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to the,seventh angel
to the two olive trees
and to all who will sing the new song
ISBN 0-85030-752-X
The Aquanirn Press ispart of the
Thorsons Publishing Group, Welhgborough,Northamptonshire,
NN8 2RQ England
Printed in Great Britain by
Woolnough Bookbinding Limited,
Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire
Contents
A c~nowledgements
11
13
usic as a power - music, the individual and society - music creates order out of chaos
as in music, so in l$; Music as a Mould for Society - the protest of Confucius;
sound, Music. and the Wisdom of the Ancients - the walls of Jericho destrqed by
the scientific use of sound - music for good and music for evil - the ancients were more
aware than we of the unseen causes behind all outer events - music and moraliy; The
Hidden Side of Music - a personal experience of the author; Primal Vibration music as a manrfestation of the O M ; Music and the Twentieth Century; Music and
Materialism - the modern viewpoint on music - Aquarian Age people have not yet
rejected anti-Aquarian Age music - an outline of this book.
1.
33
Music and Morality - music as an energy formula - the beliefs of Confucius; Music
d Spirituality - the stoty of Master Wen of Cheng - the allegory behind the story rli.sit from the celestials; The O M in China; Astrology and the Twelve Cosmic
) n a - one Cosmic Tonefor each lpdiacal month; Sound Above and Sound Below
sound a manifestation of the twelve Cosmic Tones - music and ceremony Chinese music transposed in accordance with astrological gcles; The Mysticism of
Music - musical notes as an outpouring of the One Vibration - the subtlety of the
iiuidual notes - the mystical basis of Oriental monotone instrument.^; Music and
actical Magic - gigantic orchestras to release vast quantities of Cosmic Sound;
usic and the T'ai Chi -the forces of yin and yang in Chinese music; The Concept
the Logos in Chinese Music - Cosmic Sound associated with Cosmic Consciousness
Chinese emperors as incarnations of the Word - the huang chung; O f Times and
{cles; Of Music and Modes - astrology, Cosmic Sound and earthly rtmtr - thr
ertial ynphony - to align earthly music with universal principles; T h e Hulrrrg Ch141g
;IS the Foundation of Civilization - standardiatron of 1~7~~qbtt
and mtvrtttrri
rl<~~rrnrcnt
with the One Tone; The Eternal Quest - the prrilr offiw tm~;r.c~tr,~tr~
k~lrl!:
-- audible
'
T H E SECRET P O W E R O F MUSIC
CONTENTS
the search for p6ection; Rigidity vs. Innovation: The Cwcial Dilemma - the
dangers ofboth s t a p i o n and anarchy - the Chinese middle way; n e Mysticism of
Music and Numba - note-ratios - the sign$cances of1,2,3, 12, / and 7; Mode
Mood - the 'biu!4m band', The Legendary Origins of Chinese Classical Music L f i v j v e legendary monarchs; The Historical ER - Prince Tsai-Yu discovms q w l
temperamm; The Loss of the Logos - decline and falL - disappearance of the
'hi& band'; The Use of Sound in Modern China - subject.rfir the no& opera
- anti-Western death-chants.
2.
72
Halpm: 'reIuxing' into the New Age - Truth, Beau9 4 Goodness: separating the
three Sisters - eternal standards a d the double-minded man; Roll Over Beethoven;
Roll Over Man - composing compuiers - mechanical music teachws; Emptv Scan .
,
the public vote with their fief; Twentieth-Century Traditionalists - Vaughan
William - Holst.
~
136
Music and the physical Body - music aflects the brain, the blood-pressure, the heartrate and the muscles - music as a sedatizr or stimulant - musicogenL epilepg - the
dangws ofloud music - the physiological effects of different tmrpos; Music and Plants:
170
Intoning the OM - OM and the huang chung: O M - rlibration, the rource +he
Creation - the Trinity in Hinduism - ahata and anahata; Thc Mystical Basis of
Music and Speech - the Trinity in music - the prima9 ofthe voice - the e~oteric
importance ofchanting; Music and Spirituality -yogi musicians; Name and Form names are key-note formulas - bija mantras; Indian Music and its Appreciation Indian and Western music compared - The Raga - the 22 intervals o f the scale over-rigidity VS. anarchy: the Indian solutim - structure of the raga; Music and
Indian Civilization - differences between north and south - the entrance of Westernsole 'Pop'.
205
OM and the Unity of Crcation Myths; 'And God Said . . .'-the meatit~tpowerof
sound allegorically desnibed in Gtne.ri.r - the seven Tones of Creation; Egyptian
Genesis - Creation 5 thought and sound - EgVptian bija mantras - the mysticism of
the voice; The Word Made Flesh - the Incarnation; Genesis Now; The Work of
Ernst Chladni and Hans Jenny - Chladniplates - the tonoscope; The Song of the
Atom - matter = enerp = oibration; The Vocal Range of the One Singcr electromagnetism and wave-Ffqumcy; The Mysticism of Colour - the colour octave;
The Imminence of the Word - the OM in Tibetan music; Harmonic Ratios and
Proportions in Nature - universal harmonics in pbsics, chemisty and biology;
Harmonic Principles in the Natural Psycho1ogj of Man - Ur-song; Towards a
Overture :
14
viewpoint would have been regarded by the philosophers of antiquity to be not only irrational, but also, ultimately, suicidal. For from
ancient China to Egypt, from India t6 the golden age of Greece we
find the same: the belief that there is something immensely fundamental about music; something which, they believed, gave it the
power to sublimely evolve or to utterly degrade the individual
psyche - and thereby t o make or break entire civilizations.
Something immensely fundamental about music
It was exactly this that Pythagoras was driving a t in his research
through which he discovered that all of music could be reduced to
numbers and mathematical ratios - and that the entire universe and
all phenomena therein could also be explained in these same terms of
the same particular numbers and mathematical ratios which were
found in music.
Pythagoras' understanding of music was far more than a merely
materialistic, academic one, and such an understanding is lamentably
rare today. Yet we discover something of this timeless flame of
ageless wisdom preserved in that small minority of musicians who
still today have combined academic knowledge and the practical
experience of music with a genuine and earnest inner spiritual
development.
Few would disagree that such a person is the much-beloved
musical personality, Yehudi Menuhin. And we find a deep and truly
Pythagorean flash of insight in the opening sentences of his book,
Theme and Variations. Here, this great contemporary violinist has
expressed the inner meaning of the tonal arts in terms so pointedly
true, and yet so all-embracing in their truth, that they are food for a
great deal of careful thought:
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himself the captain of the hosts of the Lord, and who told Joshua
how to destroy the mighty walls of Jericho through the use of sound
produced in sequences of seven. Following the instructions, Joshua's
legions marched around the city, headed by seven priests blowing
seven trumpets of rams' horns. The rest of his men Joshua cornmanded to remain absolutely silent, uttering not a word. Once. they
went around the city. And again on the next day. And the same for
a total of seven days. But on thc seventh day they circled the city
.seven times, and on this occasion Joshua told his people to shout
along with the sound of the trumpets. This they did - and the walls
of Jericho, according to the account, fell down flat, the city then
being stormed and taken.
Of course, as our modern materially-minded friends can tell us,
the story must be only superstition; a mere legend.
- Except that the ruins of ancient Jericho have been unearthed,
and it has been found that the walls apparently did at some stage
collapse, falling outward,
But still, the modern scholar tells us, there must obviously be
some perfectly natural explanation.
- Yes, WC reply, a natural explanation. Certainly it must have
been natural. And yet in order to fully understand the account,
perhaps we need to wait a little longer, for science to progress a little
further in the field of acoustics . .
While the people of ancient times certainly did believe that sound
was capable of such spectacular feats, they were nevertheless equally
concerned with the more usual effects of sound and music - upon
the human psyche and upon society. If a civilization's music was in
the hands of the evil or ignorant, the ancients believcd, it could lead
the civilization only to an inevitable doom. But in the hands of the
illumined, music was a tool of beauty and power which could lead
the way for an entire race into a golden age of peace, prosperity and
brotherhood.
T o the major civilizations of antiquity, intelligenth-organized
sound constituted the highest of all the arts. And more, for they also
believed music - the intelligent production of sound through musical
instruments and the vocal cords - t o be the most important of the
sciences, the most powerful path of religious enlightenment, and the
very basis of stable, harmonious government. More than anything
else, however, the great thinkers of antiquity emphasized the
powerful effect of music upon the character of man. Since music
seemed to hold such sway in determining the morality of people, it
was a subject which none of the great moral philosophers could
..
I l~rrefore
I-l~~otions;
music has thus power t o form character, and the
v;~t.iouskinds of music based on the various modes, may be
tlistinguished by their effects on character - one, for example,
working in the direction of melancholy, another of effeminacy;
11nc encouraging abandonment, another self-control, another
enthusiasm, and so on through the s e r i e ~ . ~
Ill ,I 11 Plato and Aristotle discuss the moral effects of music in several
11 I heir major works.
Music and morality. Is there a connection in reality? Certainly
I I I idea
~ that music exerts an influence - and a ~ o w e r f uone
l - over
1111.character of m m persisted on a widespread scale beyond the
I 1r11ruf Christ, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and
I I ~ I O the last century. The concept that music affects character was
111c onr great inspiring force behind the creative lives of the great
a I.~\\icdl
and romantic composers. I t is clear from what we know of
1 11r.ircharacters that each of them, motivated by an earnest desire to
*.c .rrfr ;md spiritualize humanity, saw their music as one of the most
I ~ t , w ~ . rmeans
f ~ ~ l posrihle of influencing the consciousness and direcI I I , I I of the human race. Wars and politicians come and go, but
11illsicabides indefinitely, never failing t o affect the minds and hearts
1 1 1 ,111 who hear it.
As Andrew Fletcher, the writer and orator, stated in the Scottish
I ' ~rliamentof 1704: 'I knew a very wise man who believed that if a
111.lewere permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who
. , l ~ r IIIICI make the laws of a nation'.
It can easily be seen, then. that the subject of music and its
\ M !-a\il~le
psychological and societary influences is anything but an
~lr\cr,ice,theoretical one. If music can be used t o exert
l~iil~~rnces
of tither a negative or a beneficial n a m e over us, then we
I I . I ~ I better know about it! What damage might certain kinds of
~llliaichave already imposed upon our
without our
I r.~liringit? What opportunities might there be for us to take the
I I I T C C ~ kind of music an;
use it from now onwards in order to
11 r clrratc our own mental and spiritual evolution? Clearly, these
c~~~c*\tions
are of importance to cach and every one of us. Virtually
i ~ r ~ h listens
o d ~ t o music in one form or another. When we speak
I #I
'r11,ln' or of 'the listener' in the pages ahead - that also means you
,111
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21
;IS the sublime vision seemed about to wane, therc began the
~rncerto's unique harpsichord solo. Again I was whisked quite
Iwyond myself, and saw the music in a way never perceived before.
'I'llc long, fugal arpeggios trilled through thc air like visiblc, emanatI I I waves
~
of divine essence, one behind the other, filling all the hall
.111clpassing beyond its walls into the city. I cannot say that I saw
1 1 1 music-wave's,
~
for the process did not involvc my cycs; yct ncvcrI l~i~less
I somehow did see them. I saw the music!
As the other instruments came in once morc with indcscribablc
I~,veliness,this impression of emanating waves of a tangible goodness
1,ccarne reinforced still further. It felt as though the music possessed
;I definite and very real energy, and that this was radiating out
Iwyond the hall in all directions. M y consciousness scemed to
cancompass the entire city. For a few moments I felt as though I
were looking down from a viewpoint which revealed t o me the
cantire urban spread; and not only the visible, physical city, but also
llir underlying, causative forces which shaped and moulded it. The
r~nderstanding came that this music, as it radiated forth, was
somehow acting as a sustaining, invigorating force for the whole
slirrounding area.
As the awareness of my body returned, sitting in its seat in the
lioyal Festival Hall, the impression was left with me that the
concert was in some way a glowing light amid a great, chaotic sea
11f darkness. The darkness threatened to encroach upon the flame
nd extinguish it forever. I shall never forget this sensation: one not
lf fear, but of the deepest, gravest concern; of the vast importance
~f the music which I was hearing, of the deepest gratitude for the
lpportunity of experiencing it, and that it should at all costs be preerved for the humanity of the future.
Mystical experiences have been a subject of debate for centuries
among philosophers. Up to the present day no general consensus of
opinion has been arrived at as to the reality of such experiences. Are
they less real, equally real, or more real than our usual experience of
everyday life? Each must judge for himself. But it is interesting that
visionary and mystical experiences are known to have provided the
initial inspiration behind many of the world's greatest inventions
and scientific breakthroughs; even those of such giants of the mind
as Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla.
It can be noticed from others' accounts of such experiences that
unless we are of the stature of a Ramakrishna or a St John of thc
Zross, they can come upon one when one least expects it -and then
hey are gone, seemingly impossible to recapture or call back. Ficklc
,II.;I
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23
and fey, as though they have minds of their own; for our own
imperfections d o not enable us to embody such experiences on a permanent basis. O r as the mystic would word it: it is the vision of
transcendent reality which is permanent and cternal, and we who
insist upon being fickle and fey in our relationship to the Supreme.
Christians may be correct in speaking of divine grace. Those who
are searching for truth seem frequently to be granted a kind of
spiritual 'honeymoon' period. All kinds of experiences and revelations come to them in the early days of their quest, and at the time it
is as though All Truth were already theirs. But then the honeymoon
is over, and one comes to realize that one has been granted a vision
of the goal, as though as a goad to move towards it. For a few
months or a year the veil was drawn back for one, but only as a
temporary act of grace, bestowed by destiny. And now it is one's
duty to reclaim that vision and that knowledge through one's own
unaided effort. Truth has temporarily been brought t o us, but only
in order that we might then be encouraged to find our own way
along the long and difficult path t o its permanent abode.
In retrospect, I now see that my experience of that evening was
one of the key starting points which eventually led to the development of this book. Only later did I discover how closely the
occurrence of that evening tied in t o the ancients' conception of'
music and its innate power.
PRIMAL VIBRATION
In ancient times sound itself, the very basis of all music, was thought
to be intimately related in some way to non-physical and sacred
dimensions or planes of existence. W h y was this? Because audible
sound was considered to be but a n earthly reflection of a vibratory
activity taking place beyond the physical world. This vibration was
more fundamental, and nearer t o the heart of the meaning of things,
than any audible sound. Inaudible to human ear. this Cosmic Vibration was the origin and basis of all the matter and energy in the
universe.
In its purest, least differentiated form, this Cosmic Sound was
known to the Hindus as OM. Yet just as pure white light differentiates into the colours of the rambow, so this Primal Vibration
was belicvcd to differentiate into a number of more greatly defined
superphysical vibrations. These different frequcncies or Cosmic
Toncs were thought to be present in differing combinations
throughout the universe. Not only were they present within all substances and forms, in differing vibratory combinations, but they w e y e
1'1 I R
;III~.(.s
OS nausea or of headaches may be caused by such
I I I I I ~ I SIl('i~~g
crnitted from items of machinery at a distance. Similar
t . t t c . , 1s 11pon human beings and animals appear to be caused by the
..rtl~cotiicvibrations which precede earthquakes, coming even many
11o111.s
before the 'quake itself. Rhythm too can be all too real a force.
I\/l i1it;u-y experience has taught from centuries past that when troops
n~archingin unison need to cross a bridge, the commanding officer
should give the order for them to break step, for the effect of the
marching " ri'. lef, ri', lef' " rhythm has more than once led to the
collapse of such constructions (and casualties even before the enemy
are engaged !).
And does music emanate other, superphysical, powers? This is
one of the prime questions which we must attempt to answer.
Though modern opinion would answer with an unhesitating 'no',
we would be unwise to accept this answer before examining the
validity of the modcrn viewpoint itself. In this respect, it is possible
to point to an enormous (and ~otentiallydangerous) ~ a r a d o x that
:
despite the general lack of conccrn about the real nature and effect
of music, this latter half of the twentieth century has witnessed a
huge explosion and proliferation in the availability and variety of
tonal art. There are vastly more musical styles for the listener to
choose from today than at any other time in history. Recordings,
and even live performances, are available of types of music as wideranging as that of Mozart and of thegamelan of Bali; as that of the
electronic experimentalists and of Frank Sinatra; the Indian rdga
and punk rock.
Musically, then, the twentieth century is notable for its staggering variety of available sounds. But more: an equally unique
twentieth-century development is the ease with whicch thc sollnds of
music can now be acquired. L a us not forget: a ceritury ago it was
only possible t o experience a Beethoven symphony w11t.n dozens of
trained musicians werc gathered together to rehearsc and perform it
live. A constraint we can hardly conceive of today, when that same
concert can be heard from cassette or radio, even if we choose to
find ourselves on a trans-globe expedition across the poles.
Practically the same aural experience as a live conccrt is now available at the flick of a switch. True, somehow nothing will ever quite
replace the live performance, but hi-fi and Dolby video-cassettes can
come very close. And today, should we choose to listen to
Beethoven's Ninth, we can pick between conductor X's 1978
performance or conductor Y's classic 1914 recording. W e can even
keep it repeating in the background as we g o about our daily work
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27
~ ~ o t i oquite
n alien (and which would possibly have seemed not a
I I I ~ l distasteful)
c
to the audiences of thc nineteenth century.
Yn - that amazing paradox! Never was music so easily avail.~l)lr,
so diverse, so continuously pumped through the city streets and
.t~rossthe airwaves - yet never has theorization or real. practical
1~1,owled~e
regarding music's nature and its effects been at a lower
t.hl,. Acoustical researchers r ride themselves, it is true. in showing
t ( T rheir graphs and sine-wave displays, but these tell us no more
I~outthe real nature of music than a man's age and personal details
(.l1 us about his character and outlook on life. Is it not time t o at
cast stop and collect our thoughts for a moment? But no, there is no
ime! Let those who wish t o theorize d o so we are too busy: there
c so much music t o listen to! A few seconds spent tuning a radio
,rings to our ears the music of many different nations and cultures
( h e radio itself being bought at a price which even a schoolchild can
afford). Then, incidental music plays almost continuously in the
background during a good proportion of cinematic and television
productions. During television advertisements the sound-track is
utilized with microscopic care and intensity in order to extract every
last penny-worth of effect out of the few seconds of time paid to the
television company by the advertiser.
In fact, the average Western man often 'hears' (if the word can
be used) more music during the watching of television than he hcars
on its own and for its own sake. W e seldom realize just
to what extent music has become a part of our lives. Surveys have
shown that the average American teenager listens to no less than
three or four hours of rock music each day. There are few in the
modcrn world who do not hear a number of hours of music each
day. Most of it is not truly 'heard' at all; yet even background music
to which our conscious minds are oblivious affects our heart-rate and
emotions just the same. (A chilling thought: an entire two-hour
feature fiim, using incidental music extensively throughout, can pass
without our consciously noting the presence of a single note. And as
it happens, thc screen's background music is almost always of a
basically jazz nature.)
For sure, we can only conclude that music is a most important
sociological
But again, w e must ask ourselves: prccisely, and scientificdy, what b music? What is it, apart from ;L
collection of organized sounds! That is, what is its function in
society? What tr its effect upon the mind and characrcr of man?
Does anybody know?
In search of answers, we peruse the literature of our rnodcrn
MUSIC ANDMATERIALISM
If there be any modern conception of the nature of music, what can
we say to dcscribe it? Only that the tonal arts are thought to be
based upon the intelligent generation of air vibrations, thcse air
vibrations somehow serving to communicate various subjective
moods or experiences. But, ifwe look deeper, we realz~erhat a s o c i e ~ ' ~
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29
.!X
most important, for it calls into question from the outset the
twentieth-century conception of what music IS and what it does.
The modern notion (or lack of a notion) of thc phenomenon of
music is, in short, the inevitable result of thc current materialistreductionist world-view. In this world-view, music is inevitably
described in terms of its most tangible, measurable aspect: that it
consists of air vibrations. Also. according to this world-view, human
beings themselves - the very performers of, and listen ers to, mtlsic are merely biological machines, evolved by luck. possessing no
ultimate purpose for existencr, and whose thoughts and emc)tions
are nothing but biochemical processes automatically produced as
conditioncd reflexes to the world around them. To the materialist it
naturally follows, therefore, that people only perform or listcn to
music in the first place because past experienccs have 'programmed'
thcm to do so. At his most charitable the materialist might
grudgingly concede that these past experiences consisted of
'pleasure-feelings'; that the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony. in hitting this and that vibrational frequency, somehow
releases certain stimulative chemicals into the listmer's bio-
IIIC~
111
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30
31
I I I ~ I ~ C
Right now !
Ahhhhhh !
I am an anti-Christ
I know what I want
And I know how to get it
I wanna destroy passers by
For I wanna be - anarchy
'Anarchy in the UK'
- Sex Pistols
'I'llc ancients, then, may yet have a thing or two to teach us. And
*.illcrwe have already dipped into the subject of the music of China,
Ict it be to China that we first return. . .
1.
3 .l
MUSIC IN CHINA
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Further than this: since individuals are the basic building blocks of
society, music could also affect entire nations for better or for worse.
