Bob Dylan And The Dylavinci Code (Part XIX)

Links to all the cover versions used in this series are given at the end of the article, as well as links to all the previous articles themselves.

by Larry Fyffe

Bob Dylan’s songs considered a whole be a mixture of Gnostic and Hermetic profusion and confusion.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall Of The House Of Usher” tells the tale of sickly Roderick Usher whose cracked house contains a library full of books including Emanuel Swedenborg’s “Heaven And Hell”.

Encrypted be ‘Horus’, an Egyptian symbol of regeneration, within the name “Roderick Usher”.

Roderick represents the isolated human mind. Mistakenly believing her dead, he buries his twin sister Madeline alive in the family vault.

Madeline, a variant of ‘Magdalene’, represents the isolated human body.

She breaks out of her tomb, and scares her mind-oriented brother to death.

The deteriorating house surrounding the twins then collapses, entombing both of them beneath the rubble.

The cracking of the Delavinci Code reveals that the obverse story of Jesus and Magdalene found therein is similar in theme to Poe’ short story with the major exception that the couple have a female child who survives.

Thus, the House of Christ does not collapse.

Nevertheless, Lady Magdalene ends up mummified; ‘undead’ in a sepulchre. Nor is it at all clear whether Lord Jesus is alive or dead (it’s after His ‘crucifixion’).

According to the uncovered Code, the following song lyrics indicate that Mary is the narrator’s sister, akin to the twins (‘rational’ Christ and ‘wise’ Sophia) depicted in Gnostic thought (and twins Apollo and Artemis in Greek/Roman mythology).

Anyway, when all is said and done, Jesus and Mary save one another from being captured by the authorities of organized religion who are in pursuit of the duo:

We grew up together
From the cradle to the grave
We died, and were reborn
And then mysteriously saved
(Bob Dylan: Oh Sister ~ Dylan/Levy)

It becomes increasingly evident, thanks to the unravelling of the Dylavinci Code, that many of the time-travelling songs of Bob Dylan about love found and love lost refer to the recurrent archetypical figure of Mary Magdalene.

At times, as below, the narrator feels alone and sickly without Madeline:

Felt around for the light switch, became nauseated
Just me, and an over-worked dancer, between walls that have deteriorated.
(Bob Dylan: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar)

At other times, it’s the memory of raven-haired Mary that haunts the story-teller:

Felt around for the light switch, became nauseated
She was walking down the hallway while the walls deteriorated
(Bob Dylan: The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar)

So it might be said that the moon never beams without bringing dreams of the beautiful Maggie Madeline –

wherein, the narrator lies down beside the ‘undead’ Mary in her burial chamber by the Nile River in Egypt:

You turn the tide on me each day, and teach my eyes to see
Just being next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on
'Cause I love you more than ever now the past is gone
(Bob Dylan: Wedding Song)

The Dylavinci Code Index to videos (songs without links are in the article above)

Index to past episodes

Bob Dylan And The Dylavinci Code (Part XIX)

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