Laudate dominum: O Praise Ye the Lord! (Parry)

Charles Hubert H. Parry: O Praise ye the Lord!



The YouTube page says this is from "the National Service of Thanksgiving to Celebrate The Diamond Jubilee Of Her Majesty The Queen, St Paul's Cathedral, Tuesday 5th June 2012."  It's interesting to me that so many in that congregration know this hymn!

They had this one at St. Thomas yesterday, too.  It's a splendid tune - one of the first hymns I fell in love with - and these are the splendid words that go with it, from Psalm 149:

O praise ye the Lord! praise Him in the height;
Rejoice in His Word, ye angels of light;
Ye heavens, adore Him by Whom ye were made,
And worship before Him in brightness arrayed.

O praise ye the Lord! Praise Him upon earth,
In tuneful accord, ye sons of new birth;
Praise Him Who hath brought you His grace from above,
Praise Him Who hath taught you to sing of His love.

O praise ye the Lord! All things that give sound;
Each jubilant chord re-echo around;
Loud organs, His glory forth tell in deep tone,
And sweet harp, the story of what He hath done.

O praise ye the Lord! Thanksgiving and song
To Him be outpoured all ages along!
For love in creation, for Heaven restored,
For grace of salvation, O praise ye the Lord!

"King of glory, King of peace"

We sang this hymn today - and they had it at St. Thomas, too, for some reason; perhaps it's one of those recommended for this day.  Here's a video of it sung at Washington National Cathedral, on October 31, 2010.



A beautiful hymn (tune "General Seminary"), with beautiful words from George Herbert:

King of glory, King of peace,
I will love thee;
and that love may never cease,
I will move thee.
Thou hast granted my request,
thou hast heard me;
thou didst note my working breast,
thou hast spared me.

Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing thee,
and the cream of all my heart
I will bring thee.
Though my sins against me cried,
thou didst clear me;
and alone, when they replied,
thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise thee;
in my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.
Small it is, in this poor sort
to enroll thee;
e'en eternity's too short
to extol thee.

The Feast of the Nativity of S. John the Baptist (June 24)

Here are the hymns for the upcoming feast day of one of my favorite of all Christian saints, from Hymn Melodies for the Whole Year from the Sarum Service-Books: :

On the Feast of the Nativity of S. John the Baptist (June 24) & during the 8ve (when the Service is of the Feast) :-

Evensong:   Ut queant laxis

On the day at both Evensongs ... ... ... 56
During the 8ve & on the 8ve day ... ... ... 60

Mattins:   Antra deserti

On the day ... .56
During the 8ve & on the 8ve day... ... ... 60

Lauds:   O nimis felix ... ... ... ... 44

I've written about these hymns in several other posts before, but wanted to get my Office Hymns listing totally up-to-date and complete (including all chant scores).

The famous Ut queant laxis is the star of the show today; that's a link to the 4th most-hit post on Chantblog.  UQL is the Evensong hymn, sung as prescribed above to these two melodies:

The first melody above is the same one Hymn melodies often gives for Iste Confessor (as here for the Feast Day of Martin of Tours); the tune is the one on this mp3, from the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood. (The words sung on that sound file are those of Iste Confessor, not Ut queant laxis.)

The second tune is unknown to me at the moment; I'll try to find audio of it and will post it if I can.

Authorship of the hymn is generally credited to Paulus Diaconus, a Benedictine monk who lived in Lombardy during the 8th Cenutry. This is another example of a long hymn broken up into shorter ones for use at the various Office hours of a particular feast or season; the Ut queant laxis section (about the first third of the hymn) is used at Vespers; the Antra deserti teneris sub annis section is used at Matins; and the O nimis felix, meritique celsi section is used at Lauds.

Hymn melodies for the whole year's melody prescriptions, though, are different than the one that makes this hymn so famous.  That's this tune (the video provides only the first two stanzas, plus a doxology):




This mp3 is the same recording, as far as I can tell.   Below are all the words to the entire hymn, in Latin on the left, with English translation from the Hymner on the right:

Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes!

Nuntius celso veniens Olympo
te patri magnum fore nasciturum,
nomen et vitae seriem gerendae
ordine promit.

Ille promissi dubius superni
perdidit promptae modulos loquelae;
sed reformasti genitus peremptae
organa vocis.

Ventris abstruso positus cubili
senseras regem thalamo manentem,
hinc parens nati meritis uterque
abdita pandit.