35
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I ' I I I . I I I ~ , M ; I S I CWen
~ of Cheng sounded the Kung string and did
with the other four strings: beautiful winds murmured,
l l , ~ l t I \ of good fortune came up, there fell sweet dew, and the
6.l~l.ingsof water welled up powerfully.
'T'his particular legend is not, of course, to be taken absolutely at
lace value. The Chinese did believe that music could influence the
phenomena of nature. But they did not believe that the tones of
mortal man could be expected to literally call forth one season after
another as in this legend of Master W e n of Cheng. If we look a
little more closely at the story, bearing in mind the great tendency of
the ancient Chinese mind to gravitate towards matters spiritual, and
to express itself in symbolic terms, then a deeper meaning stands
revealed t o us:
The four outer strings of the zither, and the four seasons, are
symbolic of the ancient conception of the four aspects of man: his
abstract mind, his concrete mind, his emotions and his physical
body. (These four were later to be called by the alchemists of
Europe, 'Fire, A r , Water and Earth'.) Master Wen cannot satisfy
his guru, Master Hsiang, because Wen has not yet mastered his own
four aspects of being. Hence, as one result, he cannot perform
sublime music. But he goes off, and does not return until he has
attained the full flowering of the spirituality of his heart. Now
Master Wen can play the four outrr strings to great effect.
Likewise, and much more meaningfully, he has mastered, gained
total control over, and can 'play' his abstract and concrete thought
processes, his emotional nature, and the physical naturc
The result of this mastery of mind and body? Thc vital outcome
is that in playing these four outer 'strings' (his four-fold nature) in
unison, he has learned also to play the central Kung string
(corrcsponding to his Higher Self or spiritual nitturc). From thc
four-sided base of the pyramid of life, hc has raised hin~selfup to the
very apex of perfection. H e has attained full mastery of' himself, and
hence his inner genius now manifests from the heart. Hcnce, too, his
music has attained the necessary levels of grandeur rrquired by his
guru.
The moral here is two-fold: firstly, we must master our four-fold
nature before we can attain self-realization. And, secondly, only by
doing so can we then g o on to perform music which is truly worthwhile.
Another legendary account, from the Shu Kin3 ('Book of Odes')
describes a music so sublime that it invoked the presence of the
great, spiritual men of the past who had ascended to heaven. Kwei,
MUSIC IN CHINA
37
111 11lbibo11
whcn they tapped and beat the sounding stone, and struck and
\wept the ch'in and sh2, in order to accord with the chant, then
11lc ancestors and progenitors came down and visited. The guests
of them filled the principle seat. And the host of nobles virtuously
[place t o one another]. At the bottom of the hall were the
pipes and the tambours, which were brought into unison or
suddenly checked by the beaten trough and the scraped tigcr,
while the mouth organ and the bell indicated the interludes.'
Yct even in legend the use of the power of music is not always
1)cnevolent. For instance, one account tells of a music invented by
clcmons and spirits. This music raised a tempest, destroyed the
Irrrace of Prince Ping Kung's palace, and then caused the Prince's
own illness and death.638
THE OM IN CHINA
Why the importance, the vital importance, of music within the
lrl~ilosophicalsystem of ancient China? Because music was believed
t o embody within its tones elements of the celestial order which
governed the entire universe. As did the people of other ancient
civilizations, the Chinese believed that all audible sound, including
music, was but one form of manifestation of a much more
fundamental form of superphysical Sound. This fundamental Primal
Sound was synonymous to that which the Hindus call OM. The
Chinese believed that this Primal Sound was, though inaudible,
present everywhere as a divine Vibration. Furthermore, it was also
differentiated into twelve lesser Sounds or Tones. These twelve
Cosmic Tones were each emanations of, and an aspect of, the
Primal Sound, but were closer in vibration to the tangible, physical
world. Each of the twelve Tones was associated with one of the
twelve zodiacal regions of the heavens.
38
MUSIC IN CHINA
t1101111
39
('.#Iw l l . ~
of~ the
..I
,l
l,
Ir
I,),I\~(.?
40
41
MUSIC IN CHINA
w 1111 an astrological month of the year, during which the Tone was
I lc.licved t o be more prominently sounded throughout the earth. The
I , l \ r six months of the year expressed the sixyang Tones; the second
..In rnonths from mid-summer to winter solstice expressed the yin
'I'oncs. The musician performed his music in a key which was
I I . )ciated
~
with the current zodiacal month. The twelve notes, or lui,
the Chinese musical system each corresponded to one of the
t~lonths.The note of each month was, in audible sound, the earthly
r r.llcction or 'undertone' of the month's celestial Tone. Therefore
t..tcll month of the year possessed its own tonic and dominant lui,
w i~h which all ceremonial music should be performed at that time.
T o the Chinese mind it was self-evident and indisputable that the
I>rrfectState could only be maintained by its remaining in alignment
with celestial order. Therefore the functions of State were also
.~s\ociatedwith a tone. T o do so - to keep in harmonious attuneIncnt with the principles which governed the universe - brought the
I~lrssin~s
of indefinite preservation upon the State. T o lose this
.~tlunementto celestial order, however, inevitably reduced any
11;ttionto a condition of imperfection and impermanence. Celestial
~ " i n c i ~ l cwere
s
eternal, and all attuned with them would endure.
N:~tional upheaval and decline always came about because that
tt,~tionwas not in harmony with the universal principles of divine
OI-dcr.In particular, the leading officials of the nation should be
~ . i ~ i i i l aattuned
rl~
in their personalities and spiritual understanding.
'I'licy should literally be the embodiment of the cosmic Tones. The
t)ffices of Emperor, Empress, Minister, and so forth, therefore each
1~)ssessedtheir own special tone which was attuned to a particular
t osmic Tone. The key in which the music of a rite was performed
wits consequently also influenced by the tone of the officiating
Harmonious music became the fulfilment upon earth of the
Will of the Above. By its alignment with the principles of heaven,
c;irthly music could force by the law of sympathetic resonance the
c-nergies of heaven t o embody themselves into the leaders of the
State.''
Music is the harmony of hcaven and earth while rites are the
measurement of heaven and earth. Through harmony all things
are made known; through measure all things are properly
classified. Music comes from heaven; rites are shaped by earthly
designs.
The goal of the musician was to manifest within the medium of
audible sound a music which expressed accordance with celestial
ordcr. And to do so demanded not only an artistic proficiency. but
also a very definite scientific knowledge and discipline. This was
because the relationship between earthly music and the Ch'~neseconception of universal order was such an extremely intimate one.
Nothing in classical Chinese music was left to chance or performed
arbitrarily. ( H o w the Chinese sages wnuld havc shuddered at the
sound of much that passes for music today!) According to the
Chinese conception that life patterns follow musical patterns, it
followcd logically that random or arbitrary notcs would tend to precipitatc cl~aosand anarchy within society at largc.
Ultimately, every note was ideally intended to invokc certain
specific cosmic forces. In this, classical Chinese music cannot begin
to be understood whcn approached by the normal Western method
of musical analysis.
Well might the prospective Ph.D. researcher attrnipt to assess the
rhythms of ancient Chinesc music, its forms and structures. But, in
fact, W C can no more grasp the heart and ultimntc purpose of the
music in such a way than we can assimilate War nnd Peace by analysing thc frequcncy with which each later of tht* alphabet appears.
As one has put it:
111
tIic
42
MUSIC IN CHINA
the origin of all matter, energy and being, was considered t o be the
enunciated W o r d of the Supreme. Since each of the twelve Cosmic
Tones was but an aspect - a twelfth - of this O n e Vibration, the
Chinese felt that literally every note of their music, being a rcflection
of one of the twelve Tones, was also an earthly manifestation of the
O n e Great Tone. Each note of music, indeed, was performed as a
conscious celebration of, an homage unto, and an invocation unto
the Fathcr-Tone.
And since all ~ o u n dwhatsoever derived from this Vibration, the
sounds of music the-tnselves, on their own, irrespective of their combination with other tones in this or that melodic pattern, were held
in great rcvercnce by the sage-musicians. T o understand this, it is
necessary for the modcrn Wcstcrn musician o r music-lover to instil
into himself a vcry different outlook. We tend t o havc a somewhat
ingrained Occidental attitude toward musical appreciation, but to
really get to grips with the meaning which music hcld for the
Chinese mind, w e need to go back to the beginning. W e nccd to
adjust and refocus thc faculties with which we listen to and
appreciate music in the first place. Today, we do nor ns rrrle lirten to
;IS
of
o u r cycs, in
;L dr;iwing,
and rarely focus themselves exclusively upon individ11;Il li11c.s or
marks t o the exclusion of all others, so have our ears hrco~nc.~lsccito
organizing musical notes into overall patterns and forms. 1,ittlc- l ~ c e d
is paid to the qualities of each individual sound.
Profcssional musicians sometimes refer t o this fact I)y s;iy ing that
it is not the notes which we listen to in music tnrI:~y,I U I I o r 1 1 the
intcrvals - the pitch differences between the nlltr+%.' I ' l l ( . strong
of
tendency is to hear only the melodic stream, as a riqiti!: .111tl (:~lli~lg
pitch diffcrcnces. I n this, the notes themselves C ( I I I I I I 11 11. 11,,t llillg
cxccpt as dots on the score-sheet which govern wl~ichw . 1 ~i 1 1 ( * 11nc
r. c r.1.y I I I L I C h
of thc melody goes, up o r down The notes arc tllrrt-lll~
11ke the abstract points of mathcmatln o r geomrtlv 'I'l~c.vin(l~c.~tc
a
position, but fill up n o area there: even as a Iinc in 111.11II('ITI,II I ( j0111s
up points ~n a n abstract way, yct in theory thi.; linr 11.15 no w ~ d t h
and takes up n o area.
But not so, the muslcal note as appreciated ITV tllr .ini-irn[\ of
Chma! For to the Chinese t h e individual norpc tl1f~v1\vli~r\
ICJPYF r(~nl,
llvzng and vibrant They were not abstr,~ci 131,ints o n thc
43
44
MUSIC IN CHINA
)I
45
4(1
47
MUSIC IN CHINA
sollic cxtent in the Chinese folk music of the modern cra. The effect
ilpon thc listener is most certainly one of mind-cxpansion. Only by
broadening and sharpening the consciousness can thc full melody
and its beauty be assimilated. In fact, since no one instrument is able
t o lay claim to the possession of the melody as it flies from one
instrument to another with glittering speed, it is as though the music
itself becomes emancipated from the earthly instrumcnts. An
independent spirit, it hovers above and speaks through whichever
instrumental medium it will.
1s.
The Chinese emperors employed surprisingly numcrous tnl~siciar
The T'ang Dynasty, for example, (AD 61 8-907) kept S10 Icss th,an
fourteen court orchestras, each consisting offromfra bt(ttr;irtd 10 sev'en
hundred pe?fomers. What would the voting public say of such grandiose, 'unnecessary' use of public funds today? And y c ~ :lccording
.
to the ancients, to keep so many musicians was far from llnncccssary
or superfluous, but was the height of wisdom. I;I)I.thc rnergy
invoked by the divinely-attuned tone-patterns 01' tllc..;r court
orchcstras was believed to exert a far-reaching influrr1c.c. into all the
;IS those of
affairs of the nation - affairs as crucial and widc-r:i~~!:i~i!:
the economy, the social patterns of behaviour. ; ~ j i t . i c I I ~ I I I and
I T , so
on.
During the aforementioned T'ang Dynasty, onr rr!:~rl,lr 11rchestra
alonc was formed of no less than 1346 m u s i c i ; ~ ~I.irllr
i ~ . wonder
that it was an outdoor orchcstra. T o fit them into I .ol~tlon'sRoyal
Albert Hall, one would have to place the orcbrst~,.~
i t 1 I IN. rows of
seats and position the rather limited audience o n 111r. *.I ,I!:(.! l311tit is
surely apparent here, too, in this huge numbcr 01 1n.1 It~l.r~~c.rs,
that
the real function of the orchestra was known 10 h r .I I I I ~ \ I ~ C ; I one:
I
Iu.~.l'orrning
such numbers are quite unnecessary for any pi11
picccs of music for entcr-tainmrnt. The actual, i
11111c.tion
of
!!~.I..II
cr the
thc orchestra? That the larger the orchestra r
volume of sound produced. And the greater thr \ I I I I I I ~ I , . I , . wc-ll ;is the
more minds actively involved, the greater thc 131-1111111 I 11 $11 I 11 cosmic
I!:
energy invoked and radiated forth. Thus a v.la.r I I I I I ~ ~ ~ ~ I I I ~ I went
forth with which the entire land could be invi!!ru .,I 1.11 . l 1 1 1 1 ~ 3 1 ~ ~ ~ . i t ~ ~ ; ~ l l y
enlightened.
The Chinese historians recorded that for r l ~ c d t . 1 1 1 . I I I ~ I 01her
important festivals the T'ang Dynasty also I ) t t )III:III IO!:~'I l l ( - r an
orchestra reputedly numbering no less than trrt / l f t ~ ~ l \ . / w , l(. )l~viouslY,
then, we are dealing here with an acutely difI'c.rl.~~t
t ~ ~ ~ r l o Illion
o l c the
IX
MUSIC IN CHINA
N ~ Ku:~=(s~rnbol)
I
Substance of
Nnrne
I
Ch'im
.'
T~ti
Li
.I
Chin
Sun
Sign
=
=
-
Elrmcnt or
Phcnorncnon
of Naturc
Example of
Instrument
Compass Scason
Point
stonc
sonorous stone
(chime)
NW
Autumn- Hcavrn
Winter
metal
bell (chime)
Autumn
dampness
silk
zithcr
Summer
fire
bamboo
panpipes
Spring
thunder
wood
tiger box
SE
SpringSummer
w~nd
drum
Winter
water
reed mourhorgan
NE
WinterSpring
mountain
globular
a...,,
SW
Summer- Earth
Autumn
Instrumcnt
II
Kin
"
L=
l
,gourd
II
49
K'un
I I
earth
THE C O N C E P T OF T H E LOGOS I N C H I N E S E M U S I C
One all-important purpose lay behind all the strenuous efforts of the
Chinese to align their music to the principles and proportions of
cosmic order. This purpose was that, through the God-alignment of
music, all consciousness and life could become similarly aligned to
that same celestial order.
N o matter how far back in thc history of Chinese music we go,
we find the same: that the Chinese associated Cosmic Sound with
illumined, exalted consciou.wm. Cosmic Sound - the vibratory
essence of all matter and rncrgy - was in everything and
everyone.. and it was possiblr for man to raise his consciousness, to
take himself closer to the Sourcc, to attune himself more perfectly
with the One. Spirituality was literally a question of vibration. H c
who succeeded in harmor~izing the discords within his niintl,
emotions and body could hccome a more perfect embodiment 01Cosmic Sound, an incarnation of the Word. H e who emhodicil 1111.
Logos was inevitably exceedingly wise, moral and just; hcncc IIC w.15
the most fitting to rule.
There are unmistakable parallels here between this (:llinc.w
concept of man embodying Cosmic Sound and rlic. C:llrihti.~~i
5l
MUSIC IN CHINA
SO
1 .)
MUSIC IN CHINA
1*'1111
111c111new tendencies in thought. ncw r n o i d s , different
Irr.l~,ivio~~r-patterns
and different activities in thc N ; I L L Ikingdom.
~T
Most interestingly, there has survivcd intact sincc ~ h o \ cdays
. . l l l t i r . indications of which actual musical notcs were associ;ctccl with
I I I ( . I wclve moons of the year and the twelvc hours o l tltc d ; ~ y(.\ V C
. . l ~ o ~ t rcmember
ld
that the chief significance of thrse audihlc tones
\ \ , . I \ 111at they were each worldly counterparts of one o f thr. v c t j ~
'1'onc.s of Heaven.) Rendering the musical tones according t o 111c
~l~oclcrn
Western scale ( C , C #, etc.) the correspondenccs wcrc:
Note
Moon
Hour
C
C#
D
D#
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
1
2
3
4
T
1
3
T
7
9
11
1
3
T
7
9
11
E
F
F #
G
G#
A
A#
B
i4
MUSTC IN CHINA
IIIOI-(.
p
-
F-l,
I
I
j6
MUSIC IN CHINA
17
,l
'i
I,
1 ' ~
l'
~,
4,
'l
' I .
l1
l,,
1,
"
l,
; ~i
l1
l
l
'
1
~
1'1
;'
'!
l
..
18
MUSIC IN CHINA
''
19
p'ssesses the ability to transform - improve or degrade - civilization. Virtually every major civilization of antiquity held this vicw.
l he wise among them were thercfore very much awarc of the
pitfalls of either extreme in music - over-rigidity or over-innovation
- and sought to achieve a balance between the two. h unwise
degree of innovation or a condition of outright musical anarchy
c o a d prove deadly to the State. But, o n the other hand, complete
inflexibility could cause music to stagnate.
H o w t o avoid stagnation in music, and yet steer well clear of the
treacherous rocks of absolute anarchy? I n their own way, each of
+he great ancient civilizations formulated its own unique variation
)n the same basic solution: stagnation could be avoided, and
,reativity encouraged in safety, by the adoption of a musical system
.vhich allowed the composers or performers free expression - within
certain well-defined rules and regulations. The Chinese variation on
this solution was twofold. Firstly, new compositions of music were
allowed provided that they were not obviously immoral or anarchic.
All new compositions were required t o conform to the standard
system of musical notes, modes, etc. and thus were aligned with the
Above. But the fact that new works of music could come forth
levertheless provided scope for the introduction of new melodies
.nd beneficial moods. This helped to guarantee that the musical arts
etained sufficient fluidity so as to be able to keep
- pace
- with new
astrological conditions.
Yet even then there remained, the Chinese believed, scope for a
dangerous over-rigidity. For what if the celestial harmonics themselves changed in a major and prrmancnt way, and yet the system of
musical rules did not? Would not this. too, place the music of the
nation into a state of perilnus inharmony in relation to Cosmic
Sound? W e see, therefore, thc cxtrcmc value of being allowed to
modify thc kung. According to the Chinese, a kung which remained
absolutely inflexible over ninny ccnturies could ultimately prove
suicidal t o a civilization. This was bccause a static kung - and a
static music - c o d d only rct;iin its value if the universe itself w;a
static, which it was not. Over-rigidity in music could thereforc
prove just as dangerous as too much innovation. That which did not
adjust to the new day was fated to fade away.
However much one may agrcc or disagree with the specifics of'
the ancient Chinese musical science, its belief that it is csscnti;il to
steer a middle-way between the twin pitfalls in music oi ovcSl.rigidity and anarchy is surely a valid and timely reminder 10 rhc
peoples of any age.
..
60
61
MUSIC IN CHINA
In the philosophical system of China the number fivc was par~icularlyimportant, so it is of little surprise that their musical scale
should also have been pentatonic. Phenomena of a widely diverse
nature were categorized into divisions of five, each of the fivc divisions being associated with one of the five musical notes. Thc notcs
of the rulers, seasons, elements, colours, directions and planets wcrc
as shown in Table 2.
Table 2: The Fiz,e Notes and Their Symbolic Correspondences
Note
Category
Kung
Shang
Political
Emperor
or Prince
Ministers
Loyal Subjects
Scason
Autumn
Spring
Summer
Winter
lement
Earth
Metal
Wood
Fire
Water
olour
Yellow
White
Blue
Red
Black
Wcst
East
South
North
Venus
Jupiter
Mars
blcrcury
lirection Centre
Ylanct
Saturn
Chiao
Chi
Yii
MUSIC IN CHINA
62
...
63
64
MUSIC IN CHINA
65
011
MUSIC IN CHINA
67
I ~ . l v c *lain
0X
MUSIC IN CHINA
69
IIN-I.,I.
.I!?
MUSIC IN CHINA
.111cla fifth t o the torso from whence emanated thc heart-beat of thc
70
/ , I#/ I
~~
li
llii
'
'
~~~l
l
few decades.
...
~~1
Notes
+The legend of Ling
I d ~ 1 ~ iin
,
71
Word, even as the fifth string of the Chinese zither emanated the
73
'
81~~t.'s
2.
The Twentieth Century:
The 'New Music'
T h e philosophical outlook of most composers today is simply
stated: the ideal is that there should be no ideals, and the rule must
be that there should be no rules.
In ancient China music was based upon the loftiest of philosophical concepts. T o d a y serious music is more devoid of idealistic
foundations than at any period during the history of man. I n ancient
China only certain rhythms, mclodics and modes were deemed to be
correct and beneficial. Today, as the listener t o modern music is only
too painfully aware, anything gocs.
From across the a w n s , thcsc t w o diametrically-opposed viewpoints confront each othcr head-on. And the question is: which is
corrcct? O r at least, which of the t w o approaches more closely to
the truth? Are the 'anything goes' twentieth-century composers truly
corrcct, and werc the Chinese hopelessly superstitious and irrational
t o have cautiously held their music within certain margins? O r wr-re
the Chinese corrcct in fact? Does music inevitably affect morality
and civilization, which would place many of our current composers,
in the extent of their danger t o society, firmly among the ranks of
thc terrorists and political agitators of our d a y ?
