endless_nameless
08-20-2007, 09:00 PM
The Lateralus artwork is designed as a mirror to reflect the true nature of the observer.
I think it is a visual metaphor for climbing the tree of life, turning lead into gold. The outermost shell is black (the colour of lead), and this contains all the who's, what's and where's that explain how the album was made and what it contains. In other words, how this album came to be created in Malkuth, the external world of time and space (black then white are all I see in my infancy).
The next layers reveal the deeper structures of consciousness and in stark contrast to the outer layer contain colour and depth (red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me). Looking from the front, we see a picture of a man, but transfigured from the norms of ordinary perception. He has been stripped of his outermost layers (clothes, skin and jewellery), and is surrounded by spiritual imagery, floating eyes denoting chakra points, a blue aura surrounding the body and the spiral of prana entering through the top of his head.
As we flick through the pages we plunge deeper into the anatomical layers of the body, through the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems. I would really like to know what the symbol is on the 3rd to last page, which is partly a pentagram contained in a circle residing in the man's throat (I think it's the same as the symbol being obscured by the head on the first page). On the same page, the matter in the brain begins to resemble a word.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh. On the second last page the brain forms the word God, and we can see the corner of the vajra peeking out from behind the head. Our brains represent a concrescence in our environment; they are the most complex and densely packed structure in the known universe, and their function is to produce consciousness.
On the last page the human profile has disappeared. In its place is a symbol, the double-cross vajra or double-dorje, depending on whether we use the Sanskrit or Tibetan name. The four points could represent the four points of the compass, the four elements of alchemy, and the four colours of the philosopher's stone during different phases of creation. Each point emits, and is the centre of, a spiral.
At the centre of the cross lies a ball of yellow-white light, Kether, the sun, gold. It corresponds exactly to the centre of the man's head, and to the centre of both circle-pentagram symbols found on the first and third-to-last pages. This page represents the spirit that lays hidden (occult) inside us, the bright and endless source of creation around which we revolve, as an electron orbits the nucleus of an atom, the moon orbits the earth and the planets orbit the sun.
In the same way that the gold at the centre of the vajra is hidden at the deepest level of the Lateralus artwork (and physical gold is hidden inside the earth), obscured first by the black outer shell and then the layers of the body, so to is our inner Self, which is one with all inner Selves, hidden at the deepest level of our psyche, existing at the core of the phenomenal world (inside the brain) and yet ultimately creating and projecting the reality in which it is embedded. The vajra represents the ultimate ground of being; the fundamental unity of all forms with the divine (lets me see).
Flip over the booklet and we can see the profile of a human surrounded by a blue aura, the mirror image of the front. The centre of the vajra here corresponds to the throat, and the top point of the cross to the centre of the head. This image brings all the pieces together and shows the above and below, material and spiritual united as one in the cosmic man (there is so much more). Something cool to try is looking at this image under strong light (maybe smoke a few cones) and go cross-eyed staring at the centre of the cross. Bring the two images together, and it's fucking trippy...like a key to the lock of your mind.
The back of the cd shows the same image as the last page of the booklet, yet somehow rendered more lifelessly, and without the light at the centre of the cross, though take out the cd and the centre of the cross on the back aligns with the cross on the last page of the booklet (at least its supposed to, mine was printed badly and doesn't quite match up.) I take this to represent ignorance of our true nature, potential prior to consummation, similar to the grey-scaled Net of Being picture on the front of 10 000 Days becoming coloured and 3D inside the booklet. Learning to see in colour, learning to connect two into one, learning to see deeper into reality and the nature of human existence is Tool's message in a nutshell. Is it actually true? Who knows...
I think it is a visual metaphor for climbing the tree of life, turning lead into gold. The outermost shell is black (the colour of lead), and this contains all the who's, what's and where's that explain how the album was made and what it contains. In other words, how this album came to be created in Malkuth, the external world of time and space (black then white are all I see in my infancy).
The next layers reveal the deeper structures of consciousness and in stark contrast to the outer layer contain colour and depth (red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me). Looking from the front, we see a picture of a man, but transfigured from the norms of ordinary perception. He has been stripped of his outermost layers (clothes, skin and jewellery), and is surrounded by spiritual imagery, floating eyes denoting chakra points, a blue aura surrounding the body and the spiral of prana entering through the top of his head.
As we flick through the pages we plunge deeper into the anatomical layers of the body, through the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems. I would really like to know what the symbol is on the 3rd to last page, which is partly a pentagram contained in a circle residing in the man's throat (I think it's the same as the symbol being obscured by the head on the first page). On the same page, the matter in the brain begins to resemble a word.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh. On the second last page the brain forms the word God, and we can see the corner of the vajra peeking out from behind the head. Our brains represent a concrescence in our environment; they are the most complex and densely packed structure in the known universe, and their function is to produce consciousness.
On the last page the human profile has disappeared. In its place is a symbol, the double-cross vajra or double-dorje, depending on whether we use the Sanskrit or Tibetan name. The four points could represent the four points of the compass, the four elements of alchemy, and the four colours of the philosopher's stone during different phases of creation. Each point emits, and is the centre of, a spiral.
At the centre of the cross lies a ball of yellow-white light, Kether, the sun, gold. It corresponds exactly to the centre of the man's head, and to the centre of both circle-pentagram symbols found on the first and third-to-last pages. This page represents the spirit that lays hidden (occult) inside us, the bright and endless source of creation around which we revolve, as an electron orbits the nucleus of an atom, the moon orbits the earth and the planets orbit the sun.
In the same way that the gold at the centre of the vajra is hidden at the deepest level of the Lateralus artwork (and physical gold is hidden inside the earth), obscured first by the black outer shell and then the layers of the body, so to is our inner Self, which is one with all inner Selves, hidden at the deepest level of our psyche, existing at the core of the phenomenal world (inside the brain) and yet ultimately creating and projecting the reality in which it is embedded. The vajra represents the ultimate ground of being; the fundamental unity of all forms with the divine (lets me see).
Flip over the booklet and we can see the profile of a human surrounded by a blue aura, the mirror image of the front. The centre of the vajra here corresponds to the throat, and the top point of the cross to the centre of the head. This image brings all the pieces together and shows the above and below, material and spiritual united as one in the cosmic man (there is so much more). Something cool to try is looking at this image under strong light (maybe smoke a few cones) and go cross-eyed staring at the centre of the cross. Bring the two images together, and it's fucking trippy...like a key to the lock of your mind.
The back of the cd shows the same image as the last page of the booklet, yet somehow rendered more lifelessly, and without the light at the centre of the cross, though take out the cd and the centre of the cross on the back aligns with the cross on the last page of the booklet (at least its supposed to, mine was printed badly and doesn't quite match up.) I take this to represent ignorance of our true nature, potential prior to consummation, similar to the grey-scaled Net of Being picture on the front of 10 000 Days becoming coloured and 3D inside the booklet. Learning to see in colour, learning to connect two into one, learning to see deeper into reality and the nature of human existence is Tool's message in a nutshell. Is it actually true? Who knows...