Antra deserti teneris sub annis
civium turmas fugiens, petisti,
ne levi saltim maculare vitam
famine posses.

Praebuit hirtum tegimen camelus,
artubus sacris strofium bidentis,
cui latex haustum, sociata pastum
mella locustis.

Caeteri tantum cecinere vatum
corde praesago iubar adfuturum;
tu quidem mundi scelus auferentem
indice prodis.

Non fuit vasti spatium per orbis
sanctior quisquam genitus Iohanne,
qui nefas saecli meruit lavantem
tingere limphis.

O nimis felix meritique celsi
nesciens labem nivei pudoris,
prepotens martyr heremique cultor,
maxime vatum!

Serta ter denis alios coronant
aucta crementis, duplicata quosdam;
trina centeno cumulata fructu
te, sacer, ornant.

Nunc potens nostri meritis opimis
pectoris duros lapides repelle
asperum planans iter, et reflexos
dirige calles,

ut pius mundi sator et redemptor
mentibus pulsa luvione puris
rite dignetur veniens sacratos
ponere gressus.

Laudibus cives celebrant superni
te, deus simplex pariterque trine,
supplices ac nos veniam precamur:
parce redemptis!

O for thy Spirit, Holy John, to chasten,
Lips sin-polluted, fettered tongues to loosen,
So by thy children might thy deeds of wonder
Meetly be chaunted

Lo ! a swift herald, from the skies descending,
Bears to thy father promise of thy greatness ;
How he shall name thee, what thy future story,
Duly revealing.

Scarcely believing message so transcendent,
Him for a season power of speech forsaketh,
Till, at thy wondrous birth, again returneth
Voice to the voiceless.

Thou, in thy mother's womb all darkly cradled,
Knewest thy Monarch, biding in his chamber,
Whence the two parents, through their children's merits,
Mysteries utter'd.

Thou, in thy childhood, to the desert caverns
Fleddest for refuge from the cities' turmoil,
Where the world's slander might not dim thy lustre,
Lonely abiding.

Camel's hair raiment clothed thy saintly members ;
Leathern the girdle which thy loins encircled ;
Locusts and honey, with the fountain-water,
Daily sustain'd thee.

Oft in past ages, seers with hearts expectant,
Sang the far-distant advent of the Day-Star,
Thine was the glory, as the world's Redeemer,
First to proclaim him.

Far as the wide world reacheth, born of women,
Holier was there none than John the Baptist;
Meetly in water laving him who cleanseth
Man from pollution.

O More than blessed, merit high attaining,
Pure as the snow-drift, innocent of evil,
Child of the desert, mightiest of martyrs,
Greatest of prophets.

Thirty-fold increase some with glory crowneth ;
Sixty-fold fruitage prize for others winneth;
Hundred-fold measure, thrice repeated, decks thee,
Blest one, for guerdon.

O may the virtue of thine intercession,
All stony hardness from our hearts expelling,
Smooth the rough places, and the crooked straighten
Here in the desert.

Thus may our gracious Maker and Redeemer,
Seeking a station for his hallow'd footsteps,
Find, when he cometh, temples undefiled,
Meet to receive him.

Now as the Angels celebrate thy praises,
Godhead essential, Trinity co-equal ;
Spare thy redeem'd ones, as they bow before thee,
Pardon imploring. Amen.

As you can see, this hymn is in my favorite meter: 11 11 11 5, called the "Sapphic and Adonic meter."  You can follow along with the square notes at this PDF offered on the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum website, or using the image of that file below:

The interesting thing about this hymn - and what makes it famous - is that it's where the  musical scale syllables "Do-Re-Mi," etc., originated.   Per New Advent :

The hymn is written in Sapphic stanzas, of which the first is famous in the history of music for the reason that the notes of the melody corresponding with the initial syllables of the six hemistichs are the first six notes of the diatonic scale of C. This fact led to the syllabic naming of the notes as Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, as may be shown by capitalizing the initial syllables of the hemistichs:

UT queant laxis REsonare fibris
MIra gestorum
FAmuli tuorum,
SOLve polluti LAbii reatum, Sancte Ioannes.

Guido of Arezzo showed his pupils an easier method of determining the sounds of the scale than by the use of the monochord. His method was that of comparison of a known melody with an unknown one which was to be learned, and for this purpose he frequently chose the well-known melody of the "Ut queant laxis" . Against a common view of musical writers, Dom Pothier contends that Guido did not actually give these syllabic names to the notes, did not invent the hexachordal system, etc., but that insensibly the comparison of the melodies led to the syllabic naming.