T h e dilemma of what is right and what is wrong in music is
basically a moral question. W e choose which direction music should
takc according t o our moral and spiritual outlook (or lack of it). It is
not the task of the present volume t o attempt t o prove the existence
of G o d ; neither t o dive into the complexities of moral philosophy.
Nevertheless, it would be helpfill t o outline t w o fundamental
postulates :
1 . that religious belief stems not from superstition, but from some
form of Higher Truth which lies at the core of all things, and in
which is found the origin of all the world's great religions;
the importancc of
1 1 i\ worth affirming, as in these
- . l ~ ~ ~ ' and
i ~ u amoral
l
idcals, for it is precisely in the abandoning of
, , I I ( 11 ideals that theemusic of the twentieth century has, for thc most
11.1r.1, departed from the inner direction of the music of the p;tst.
(lurs is an age in which nothing is accepted unquestioningly r - i ~1.1c.rin the realms of science, or of social traditions, or of music. All
. .
11.tsr practices and beliefs arc open t o question. Granted too, ~t IS
~nclccdacceptable, and even wise, t o reassess the established tradi1i011s of life, and those of music also. But what could [)c more
Ioolhardy than t o answer our o w n questions - with the wrong
.tnswers! Precisely this occurred at around the turn of the century
when science, society and the arts each supplanted their nineteenthchncurypredecessors with a new outlook which leaned far towarcls
I l ~ position
c
of complete materialism.
Let us unravel the story of how, in the world of music, this came
1 0 pass.
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77
universally acknowledged to have been a major, beneficial and con;tructlve :itep forward for the world of tonal art. W a gncrs mot ives
Ir l composing his magnificent music-dramas were mo rally imp ecctble : to forge an art form which combined spiritualI and.~deleply
, i_c_ - c- - Io: - r ~ i ~ l i ~ hpoetry
ed
with a music beautiful and sublime. all for the
purposes of spiritually elevating the individual listener and bringing
about enlightened social change. H e introduced innovations into his
music because he felt them to be justificd in thc idcal pursuance of
these aims; his new, more complicated use of tonality tnnbled him
to manifest the particular and specific musical effccts ;{nd dramatic
impacts which he deemed necessary for his works.
Wagner's reasons for composing in the first placc, thcn, were
entirely altruistic. Hence they were in conformity with thosc of
Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt (as wcll as
with those of the musical philosophers of ancient China). Had
Wagner's motives been adhered to and emulated by thc succeeding
generation of composers, Wagner's technical innovations would
have represented the climactic entrance into a new world of music music of perhaps equal or even greater beauty than the music of the
classical and romantic eras.
T o a large extent, however, the philosophy implicitly contained
within thc music of the turn of the century and thereafter was to be
of a different order - eventually of a very different order. And hence
the need for this chapter, that we may study just what twentiethcentury music has really comc to be about.
.&
...
7X
like. And in music, technical details rarely reveal a great deal about
t11c essential meaning or conveyed impression of the whole work.
Therefore let us ask: &!asthe revolution into the 'new music' merely
a revolution of technique? Does it not strike closer t o the actual
heart of the matter to realize that the most fundamental difference
between the music of the previous centuries and the 'new music' of
the twentieth century lay in the difference of their moral directionsi
The strcam of scrious Wcstern music had formerly followed the
contours of a philosophical landscapc which was at thc very lcast
genuinely altruistic, and often deeply spiritual. I t was as though the
musical stream itself had bcen unerringly impelled towards an
eventual ocean of transcendent, mystical fulfilment. But after 1 9 0 0 ,
rebellious waves burst the river banks, taking off in a number of
independent philosophical directions. A ncw hreed of musicians
appeared; these did not necessarily share thc samc artistic motives as
their prcdecessors. T h e great composers of the past had composed
for the sakc of the spiritual upliftment of their fellow men. But the
.
s hor from such firm moorings.
music of the ncw century raisc:d- ~ t dnc
The tonal arts were now art for art's sake. Tlle listener found his
..
attention to be focused by t hc 'new muslc U pon levels of being
1
1
which were not spiritual, bur merely mental,
emotional, and yes,
even physical.
The intellectual o r mcnt;tl content of music had once consistcd of
the sacred mathematics of Bach or the divine symbology of Mozart.
N o w this was replaccd by mere human intellectualism. Even by a
very early stage of thc twentieth ccntury, music appeared which
seemed t o have been composed primarily as an exposition of this or
that new harmonic or rhythmic technique. In the past, composers
had often cxpcrin~cntedfor the sake of improving their music; nowr
many composed music for the sake of experimenting. The divinc
intellect became supplanted by mortal mentalism.
Formerly, the emotional direction of music had hccn vertically
upward. The very purpose of the music had usually been t o direct
the feelings t o G o d , o r t o regions of lofty. altruistic contemplation.
horizontal
The 'new music' dirccted the feclings along a
,r. or t o the
plane: music evoked the rractions of one mortal t o
material environment. Works such as many of t h c ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ p o sofi ~ i o n s
elcctronic music might at first be thought, in fact, to have no real
'emotional content' at all. Rut to believe s o would be a mistake: all
music affects thc emotions. It is just that the kind of emotions which
are stirred by cold, heartless clectronic works are 1ikewi.c cold and
heartless.
79
'Tlie new movements in the world of inusic ;ilso dircctcd conto the physical level. Thcre arose a ncw fascination with
+c,io~~sness
I I I sheer
~
sensuousness of certain sounds, as for instance in much of
I I I ~work of Debussy. I t was almost as though sounds wc-rc no
Iongcr utilized for the sake of the music, but vice-vcrsa: n ~ ~ r ~ i c : t l
works were sometimes the glass cabinets, presented for thc s;tkr of
sllowing off the new collection of sonorities contained within.
The essential difference in the spiritual directions o i ci;~ssio;tl
I I I L I S ~ Cancl most serious twentieth-century music becomes strikingly
I Ilustrated by comparing works fmm the t w o different eras which
l - .. - - -,
~ I ~ C ~J. Lcertain
C
common purpose Take, for example, the diffcrencc
Iwtween Bcethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony and the work of Edgar
Vart.se. Each composer attempted to render, through music, imprcssions of the objective world. Beethoven, however, chose that which
is beautiful: the countryside; whilst V a r k e , a ccntury later, chosc as
his subject matter the hustle and bustle of modern urban life.
Moreover, Beethoven idealized his subject matter, while V a i k e
emphasized thc ugly and inhuman aspects of city life. But above all,
the approach of Vari-sc towards his subject was merely 'horizontal':
his music portrays only the physical side of the city. Beethoven, on
the other hand, explicitly stated that his 'Pastoral' Symphony
described, not a two-point, horizontal relationship betwcen man and
his environment, but a three-point triaizgle composed of M a n , Nature
and G o d (as, indeed, is so beautifully apparent to all who hear the
work). T h e 'Pastoral' is intended not to portray Naturc alone, but
rather the Presence of G o d t~ithinNature. Thus Beethoven transcended materialism: with the addition of G o d to the man-environment relationship, an extra and vital vertical dimension imbucd thc
entire work with a hiphcr meaning. Again, it is this vertical, spiritual
dimension which is lacking in Ddxnsy's portrays? of the sea in his
La Mer. La Mer is nothing like as radically avant-garde as thc
output of VarPse, and yet still, c w n in Debussy's portrayal, we find
thc merely horizontal relatinnshiF. N o matter how artfully t h r h
musical components of L n M rr may have been wclded topethcr, r l l c
fact remains that the w n-k
~ is dis tinctly materialistic. L n Mvr.
describes the impressions convcyed by thc sra to man - o n rhr
I-..,
I I L ~ I U, u L not thc spiritual, levrls. / \ I I ~ I
physical, emotional and ~ I C.-,..l
hcrc we have the most hlndamental difference of ;ill I ~ r ~ w r r ~ i
twentieth-century music and the music of classicism ;~ncl rc)rrl;lllticism; here W C have the real nature of thc 'revolution' in nll~sit.
which took place aroimd the beginning of the prcscnt c c n ~ l ~ r -~yi l:r i t
it b'as d 'revolution' into materrdlistic humanism.
H0
T H E 'NEW MUSIC'
81
;2
Nutcracker ( l 89 1).
In short, Tchaikovsky was as deserving as a man could be of the
83
- -
85
H4
86
but the music itself leaves the general meaning of the work in no
doubt. 'Fate' is now compeltely submitted to: a few tonal attempts
to rise above or forget that which clouded the composer's entire life
are soon brushed aside by the return of passages of utter and
desolate melancholy. Though not revealing the programme,
Tchaikovsky did write that the symphony 'is permeated with subjeccomposing it in my mind, I wept copiously.' The
tive feeling
final movement concludes the work with the unmistakable feeling of
death. Considered his greatest symphony, it also sounds, as it were,
the precise keynote of Tchaikovsky's life.
The symphony was first performed on 2 8 October, 1893, conducted by the composer himself. Tchaikovsky decided soon aft er
that he would call the Sixth the 'Pathetic' Symphon:y - a tit:le
which, in the original Russian, refers t o emotional suffering. Eight
days following its first performance Tchaikovsky was dead.
The cause of the death has long been thought to have been
cholera. Recent evidence, however, indicates that his death had to
do with the confluence of three factors : his expanding fame, his continuing homosexuality, and the high csteem in which the Czar was
increasingly, and publically, regarding him. T o understand what
these three f a c t ~ r sled to, it is necessary to realize the intense
patriotism and loy;~ltytc-)wards their Head of State which many
people felt in thosr days. A number of Tchaikovsky's colleagues and
associates. perceiving that the secret life of the composer might soon
become exposed to the world, feared that this could prove
disastrously embarrassing to the Czar. Forming a kangaroo court,
they decided th;lt thr composer should prevent this from happening
in the sures,t way possible: by taking his life. Tchaikovsky, totally
di!$graced a nd crr~shc.dby self-condemnation, did so. Following this,
hi:j friends rnclin ;irnateurishly engaged in a cover-up to protect the
composer's own rrputation, giving the death the appearance of
having been n;itt~riil.
As he had writtcn of the theme of the Fourth Sy~llpl~ony
fifteen
years earlier, Tc11;rikovsky had drifted upon the sen OS llis 'incscapable Fate' until it had engulfed and submerged him t o its drpths.
Many earlier composers had displayed imperfca traits of one
kind or another, yct they had nevertheless striven ceaselesslv to
perfect themselves. In their music they had portr:iyed only 'th at
which is divine an(.lbeautif ul in life; only that which the COnI
l 1
12sciousness of man snoulu
always
endeavour to move towarus.
In
Tchaikovskyls last three symphonies, however, we are calied to
move in another, and less enlightened, direction. What can, at least,
...
'
I,r sxid of them is that thcy 111Tcr ;I IIIOSI insrrlrrl-ivc lcsson: that
r;~rcly,if ever, can the work of' ;in ; ~ I - Iis1 risc .tl~ovt.t llr ~ n ; ~direction
in
Less than seven years after the death of Tchaikovsk y. .ill(. W I brltl
found itself at 3 1 December, 1899. Already, a substaintl:il nrlrl1 1 1 ) ~
of radical composers were preparing themselves to nlark thc I I C W
century with the onset of a new music.
The modern composer: no more shackles of tradition to hold hinl
back! N o Confucius to whisper annoying words of warning in his
ear or to storm out of the court in
One minute to midnight,
3 1 December, 1 8 9 9 : the old era, with its superstitious spiritual
standards, was about to become a memory of the past. So many
rules now cried out to be broken! S o many sounds there were which
had not yet been sounded ! So many moods which the composers of
the past had refrained from cxprrssing! And now it could be done.
N o w it could all be donc! N a w ~ t ! ~ t h i ncould
g
be done!
One minute past midnight, I January. 1900: and the new
musicians charged forth into t l ~ rnew century like rioting students
into the streets. With crics for xrtistic 'freedom', they overturned
. .
;isted from ancient times even
those 'naive' beliefs which
sic affect:; morality, that certain
into the nineteenth century rhe notic3n was derided that,
chords should never be st
_^l
_.
according to its form and C O I I T t . 1 1 ~ . Lurlal
arL could be responsible for
the disintegration of a civili~;ilion.Wherever the idea surfaced it
was set afire; 'absolutely tat king in any scientific basis!' camc rllc
shouts of outrage. Virtually ;l11 discussion of the effects of musit.
upon the being of man disnFLPcared fr om the textbooks.
The creative years of Cl;,.ude Debussy (1862-1 9 1 8) wcrc sprc;~cl
C ,
L, ,
,
,
of the revolution, ;is tllc. oIc1
precisely over this period ol
Llll
century gave way to the ne W. O n th e alternatives of tratlition 01.01
unlimited artistic licencc Debussy ma d e his opinions pl;iin. ' I ;tlw;ry\
^..L
try to free music from the barren traditions which stifle it. I am for
liberty,' he declared. And, added the Frenchman: 'Music by its very
nature is free. Every sound you hear around you can be reproduced.
Everything that the keen ear perceives in the rhythms of the surrounding world can be represented musically.' Debussy's interest was never
in the f direction, but in the + direction: his music always told
of the physical, emotional and mental conditions of the world around
and within himself, no matter how talented and unique his portrayal
of these realms may have been.
The central characteristic of Debussy's music, even as he
progressed through sevcral different stages of his art, remained an
almost tangible sensuousness. And, interestingly, it was a trait far
from lacking in the man himself. All biographies tell of his profoundly feline nature. Debussy walked and moved
about like a cat;
during the course of his life he kept scc3res of cats as pets ; he bought
feline ornaments (and this, even whcn he was F~ennilessand hungry,
and the ornaments cost whatever lirtlc money he had just earned);
he made a point of frequenting the n
rarlslan rendezvous, Le Chat
Nozr; and the composer even conspired to be born a Leo. That the
cat is also tgditionally an animal of eerie mystery, being, for
example, the usual famili~rof witches, may also have had some
relevance within Debussy's cnigrnatic psyche.
Such points as the exceptionally sensuous nature of Dcbussy are
not without thcir significance. As WC trace, in this book, the
relationships bctwccn music and human life, it becomes
progressively clear that the style of a piccc of music depends to a
large degree upon thc character of the composer himself. All forms
of artistic creation are a portrayal of some level of the inner self of
the creator. And so, if music patterns should indeed be found to
affect life patterns, biographical details of those composers whose
music is still playedI today can become extremely important to us.
They may well hint t o us wh at the outer effects upon society of that
composer's music may be. AIld the importance of Debussy in deter.r
mining the nature or
~wcnrieth-century music is inestimable: not
only is his own music still played, but, even more importantly, his
works effectively directed the coursc of much subsequent music by
other composers.
This feline Frenchman was also a poet. His literary works are
characterized, as Corinnc Heline has dcscribed them, as being 'of
night and of dawn, of moonlight and of velvet shadows, of mists
and of perfumes'.1s Further, Debussy also took an interest in
occultism. And as it so happcns, his output of music can only be
XX
'
..
-'
00
11111'.11
91
. 1 1 1 ncw
~
musical culture fell prone to over-technicality ,ind an
~~icillating
hunger for sensationalism. For a f ~ wyedrs
11 ~lli.rc,is~ngl~
nervous, decadent and materialistic art rt~l(-dthe
I 111
01 the new output of music, until the outbreak of 111( t71sst
\\'I I I lil War put an end to an entire era of human history. Alltl yct,
I~lllowl~lg
these earllest stages of the non-idealist music, what w,ts to
~ I I I Vnext? As Paul Henry Ling puts it:
11
1.1
Il r - l l t ,
111
$-.I
...
. . the
emotion of avoiding er notion^'.^^
In a century which has so often granted Wcstcrn nations, at
election time, the 'freedom' of choosing between two equally uninspiring and insincere political party-leaders, ni~isiclovers found
themselves confrontcd with a choicc between two schools of music
which were of equal abhorrence t o the spiritiinl idealist. Though
some good and spiritual music appeared under the impressionist
banner, for the most part the 'choice' between the two schools represented thc equivalent in the world of art of an election campaign
fought betwecn Marx and Mussolini.
Yct it was still only the beginning. Having been cast adrift from
the spiritual elements and upward striving cssential for all great
t I
Ncw life could be infused into thc music of this rapidly i l i \ i ~ ~ ~c-!:ratingworld only by an even more nervous, sophisticalc.J ,111d
\ l ~ r c h a r ~ eemphasis
d
on the already overtaxed elements ol cif(-cl
.tnJ technique. Experiment then became the final aim .20
..
'1'1 I E SERIALISTS
o l high degree on the Richter scale emanating from the region o!'
j2
Children all over the world, when they first begin t o speak or
sing, d o so in mclodics bascd firmly upon tonal intervals. T h e
harmonic and melodic principles of tonality, then, seem t o be by n o
means arbitrary o r theoretical, but arc naturally meaningful t o the
human psyche. In fact, scicntific research has discovercd that the
traditional harmonic intervals and chords really arc sprcial: the
physical study of sound vibrations has confirmed that traditional
tonality conforms t o certain unique and objective vibrational
relationships between sound-pitches. Moreover, these same
mathematical relationships have been found t o be present
throughout many and diverse phenomena of nature, in everything
from the laws of physics to the geomctry and the ratios present in
the forms of living organisms. I t is only one small step from all of
this t o the postulate that the ancients were correct: that there truly is
something about tonal music which puts it in tune with the entire
universe, thus making it a real source of hcaling and regencration.
W e can see, therefore, what might underlie the agc-old concept that
some music is objectively 'right' o r 'correci.' while other forms of
music are wrong and evcn d;~ngcrous.11' tonal music hcals and
regenerates the body, the mind, ;111el soc.ic.ty ;is ;i whole, then atonal
music might be expected t o dc) t l ~ ci)pposi~c..
I t was due t o the f;lct t h ; ~ tton;~lrni~\iccomcs so n;~turallyt o man
that, even whcn the ancient wisdoni itself hitrl i ; ~ d c dfrom the
memory of the r;tcc. thc grcat classical Wcstrrn c.oniposcrs continucd to create music within the principles o f to~l;tlityand the
diatonic scale. In moving fully outside of this traclitional system,
Schoenberg had made a momentous move indccd. M a n y fellow
composers of thc twentieth century hailcd i r :is a great
breakthrough. It is dubious, however, whechcr RcctIio\,en or Bach
would everhavc d o ~ so.
e And had they still heen ,,rc,scnt t o witness
the evcnt, the reaction of thc sages of antiquity is c.t:rt;tin: their conclusion would have been that, provided that Scl~oniberg'smusic
caught on and became sufficiently popular, the keys of IVcstcrn
civilization were numbered.
Schoenberg's music encompassed several diffcl-rnt periods. I n the
first of them tonality, whilc present, became incrc;~singlyuncertain.
Then, from around 1908, he entcrcd a seconrl pied in which
atonality reigned. This has been callcd 'thc phase of unlimited
anarchy and liberty' (the very concept bcing in direct contradiction
t o the principles of spiritual idealism). In this
thc seven major
and fivz minor notes of the scale bccame simply twelvr notcs a
semitone apart. Thc twclvc notes were all treated equally, n o form
93
94
..L
"V
C.,
'Mr Price. Please don't try to make things nice. All the wrong
notes are right. '
And again, Ives' jotted comment on the margm of the manuscript
of his Second String Quartet:
9j
. . ;IS
.I\
I : ullvrirncnt was thc nanic of thc g;tnle; ; i l l cl I vc's tried out any
I,.,llnical innovation in onc composition rllr i n ~ ~ o v ; ~w;is
~ i oscldonl
~l
Yet to
1c.111r11c.d
to in his music in anything likc rllc: s;iInc W ;
;onant,
I I W c;~rsof his contemporaries, Ives' music vV;LSnot m
.
.l. .
1,111 m;~d.Ives was trying to reflect in muslr 1 1 1 ~ul>>c,n;tllrcs; ~ n d
*.t.trk realities of the world around him. Yes - in ;I w;cy this w;~s
ro
h.111ssc~rgsk~'s
'realism' all over again, and ng;~inin con~r;~cliction
I 111. greatest musicians of all earlicr cpochs o f 11rtltl;in I~iscorywho
11.1tl sought, through music, to impose ordcr ;uld nlc.;ilring lipon
(..lrrl~ly
chaos.
It may tell us something about the psychological el'fi.c>rsof Ivcs'
O
ltll~sicthat, while decades of life still remaincd t o him, his ; ~ l , i l i tI ~
t ~ ~ c n t i vcompose
el~
did not. His wife was later t o rec;ill tllc pain allcl
~ r : ~ g e dof
y those months and years during which Ivrs li;~tl~ricclI O
se, only to discover that the fount had dried up. H e livttl out
ny remaining years as an invalid in almost complctc iso1:ttion
ther musicians.
rucuertheless, their parachutes well buried, others among thc
t ommando team were ready to strike elsewhere in the world. . . .
'I'o what extent are we justified in speaking of a 'wave
I~llcnomcnon'in the way in which the radical musicians burst upon
1I1cscene? It might be said that it was difficult for a young musician
I I O ~ to be radical in that period - it was in the nature of the times,
W;IS it not? And yet, let us attempt to adopt an Oriental manner of
vicwing events: what, ultimately, was the cause behind the
~.;tdicalismand cultural revolution of the ncw century? MJere the
'new m~~sicians'
a sign of the times . . . or have the limes, or at least
to~tilrudegree
of the nature of lifi irr the twentieth century, been a sign of the
'new music'?
