Forty Six & 2

Apes have 48 chromosomes, as do potatos. Australian aboriginies have 46 like all other humans<br /> <br /> the spicie with the most chromosomes is Ophioglossum(a plant) with 1,400 chromosomes.<br /> <br /> Love the song...love tool but Mr Carl Jung just had too many acids. lol

Fantastic analysis of this song, it really makes sense now. Thank you for your input.

Drunvalo Melchizadek's idea that through the years to 2012, there will be a movement to feminine led consciousness which will last through to the end of the next 13,000 year cycle. Currently we are at 44+2 chromosomes. Maynard Keenan expresses that he intends to reach that next level of consciousness which he rightly calls 46+2, relating to the Forty-Six and 2 chromosomes that are foreseen by Drunvalo in his book The Serpent Of Light.

But - but that's complete and utter garbage!<br /> Biologists everywhere are sleeping uneasy in their beds because people like you are saying things like this!

I know this comment was posted 7 years ago, but I read it and was disgusted and needed to reply.<br /> To correct Oberones and his statement about "the Aborignies in Australia", they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, "primitive people". They do not have only 44 chromosomes compared to "the second level" which have 46. They are exactly like every other human being on the plant - intellegent, with every cognitive, physical and social ability that Oberones himself has. They DO NOT struggle with the idea of perceiving anything outside of themselves, they CAN distinguish between organisms. I am mortified to hear someone state the opposite! <br /> To suggest that Indigenous Australians are somehow inferior human beings is a narrow minded and vastly incorrect statement, and it's comments like these that are fueling the "us and them" mentality between races and cultures. Oberones is obviously not Australian, and has probably not even been to Australia. I challenge you, Oberones, to meet with an Indigneous Australian and determine whether or not they are so different to yourself.<br />

Ok Folkie84, get off the man's back. Blame Jung, not Oberones. Oberones was just posting Jung's theory. And perhaps he meant ancient Aboriginies? Fail on spelling "planet" wrong by the way. Good analysis Oberones.

We can't blame Oberones for coming up with the theory but we can blame him for presenting such shit, racist at that, as truth.<br /> <br /> Spreading misinformation is despicable.

Did anyone every stop to think that Maynards twisted mind is so twisted that he would write a simple song so that everyone would misinterpret it?<br /> Has anyone ever thought that its about football?<br /> Well its not..it would be funny if it were so simple....<br /> But again someone says that this 0berones is correct...<br /> In an interview where Danny Carey spoke with a reporter from Slamm magazine it states:<br /> <br /> SLAMM: You mentioned the importance of evolution as it relates to the <br /> band. "Forty-six & 2" off the new album seems to address this theme, <br /> correct? And what does "Forty-six & 2" mean?<br /> <br /> Danny: "Forty-six & 2" is a DNA chromosome count. And in the song we <br /> use it as a metaphor for evolution and change. Right now, humans have <br /> forty-four plus two, and supposedly the next step in our evolution <br /> will be the addition of a couple more chromosomes. -end-<br /> <br /> I find this amusing that there are so many comments about tool lyrics...<br /> because Danny also stated that:<br /> <br /> Danny: In our method of composing, Maynard is singing in the room <br /> with us, but he's not really singing words. The words are an <br /> afterthought. And the words and lyrics are about 90% Maynard's <br /> interpretation. We don't place that much significance on them. We want <br /> people to interpret the music and get their own inspiration out of it. <br /> That's what we hope for, anyway. That's why we don't put the words in <br /> the record, either, because people will latch onto them heavily. If <br /> words were so important, compared to the light and energy that is <br /> going on the stage, then people would be selling out spoken word <br /> shows. Which they aren't. The music is what the emphasis is on in our <br /> band.<br />

this can be found at: toolshed.down.net/articles/index.php

In response to Folkie I can understand why this theory is offensive and racist. I agree with you on that entirely. But it's grossly unfair to blast Oberones for simply explaining what the theory is. He/she never says that this is their personal belief so there is no need for the personal attack. I found the analysis very interesting by the way, even though I don't agree with Jungian theory.

First off. Aboriginals is a modern term. think of it not so much as just Australians, but lesser evolved people of the past (those with 44). Dont get hung up on human made labels. Think outside the label. <br /> <br /> And on that note of thinking outside the box.<br /> Let me share an observation and question inspired by TaintedDeity's rebuttle.<br /> <br /> Jungian theory stresses that people focus too heavily on science and not enough on spirituallity (label it what you may but dont think religiously here).<br /> <br /> This is just one out of millions of examples of people relying on scientific theory that is supposedly holding us back according to Jung.<br /> <br /> How do we know he is not right?<br /> <br /> I am a Anthropology/Philosophy double major right now if it helps for me to qualify myself.