Here's a score that clearly shows this ascending scale, using only the first verse of the hymn:

And here's what Wikipedia says about "Do-Re-Mi" at its solfège entry:

The use of a seven-note diatonic musical scale is ancient, though originally it was played in descending order.

In the eleventh century, the music theorist Guido of Arezzo developed a six-note ascending scale that went as follows: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la. A seventh note, "si" was added shortly after.^[6] The names were taken from the first verse of the Latin hymn Ut queant laxis, where the syllables fall on their corresponding scale degree.

Sheet Music for Ut Queant Laxis

Ut queant laxis resonāre fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes.

The words of the hymn (The Hymn of St. John) were written by Paulus Diaconus in the 8th century. It translates^[7] as:

So that these your servants can, with all their voice, sing your wonderful feats, clean the blemish of our spotted lips, O Saint John!

"Ut" was changed in 1600 in Italy to the open syllable Do,^[8] at the suggestion of the musicologue Giovanni Battista Doni, and Si (from the initials for "Sancte Iohannes"^{[dubious – discuss]}) was added to complete the diatonic scale. In Anglo-Saxon countries, "si" was changed to "ti" by Sarah Glover in the nineteenth century so that every syllable might begin with a different letter.^[9] "Ti" is used in tonic sol-fa and in the song "Do-Re-Mi".

In England during the Elizabethan era a simplified version of this system (using only the syllables "fa", "sol", "la" and "mi") was used (see below #Solmization in Elizabethan England).

Sing Antra deserti at Mattins using the same two melodies as above; take the words from the second of the the three parts of the poem above.

O nimis felix is the Lauds hymn; the words come from the third of three parts of the poem.  The melody prescribed for O nimis felix is #44, the same tune used on this mp3 of the hymn O Pater sancte, sung at the Lauds Trinity Office (again the audio file is courtesy of the LLPB). 

John the Baptist seems to be a sort of empty slate for artists to write upon using their own conceptions; there are many very different takes on him.  Here are a couple I haven't posted on this blog yet.

This is Joachim Patinir's "Baptism of Christ," from 1515:

 
And this is Alexander Ivanov's "Sermon of St. John the Baptist," from sometime in the 19th Century:

 

"This restful travail"

From Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness:

It remains a paradox of the mystics that the passivity at which they appear to aim is really a state of the most intense activity: more, that where it is wholly absent no great creative action can take place. In it, the superficial self compels itself to be still, in order that it may liberate another  more deep-seated power which is, in the ecstasy of the contemplative genius, raised to the highest pitch of efficiency.

"This restful travail," said Walter Hilton, "is full far from fleshly idleness and from blind security. It is full of ghostly work but it is called rest, for grace looseth the heavy yoke of fleshly love from the soul and maketh it mighty and free through the gift of the holy ghostly love for to work gladly, softly, and delectably. . . . Therefore is it called an holy idleness and a rest most busy; and so is it in stillness from the great crying and the beastly noise of fleshly desires."

Metanoia in A.A.: "Huge emotional displacements and rearrangements...."

To look again at "Repentance and Confession" from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; my bolding:

Repentance is not to be confused with mere remorse, with a self-regarding feeling of being sorry for a wrong done. It is not a state but a stage, a beginning. Rather, it is an invitation to new life, an opening up of new horizons, the gaining of a new vision. Christianity testifies that the past can be undone. It knows the mystery of obliterating or rather renewing memory, of forgiveness and regenera­tion, eschewing the fixed division between the "good" and the "wicked," the pious and the rebellious, the believers and the unbelievers. Indeed, "the last" can be "the first," the sin­ner can reach out to holiness. Passions are conquered by stronger passions; love is overcome by more abundant love. One repents not because one is virtuous, but because human nature can change, because what is impossible for man is possible for God. The motive for repentance is at all times humility, unself-sufficiency - not a means of justification for oneself, or of realizing some abstract idea of goodness, or of receiving a reward in some future life. Just as the strength of God is revealed in the extreme vulnerability of His Son on the Cross, so also the greatest strength of man is to embrace his weakness: "for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I render glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12.9). To be flawed is the illogical, perhaps supernatural characteristic of humanity in which one en­counters God.