,or~iin~q
athe
IGOR STRAVINSKY
In the early stages of the 'new music', one work above all others
marked the arrival, not to mention the sheer, irrepressible force, of
the revolution. Today, music students listen to this revolutionary
work in what is usually passive humility. They arc iicademically
trained to analyse the structure, rhythm and harmonics of a piece of
music rather than its overall effect and impact. No thought at all is
given to such considerations as the work's lcvcl 01' sl>irituality, of
course. Yet there are still many pcoplc out in thc world who, having
found it natural to love eighteenth and ninctrrnrl~
music,
. .. c,c~~tury
Ic have ra rely,
have scarcely heard the works of thr 'new m \
rxsion I have
if ever, heard this particular composition, :II
played a recording of it for thcni. lnv;il~i.~l)l~
r 111 upon t:hem
.J
has been one of powerful dist:urb:tncc. ;illcl ~ I I I I C K , vv I I I' lI C aarnitting
its intellectual genius and originality, I llcy 11cvc.1I 11c.lrssfound it to
sharply lower their state of conscioi~sncss,;ln[l I I O I ;I single one
professed the desire ever to hear the work ag;tin.
In the reactio~
I of thes e divine innocents, wllo 11;1t1 somehow
in the
shielded themselv-cs from the presence of the 'nr-W ni~~sic'
world about then,, -..w r 111ust be c,oming very claw I I I the initial
impact- of the work upon its first audiences. T/J?Kitrv o f Spring is
without doubt the most famous work of Igor Strit~insky.Stravinsky
(1882-1971) based the work upon the concc.pt 01' a pagan
ceremony. Certainly the music of The Rite of Sprit% is norhing if not
pagan, being wild, aggressive, and fierceIy unp)tlly. The melodies
seem designed to frighten; the harmonies to disrllI>t rhr mind. But
more than anything it was the complex rhythmic 5itlc of the work
which was so unique. The rhythms race cornprllingly, driving
relentlessly onward, breathlessly, and with dark undertones of
violence and dread.
For the premihe performance of the ballet in I 9 1 3, Nijinsky
directed the choreography, and none other than Nicholas Roerich,
in a rare misjudgment, agreed to create the dkor. 'The choreography followed the only general pattern possible, given the music
upon which it was based: a primitive ritual of pre-Christian peasant
97
'
1 1 1 6 ~
99
101
I02
ut'
'- '
103
04
tchniques of jazz. Rock, which had arisen from the most primitive
of beginnings. spawned groups such as Soft Machine and Velvet
Underground, which were s~~fficiently
avant-garde that no book
about the 'new music' was complete without mentioning them.
Meanwhile, one noticrd with amusement that a certain atmosphere
of 'the rock star' had attached itself t o a number of the 'new
musicians' in the magic of adulation which became associated with
their names.
From the lofticst viewpoint, the different forms of modern music
began to look likc the various branches of what was, at its root, one
revolution. The slcevc notcs of Tcrry Rilcy's A Rainbow in Curved
A i r , for instance, could have been taken directly from a sixties' rock
album slecve, in their naive, anti-patriotic, left-wing vision of an
LSD-tinted future:
And then all wars cndcd . . . The Pcntagr~nw2s turned on its sidc
and paintcd purple, yellow ;tnd Srccn ... People swam in the
sparkling rivcrs under blue k i c s streaked only with incense
pouring from the new f;~c.torics . . . National flags were sewn
together into brightly colourcd circus tents under which
politicians wcrc allowcci I o pcrfr)rm harmless thcatric;~lgames . ..
The concept of work wit, forgotten [despite the 'new factories',
where some pcol?lc workcd - while olherr outside swam! - D . T . ]
. . . The cncrgy from dixmantled nuclcar weapons provided frce
heat and light."
idealism.
Cage's initial claim t o fame was the to-some-dubious honour
of completing thc first known electronic composition. In Imaginavy
101
106
. . .'23
Personally, I am attempting to explain to myself here what
manner of mind it can be that feels moved to actively pursue the
creation of a literal antimusic. Once more, we must not avoid the
necessary enquiries: What is the inner motive? W h a t u the consciousness which has brought forth these works? In what direction is
108
Alas. not all modern musicians can boast such penetrating sanity.
1;ollowing Cage's lead, a number of others have also worked mainly
or entirely within the 'Zen'/indeterminacy framework; the majority
of them living in America, and most of these in California. Terry
Ililey, the sleeve notes to whose record we quoted earlier, is among
them. Among his creations we find the composition, I n C . For this
work any number of performers may be used. Each plays as many
times as he desires a short melodic fragment, before moving on to
the next. Fifty short melodic fragments are included in all, each
being diatonic on the scale of C. Through all the noise in which this
set-up results, some semblance of cohesion is provided by a piano;
upon this the note C is repeated rapidly and continuously.
LaMonte Young's Composition 1960 No. 7 consists of nothing
more than the instmction: 'B and F sharp. T o be held for a long
time.' As in Cage's 4'33", any pretensions at mysticism are here
overshadowed by the overwhelming and gigantically egocentric
attitude of cynicism. And any suspicions that such cynicism stems
from some form of actual, suppressed malevolence may not be illfounded. For to Young also goes the dubious distinction of having
pushed concert programmes inside a violin and then having burned
the instrument on stage.
Another 'new musician', David Tudor, has on more than one
occasion attacked a piano with various weapons - a chisel, a rubber
hammer, a bicycle chain and a saw - while in live performance.
Sounds familiar? During those same years sundry rock musicians
were doing the same: smashing guitars, burning drum kits and
amplifiers, biting the heads off live chickens and bats, and so on.
Clearly there is no real diffcrcncc. lxtween t h e e patterns of activity
within the two musical movcnicnts. True it is that 'serious' music
and popular music stem from ditfcrcnt origins and have tended to be
widely divergent in style, forn~;tnd purpose. But there is today a
common element moving within them : something motivated by
hatred rather than by love or :my other higher
emotion; a forcr
unmistakably destructive and m;1lignant.
Some compositions seen1 almost t o have been envisn!:r.tl
specifically as a means of ch:innclling this malevolence into thc 11il.c.c.
tion of the audience. LaMontc Young's The Tortoise, Hir Drvirr)r\
and Journeys expects the audience, no doubt composed {If'i n r ~ CcT~I II
wide-eyed, admiring college students, to sit through scvrr;~lI I O I I I ~01~
aural and psychological onslaught. Young and thrcc :IS\( , ( . ; . ~ r c-. 4 11.11 11
an open chord through vastly powerful, car-splittirll: ;inlpl~f1c.1 . l 1 1 1 1
maintain this solitary chord non-stop for alniosr two I I ~ I I I I , , ,111 I 111,.
109
C..
110
within a darkened room in which the only light comes from projections of astral, psychedelic-patterned art. Then there is a break;
following which comes another like session of similar duration another two hours. It is possible in one hundred per cent seriousness
to equate such practices with the modern brainwashing techniques of
Communist and other dictatorial regimes. (Yet who is the more
imprisoned and brainwashed - he who is kept under lock and key
due to his activities on behalf of freedom, or he who, from the free
world, goes willingly into the prepared and darkened chamber of
psychological onslaught 2)
A friend and fellow composer of Young, Steve Reich, has seen fit
to study - not at any established school of music, nor even in the
Orient - but under a voodoo dmmmer in Ghana. Now, voodoo is
one of the few musics which, rather than cloaking its innate
hedonism and malevolence behind a mask of intellectualism, openly
admits to being intended as a means of inducing orgies and of
inflicting harm and even death upon other individuals. This is the
intent of the voodoo ritual. whatcvcr wc may think of its objective
ability. And, in view of our data thus far on music's power, the idea
that voodoo does possess romc ;tctu;il clrutruciive power should not,
perhaps, be lightly disn~isr~d.
A sign for the future, t h ~ t l iArc ihc ,iv:i~it-prdegoing to be
returning from Africa by the dozen '15 1r;iinc-d voodoo priests? How
long before the first voodoo rite at London's Itoyal Festival Hall?
(A ridiculous concept? Think how inconceivahlr i t would have been
to, say, Haydn, that concert audiences woulrl ever sit through
violin-burning, dice-throwing, and the biting ot'i of the heads of
chickens.) The glorious dream of the expcrinlcntalists fulfilled:
Western music improved and evolved in our tirrlc from Bach,
Beethoven and Wagner - to the jungle beat !
Meanwhile, the subtleties of Cage's own arti5tic style have continued to evolve. But, to ensure an unbiased report, Ict us hear from
Peter Yates, who himself has much sympathy wit11 ~nostof the 'new
music' :
Some of these compositions are a type of glorified play, for
example Cartridge Music. Phonograph-nerdlc cartridges are
attached to an overhead boom and the edge and centre of a table,
chosen for the resonance of its vibration when shoved back and
forth across the floor. Cage and a companion, each following a
different graphic pattern of events by chance, insert slinkies, pipe
cleaners, miniature flags, even a tiny birthday candle which is
111
112
113
1y y r.1 IN. cause to take heart. For as everybody knows, music with
# I,I-, is ;~lways
easier for the man in the street to ~lndcrstand;and a
r6l1ll
114
E ncydojedinof-M //sic:
The ncw music niade possible by the [new] instruments and
procedi~rcs .. i'lill no/ be less, o r move valid - it will be different
[my italics]. Ir 1i;is been said that in a few years' time, our understanding of tlir rc.:cctions of the central nrrvr~ussystem will have
advanced so f : ~ rthat it will be possible to produce 'functional'
music predetrrmincd ;~ccordingto parameters defined by thc laws
of sociology and human behaviour. Knowledge of sensory
systems will permit thc diffusion of this music by dircct application of electrical stimuli. T h e musical element will be established
by an electronic syntlicsizer fed with a score in the form of a
computer programrnc. The 'instruments of music' will have
become a clinical electrode applied to the forearm.I9
115
I I 1 1 1 c.ommerua1
~
proliferation of such 'music to g r t under the skin'
11.1.. lot arrived yet, the same cannot be said of the commercial
t~tt)liic-r;~tion
of musical vibrations applied directly onto thc surface
4 1 1 11ir skin. T h e inventor, David Lloyd, receivrd thc idca o n e day
wllc~lanother of his inventions, a musically-vibrating flying saucer
w l~iclihung from the ceiling, fell d o w n and onto his lap. T h c srnsitI 1o11'felt good' t o him: 'It made m y whole body tingle.' (And
Ilc.ilcc, the dividing line between the musical arts and the 'feelgood'
tlsug-like experience becomes less distinct.) Lloyd began marketing
t hr idea in the form of a two-inch disc which can be attached t o tlir
wxistband of shorts or panties. While listening o r dancing t o music,
tlic vibrations can also be transferred directly t o the body. Lloyd
Irrst put out the discs 'as a joke', but found that the 'rock 'n' roll hot
p;tnis' idea caught on fast. However, certain implications associated
with these musical vibro-discs are somewhat less of a joke.
Researchers have discovered that when vibrations are applied t o one
part of the anatomy, as for instance during a workman's use of a
pneumatic drill, the vibrations travel throughout the body and to
every organ. As we shall see in the next chapter, the acoustic effects
of the rhythms of much modern music have already been found t o be
harmful to the human organism. O n e wonders, therefore, what
effects might be expected whcn those same rhythms are transferred
directly-to the body by means of raw vibration. The spiritual/
philosophical implications of using music in this way are also
sobering. T o the idealist poitlt of view, music should be used in
order t o influence man's spirit~ralnature, inspiring his soul with
feelings of love, beauty, rczolulioll. ;~ltruismand all good emotions.
W i t h this commercial invc.nrio11 o f David LloydVs,however, we
have the application of mucic, not 10rhc spiritual nature of man, but
to the physical body, and in trrclrr t o c;lusc 'tingles' and other bodily
sensations which 'feel goo~l'.A plioto8raph, published to show the
musical vibro-disc in action. tlispl;iys thc torso of a near-nudc fcmalr
with the disc's lead d i s a p l ~ r ; t r i rclown
~ ~ the front of a pair of vcsy
brief panties.
I t can be seen, then, r l i ; ~ r with the coming of new ypes of music.
come also new uses of music, the niusic and its uses bcing of ;I sin~il:rr
orientation. The new brrrci c ~ fmusician, being fully S k i n n c r i ; ~I I~I
outlook, can be said to r.otlstitute the ultimate and incvit;tl>lt. I.CSIIII
of the reductionist-materi~~list
approach t o the art. If tlrc 1711qj1 I I I
music is not t o sublimate. nian's being and spiritualizt s0cic.1 - i I I I l i .
aim :,f all a n is not to dircct consciousness .f 'hrc:~u\c.I IICIY.
I., l l t r
.f ' - then it logically follows that music shottlil ins1 c,~clI N - t14(.<11 4
I0
T H E 'NEW MUSIC'
-..m
117
IIIII!:
118
COMPUTER MUSIC
Christopher Janney's usc of computer conforms t o the rule rather
than being an exception among contemporary 'sound artists'. The
computer, like many other technological devices, is of course neither
good nor bad in itself; the cxtcant of its usefulness, and whether it
works for good o r evil, depends entirely upon the human being who
119
y s ~ . .lI I W
0
I(
I(
) .-
120
1 21
EXPLORING BACKWARDS
..
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ASSESSING THE A V A N T - G A R D E
N o t all who work within the field of music have followed the
views in their entirety of the new 'sound artists'. A number of sane
, ~ n c i timcly cornrncncs havc been forthcoming even from nlusicians
~'110~ ~ C I I I S C ~ Vprofcsc
CS
sor~icintcrcst in t l ~ cncw thcorics and stylcs.
111 p.~rtictrlar, attention has t>c,cn ioc~usrcl rlpon the pcculi;tr ;tnd
o f thr raciic:~l.iv:tiit-gnrdc thcnisclvcs ns
q ~ ~ c s t i c ~ n ~conscictusnesh
iblc
ind~viduals.This is to pct right to LIIC cor-c o f the rn;t~:tc-r.Stephen
solcmniry with which
i2';tlsh wrltes candidly ot- t l ~ c'p~,ctc~irious
o f [~nodcrnmusic'sl Ic\\cl. cxponrnts conrinuc to rcpnrd thcms ~ l v ~ sI v ' . Y chudi I\4rniil1in, r lie liuniblc ;tnd pcrcpicacious '13;itron
saint' of good Mrc,stcr~imusir.. rcicrs to thc a v ; l n ~ - p r d cas 'mcchano'
composcrs. sincr tlrcy clisl>l,ty;nind ~vithoutheart.
Even by the c;trIy 1 O.;O>, the direction takcn by some cornposcrs
had bcctrmc. \uf'fic.ic.ntly I>iz;~rrefor T h o m ; ~ sFicldcn. in :t chaptcr
cntitlcd .Ml~;t!is (;crocl'~usic?'to w'trn 11s that:
it! t h r
I l l
1'1
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123
124
suggested that musical tones and rhythm first originated when the
half-human progenitors of man evolved the sounds in order to
attract a mate, and to ritualize the process of courtship. If this was
so, Darwin believed, then it also provided the reason for man's still
enjoying music and finding it beautiful today: ' . from the deeply
laid principles of inherited associations, musical tones would be
likely to excite in us, in an
indefinite manner, the strong
emotions of a long-past age.'jl Darwin was saying, then, that
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is enjoyed and acclaimed by us
because it reminds us of sex and courtship with hairy bcauties of
aeons ago.
A more reccnt theme is stated b y Marvin Minsky, w h o is the
head of a project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to
investigate computer music, and a pioneer in researching the field of
artificial intelligence. The purpose of music, believes Minsky, might
be 'to relax the brain'.j2 This, W C might allow, is probably an
improvement over the Darwinian hypothesis. At first sight the idea
can even seem quite acccptablc: h;tven't we all used music 'to relax
the brain' now and again? Yct rllc hypothesis - which is shared by
many besides Minskp - is gl;iringly materialist on t w o points. First,
note the use of t h c wortl 'brain'. T h e implication is obviously
contrary to thc spiri~u.tl viewpoint, which views man's being as
being something wllich includes but also by far transcends the
physical brain. f3ut no, to the materialist, you and I are merely
bio1ogic:rl roh(jrs; Minsky and his friends are all getting ready to
relax our brains with those electrodes implanted into our forearms.
And sccond, is thC purpose of music only to relax us? That idea is
surely fill1 o f liolcs. Arc we relaxed - by the incidental music to an
action-packcd suspcnsc movie? D o football crowds chant - to
relax? For that matter, does The Rite of SprinLq or the Sex Pistols'
'Anarchy In Thc IJK' - relax us? And, still morc to the point, are
works such :IS Rccthoven's Missd 5olemnis or Viiughan Williams'
Lark Ascendiq rlcsigncd t o relax us - and not to move us, melt our
hearts, and aurakca t1,oughts of piety in our minds? Rather, good
music is designcd t o expand our consciousness, and such a n activity
demands of us not s o much a statc of relaxation ns a definitc attitude
of creative tension.
I t seems that the icfc.1 r)f the purpose of music being to 'relax' us
occurs to the mind which is locked into the -+ philosophy simply
because this supposed purposr of music is the most con!,tructive of
which such a mind can conceivr.
T h e theoretical reduction of music to being an agent of 'relaxa-
..
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1 .
120
127
..
T o this one might wonder: but are not thc principles and standards
by which we judge music and the other arts basically the same as
those by which we govern our lives, and by which we structure our
128
...
129
I I I I I ~ . ~on
C
...
130
.. .)
''
131
. I I I I ~ ~ ~ I I ;and
L ~ C defunct.
~
I f thc world does nor txkc up such
I ~ . ~ l l ( ~ r ~;rnd
g c s ,give answcr, then the K . 1:. Ykin11c.r Aurotiomic
( )~c.l~c.stra
may as well be correct in their procIamation.
111
I'm
I ,M
SEATS
\ V ( . I I , L ~ J ~ ,then. briefly surveyed the cold, barrcn landscdipc. oC tlic
' I I I . ~ nn~~sic'.
~
T h e question W C must now seek to answcr is: Wli;it
11.1.~ r l ~ ceffect o f this music bcen upon twentieth-ccntury m a n ? Wow
I I . I V C ihc music's characteristics. such as everything from ati,nality
. r ~ r t l serialism to indeterminacy and Skip LaPlantc's cardbo,~rdrug
I 111)c.s,
influenced life patterns?
I,;itcr in this book xrr shall notc that whenever. during the coursc
I 11 history, a traditional, classical style of music has bcen supplanted
I I a~ rcvolt~tionof musical materialism, such revolutions hdvc tcnded
I O succeed by means of the same gcncral tactic. By introducing a
(11c:~pcrand more boisterous form of art. the revolutions have won
I~)piilarity
with the massrs. Almost overnight it scems, virtually the
hegins listcning to and craving for thc new, cheaper
c , ~ ~ t ipopulace
rc
\oilncis. And the traditional, more dtrnanding music becomes all but
Ii)rgotten.
Thc revolution o f the 'ncw music', however, has taken on a diffewrit shape. In this instnncc, the strcanl of classical music has becn lcd
,tstray down a w a y w ; ~ r dpith into rcalrns of cokd-hcarted abstraction
and mentalism. Seriouh Wcstcrn music has bcen led to its death, and
~ h fount
c
of genuine crrat ivity and beauty has all but dricd up.
T h e result of this p;irt ici11:tr revsolution. therefore, is that there is
scarcely any serioirs contcl-npor,isy nir~sicwhich thc music-lover who
possesses the slightrsc i o ~ ;01
~ spiritir;tl ;tttunemrnt can enjoy. A
century ago, concert halls wt.r.c. Lllcci with audienccs who had come
t o listen to thc latcst work of' rhc composers of the romantic cra;
toJxy W C have few, if AI1" )\C'S5 0 f serious music who arc
worih mentioning. I f wt.
I istcn at all to a contcmpor;ir):
work, then W C are biddl-n
1 cl;t Ollrs(.Ives to the latest cr;t7~'11
c l I:.LI
ion of a Stockhauscn I ) I . I :,~gc..
t * , ~ c c with
d
such a pro:q.lc.c-l, thc public have 'voted with 111cir
feet'. During the writing c r f l l l i \ vcry chapter, in 1 9 8 2 , Tolin 1:.1,1:1.,
thtn ;rgcd 7 0 , arrived in 1,ondon to pcrfornl his latrst work, t I l c . I I I l r ,
o f w l i i ~ l ione does not c.vt.11care t o remember. And r~c;~llc.l
. ,I~T~J,I
rcntly, ciid many others, h.)r midst the political a n d ;~rtisric.1 , I ~ ~ I I . I 01I
Greitt Britain. this 1c;idizg figltrc among all ' S ~ I L I I .I I~~ ~I I ~ ~ I w.I..
~ . '
forced to accept as avenue the Almeida, admittedly a Is:lr~ior~01 I I I ( . : I V : ~ I ~ I
garde, but ha rdly comparable in sizc to :I I;~rj:r rnr~\il II:III.