Thank you Wallamanage. Tell TaintedDeity he can stop being a dick now.

is there a scientific study that shows that aboriginies have 44 chromosomes?

i think that this song refers to bill hicks and the way he thought everything should change. like society politics and religion. the album was devoted to him. i think that by "stepping through my shadow" is what he wanted the world to do. he wanted them to feel the change because bill hicks comedy was about this stuff.<br /> eulogy another song from aenima was also about bill hicks and what he had to say

in Jungian Psychology the shadow and the Anima are seperate, the Shadow being merely repressed and uncomfortable parts of your psyche, and the Anima being the feminine part of a male psyche, just as the Animus would be the masculine part of the female psyche. Just thought I'd put that out there.

what the fuckkkkk

I think everyone in this should listen to "Lateralus" from the same-titles album... You guys are overthinking everything. I definitely agree that there is some back story to the lyrics most likely involving this Jungian Theory stuff, but that does not connect to Maynard at all, and we are not going to connect to it through the Jungian Theory either. As Danny Carey said in the interview, they have their meaning, and then they build the song to allow for our own interpretations. Stop over-thinking and over-analyzing, because it separates the body from the mind. Just make it what you want it to be.

I realize this is fourteen years too late, but for the sake of anyone looking into the meaning behind the lyrics to one of TOOL's most arcane masterpieces, please take note: <br /> <br /> Carl Jung != Drunvalo Melchizedek<br /> <br /> The title of 46&2 and all the explanations you'll come across regarding chromosomal compositions and their supposed relation to the evolution of consciousness are originating from Melchizedek's books and teachings, not "the Jungian theory."<br /> <br /> The only EXPLICIT reference to Jungian concepts in this song is where the narrator makes repeated references to his "shadow." <br /> <br /> This is not the first time I've seen this online. Interpretations are fine, but please don't attribute this lunatic-fringe chromosome stuff to someone as amazing as Carl Gustav Jung. <br /> <br />

@Oberones

@Oberones

I think the scientific emphasis is a bit too heavy. Jung dressed Gnosticism in the guise of a science for sake of creating a secular spiritual movement.

The anima and animus, forces defined by their contrary nature, are equivalent to the gnostic concept of syzygy.

The Gnostics believed that wisdom, Sophia, was entrapped within matter by her child, the demiurge. The gnostic worldview is both dualistic and progressive. The dualism exists between the evolving realm of concept, language and matter (Sophia), and the opposing realm of deterministic physical experience (the Demiurge). They envisioned Sophia as seeking to separate herself from matter by the organizing the material world in forms that could support progressively developed concepts. According to the gnostic cosmology, this led to the creation of humanity, as a vessel for complex thought through a series of steps called emanations. These emanations were viewed to have manifested as equal and opposite concepts/forms called syzygies: love and hate, self and other, life and death, man and woman, etc. Keep in mind that these are metaphors for awareness.

The crucifix illustrates the concept. A human form is affixed between the material world (the cross) and the spiritual realm (the sky) in suffering, and suffering is the pathway to bliss by means of the Jungian shadow concept.

Shaman (and the Hellenistic religions were very shamanistic) find god through the suffering of a vision quest. So Moses isolated himself on a mountain; Jesus, in the desert.

Now that I've covered the gnostic concept, what was Jung referring to by the 2 additional chromosomes? I suspect Jung was referencing the emanation that will stem from mankind, sort of like Nietzsche's ubermenche. He was saying that, from mankind, there will come another pure concept to break into opposites, just as good and evil cannot exist without one another, and did not exist before man's achievement of moral concept, man will support another emanation of thought (a release of Sophia) that will progress us beyond our current state.

Jung envisioned this as occurring through the process of imaginative synthesis, what he deemed synchronicity (see the Police song) He wasn't talking apes and men.

@Oberones

Looked into it some more. This 48 chromosome nonsense is not z gnostic metaphor, but pseudoscience, promoted by a new religious movement called the Flower of Life Institute. Nothing to do with Jung.

However, the song refers to progressions of conscious awareness, from the perspective of the Jungian shadow. The manifestations of these progressions are like a shedding snake skin, while the confrontation and consumption of the shadow forms an Ouroboros.

It's a mystical message: one must confront their fears to supersede their cognitive limitations, because fear—the unaddressed shadow of the mind—separates humanity from spiritual transcendence. Creation, of both art and psyche, cannot occur in hiding.

@Oberones I also believe that this song is about the theory of the superman of the philosopher Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote about in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Will to Power and other of his writings about that humans are a bridge, a rope between the ape and the superman. And it is our responsability to evolve into a higher stage of human development. According to Nietzsche, the superman is a human being who is 100% free, a destroyer of old values, to be replaced with new values. This song is also related to the theory of the new man by Che Guevara

@Oberones Wow. Pretty rough judgement of the aboriginals! Actually, the song is referring to an evolution 'backwards,' if you will, a man shedding his skin (hence the scab picking and snake crawling imagery.) The character in the song is coming to terms with what he really wants, and accepting who he really is: an animal, with all of its primal, raw and (innocent?) natural qualities. The message is plain: humankind would be better off living 'in' nature than 'above' it, as we are all animals at heart. Animals that have evolved the unique ability to completely and irrevocably destroy the ecology of the environment needed to sustain their very lives.

@Oberones Sorry, mate, if you think that Australian Aboriginals don't perceive anything but themselves then you know nothing at all about their spirituality and connection to the land.<br />