The Greek term for repentance, metanoia, denotes a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transforma­tion of outlook, of man's vision of the world and of himself, and a new way of loving others and God. In the words of a second-century text, The Shepherd of Hermas, it implies "great understanding,"1 discernment. It involves, that is, not mere regret of past evil but a recognition by man of a dar­kened vision of his own condition, in which sin, by sepa­rating him from God, has reduced him to a divided, auto­nomous existence, depriving him of both his natural glory and freedom. "Repentance," says Basil the Great, "is salva­tion, but lack of understanding is the death of repentance." [2]

It is clear that what is at stake here is not particular acts of contrition, but an attitude, a state of mind. "For this life," states John Chrysostom, "is in truth wholly devoted to repen­tance, penthos and wailing. This is why it is necessary to re­pent, not merely for one or two days, but throughout one's whole life."[3]

Any division within oneself or distinction between the "time to repent" and the "rest of one's time" is, in the lan­guage of the Church, attributed to the demons. The role of these demons is extortionate, offensive - "diavallo," the root of the word "devil," means to tear asunder.[4] We cannot be deprived of true repentance or diverted from its path by the deception of demons. Yet the demons can work through virtue, working to produce a kind of spurious repentance. By nature we are destined to advance and ascend spiri­tually, but the demons divert the course by simulating ad­vance in the form of a fitful movement, a wobbling from side to side, like crabs. One can test the quality of repen­tance by ascertaining whether it is fleeting or fluttering. In­constancy and inconsistency are a danger signal; lastingness is auspicious. One is being tempted by the demons when one is caused "at times to laugh, and at other times to weep."[5]

I find this all  to correspond very closely with the description of an incident that appears in the 1935 book, Alcoholics Anonymous; the incident itself appears in Chapter 2, "There is a solution," with a reference to the Appendix.  My bold.

A certain American business man had ability, good sense, and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best known American psychiatrists. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician (the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung) who prescribed for him. Though experience had made him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence. His physical and mental condition were unusually good. Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time. More baffling still, he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fall.
So he returned to this doctor, whom he admired, and asked him point blank why he could not recover. He wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well balanced with respect to other problems. Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this?

He begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor's judgment, he was utterly hopeless; he would never regain his position in society and he would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a body guard if he expected to live long. That was a great physician's opinion.

But this man still lives, and is a free man. He does not need a bodyguard nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude.

Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor.

The doctor said "You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you." Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.

He said to the doctor, "Is there no exception?"

"Yes", replied the doctor, "there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me, these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals, the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description. (*) For amplification, see appendix II)

Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor's telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience.

Here was the terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the extraordinary experience, which as we have already told you, made him a free man.

We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proven to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, "a design for living" that really works.

The distinguished American psychologist William James, in his book "Varieties of Religious Experience," indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God. We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Those having religious affiliations will find here nothing disturbing to their beliefs or ceremonies. There is no friction among us over such matters.

We think it no concern of ours what religious bodies our members identify themselves with as individuals. This should be an entirely personal affair which each one decides for himself in the light of past associations, or his present choice. Not all of us join religious bodies, but most of us favor such memberships.

And here's the entire content of Appendix II; a date is not given here, but clearly it's an addition to a later printing of the book.  It's meant to clarify and expand on the nature of the "huge emotional displacements and rearrangements" referred to by Jung in the citation above.

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

The terms “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening” are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms.

Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes, or religious experiences, must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous.

In the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming “God-consciousness” followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.

Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the “educational variety” because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life; that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves.

Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it “God-consciousness.”

Most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.

We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

—Herbert Spencer

“Heaven, Hell and Earth”

"Bridging Approaches to Mental Illness in Sierra Leone," at NYTimes.com:

War leaves all manner of scars, and the dusty towns in eastern Sierra Leone still bear the marks of a decade of civil strife.

Cities like Koidu, in the diamond-rich Kono district, were the site of many of the atrocities carried out by rebels backed by former President Charles G. Taylor of Liberia, Sierra Leone’s southern neighbor. Unfathomable acts like amputations lend a particularly gruesome hue to the murder, rape and terror that characterized the conflict.

“The history of the war is everywhere,” said Nyani Quarmyne, a Ghanaian photographer who visited last year. “There are bombed-out buildings all over the place. There are people wandering around with both their hands hacked off.”