132
TWENTIETH-CENTURY TRADITIONALISTS
The music of t h r cl;~>sicaland romantic cras contains a beauty which
is eternal and inini~ii;tblr,and thcrefore. in the spiritual scnsc, is
entirely contemporary. Aesthetically, Bach is ns meaningful and
important t o us today a \ cvcr. and to the works of'such a genius thc
adjective, 'dated', can ncSvc.rapply.
Yct, ultimately, we niu.st also begin t o look ahc;ld once more; to
reawaken within ourselves thc confident hope that a genuine New
Age music is about to dawn; it music of equal or even greatcr sublimity as the great works of thc past, and yet possessing a character
and effcct which is entirely new. And as a laying of thc foundations
rill
I I ~ I I ~ . I I
I 11
I r.1
Itynins from the Rig Veda, as wcll as the operas Sita and Savitri.
Much later, towards the end of his life, he composcd that which he
believed to be his greatest work, the orchestral piece, Egdon Heath.
But between these two phases his mystical leanings had deepened
and widened, and there had appeared from his pen the t w o works
for which he is n o w chiefly known. The Hymn of Jestls, a highly
original and exalted choral work, is based upon an apocryphal
Gnostic tcxt which Holst translated, while the popular suite The
Planets resulted from an intcrest in astrology. T h c scvcn parts of The
P1atzef.r dcmonstratc all of Holst's mastcry of rhythm, harmuny,
melody, meaning and mysticism, along with a dazzling choice of
orchestration.
Vaughan Williams, Holst, Elgar and others have demonstrated
clearly that a refusal to renounce the foundation stones of past tradition and the immutable principles o f true aesthetics nevertheless
leaves opcn a vast scope for artistic exploration. For the purification
and redirection of the tonal arts, the young composers of today
would d o wcll t o bcgin with thc signposts left to us by the
twentieth-century English cornposcrs. It is perhaps in their work,
more than in anything clsc crc;~tcdin this century, that is to be
found that art which i.; fullv Jcscrving of the titlc, N c w Agc music.
And the key to rhcii- ,trtistic succcss? A commcnt by Vaughan
Williams, spoken in ~~cl'crcncc
to Sibclius, providcs thc archetypal
pattern of all thc ~i~11ific:tnt
English music of this pcriod: ' . grerlt
..
it '.
* It is for this rch:ison that wc cannot bring oursc?vcs to write the
phrasc 'ncw music' without recourse to quotation marks: not only
d o many peoplc clttcry whether the humanistic tones o f n ~ o d e r ncomposers are music :it ;ill, but it is also open to question just h o w 'new'
the 'new mrlsic's' h;i.;ic essence of musical anarchy and materialism
can be said t o hc. \hrlicthcr one thinks of the 'seric~ur'stream of contemporary music known its the 'ncw music', or o f the morc popular
rock music, the fact is th;it nothing of their basic clements are really
all that new at all. Rack in ancient Greece, the rcvolutionary 'music
of the future' was publicly ;Ittacked and ridiculed by the writcr of
comedies, Pherecratcs, who presented thc Muse as a violatcd virgin.
In the Middle Ages, thc traditional music of thc troubadours - an
esoteric group of artists - was overwhelmed by the coming of thc
1 l
135
t~~iult.t'.tood.
But the minstrels were the Middlc Ages' equivalent o f
1110. I I I l
~i or folk-rock musician: they dressed and livcd as hippies.
i I l l I I lll~tsicwas pessimistic and cynical, their numbers grew constan. I I I ~ IillcY met togcther irl gigantic gatherings or 'fcsts' (as thcy
,I t u 1 1 I t I l ~ c
called today). The minstrels very powerfully affected the
I*
climate of their day. In China, Lii Bu Ve, the author of Spring
~ t t r l1';111, struck out at thc vulgar music of the tyrants Hia and Yin
1 1 1 wor~iswhich could equally apply to the musical 'revolutions' of
I I I , ~ ;igc. incl~tdingour own. They arc words well worth keeping in
I I I I I I C ~tluring the course of this chapter:
111;
'I'llcy deemed the loud sounds of big drums, bells, stoncs, pipcs
. I I I ~flutes bcautiful and thought that mass effccts wcrc worth
rvllilc. They aimed at ncrv and strange timbres, at ncvcr heard of
I I , I ! ~ ~ , at plays never seen before. They tried to outdo one another
. ~ n overstepped
d
the limits.
None of this, then, is at all new. I t has all been seen before. The
I111t1,reak of musical revolution in the seeking of ever-greater
r-xcesses of anarchy and novel 'effects' is actually no more of a 'new'
I~I~r.nomenon
than the very struggle between good and evil itself.
137
- - m
3.
Assessment :
Music, Man and Society
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\c.ric.s
138
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140
or of muder. Seventy-six cases of this malady have been documented, but there are no doubt many other sufferers who simply do
not realize the source of their problem and have received no specific
treatment. In each documented case the sufferer experienced seizures
which were brought on by certain kinds of music, though the causative music was different in different cases.
One instance involved a 39-year-old British woman who always
felt anxious and sweaty when certain tunes were played in places
such as the supermarket or at the local pub. At first she did not
connect the music to the symptoms. She knew only that at these
places her thinking would often grow cloudy, and her lips, eyelids
and fingcrs would twitch convulsively. Then she would lose consciousness. Only at length did she connect the seizures with the
background music. The woman was examined by neurologists Peter
Newman and Michael Saunders who attempted to induce a seizure
under controlled conditions. Various kinds of music were tried, such
as music from Gilbert and Sullivsn, H;~ndcl's Messiah and
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. but wirh no rcsult. Only when a
single by the Dooleys was played, ' l ' I ' l l i l ~ k 1'111 (;onna Fall in Love
With You*, did an attack c.)ccur.'l1(I3y IIU- sound of the singularly
original title it would proh;thly II;IVI* 11;1i1 111(- s:tnribeffect o n quite a
few of us !)
But if only 76 proplc h;tvc bccn fijund t o huf'f'cr Ilom musicogenic
aspects of
epilepsy, the same cannot bc siaid of othcr unIi)r~rlrr;~tc
some typcs of music. Take one of the most basic cl(-rlrcntsof modern
music - its sheer volume. Sound is measured in ~lrc.il)c.ls.and experts
believe that human health is endangered by any sor~lltli t 1 90 decibels
or above. It has been found that at dance halls I I I ~.lvc.rage decibel
rate in the middle of the dance hall is a little undo. 1 I0 decibels. In
Remember
front of the band the sound often reaches 120 dcc.il~c.1~.
that coagulating protein? Should the reader, i1po1.1speaking to a
regular disco-goer, find that the reply conics s ~ ~ m c w h ainart
ticulately, it may be because the disco-goer's britins ;Ire still calcificd
from the night before.
O r perhaps the person just can't hear you. 'T'llc Environmental
Protection Agency in America has discovered 1l1;1t current generations of youth suffer from hearing problems normally associated
with fifty- to sixty-year olds." Time magazine has further reported
that permanent loss of hearing among rock fans is a much more
common complaint than is generally realized.43(So now it becomes
clear. That's why disco music has to be played so loud: the higher
the volume, the more the hearing degenerates, and the higher the
volume . ..)
141
I h(.
cars of a rock fan happen to have so far stood up t o the batis nonetheless certain that his body has been internally
I ~ ~red.
I . IT o quote from Bob Larson once more, who, having once
1 1 1 1.11 :I rock musician, is now a campaigner against the music:
11
I~II!:,
it
once visited a site at which battery hens were laying more eggs to
the strains of The Blue Danube. Recalling the incident later, he commented that his own music would have given the hens diarrhoea!)
There are also long-standing traditions from various parts of the
world that singing and instrumental music causes farm animals to
thrive.
In order to produce the most precise and unambiguous results
from experiments, however, scientists often revert to the study of
the more primitive forms of life. In the investigation of the effects of
music upon life, a number of preliminary experiments have been conducted with plants. Paradoxical as it may seem, music's effect upon
the more primitive vegetable kingdom is one of the most convincing
methods of all for proving that music does affect life, including
human life. For experiments conducted with humans, and even, to
some extent, with animals, have the extra factor of the mind to
contend with.'This means that while men or animals may be demonstrated to have been affected by tones. the effect may not have been
a direct or objective one. Rather, thr effect upon the body may have
been caused by the mind's subjective reaction to the music heard. In
the case of plant-music rc.se;irch, however, psychological factors
cannot really be said 1.0bc present. If music can be shown to affect
plants, then such ctffccts I-i;~veto be due to the objective influence of
the tones directly tlpon thc cells and processes of the life-form.
And sucil results have been forthcoming. While plant-music
researc,h is still I:o ;I large degree an unexplored and beckoning field
for resc:archers, :come preliminary investigations have turned up some
pretty ..-,.--I-:,..
L L I ~ ~ I I I L , I Sfindings.
L~~~~S
T w o qt~itcindependent series of cxperiments, one conducted in
the Sovict I.!liion and the other in Canada, have each discovered
that seeds r)f whcat can be made to grow faster whcn treated with
tones. Thc Canadian sound-treated wheat sccdlin~s,in a carefully
controlled labor:itory environment, grew no less than three times as
large as untrch;~tc.~l
Thc Soviet seedlings wcre dosed with
.ones.4'
. e result
ultrasonic tones
that they grrminatcd fastcr, were
yielded more grain." These are obviously
more frost-resist
1 for practical application in the world.
findings of greal
Another serica 01 ~xperimentstreated plants with (to?) Bach's
brilliant Brandenburg Concertos, with which, ;tt an early stage in
this book, I mentioned my own experience. The Brandenburgs
made geraniums grow faster. As an intercsting side-experiment,
other geraniums had not the concertos themselves, but only their
dominant frequencies broadcast to them. This group grew faster
1.42
11 1 1 1
I,
143
.I
1111.
cxpcrin1r111,1 1 ~ I I ~ I I I ~
1
lI11.1.cweeks. Dorothy
r ~ l l l b < i t 1 1 1 l ,i1 1 / I - ~ ~ ] I ( . I ~ I I ~ l l dVaniUa Fudge to
r l r l l . ~ : I . o I I ~ > of beans. c d l ~ l . l - . t ~( I I L I ~ ~ t~0 1 ~
' 1 1W
, )morning
~
glory 2nd
l I I ~ ~ - I I - :, ;, l l ~ illso
( O I I I I . I I I I I I ~ I .I,-?.ttf;llll-g;(rdeatonal music to a
, ~ + , I I I I L I j:ro~~p;
and, as :I I ~ I I I I I I I , I i l ; l y r "()thing
~~
to a third goup.
\.t'itllin 1c11days, thc p l . ~ n ~ crrl>tr\~.cl
.
~ I JLed Zeppelin and Vanilla
I:t~~l!:c wcre all leaning , I W , I ~Iioln thc speaker. After three weeks
llicy wcrc stunted and clyillg. The beans exposed to the 'new music'
Icancd I degrees from r llc speaker and were f ~ u n dto have middle\izrd roots. The plants lcft in silence had the longest roots and grew
lllc highest. Further, it was discovered 'hilt plants to which placid,
,lcvc)tionalmusic was played not only g r e ~two inches taller than
III
,IIII)I~,(T
k pl;~yedthe
I~r.~,~ll.lt
1 1 . ~ 1
111
,.
C..-
145
Ir l g I ,,,I
111
111
l 40
..
147
! l , ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ! :
q
4X
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1
Ill
il
I
MUSIC AS AN ENCODER
The strength of music's effect upon man can l>(. inferred from
detailed studies conducted by psychologists into 111~-c'ffects of other
environmental factors which influence man. Lanhql;~gcis one such
environmental factor, and one particularly similar t o music in that it
also involves sound, pitch and rhythm. Thcrr. ;lrc unmistakable
indications that one's native language does mould cl~aracterand the
way in which we perceive the world around us. Kcsearchers have
discovcred that when a society does not possess ;I word for something, that something frequcntly becomes incapable of being conceived of or identified by them. Some African trihcs do not contain
within their language the words for certain colours; hence they
149
.1111iot
distinguish those colours even though their eyes nrc perfectly
1111l.rr1a1.
On the other hand, some societirs, possrssing tcrrns not
I 10
~~l)\crve
that he had a strong predilection fr~rthc repetition of
u.inglc chords, for two or more bar phrases, and for sequences,- viz.:
I IIC. rciteration of a phrase in a different position or on a diffcrcnt
tlcgrce of the scale. Thus, apart from its emotional contcnt,
I l;~ndel's music was pre-eminently formal in chnr;tctcr, consecl~tcntlyit was formal in effect. If, however, we conibinc its
1.111otionalqualities with its formalism, and to repetition ;ind
~nusicalimitativeness - for sequence is but imitativeness - add
,i:r:tndeur, the net result is the glorification of repetition and
inlitativeness; and if we translate all this from the planc of music
to that of human conduct, we get love of outward ceremony and
.~~lhcrence
to convention.
ljl
conveyors
15,'
. I I Iy.A,
~ ~ i h rhc origin of the emotional effects of music?
Is i t 11ot the state of consciousness of the musician? Surely the
Iowcsi common denominator which determines the precise nature of
;tny nii~sicalwork is the mental and emotional state of thc composer
and/or performer. It Is the essence of thls stale which eizters into us,
rending to mould and shape our olov cotzscioz4stzess in10 conformig with
itself: Through music, portions of the consciousness of the musician
become assimilated by the audience. T o spcll it out so bluntly is
almost too shocking. Yet if W C accept that music does fulfil such a
function, transferring elements of the consciousness of the musician
into the listener. then the moral implications for the use and misuse
of the tonal arts can no longer bc dcnied.
W e have secn that thinkers down through the agcs have warned
of thc social dangers attached t o the misuse of tonal art. But there is
also the positive sidc. W h e n used correctly, music is perhaps unequalled in its power t o instil in man the 17c;tuty of true morality and
those higher, inspired purposes fc)r wliicl1 o i ~ rli\ics are intended.
Thomas Fielden, thc n1usici;~n;lntl wrircr, 1'(.1t tllis most strongly. H e
askcd :
Which is t o bc r~scfcr~~c.cl?
'I'll(, ii11!:o , 1 1 1 t l I I I C \ l ~ o i ~ t i n geasily
,
.
.
excited Philisti
oltl ~II,II
.; and thinks is
rious, humble
the criterion fr
student, sittin?
;ic.l~ieveskill,
perhaps himsctlf t o l)ccornc a ma,stcr, ancl i l l . I I I ~ c.;~sct o have a
be reached
dwelling on I-';~rrlassus,whose lowcst slopes C.,IIII.IOI
without cl'fi)rt i W h o shall deny that character is c~~!;cmdcred,that
exa1t;ition ;ind triumph, as well as the tenclcr rl~in!:\ of the spirit,
.
has
can rc;~chgreater heights, through this a r t 01 I I I I I S ~ Cwhich
always inspired nicn to achievcmenr, ancl L . ~ ~ . ~ , ~ ~ g thcir
rl~cned
minds t o finc and noble thinking?30
MUSIC. M A N ,
I figurcd the only thing I O t l o hr,is t o swlpe thelr klds I stlll thlnk
IL'S the only thing CO (10
Ily \.lying that, I'm not tallung ,~bour
~ ~ ~ : changlng their value sy5tcnl\,
L~cinap~lng,
I'm just t ; l l l < ~,iI)out
which removes them f r r ) 1l1c11
~~~
world very effectively ' '
Sonlc~i~ilesthe effects 0 1 rock upon the audience h ~ ~ vIrl-11
c
g hardly been u n k n o w ~;I[~ I O C I<
in~mrcliate.Violence and ~ . i o ~ i nhave
concerts, but according ro John Phillips of the group, LII(.M o ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ : ,
and the Papas, 'by carrfully controlling the sequence ol' I I I ~ I I I I I I ~ '
;my rock group can create audience hysteri;l c o n ~ c i o ~ ~. I I\I lL I~
deliberately. 'IVc know how t o do it,' he s ; ~ i d 'Anyl)t
.
) c l k110w6,
I \.I
...
...
Therefore: Sihelil~u.whose innate national pride rcrnained undaunted by the occupation of his native Finland by the Russians, and
w h o therefore ought t o capture and fan the fl:tmes of national
freedom through his magnificent work, Ftnlrr?zdia. T h e piece
succeeded so instantly and
.ably in its task that the occupying forces were compelled i
:ly t o ban it.
J. S. Bach wrote that hc LcJlllrosedfor thc spiritual uplifting of
man, and to the glory of Grid. Franz Lehar during his final days.
stated: 'I wanted to conquer people's hearts, and if I havc
115
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.
music therapy will grow in grass-roots popI I I . I I I I y I I rexson
~
of its sheer efficacy, which needs to be demonl
Thus far, modern experience has not proved him wrong. In the
literature of music therapy, reports can be found of success t o a lesser
or greater degree in the treatment of hysteria, depression, anxiety,
nervousness, worry and fears, tension, insomnia, high blood
pressure, headaches, asthma, brain damage, cancer tendency, heart
weakness, Parkinson's disease, tuberculosis, and a widc-ranging host
of other mental and p h j
nnits. E v r n thc most unlikely
1 I)y musi C'S c11r;ltilf e effects. The
problems have been helped
.
behavioural scientist Johanncb ~11c.1ltk;cnreyr)rrcu1 - 1uiat
debilitated
youngsters and the mentnlly rct;~rclrdp;~ssquict [lights when taperecorded cradle songs ;II-(* I ~ l ; ~ y r i I>rcll . wrrr i11g decreasing in
incidence by no less tli;~nlwc~-tllir~l.;
,Incl .;lcrpillg I>ills not being
found necessary any niorc..I n
Recently thcrc h;~vcI~rrlimajor ;~clvnncr..;i11 111ruse of musical
instruments to hclp the hanclic;tpped. O n the t';~c(.01 i t , 111ostinstruments would sec111 t o I,c hcyond the ability of' rh(. .irvcrely handicapped to play, hut with imagination this has I I I 11 I,~*c ~ v r dtoo vast
a problem. Instr~~mcnts
can be adapted t o the inrlivitl~~;~l
nccds of the
handicapped pcrforrner; or else, special glovcc or rc.~c.ntion straps
can be used to hclp the person hold or perfonn 1111. In\crument. A
guitarist with no right arm with which to pl11ck 1111, strings might
learn, for ~ n s t a ~ ~to
c cplay
,
the guitar with an :~tt:~cll~~~c.nt
connected
triany handito his right foot. With such individual adapr:~rio~ls,
capped people havc taken to music with profountl concentration.
The result has bccn that not only have they found I l~rniselveswith a
genuine interest and well developed ability, but r l i , ~the
~ mental and
physical effort necessary in order t o learn to pl;ly. 11.1ppily engaged
in for lung hours, has proved exceptionally effective in the development of sensory-motor co-ordination, helping rlic disabled to
move. '9,60,61
Is music a universal curative agent? On the one hand, the
practical mind must concede that in cases of the worst kinds of
physical ailment, when these arc already fully manifested, more
I00
16 1
WIIW
..
I,,'
'I'II(~
I . ~ h . s i ( . , r l
111
'
'
-A--
16 1
'
)I
I, '
I 111 111.
w l ~11i the
~ Masons rallied and awoke a people t o their
I x r I I I v hI ,111s()I' the political leaders of the emerging nation. such
I., I I . ~ I II <~ I Iopklnson, Thomas Paine and Benjamin FranMin, were
101,
rl*.l I
10
167
a ~ t I ( ~ ~ o ~ I as
~ d America's
ged
first native composer, was also a
1'1 cqrlnasonand a signatory of thc Declaration of Independence. H e
is :~lsowidely believed to have been the designer of the American flag.
Iln)~~ounced
was a suprrmcly ;~n~bitiorls
(Inc.. (;iven thc rcli~tivcl~
. . .
. .
importance and minor status
during
1 1 1 ~1700s. the vision was also unc,
c.;~llcd
Ior mankind t o 'awake to thc c ; ~
( l 111:~
'l rc.(.ilom's flame' would roar ' W i ~ n;I I O I I ~ I 111) I e.vt.11 I I I tlisl ;l111
.ll~orrs'.As early as 1774, whilr Rrilislt ~~'ocq-riwl.lrb c-x;lt.llrl,t:
I-cvcbngefor the Boston Tea Party, thr N ~ , r ~ p oA9t.r(
r / I I I . ) ~I t ~ ~ l ~ l i r q,I l ~ ~ ~ t l
- . O I I ~ which included the following si;tr~li~~!:
-SI.III/.I:
II I I Y
The first patriotic music to be published in the New World appeared in 1 7 6 8 . John Dickinson's Liberg Song set the pattern for all
those which followed in the years before the manifestation of the
physical revolution itself:
Come join hand in hand brave Americans all,
And rousc your bold hearts at fair Liberty's call;
N o tyrannous acts shall supprcss your just claim,
O r stain with dishonour Amcrica's name.
.I~.II.
...
...
1777:
Ydnkee Doodle is now their p;tcan. a favourite of favourites,
...'h6
It
..Ill ~ l l t l
I 11.11
.IIIBI
~ ~ ~ !
