Charles Musès

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.

In 1947 Muses received his Master's Degree in philosophy from Columbia University, New York. In 1951 he received his PH.D in philosophy from Columbia University. Muses' doctoral thesis focused on the famous seer, Jacob Boehme, and one of his followers Dionysius Freher. It was entitled, Illumination on Jacob Boehme, The Work of Dionysius Andreas Freher, and was published by King’s Crown Press in 1951. On pages 151-152 Muses states that, “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.”

In 1991, In All Her Names: Explorations of the Feminine in Divinity, was published by Harper San Francisco. The book was edited by Joseph Campbell and Charles Muses. Each contributed a chapter to the book along with Riane Eiser and Marija Gimmutas. 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 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, Kluewr-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.”

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 relations of these levels, Muses pictured a wide range of applicability for this concept. Some of these are based on properties of magic squares, and even related to religious belief. He believed that these hypernumbers were central to issues of consciousness.

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