It’s this kind of trauma, shared on such a scale — an entire nation — that can drive a person to madness. “One has a sense that there are a number of damaged people wandering around,” Mr. Quarmyne said. “How could there not be?” And, despite some improvements in the quality of life of the people of Sierra Leone, it still lacks effective ways to address chronic and profound corruption, poverty, unemployment and substandard health care.

And, not least, mental health care.

Mr. Quarmyne had previously worked in his native Accra, Ghana, to document the toll of mental illness. There, he met a Prague-based writer named Catherine Cooper who told him about the Wellbody Alliance, a clinic run by Dr. Mohamed Bailor Barrie of Sierra Leone and Dr. Dan Kelly of the United States. Mr. Quarmyne and Ms. Cooper made a trip there together. With the cooperation of Wellbody staffers and the consent of the patients’ family members, who were often present, they set out to understand the patients at the clinic, which blends the services of faith healers and so-called witch doctors with medicine-based psychiatry.

In a country where mental illness is widely stigmatized, and certainly not viewed in medical terms, it’s a pragmatic way to draw in patients. When the afflicted believe they married witches, were cursed by devils or swallowed evil snakes, appeals to empirical reason can seem naïve. There, mental illness is framed spiritually.

Nyani Quarmyne
Isata, the mother of a patient named Mohammed, who lives in an abandoned taxi, received medication for her son from Ahmadu Jalloh, the manager of the mental health program at the Wellbody Alliance clinic.

According to Mr. Quarmyne, this mixed approach worked reasonably well with the faith healer. “He’s a lovely man,” he said. “He would refer patients to the clinic, and in that way they received a mix of medical treatment as well as spiritual treatment from the faith healer.”

Not so with the witch doctor. Motivated, perhaps, by his ego, he seemed eager to demonstrate his powers. “He had, shall we say, a very robust belief in his abilities,” Mr. Quarmyne said. “At the same time, he was afraid that what the doctors really wanted to do was find out his secrets and steal them.

“There was a great deal of distrust or suspicion in that relationship,” he said.

That distrust frustrates the doctors’ efforts as very real needs go unmet. There was one patient who thought it was 2003, a year after the civil war ended, and who heard voices, planes and helicopters when there was silence. Another case saddened Mr. Quarmyne because the patient struck him as full of promise. Samuel (Slide 11), fiercely intelligent, creative and “remarkably articulate,” Mr. Quarmyne said, “had made it as far as university, which in many ways is a really significant achievement considering the background he’d come from.” But Samuel believed that he was Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian emperor, and that he had gotten married in the underworld. He spoke of a figure he’d drawn on his wall as his spiritual tutor.

What Mr. Quarmyne also found unsettling was Samuel’s use of drugs, particularly marijuana. He had seen a great deal of cannabis use among mentally ill Ghanaians as well, and it struck a personal chord. Mr. Quarmyne felt that what separated him from them was arbitrary, yet decisive. “Coming from a background of relative privilege, there are a number of things that I look out and think, ‘Whoa, were it not for an accident of birth, it could be me under these circumstances,’ ” he said.

But few others seem to care. Mr. Quarmyne’s work is largely unfinanced, and his traveling partner, Ms. Cooper, has yet to find a publisher for her essay about Dr. Barrie’s and Dr. Kelly’s efforts. Besides the cultural obstacles, the clinic faces enormous logistical problems — maintaining a reliable supply of medications, for example, or trying to integrate its services, and psychiatry and counseling in general, with the larger Sierra Leonean health care system. “The unfortunate fact of it is, it’s not a sexy topic anywhere,” Mr. Quarmyne said. “Much less in this part of the world, where nobody wants to have anything to do with the mentally ill.”

Mr. Quarmyne’s photo series and Ms. Cooper’s unpublished essay are titled “Heaven, Hell and Earth,” reflecting the varying versions of medicine, well-being and spirituality they encountered in the Kono district. There is no electricity or running water in Koidu, and virtually no paved roads. Mr. Quarmyne spent his days hearing about the dark world, demons, sickness and horror. Water was fetched from a well, and at night, it was pitch black. “Some nights you would hear people singing spiritual songs at the home of the faith healer,” he said. “Other nights you would hear drumming and chanting, and nobody could tell you what it was.”

And there is nothing like total darkness to invite people to explore their own mental recesses. “Both Catherine and I went in there with very clear views of real versus unreal, normal versus not normal, if it’s between reality, superstition, etc.,” Mr. Quarmyne said. “And that got shaken up pretty well on this trip.”