W I I I ~1 1 ~ 0 1 1 1 ~ OIIC
1
day illumine the world. Indeed, at times it was as
I 1 1 1 )II!:II
I hc very heralds of heaven were whispering their own lyrics
11110 111c receptive ears of the Mason-musicians. D r Joseph Warren's
Nrr,, ~MarsachusettsLiberg Song sounds as much the utterance of a
( ;oJ of Freedom as that of a Boston patriot:
I l<!{
169
MUSIC IN INDIA
171
4.
The Ancient Wisdonl :
Music in India
The syllable O M , which is the imptrirhnhlr Ijfirkmnrr, is the universe.
Whaltoever has e-xisted, wbatroerf~rr.~itl\,rt~lrlrl\occershall e.vist
hereafter, is O M . A n d w h a ~ s o ~ ttrrlrt~irrrr/\
~rr
I,,/\/, pwcmt a n dfitture,
that also is OM.
Thus begins the Mandrrkyd Il l ~ ; l n i ~ . I l . t ~1 l)II(.
,
of India's oldest
writings. Though the t e r m i n o l o ~nl:ty
~ tlilf(.r,wc. lilld ourselves confronted here with thc very samc conc-c-pl 01 r l ~ cI'I.~III;I~
Vibration
that we encountered in thc pliilllst t l ~ I ~ 1v,I . t ~ ~ c . i c ' ~ l China.
t
In
~ , ~concept
r ~ r ~ i of
Hinduism, the syllable O M not 0111y ~ . c ~ l ~ r . c ~I llc
Cosmic Sound but, when uttcred, is 1iclirvc.cI 1 1 ) .tt r l l ; l l l y ;ittune the
individual to thc celestial Tone itself.
The Hindu has always tended to be mrwc inw;l1.(Ily~ l l ~ h t i cthan
al
outwardly industrious. Thus, in India thtrr
l'lr.r.11
lcss of a
tendency t o physically harmonize their civilix;~lrr,~l
with universal
principles, as the Chinese did by means of thr l)t~'rr!r:r Ivrnq. Rather,
the Hindus have placed an even greater cml,ll.l,.i-, tl1;ln did the
ancient Chinese upon the sacred alignment of' r o~~\riolr.\t~css.
In this
spiritual endeavour the concept of O M , as thr c - ; t r . ~ l ~sound
l~
which
mirrors the Sound of the O n e Tone, is par;inlotllll Intoning the
OM, in combination with certain mental and spil i t l1.11 disciplines, is
of prime importancc in raja yoga. I n some mcdit:l~~oll
techniques the
OM is not actually uttered at all, but simply ir~l,~!:inedwith the
inner ear, conscqut.ntly attuning the soul directly W i~ l1 the Soundless
Sound.
OM
W c have used various terms \o far in the courcr of this book in
refcrcnce to the Soundless Sound, applying first oric and then
another in order not t o limit. but to expand one's conccptualization
~ Logos,
r
the Music of thc Spliors, t lir W o r d , c:c*l(.sti;tl 11;irmonics.
the O n e Tone - all such conccpls ;ire i~lt.lu\ivc-w i ~ l l i ltllr
~ I-lindu
rrrm, OM.
In the Vedas, India's oldrst scripture+\, wllit.li ; t ~ .1.11
r 1111 )I .111~.irllt
i l ) c v l ;la, l1ri11,t;I I I C Ixlsic
than the Old Testament. the O M
, ~ I I ~ I I O I I I C I I , I 01' N ; I I I I ~ ~ .
11;ituralforce inhcrcnt throitghot~r ;
;ind from which all other forccs ;trr ~ ~ r ~ ~ v'I'lrr~,11!:11
v t l . 1111. V , I W . I I O I . ~
v<-13r.
~ w w e rof the OM, God c r c ~ t r d;111(l \ I ~ \ I . I ~ I I . , I 111.
I Iescending in frequency from tlic. rc;~lm\ ( , l 11111-1.
I I 1111.
;ircna of time and space, the O M shnlic\ : I I I ( ~~ I - ! : . I I I I ~ I - . l i ~ ~ ~ t ~ i ~ ~ ~ - ( l i . ~ l
.-energy in such a way as t o caurt. ; I I ( I I I ~ \ I O ~ ~ r . ~ l ~ ~I I cI It I .~ ,~
s t i n g physical matter. All that cxists ic tl~c.rr.lrrl~c.
I O I I ~r,rvc.rl .I%*
fundamentally vibrational in naturc. This ; 1 ~ 1 ~ i I i (111
. < ,I I 1 1 1 1 I~I I
tangible substance, but to all forms of energy, l,il:l~r, 11r.11 , I ~ I I I I I ~ I ~ ~
sound - all are stated by the Vedas t o be thc vibrn~ion;^ l It ,I.( 1. ( $ 1 I 111.
OM manifesting a t different frequencies and c o r n l > i ~ l ; t ~ i(o$ 1~ ~11-1.
\
quencies.
In a variety of ways there exist indisputable simi1nritic.s I)(.I w ~ . ( * I I
Hinduism and Christianity, and one of these sirnilaritics lic.5 i l l III(.
concept of the O M , for one can hardly avoid the conclusion th:~tI I I ~ .
OM and the W o r d of Christianity are onc and the same (horror 01
horrors though this may be t o the Christian fundamentalist!). I r : ~ t . l l
;ire associated with the Creation, and each with the Second Prrson
of the Trinity (Vishnu in Hinduism, and the Son in Christianity).
'To speak of 'the W o r d ' is to rcfer indirectly t o a phenomenon;
whereas the OM is that phmomcnon. OM is the W o r d .
The Vedas place great emphasis upon audible sound, for sound is
said to be a manifestation o f the Cosmic Sound itself. The Vedic
language of Sanskrit diffcrcnti;itcs bctween audible sound and
Cosmic Sound, calling thc Sorrncr nbata and the latter andhafa.
.4 hata, audible sound, can h r Ilc;~rdby everybody by means of thc
c;iI.\, W]lereas andhata cannor. Flowcver, a?zahata can be heard - 111.
c q ~ t.~
~ r t ~ ~-cby
e d the advancctl yogi sitting deep in contemplatinn.*
i<:itlicr than merely consiclrring audible sound t o be thc !fi;*rt 01
vibr:lrion. the ancient writrr.; of' the Vedas went one step l;trlll~.l.
consicln.in): Cosmic Sountt t o I)c the cause of all vibrational ; I ~ iI v i i(-.
~
ancl f'c brlccs. Lighlt, which consists of vibrations of a much I ~ i ! : l l ( - ~ . 11 1.
cluency than thos,e of audil,lc sound, was neverthclcss sr.can.I*. I ~ ~ * I I I ,.II :
Ll:-,.Ii)rtii 01 ....
>uL,lllrrnLed
tonc. The Sanskrit words for thc I wrl \rl,ll 1 4 11
li!:l~t ;{r1'1 .S[!rZRI f o r tonr -- indicate in root syllnhlrc Itow ~ . I I I I I ~ . I 111
I
a wcre o~tlcc known r o I>(-. 'I'lrc- . I ~ I ~ I I I I ~ I I I . I I
I I , I I I I ~ Ct:hc two ~limomcn
(,
'
I I?
thc end of svara, the word for tone, indicates that tones are
particularized light.
Music holds a position of vital importance within the Hindu
cosmo-conception. Since it consists of audible sound, or ahata, it is
viewed as being a manifestation of anahata, which is to say, of the
OM. Therefore. music, like all audible sound, contains some of the
very power, energy and consciousness of thc Word of God. T o the
ancient Hindu, as to the Chinese, audiblc sound was thought
capable not only of influencing the mind ; ~ n dcmotions of man, but
literally of shaping and changing physical cvcnts taking place within
the world. Sound accomplished this by gr;ccIually altering the nonphysical vibratory patterns which lay xi thc roor of all objects.
Of all the forms of audible sound, tliosc. c,rc*;itcdby man were
deemed to cxert the most powcrfi~lc.l'fCcr,Ior ~ h csounds of man the use of the voice and the pl;iying 01. I I I I I S ;II~ ~ instruments - were a
very specific and intelligently cont rollrtl I . ( . ~ I .I :)SI ~
vibration. Hence
they were capable of resulting i l l c l ( . I i ~ l i ~ ,c I~ I I ~ \~)ccific
~
changes in
consciousness and in the physic:~lcvcwl.; of 1111' world. Shiva is said
to have exclaimed, pointing out INIW II~.;I I O sc*rvc.him: 'I like better
the music of instruments and voict-s t l r : ~ ~I i lil<c' :I thousand baths
and prayers.'
Volume I of the New O.ufordHi.rror?, ?f M I I ~ in11)rnls
II
us that:
':I'
;I[
51cpped-down,
~ i
173
MUSIC IN INDIA
1~1111xror
Akbar ordered a fr~~iious
n~usic.i;~~i,
N;tik C;opaul,
to
sing
MUSIC IN INDIA
~ ~ l . ~ r t . world.
r i , ~ l In music, Shiva is that which gives music
tithin the known world of time and space, for Shiva relates
m, the movement of music over time. O f these two, 13rahma
{;I, is born Vishnu the Son, even as melody is born of the
Ir~t>~cn.rtonnl
Cross between rhythms, or 'horizontal' movement over
~ilrlc,and harmony, or the 'vertical' difference in pitch.
Indian writers havc always stressed that primacy in music
I)clongs to the voicc. The voice is thought to be a more potent
medium for the expression of cosmic forces than are inanimate
instruments. Esoterically, the voice is associated with the MotherG o d , thus adding a fourth member to the Trinity of string, wind
and percussion instruments. There are t w o reasons for this more
potent power of the voice. Firstly, n o other instrument can express
s o perfectly all the delicate subtleties of spiritual feeling that the
musician seeks to give forth t o othrrs as sound, because only the
voicc has a direct bodily connrction wich the intellect itself.
Secondly, the voice of man is particul:lrly intiniatcly associated with
II
the O M , the voice of G o d . -H- ~ I I ~ I ; I slwcch
is ;t lesser, stepped-down
aspect of the OM itsclf, si tlce nI;lri is ;I Son o f , ;tnd a part of, G o d
Himself. Therefore, throul:h tlic trsc of 11;s v I IC.;IIcord s in speech or
. . . :.I- P .
in singing, man is thought ,-.I
L O 11t. .r co-~.rc.:~tor
W I ~ I ~
I o dAccording
.
to the symbolic writings of the Aifdr~yrrI lp;~nishncl,the Creation
involvcd the formation of a cosmic 'rno~~tll','I:rom the mouth
proceeded speech, from speech Agni. firr.' Wirl~ilirhc lesser world
of time and space, this same crcative Holy S l ~ i r iIrrrccb
~
or fire, Agni,
is said to proceed from the throat of mortal nl;ll). (;roups of sadhus
roam the land of India o r congregate at rcligio~~s
irstivals, chanting
bhajans ;tnd yogic mantras for many hours prr it ;I y , ctvcry day o f thc
year; an d this for the dual purpose of eIevatin!: them srlves in consciousne: is and maintaining the equilibrium oi t l ~ rsociety. For
thousands of years there has never been an in\l;ln~of time when
many thousands of holy men were not chxntin/: Sanskrit verses
within the Indian subcontinent, that evil OI. tliwster might not
prevail on earth.
A similar function is attributed t o thc in~oning, over the
millennia, of the ancicnt Vedas. T h e Vedas, which are the basic
scriptures of Hinduism, are also revered by thc ;]clherents of other
religioris.such as Buddhism and Jainism, and ;trc. among the oldest
religious texts in the world. A point often nlissed by Western
readers of the Vedss is that these texts never were primarily
intended only t o be read and quietly studied, but were sacred hymns
which were intoned and sung. The Upanishads, which form a
1 ~ ) r ~ i of
o n the Vedas, and which
sol(! i l l 13:1~1t.rl),tc.k
1;)rrn in the
~ I i ; ~ l o g t ~ ~ : )rigs
West. are not p1
: their function
1 1 ) c011
I-,ICI.
a1 wisdom, but lit(
I wist111111
;~ncl
S . I ~L C U energy. Energy was a~w;[y\cc~rl..~t~t.~-t.tl
I I I I>(. r - r ~ c - . t \ r - c ~wltc.11
1 1 1 ~ . magical Sanskrit forrnul:~~
wrrc. vot.~l~;.r.tl.
'I'lii\ I - 1 l ~ 1 . Ij ;I ~I I ~
I ~ c I ~ e-d not only thcorctic;llly, I>LII ; t l \ o 1 t 1 . 1 c I I I , 1 1 1 ~ to C I < * * I { C 1111.
\piritual states of mind and o f l i t . wliicl~I I I V wrr111..1 1 1 . a . t 11lrrcl
I ) I
a11
1111
175
( , I
q>
1 'r,
U
,111
sbr.~- I
l ~ ' r\ j ) i ~ . i t ~ l ; ~experience7
I
the
listener feels.68
h l ~ ~ \ i;tssists
c
the Indian devotee to direct his emotions upward in
Ior the Supreme, to still the rebellious mind and bring it to a
1xli11r of concentration. Music even aids, it is believed, in the raising
i 11 the 'vibration' or spiritual frequency of the body itself, beginning
thr process of the transformation of matter into spirit, and conseqirently returning matter to its original state. Thus, as all is O M , the
OM as music calls to the OM as manifested in the soul of man, to
draw it back t o the Source of the OM itself.
lllvc
l
i
'I
,l
iI
l1
1l
11
l
MUSIC IN INDIA
177
MUSIC I N INDIA
IN
For Indian music, as for the pcrk,r~nc.r I I ~ I ~ ~ < ~ I i' l ~ Iis' , I I I L I C ~morc
b p irblr / o I/\/rr~r1,1i/k /he hear/,
important that the p~lblic~I3o~ld
rathcr than observe the musical d e ~ c l { > ~ ~ m01c ~ 't,l~l ~ ) ~ ) r c c ithe
ate'
music critically and dispassionately ... C)IIL,(. r ~nr.11.1s'got the fcel
of' Indian music, its monotony suddenly I,r.c.r~nlr..;so colourful
into deeper
and full of nuances that its riches start to \ I j i I 1 OV(.I.
dimensions.
'"
'
THE RAGA
The raga (or rag) is the basic form of Indiiin cl;lc.;ic;il n i ~ ~ .# (11~1rr.(l,
~i<
it may always have been sa. There cxists cvidcrlr.r I 11.(( I l ) ( . r;?,r l , l 11 ,l
rrlga-like form of music, cxisted as early a s 400 I { ( ' . 'I'IIIIII!:II I I I V
instruments of ancient India differed c o n s i d e r ~ l >r'rorn
l ~ I I I I I..I. I T I I l \ r b
today, it seems that the musical forms a n d structures 0 I I I I I W r i1111.r.
were similar t o those of today, possibly differing frntrl r o t l ; ~y'c r i y i \
n o more than the ragas of modern India differ betwccn tl~c.r~~~~r.lvr.\
Srom the north to the south of the subcontinent.
Over thousands of years of musical evolution, rhtb Vrrgr I I : I ~
cleveloped into a n art form capable of summoning up the 1111151
intense spiritual feelings. T h e listencr may experience indcscril~;~l~ly
deep yearnings for something not quite defincd, but which scclilr t o
I)c connected with the vcry core of the meaning of lifc. Thew
Scclings vary in an infinite variety cif subtle ways, according to [lie
type
of rdga performed. rr) rhc dcgrcc of understanding it1 ~ h c .
,
listener. and according, of
) tlic spiritual development of thc
]wrformer.
o f music - harmony, melody,
O f t he four main dir
~ , l i ~ t hand
m timbre - harntctn? is ;lg.tin, as in China, virtually ncmc.\ti\tc.nt in Indian music. But, :IIICIagain as in China, this 1;lck
,
and timhrr ;II.C,
1nl)l.c. than made up for in [II;II ~ ~ l c l u d yrhythm
tl(.vr,loped t o an e x t r a o r t l i l ~ : ~ ~sophisticated
~il~
degree. Cl;ls\ic ;(l
I~itli,tnmelody and rhytlin~o l i ~ ncxcceds anything t h ; ~i3 1 1 1 l,r
I'orllltl in the mainstream ol' \Ycstcrn music.
A . :., the Western di:ttr~nicscalc with irs scvcri major t ~ r l i r - . , 1lrr.11.
11'
111
I
:lrcb; 1 1 ~ in
i
Indian music .;even basic notcs, known as .$A, It I ; , 1 i t \ ,
M A . I ) A, I I H A and N1. M'hilc the notcs of this 5 ~ . 1 1 <-11-1.
11111
I
I .
0 111r
I ) I ( r(ly:liL togt:tI~cr h a r n ~ o n i c a l l ~
thcrc
,
is a vcry r-c.l'ir~c,tl. r I I
111ij:l11 L + V ~ IsI t y science - to the melodic use nf tlli.: I ~ I I I I.lIr.
.
Moclil'iL.;lrions of the srven basic toncs 01- \/:.t),t i t 1 1 t 1 ' 1 1 . 1 1 1 1 1 . 1 1 ' .
Ia10
MUSIC IN INDIA
' 1 1 1 1 ' . '..II.II l)', 'extremely flat' and so forth produce a total of 22
I I . I ~ ~ III ~I I , . I . V ; I ~ S o r .~hrutist o the octave which are applied in Indian
I I I I I , . I ~ . [J'iing these shrtlris according t o traditional and strictly laid
I ~ I I W I Irules gives the basis of the raga system of music. From the
c.\r.tl)lished szlar-shrutis (tone-intervals). hundreds of different tone
(o~~rhinations
are organized. Each combination of tones is the basis
0 1 one raga. That is, each particular raga is based upon a particular
irlcction of sval--shru~is.The relationship and order in which these
.ones can be played during thc raga arc govcrncd by strict and
.ides. It is up to the musician to display the full range of
~ o t rc~a~ionships
c
and ornamentations of which he is capable, and to
d o so movingly and artistically, whilst nevertheless remaining
within the partic~rlarlaws of the raga.
T h e raga system grants the musician freedom of expression within
the limitations of a certai inviolable 7?/lrodp.This is a convincingly
successful solution t o thc problctn whicl~ the music of ancient
civilizations always came up agi~inst.T h e ciilcnlnl;~has already been
x-tant a force
discussed in relation t o China: sincc n111sicW ;
r, dangerous,
in altering phenomena upon carth, it woi~ltl
and perhaps even suicidal in the 1011,~r11n I
musicians to
perform whatever they wished. 7'11crrl;)l.i- I I w.15 lmpcrative for
music to be regulatsd, and definitc 1;1ws :cF~l~lir.cl
rcgiirding what
could and what could not be played. Rut i l ' r l l c . I;Iw.; mc;iot that only
certain set pieces of permitted music coulcl 131. pc-~*li)rmrd,
and n o
new compositions brought forth, then p c ~ ) ~w
l co ~ ~ l cI>rcome
l
bored
with hearing the same music over and over, ;Incl I I I V ;irr itself would
therefore decline. T h e immensely successf~~lI t ~ c l i , l n solution was,
l ~
then, to apply a system of rules which, while cff'rc 1 i ~ c . determining
what type of music was performed, and even its sl,irilIi:;l ;~tmospherc,
did not actually dictate the notes themselves. S o Ilvnil~lcis the raga
form that the same raga performed by different ;lr~i\ts,or even by
the same artists upon different occasions, can ol'l'cr t~ntirclydistinct
delights and experiences. Artistic expression : ~ n t l invention is
allowed for, then, yet the necessary barriers Il~,ovidedagainst
anarchy.
O n e tradition has it that originally there wcrc- only seven ragas,
but this may be the remnant of an ancient referrncc to the association of different ragas to the seven Cosmic Toncc. Today there are
ten basic raga forms in the north of India and 7 1 h;uic ragas in the
south, each raga form possessing its o w n particular combination of
tones. Yet ragas can differ from each other in cven the minutest of
details, and as many as 83 1 ragas have been identified in the south.
L
'I
'I
;I
I
,ll!I
'1
I,:
181
t l . 1 ~ 8 ,
MUSIC IN INDIA
182
183
111
IH
185
MUSIC IN INDIA
Notes
"It is interesting that the term uttaha~arefers not only to omnipresent Cosmic Sound, but is also thc name in Sanskrit for the heart
chakra. The heart chakra is one of' scven major chukrus or spiritual
centres which the yogi believes t o hc located at non-physical levels
of his form. Of the seven, the Ilcart is the most important, and
possesses the most intirnatc link with the heavens. This reminds o n c
01' the Chinese legend of Wcn of Cheng, who could perform his
wonrlcrful music only after 11c h:td reached that which he souglit ro
c.xl)rrss, which was within Itis heart. The Indian yogi-musici;t~i:~lso
I)c.li~avrsthat only by purifYiltg and expanding the heart (or ,irt,~llrrtrr)
il~nb.Lr can he bring forth the music of divinity. As 1111. Ir:lltlr
ilenotcs, the anahata chakra is considered to be the anchorin!: I ~ O I I I I
wilhin rnan of the Word of God.
'I'
.II,I.
