "That was wonderful, wasn't it?"