11it
I( I
L I I I ~ ~ ~
1111- 1 1 ic-lltl.;
III~,
II.IIII(.\
01
11 'IS
'Mikc'
1.
The Twentieth Century :
Jazz and the Blues - Their Nature and Origin
I,ike human nature itself, music cannot possil>ly I>r t \ c * \ ~ tr.11 I I I 1 1 %
hl,iritual direction. At times it may exhibit n mixt~rrcoi ~ ~ l r l i l t i r ~. ,~ : ~ l r l
clegrading elements, but ultimately all uses of' t o ~ l c; ~ n t l,111 I I I I I ' ~ I I . I ~
lyrics can be classified according to their spiritual d i r r r l i o ~II~>W.II.(I
~,
or downward. I t is unusual for movements in music whit:h c . o l r ~ l ~ ~ n r
truly exalted elements with those of the downward ilir.rct i l l 1 1 1 4 r
maintain their stability for long; almost always one o r 111r' OIIICIforce gains the upper hand, as can clearly be seen throitglior~t tlir
l~istoryof the art. It is actually a part of the essential naturc ()I'11ir
majority of styles and movements of music that they c i t l ~ t rl i l r
people into an awareness of beauty and sublimity, or that rhry
inculcate, subtly o r overtly, feelings of indiscipline and hedonisnl.
'To put it plainly, music tends to be vf either the darkness o r of thr
light.
I HH
1 ) I its :~rtswere at their highest level. It was music which led the
w,ly illto degeneration.
As Greek classical music became progressively replete with cheap
i~~novation,
excessive modulation and decorative shakes, Aristophanes attempted in his plays to counter the rot with parody and
humour directed against the cheap new music. H e likened the
singers with their quivering voices tu zigzagging ants, and called the
instrumentalists ecstatic, effeminate creatures who were so easily
bent that they had to wear stays. (Their wavering music was
produced by bending certain of their instruments, such as the
strophae.) In one of Aristophanes' musical plays the Muse stages a
personal protest against the modern wave of innovators who twist
her on the rock with their inharmonic notes as they modulate. The
play was a foreboding of musical rebellion. an appeal on behalf of
the whole tradition of well-educatcd Athenian citizenship against
uncultured or alien ideas.
The appeal came too latc. Thc ncw music had already set in,
supplanting the more refinccl and disciplined classical styles. One
year later the revolution in tnrlsic manifested tangibly as a violent,
physical revolution. and rllc downfall of the elite of Athens.
Following the Grcck rcvolution of 404 BC, a deliberate blatancy
and toughness distingllisl~cdthe lyrics of the performing rebels who
came to thc forc ;IS thc musical stars of their time. One famous
manifesto hy Timor hcus of Miletus smacks strongly of the mood of
Chuck Rcrry : ~ n d of the Beatles when they sang 'Roll Over
Beethovrn', c ; ~ l l i ~fix
i ~ ; Beethovcn and Tchaikovsky to make way
for the coniin!: ol' rhythm and blues. In similar win, Timotheus
rcpudi;~trd11ir c-nrisc past (also taking care not to miss the opportunity to court I lir younger generations) :
189
HOOTS
Wcbrr we to scour the globe in search of the mosr aggressively
~ ~ l ; ~ l r v o land
e n t unmistakal>ly rvil music in existence, it is more than
l i k c * l v that nothing would he fount1 :trlywhere t o surpass voodoo in
;cttributes. Still practisetl in Africa and the Caribhc;iri
~ ; ~ i c ' r . i f ' i as
~ ; ~the
l l ~ rhythmic ;lc.companiment to satanic rituals ;~ntl
r)r!:ir.;. voodoo is the quintcssrnce of tonal evil. Often irs vc.l-v
tlc.t.l;~r.c.tl purpose is to inflict harm upon other parts nT Iiff-. I t . .
~tl\ilripl(.rhythms, rathcr th;111itniting into an integrated wl~olt... I I ~ *
Iirrfclt~~i~c*J
in a certain kind of conflict with one anothrtr.
1 1 wo111cIbe quite incorrect to consider voodoo to hr '111 ~ I I I II\'(".
I
11, ,wcbver.St~ldieshave shown that the mutliple rhyt l ~ n i \ .1rt.l I t 11 111r.tl
I t 1 1 ;I I;lrgc number of percussion instruments, arcb ; I ~ . I I I . I I I ~( ' v 1 1 1 ~ 1 1 ~ ' l v
1,111~ilrx.
I t is said by some that certain very .;11I,tIr. I I I I , I I I ~ W I I I ( 11
~ l ~ r . ' i c b
(*'I
I ')(I
19 1
1868 ( N e w
-.
()deans at that time still maintiti~~ing
irs st;
i ~ r gthc ostcnsil~lcvoodoo centre of the Unit(-d Ct;~tc.s,I
Ily ). H I>cgan
c. Wit 11 otlicr
1)l;iying while in his twenties, during 11
~
Orlc;ins,
~liitsicians,Bolden would ninrch round 111r51 rrris t r Nrw
r x c i t i n ~ ,nc.w ;rnd
I>rrforming as he went. His music was ;I str:~n{!.:~.,
revolutionary s0m.d; and it w:rs :i i-rvol~~~ioll
wl~ic.l~
II(. litcr;~lly
c;irried into the streets. Frcquc~itlyIlc : ~ n I~is
~ l 11:11ltlw o t ~ l ~rn:~rcli
l
tllrough and stop over in thc red-ligl~r cIi51rik.1.I\,rl(lrn W;IS ?;:lit1to
1)c well acquainted with all t h c district's frnr;tlr iolr.~l)i~.~nlc.
A cornet player, Bolden led a numbcr r ) f h ~ l r x . t . \ \ ; v r - I I . I I I [ ~ \ . I ~ I I ;hs
I
rtlle result of his heavy drinking and of syphilis I\(. I l r . r , ; ~ ~ i ~i11s;tnc.
round 1906. He last performed in 1907. ;incl w;rs t l ~ r ~L I lI I ~ ~ I ~ I ~ I I I ' ~ ~
to a state institution in the June of that ye;tr. 'l'l~c.~-r
Ilr. r l ~ r - t l , i r i
1031.
This 'father' of jazz, hardly heroic o r inspiring in 11;s I I ~ I I ~ : ~ : I ~ ~ I ~ ,
.icbcmsin many respects to have set the pattern for all 11i;tr ~ : I W w.10.1 1 I
l
and r e s ~ d tin. The music he had spawncd first . I ~ ~ ( - . ~ I I I I '
:d, naturally enough, in the whorehouses of N c w I)I.II*;~II\.
lere it spread to the brothels of other cities, and thcnc~c.,c rvc.r,
trrnc, transferred t o the bars and dance halls.
The first actual appearances of the printed word 'jazz' wcrc in
1 9 17. The Hearst newspapers of 2 1 January. 1917, co~itaincdI his
lltstice in the column of one Damon Runyan :
Irr. tcrmed 'jazz'. Bolden was born in New Orlcans in
i ~ ~ t l
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Writing a few years later, the composer, poet and esotericist, Cyril
Scott, had this to say:
After the dissemination of Jazz, which was definitely 'put
through' by the Dark Forces, a very marked decline in sexual
morals became noticeable. Whereas at one time women were
content with decorous flirtations, a vast number of them are now
constantly ~ r e o c c u ~ i ewith
d the search for erotic adventures, and
have thus turned sexual passion into a species of hobby. Now, it
is just this over-emphasis of the scx-nature, this wrong attitude
towards it, for which Jazz-music has hccn responsible. The
orgiastic element of its syncopated rllyti~rn,entirely divorced
from any more cx;tllcrl rlnlsic;~l contcnr, l)roduccd a hyperexcitement of thc ncarvc*\, I I I L ~ Ioc~sc~ic~cl
I hc powers of self-control.
It gave rise to ;I
r~xllil;ar;~tion,
;I l'it~cirior~s
endurance, an
insatiability rrsull ill!: i l l ,I tlrlr~rrious v/otirl :111tl I~liysical
reaction.
Whereas the o l t l I;~zliionrrl nirlodior~sil:~r~rr-rn~~sic.
inspired the
gentler scntinir~ir:;,];lzx, with its ;irr;ly #)l' 11:11~11, car-splitting
percussio~~-i~l:.~~~~~ll~c.llts
i~~ll;i~ni*d,
inioxicn~ccl:tnrl I>nrt;ilized,thus
causing ;i srr-1);tc.k i l l Man's nature towards 111r instincts of his
racial chil Jlic )c )cl. For Jazz-music at its lirigllr very closely
rcscmhlril thr music of primitive savages. A i111~1llc.r
result of it
was to hr seen in that love of sensationalism wliich I~asso greatly
incrrnsctl. As ,l;r/:/. itself was markedly sensation;tl, IIIC public has
incrr;tsingly come to demand 'thrills' in tllc form of 'crook
dram;ts' ;lncl I)l;tys, the only dramatic intcrtqt of which is connected wit11 c r i ~ ~mystery
~c,
and brutality. This nlso itpplies to sensational fiction: f;)rthe sale and output of this typc is prodigious.'
f , t l z c b
19 1
;l11
sl;ly,
111.
111.vr.1
I ll~.lt.-,\
Just to keep those men from making their early mornin' c1.c.r.p.
More sinister themes were also common. But few spe~i.tli7(.tI111
rhcm more than Robert Johnson, the 'King of the Dcltn I3l11t.\'.
Ilorn in 1914, Johnson's lyrics dealt with, as Frank Tirro ~ I I I , i l ,
'rhree recurring themes: the impermanence of human relation\hlp.;.
incessant wandering, and irrational terrors. His blur5 :ire 4 ~ 1 1
rl~roughwith dark foreboding . . ."l One Johnson song, 'MCand t l i v
I lCvil Blues' has thew typical lyrics:
Early this morning when you knocked upon my door
Early this morning when you knocked upon my door
And I said, 'Hello Satan. I belirvc it's time t o go.'
M e and the devil was walking sidc by side
Me and the devil was willking sidc by side
And I'm going to beat my wom;tn until I get satisfied.
. . . You may bury my bocly clown by the highwayside,
So my old evil spirit can gcr Greyhound bus and ride.
I ~ ) I I I ~ ~ died
~ O I ~ in 1938 or 1039. having been either poisc,nr.tl I,y I
wcIlll,ln or shot by her icnlous husband. (Nobody i4 I I I I I I ~ . d a ~ ~ ~ r .
wl~ic11
( )!I
most common subjects was sexual dc-si~c. I ) I I V I I I I I I V
-.III!:('I\
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. l ~ ~ . l
rll C-i~tu:tliz:~tion
of jazz as introduced by Miles Davis and others
w.15; I I I intriguing one. Yet from the higher perspective, the resultant
I I I I I S ~ was
C
really no less questionable than its predecessors.
Since this was now 'jazz for the thinking man' so t o speak, the
opportunities for cross-fertilization between jazz and other
materialistically intellectualized genres were broader. Many of the
new jazz musicians had at least a working familiarity with the
theories and sounds of the 'new music'. And for their part, the contemporary avant-garde became y a more interested in the musical
elements of jazz. Later, during the late sixties and early seventies,
when rock also reached a stage of 'intellectualization', a similar
cross-fertilization became apparent between jazz and rock.
Jazz itself, however, was to discover that increased introspection
meant a decreased market. As had earlier been the case among the
'new musicians', the more intellectual jazz artists had trouble in combining their subjectivity with an objective perspective of what was
or was not valid as art. Soon enough, jazz arrived at its 'modern'
.
.
'
stage. Now, jus
e casc of a few un planned s,plashes of paint
on a canvas, ar
n l ) u u of a saxophone or Iodd whine of a
trumpet was in
y scourcd for its meaning by an avid but
dwindling body o r c~evotccs,then invariably to be hailed as an
expression of genius. Thc saxophonist, Ornette Coleman,
proclaimed his tl~c~ory
t.l~;~t
the performer should be free to create any
sound at ;my ,t:ivc.l~tinic, and went on to perform accordingly, as
was only tiio r v i d e l ~from
~ the result. As Bcnny Green, the writer on
ja72, aptly p111i t : 'Colcman's dialectics would be more to the point if
hc ancl his fi)llowcrs were each satisfied t o play alone in a room.'19
Wc 1i;tvr not(d in earlier chapters that the ancients sought to
trcxcl ; I I I , I I I i < , path which combined elements of individual
frccdom with c.crt:iil~definite restraints. Plato was only one of the
carliesr ol' III(. 1n:irly commentators who havc pointed out, down
through thc ccnc~~ric-S,
that the only freedom which is aesthetically
viable in ;irt is ;I I'rccdom married to self-discipline. Otherwise
freedom beconlrs :I recipe for anarchy. And it is in search of evergreater excesses OS tllc I:~ttcrthat most jazz musicians have directed
themselves over thc I;~sttl~irtyyears.
The author is strongly rcrninded of an essay on music therapy
written by Howard I l ;~llsonin the 1940s, in which Hanson
displayed an acute prophetic insight into what the music he heard
around him would mean for tllc future. Hanson wrote.
I ~ r ~ ~ ~ , ~will
t ~ , be
i r i if
i ) thc
~ i prcscSntschool of 'hor j:~x./'continucs to
It.\1r.lol~w;~bated.Much of it is cr;Iss, r;nlcorls :tticI ~ o n ~ ~ ~ i o n ~ l ; i c c
~ t t t l to11Ic1 be dismissed without comment if' i t wcrr not f'r~rthe
1 . 1 1 I i o whcreby, hour aftcr hour, night ;~f'trri~i~:ht,
Arncrican
Iblrtnr.; :trc flooded with vast qu;bn~itirsof tl~is~l~.~ti*ri;il,
to which
it 111ly.
. I I tl,~np;~niment
our youngsters dilncr, pl:~y i t 1 1
l711t if
I'~.r.ll;l~>s
they have developcrt ; ~ nimmunity t o it-+
I I I ~ .li;~vc
~
not, and if the niass production of this .111r,1l t l r . ~ ~ jis: Ilot
WC may find ourselves :I n;~rinno I ' n c . ~ l ~ ow~ li t~~
11i ~~c.vc.11
i111.1.tilc~1,
1111. >kill of the psychiatrist may br h;~rd
prrsscd I O( ~ ~ r c . . " '
1111
is-I
I hesitate to think
11, irnl
W music' 1h r i t l ~r l ~ c11
with our comparison of the 'ne~
Il~tli;~
z
and
the
classit,;~l
( :IIIII:I.
;L comparison between jaz
)
I l h 01'
~d
spiritu.
natures
ar
I , vi-;~ls
the same totally opposite
111,-two. Should it be the case that music has no effect 11pi1r1I I I , I I I .
(I11.nrl~ilsicof the downward direction would be all wc-ll ;ultl gootl 1 1 1 1 1 our discourse thus far seems t o indicate strongly th;~tthis is I I I ~ I
I 1 1 1 - c.;tse.
What is more, the statements of the wise of long ago rcg;~riling
111,.;tl)ility of music to influence life patterns was only a part nf their
111.licfabout the power of music. Music and sound, they statrd,
I or~ld
also affect matter itself. Audible sound, as an earthly vessel for
III(. universal OM, wielded a great energy. An energy which, accorI I I I I ~ to the kind of music played, could create, preserve or destroy
1.vc.n material, inanimate conditions. It is a long-standing belief of
111resoteric schools that in the distant past there once existed former
.iJvanced civilizations not dissimilar to our own, but which are lost
1 0 historical record. These are sitid to Elave been destroyed by
I'l~ysicalcataclysms which were c: u~sed,in e,ach case, largely through
tllc continued misuse of sound ; ~ nI rrhythm. Is there any truth behind
huch beliefs, and does music acto;tlly contain such a power t o affect
matter? If so, then the phcni)mcna of jazz, rock, and other such
musics - including, perhaps, thr vrry allowance of their presence in
o i ~ rniidst - would most urgently necd to be looked at afresh.
,\a.
ABOUT ROCK
In this book we have touchrd upon rock here and therc olily 111
passing, one reason being that the subject of this m~~sic
. t l ~ t l 11%.
wcietary effects is so vast as would require a volunir in it\c.ll. I I I
,~ddition.it has been useful to deal with j a u sincc ~ ; I w . . I 1).\1i-111 ( 1 1
rock. displays its voodoo origins more blatentlv: ,111011
11r.i.11
11scfu1to discuss the 'new music' since its prola)nc.lit6.. I , v w~ll~tl!:
11.16,
next
.'Ib.1
. I I I J.~l)lcto
their inner philosophies and aesthetic standmore (:learly and intellectually than can the average rock
.irtist . Yet sufj6ce it to say that all that we have commented on the
new music' or on jazz is at least doubly true of all rock music.
I
ROCK,
properly understood, is music warfare waged upon an
unsuspecting society by guitar-gunners who are frequently fdly
aware of what they are about.
More than any other form of the misuse of sound, ~t is rock with
which we must deal today. There is no question but that rock is
intimately related t o the kind of state of consciousness found in vast
numbers of young people - young people who are to be the
'mature' adults of the future world. Rock has unquestionably
affected the philosophy and lifestyle of millions. It is a global
phenomenon; a pounding, pounding, destructive beat which is heard
from America and Western Europe to Africa and Asia. Its effect
upon the soul is to make nigh-impossible the true inner silence and
peace necessary for the contemplation of eternal verities. Its 'fans'
are addicted, though they know it not, to the 'feelgood',
. ,egocentricity-enhancing, para-hypnotlc ei fects of its insistent beat.
H o w necessary it is in this age for some to have the courage to be the
<
out from the
ones who are 'different', and to. > c ~ L ~ Lthemselves
pack who long ago sold their lives and personalities to this sound
and the anti-Aquarian culture which has sprung up around it !
I adamantly bclieve that rock in all of its forms is a critical
problenl which our civilization must get to grips with in some
gcnuincly ciScctive way, and without delay, it if wishes long to
survivr.
) i l l [S
"
"
.
.
*
+
c
6.
Assessment :
Tllr Physics of the OM
[h(,bcginnit~~~
rcJ[i\Urahman, with whom was rbr Worrl. ,.In'/ tkt
~I'IJ)Y/is Brahm~itl.- Vedas
It/
rhr
l+
I,,
'I'll(*
\t'r have, in these famous, deeply mystical lines from St John, then,
Note
"Thc u\i. of vcilcd lyrics so that only certain sectors of society and
~
the songs are about, is also a widespread
not others ~ c . , i l iwhat
practicc in rr~oclcrnrock. In rock music both clrug and sexual symbolism arc ircqucntly to be heard.
'I
I(,
'Thus let it be done! Let the emptiness bc fillcd! Lct tllr w;ttrr
recede and make a void, let the carth' ;11yxb;ir;incl
olitl;
Ict it be done. Thus they spokc ... Thcn tlic c;trth v
ad I l y
t hey
hem. So it was, in truth, that the,y crc;~tccl
I tllr c.;~rtl
said, and instantly it was madc.
)f the creation of the first human beings wr. .II.I- I , b l t l I 11.11. " l ' l ~ t . ~
wrre not born of woman . Only hy n ~iiir:~'
It-, l)y I I I ~ + . I I I \ 01
111c;intationwere they created and rnitdr hy 11ir (:rr.~rol.,111t. M . I ~ c I ,
I llc Forefathers, Tepeu and Gucumatz.'
(
..
207
...'
) i ~very
r
familiarity with the account of the Crr;ction p r t - q i . w1lI1i11
~~~
~ l l cdominant religion of our own culture can blind us t o I llr I ~ . I I I I , I
lion that in Genesis too the Creation is manifcsrcd II~I.OII,:II 1111.
.~gcncyof sound. G o d is describcd as accomplishing c;ic.h \ I I , L c.sa.ivcIjliase of the Creation with h k spoken words. The zc~ordiI ~ ) ~ ~ N I U ~ I V , \
m m to enact the Creation:
(
And God said. Let there be light: and there was light.
. .. And God said, Let the waters under the hcavrn I)(.
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appcxr:
and it was so.
.. . And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the frult-trce yielding fruit after his k ~ n d ,
whose seed is in itself, lipon the carth: and it was so.
111
.'OM
'I'llere can be no doubt but that, much as the contemporary fundarurnt;~listChristian would like to believe the Creation account of
(.;enesis to be a simple, literal record of events, this is not in fact the
case. Only from the fifth century AD did the Creation stories of
Genesis begin t o be taken as literal historical records; this occurring
as knowledge of the ancient wisdom within the Christian movement
deteriorated or was forced underground. Before this, we find
0 )
the Genesis Creation as
Gregory of Nyssa (c. ~ ~ 3 9 describing
'ideas in the form of a story'. The other prominent churchmen of the
time also accepted the Creation stories as being allegorical.
The book is known to be a conglomeration of a number of
allegorical Creation stories which themselves were derived at least in
part from the Middle and Near East. Other writings which have
survived from these regions also hint at a general knowledge among
the mystics and priests that the Creation was linked with a form of
utterance or sound. The Hindu conccpt of the OM we have already
looked at. In the BabyIonian account of the Creation, the original
state of the universe, hrforr nutter had been pulled together and
solidified, is, as in Genesis, rcfcrrcd to as 'waters', or as an 'ocean'.
(In all the Creation ~nytlisof antiquity, the concept of primeval
waters preceding thr formation of the earth can be taken as
references to ;L I ) r i ~ ~ ~ rtlux-like,
~ ; l I , pre-solidified state of matter.) The
earth, we arc old. still bore no name, and did not exist 'when no
name had I~ccrln;lrrlcd'. The Creation only came forth when it was
'called into Iwing'."
From rl~cc.osmology of the Jews, in Psalm 19 we read the
follow in^ hc;~utifiill~
poetic lines :
...
209
I rt
..
...
.. .
EGYPTIAN GENESIS
'I'urning to Egypt, we discover a science of mysticism and a
lnythology of the Creation as complcx as those of India and China.
And again we encounter the conccpt of the creative force of sacred
sound. The Egyptian Book o f tht Dead and other sources declarc
quite unambiguously that God. or his lesser, servant-gods, created
cverything that is by combining visuitlization with utterances. First
thc god would visualize the thing that was to be formed; then hr
would pronounce its name : ;incl it would be.
~ r o mas late as the reign of' Alexander 11, a text dating fro111
about 3 1 0 ~
still~ has thr god of the Creation declaring:
'Numerous are the forms I'rom that which proceedeth frorn 111y
rnorlth.' The god Ra was also called Amen-Ra, with thr 11rrlix
'Amen'. The term, Amen, or AMN, was well undrrsrocjtl I r y lllr
I!h~~ptian
priesthood, and equated with the Hindu OM ('I'l~r~ v ~ I I ~ I
is still used today of course, for the closing ot' tlrr 1u.1y r - ~ ~I I. !
(:Iiristians.) One papyrus states: 'Ra spakr at r 111. II~.!:IIIIIIII!:
(11
-
'11)
, I ~hade
J the earth and heavens to rise out of the waste of
w.11 cr.
'l'lia~the archetypal,
ocean of Creation, mentioned in so
Irl,tny myths around the world, is not t o be taken literally as having
hccn water is nowhere made plainer than in Egyptian Creation
accounts. In these it is specifically statcd that before there existed
any forms of living beings there existed Nu, a vast mass of Celestial
Waters. In this cxisted the germs of all living things that were later
to take form, both gods of the heavens and creatures of the earth;
but they existed 'in state of inertness and helplessness'. From out
of these Celestial Waters the first god, Khepera, or Ra, emerged
ing his o w n name. Thereafter he btgan t o
into being by 1
other gods by the combined process of
create other fc
visualizing them and uttering their names. The gods which had then
been created by him were also able t o crcatc through a similar
process, engaging in what wc might call a 'stepping down of the frequency' of the O n e Vibration.
r
point to the primeval
The Egyptian accounts of ~ h Crc;tlir~n
'Waters' as havine bccn :in ~~niliifr.~c.nri:~tt~tI
Illass of energy. Into
these 'Waters' wcrr p o ~ l r i . ~Ill l r ' vi01.:1r i( ,115 of the W o r d , thus
~ c thrown
*
into a
sending forth r;~tli:irin!; ctlrrrlich,
w11r.11.I s ~ t o ~ is
r
back from
pond. When i n ;I 11011~1~ l i ro~.igin;ilw:~vcs; ~ r rc*flccted
;ct~ila much morc
the banks, a crisc-t.r(-wing ol' tlic ripples rc.i~~lr\,
complt.x p t t r r n oi Kc.ornrtric:il f o r n ~ scmcrgc..;. As wxves cross each
other at :inKlr.;, stlu:~rcs,triangles and othcr fortn, c.111be seen. Thcsc
and more complex shapcl;, on the cosmic Ievr.l, W C I ~to the ancient
viewpoin~rlir m;~tricesfor the precipit;ttion of' n1;lttc.r. T h e kcy to
creatinn in m,lttcr was considered t o be thc. v/r.r\c resulting from
'oppo\inK' w;ivcs o f vibration.
Not only t h e Egyptian Creator-God, hut
the lesser gods
~ words of power,
w r c nccrcditcd with the knowledge and thc 1 1 s01'
their moi~th.;bring 'skilled in uttering them'. With these words of
power thc hicr;truhy of gods could create and tlcs1roy form, heal the
diseased and givc lifc to the dead. The God of' gods, Ra, 'spake
crcating words' in nrdcr to bring into being all tlic lesser gods of the
celestial hierarchy. According to the Egyptians, Ra also gave the
secret of certain wnrds of powcs even to the earthly
words whereby reptiles, cliscases and other evils could be overcome.
This shows that the iiica of the creative power of speech was not
limited t o the mythical crcation of the universe. I t was believed that
material conditions could bc changed at any time by the utterances
of the gods. Mortals. t m , knowing how to wield the words of
( '1 I..IIII)II
211
1 1 1 ~cncrgicx
of the
0 I
I l r
'I
H a-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-H
a-Ha. G o d laughed, and from these
seven laughs seven Gods sprang up which embraced the whole
universe: these were thc first Gods.
Many of the world's religiorts icgrcc with tlcc idea that there are
seven 'first Gods' which arc rllc living c.rtll~odimcntof the first differentiati.)n of the One Tone into srvrrl. ' I ' l l c . I-Icbbrews called these
Gods the Elohim. (And it is wortl~l x ~ i ~ l ~ i0 l1 1i 1g 111;ttin a number of
passages in Genesis, when God is dcscril~ctlrn:~clilcgthe Creation,
the English Bible phrase 'Lord God' is actu:~lly;I vtLrypoor translation of this plural Hcbrew word, Elohitn. ' l ' l c ; ~ ~ is, the original
Hebrew version has it that the Creation w;ts tlr~cto thc Gods of the
seven Tones.) These same first Gods, wliir~l~
cunl;cll;ltefrom the
,. .
principile of- the Trinity, are also a part of H i11tl11t r ; I~iligs;
~
but here,
in Hincduism, W e also have the interesting disl i11r.tiot~between five
of thenI and twc) others, which surely relates t o I 1 1 fict
~
that two of
the seven notes of the diatonic scale are scrnironc.~.'Seven are the
great Gods below the Trimurti,' we are told. 'l:ivi+t1111yare working
and two conccalcd. They are Indra, Vayu, Agni. V;truna, Kshiti.'
Egyptian hirroglyphs, wherever they show - ;I.; they often do the descending rays of the sun, are actually ill~lhtratingthe descending Tones or 'rays' of the first Gods as these rays come forth from
the One. Invariably the rays are depicted as radiating and descending lines; often with I~;tr~ds
attached t o their lower ends, indicating
that their purpose is to crcntc and fashion things. They arc always
shown in numbers indicative of the Cosmic Tones: seven, twelve or,
occasibnally, thirteen.
The Egyptian priesthood uscd sound as a means of invoking the
213
.' I 4
I
1 1
l '
i
'
lI
l '
I
l
...'
1
#
l
l
215
I '111
I 11
'I
GENESIS NOW
It is usual to think of the Creation account in Genesis as being a
Jrpiction of events which tr;~nspired (whether literally or
;rllcgnrically) aeons ago. Yet wh:tt rnirrges from a study of all othcr
myths and doctrines which 5pe;tk of Cosmic Sound is that this
morlcr~lconception of Geneis 1s quite erroneous. The description of
the Crestion is not only mcxnt to be the story of the original forni;~tion of the earth; it is also an account, couched in symholoj:~,11tt1
vcilcd sllusions, of the eternal process of the creation andpr~rc,rr~trttrrn
of all atoms and all worlds.
According to the ancient wisdom, this procms is rvrr 131 c...rttl .I 11, l
c m-going. Matter is not only created, but also prcsrrvr-tt
l III~'.III\
t,fCosmic Sound, and by no other. Indeed, rnatlrr I \ ( : ~ . , ~ 51
I I111rlt1
I
'11,
clr.ll\ificd form; matter is the Harmony of the Spheres l,yst:tllizcd! Putting it the other way around: Cosmic Sound is
nl.tlrcr in solution. As the ancients believed: take away the Word,
. t l l t l matter instantly reverts into the invisible energy of the void.
'I'hc universe, the earth, and ourselves upon it only exist and continue
to exist because the Word still comes forth. T o the yogi, the OM is
as immediate as the air around him, sounding out in the eternal
present. It beats the rhythm of all hearts, and speaks to the soul
having ears to hear. The great mystics of all time have felt the Word
to be imminent in and around themselves; have known that it was
the elixir of life; that the Creation was not done, neither fulfilled;
that the morning stars still sing together.
111
2 17
:l
/avtr ~ r called
r
Vibrations in
Occultism. - H . P . Rl;tv:~~
\It v
111
111
rlol
w l l ; ~tllodern
~
science has to tell us about the nature of matter?
OS course, the authors of the Upanishads and the twentiethc,c*nturyphysicists work within the frameworks of two very different
systcms of terminology. The two also exhibit radically distinct
;tpproaches t o the gaining of knowledge. And what all this means is
that while a brief glance may give the appearance that the two paint
diametrically opposite pictures of reality, such appearances may be
deceptive. The physicist may have arrived at the very same truths
that were known t o the early Hindus, but without his realizing it.
Let us ask ourselves: If the concept of the OM is valid, how, in
modem scientfic terms, would the OM show itselfz W e must recall: the
ancients were adamant that the OM was not audible sound at all.
Therefore we are not looking for 'sound' as such; not sound as we
usually think of it.
But there are further leads. The O M is said to be a highfrequency vibration which not only shnpcs, but is, all material substance. T o examine the possil>lr vnliclity o f this in an unbiased and
scientific manner, it is necessary to ; t ~ kourl;clvcs: Is there any evidence
.that atoms or their consritrtent suhatomir pnr/i~-Itsare.forrned by, or are
related to, any physical energies or ai/itlilirr r,~hichcrrc of a vibratoly
nature?
It needs also to be taken into c o n s i d r r ; ~ t i tli:~t
~ ~ ~ iby 'vibrational
activity' is also meant any activity or encr1:y which is cyclic, wavelike or oscillatory in nature. Then it is rca1ixt.d t11;1t ;ttoms and subatomic particles not only contain such encrgic..; : t Jtr'y ;ire themselves
composed of nothing else but energy in a st;ttc (11 oscillation. Many
years ago H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Do(.lriv~-.
wrotc with disarming candour: 'Atoms are called Vibrations i l l ()c.c~lltisrn.'T o the
scientifically-minded nineteenth-century rcailrr I%l;lvatsky's statement must havc seemed confusingly
- . contradiclory to the 'known
facts'. Only sincc then have physicists themsclvc~cboved that atoms
are indeed vibratiims, being almost alarmingly insubstantial, and not
at all the tiny gr:iins of matter which the mcchitnistic nineteenthcentury physi;ist would have had us believe.
In short, there i:, tn the open-minded person a quite amazing
similarity between thc discoveries and theorir.5 of modern physics
and the philosophies o i thc ancients. These similarities have been
admirably listed and examined in Fritjof Capra's The Tao of
Physics," which, since its publication, has become something of a
minor classic. The deeper
physicists explore into the nature
THE PHYSICS OF T H E OM
219
of
'11
22 1
U 4
8 %
111
223
THE PHYSICS OF T H E OM
votli;~~..
So similar are the properties of tone and of colour that during the
1920s and '30s a number of musicians branched off into an entirely
independent artistic movement of colour-music. For example, keyboards were constructed which played, not musical notes, but beams
THE PHYSICS OF T H E O M
111isremaining portion of the circle would still be complecolours t o the solar-spectral colours opposite them, it is
~l~c.rr.Iol.c
possible t o know which colours they are. Opposite the
r.ol.tr-spectral colour of green, for instance, is a purplish-red, and
c~plwsiteto yellow-green comes a bluish-purple.
"l'he total 360' circumference could accurately be called an
'octave' of colour. But to put our conception of this colour-zodiac
into a larger perspective, we should note that it is not a closed circle
at all, but rather, one 360' turn of a spiral as seen from above. That
is, the arc of the circle continues around once more, and again and
again, both anti-clockwise and clockwise, but at a lower and a
higher plane. The spiral of light-frequencies passes upward into the
ultra-violet spectrum and downward into the infra-red, passing in
each case beyond the range of our visual senses. Thus, the visible
octave of colour is but a note within a larger Octave, which is in
itself only a tiny portion of the entire range of frequencies of the
Word.
This entire range of vibrations is t h ; ~known
~
in physics as the
spectrum of electromagnetic waves. I r l I:igurc 2 it can be seen that
the known range of this spcctnzrn cxrcncls from the point of zero
cycles or vibrations per second to ;I l i l t lc. I)c.yoncl 1 02' or a trillion
trilion cycles per second. Beyond that point of very high frequencies our instruments are not yct ablc to rnc;tsllrc. The lower frequencies to thesleft include the broad rangc ol' intluctive heat, and
the frequency used to convey electricity alonK 17owe~1.
lines. Beyond
this come radio waves, and then the infra-rcil ~ ; I I I ~Beyond
(I.
the
range of visible light are the vibrations modern sc ic'nce has termed
ultraviolet light, X-rays and Gamma rays. Fin;lIly c ~ ~ r nthe
e cosmic
rays which are the highest frequency yrr I;IIOWII along the
electromagnetic spectrum.
This spectrum of electromagnetism is referrecl I O wen in modern
physics in terms of its 'octaves', for it is by n.uure a range of
vibratory oct;tves, the entire known range cnco1111);1ssing
about 70
octaves. It can l>(. sren from Figure 2 that thc r:ingc of visible light
takes up only ;I tiny portion of the entire spc-ctrum. Curiously
enough, and as thnrlgh by grand design, of t h c total 70 octaves,
visible light accounts for lust about exactly one octave.
I . ~ l r r . 1111
I~II.III;II.~
&
'l
i~
l
'
~~
'
~1 ,
I
l
(,I)
FREQUENCY
103
-,
106
'1"'WCr
liliesI
109
I
(waves p a second)
waves
+
.C4
1o18
101'
Radio or Heminn
I 1 1 ~ 1 t llion
t
heating
r-
Ultra
violet
Infra-
rcd
1021
I
Gamma
rays
1oZ4
I
Cosmic
rays
X-rays
- --
22 5
I.1111gc.r
WAVE LENGTHS
~ I I I ~,-II I- W
.#I,
Jeep
111r.~ ~ ~ ~ r i c ~ , t l l y - r nman
i n d econsiders
d
everything his eyes can see as
110.
I)c.i~~g,
quite literally, the W o r d revealing itself.
o f t l i t . ) r l t . 'I'~)IIC,''
Long ;[go IIIC. /\;.l(.tL1 11wc11 0 I3lc1w r l l c . i r c011(.11 s11(.11 trumpets t o
;II ~hc.riw 01' Venus). Even
invokc t l ~ c . O M . I ( ~ I . I W I I (sl~c.c*iiic.;~lly,
o f 'l'i1)c.r is w r y stroni:ly I t , ~ ~ r t ~ lupon
cJ
the
today, I I I ~ rn~~-,ic.
'I'il~etan music
princil,lc 01- III(. Onc 'I'OIIC. In thc Wcstcrn .;(wa,rh
night .;~.;lrr.c-lyII(. considered nlusic a t all, "Iur 1 4 , tl~~llliss
its worth
WOLIIJ
I)c t o
mist;tkc i t 5 ; I ( I I I ; I ~ significancc
I;)r
I.(+;I'~I)II
;~ntlIXII'P(
I .:tm;c Anagarika Govinda ercpl;~ilis:
'I'iltc.l.~rl ~ . i t ~ l . ~11111sic
l
is not concerned will1 1 1 1 ~ . i:motions of
t c ~ ~ ~ ~ v )i r~:~{(ll i v i t l t ~ ; ~but
l i t ~with
,
the rvrt lu.c.scnt, timdess
c . l t ~ ; t l i lr\
~ ()I'~ ~ ~ ~ i v clife,
r s ;in
~ lwhich our p e s s o ~ ~j c: )ys
~ l and sorrows
d o nor c.ui.;l ... T o bring us in touch wit11 Illis realm is the
~ : ~;is~ well as of Tibetan rir u;11 music, which is
pilrposc 01' ~ n c - c l iion
vibrations that an instrument or a human
built upon ~ I I ( - ilrc.l~c*s~
voice can procli~cx.:S O I I I I ~ Sthat seem to come from the womb of
the earth or froni 111cclcpth of space like rolling thunder, the
mantric sound of n;ttul,c.. which symbolize thc creative vibrations
of the universe, the orii:in o f all thingsa3
Few Westerners have lcarncd the full import behind each aspect of
Tibetan chanting and instrumental music; but even so, something of
227
I';lsr.i~~.~tingly
enough, a nunihcr of the most basic of all t h r f:~ct*: . I I I ~ I
- nature disp1;iy ihc very same ratios that arc. I I I I I I I ~1 1~1
S . Hans Kayser is the author of sevcral hoolib. wl11411
scientific fashion that the w h o l c - n ~ ~ n ~ lFt.I[
~ .1 i1 P* I
I I I I I S ~ C ; I II I ; I ~ ~ ~ ~ I Isuch
~ C Sas the octave, the thirtl. i'it'lll . l 1 1 1 1 1 1 r 1 1 1 r 11
r o r r c \ ~ ) o ~ liJo an underlying numerical fr;~rnc.wr
!I lc r .r l..! III!:
III
11c-rriistry,; L I I ) I I I ~ Cphysics, crystallography. . I \ I I . o l l r r l l l \ l , .I! 1111r.~
1111 r ,
6
' P I
etc.8'
1\11 I 11 rc~ccntly,the quite well-known musician, Gary Peacock,
1111 1.1 I I I ~ ) his
I ~ ~career to delve into the same area, undertaking a
i o ~ ~ ~ ~ -study
y c ; ~ofr molecular biology and organ physiology. Among
Ilia findings was that the relationships in the periodic table of
clcnicnts, from which all matter is formed, resemble the overtone
structure in music. Peacock says, 'It becomes clearer and clearer t o
nie that the actual structure of tone in music and the actual structure
of matter are the same.' I n other words: matter is music. Other
researchers have found a relationship between sound frequencies and
various physical - even notational - shapes. For example, j40 vs.
300 frequency cycles per second displayed on an oscilloscope
produces a minor seventh shape.
I n his book, The Power of Limits,86 Gyorgy D o n i has traced in
detail the exact similarities between the proportions and ratios found
in the various branches of sciencc. Throughout the book these
proportions and ratios arc not spccific;llly pointed out t o be the same
as those present in music. I7ut o n ;m r;trly page Doczi himself
explains why. Quite simply, L111 of ~ h tl;u;~
c
in his book, which links
physics with biology with astmnonly wi111;~rc.l~itecture
a n d so forth,
can be explained in terms of music, hut this would open up t o o vast
a subject in itself. Nevertheless, his Ix)ok i:, i~ll~crcritly
associated
with the principles of music from covcr t o covr.1.. 'I'llr r;ctios which in
music are known as the fifth and fourth inrcrv;~lsoccur again and
again throughout nature. O n e highly specific p;~r:tllrlbctween music
and botany demonstrated by Doczi invo1vt.s I llc. :irr;lngc.ment of the
veins of leaves o n either side of the centr;~l\rc-111. Some leaves,
analysed in detailed diagrams, reveal nothink: I(..;s Illan a perfect
occurrence of counterpoint in the ratios and ~)~-ollo~-rions
t o which
thc vcins are arranged to the left and to thc rig111 4 1 1 r l ~ stem.
c
There arc in particular a number of fundamc,u~;~l
occurrences in
naturc of' the riumber seven. There are seven rrrws in the periodic
table of clcnicnts (hydrogen, helium to Aourint., Ilcbc,n to chlorine,
argon t o brol~~inc',
krypton t o iodine, xenon tr) ,I.,~;LI
ine, and radon
to element l 1 7). A slightly different way of o r d c ~ , i the
~ ~ gelements is
t o give the t w o r;irc-earth series basically thcit- own rows in the
table, but still we find that this gives us scvcn rows of stable
elements, these rows beginning respectively with hydrogen, lithium,
sodium, potassium, rubicliurn, cesium and hafnium. The seven rows
of the periodic table of clcnicncs arise out of the fact that a number
of different elements tend to display similar physical properties, and
are therefore listed together. ( T o give an example: helium, neon,
THE PHYSICS OF T H E O M
229
I \ v ~ l ~ i ( . ;reactions.)
~l
1 11
1l111y;
I i A R M O N I C PRINCIPLES IN
I'SYCHOLOGY OF MAN
THE NATURAL
I begin to understand more deeply thr rs.vence of our art (music) and it.$
cdtmtntal Power over the hirvrnr~saril, /Man, being a creature of nature
and subject to the cosmic itrf1rtmr.c.r /Illz/ inform all earthly beings, must
~ir~cc/.rhave been under the .srtlrly uf't/)rl/ mu.ric from his earliest dqs;
l,/i organism reverberated wit/, it.; oibrdtion and received its rhyrhtlrir-
- Bruno Walter
trtrlrr11se.r.
'I'!I~.
1111rsva1s
and harmonic.; of nlusic, mirroring the geometry t r f I 11r
I ~ c . , r v c - ~ i \ may
,
also be prc.;cnt 111 some mysterious way within 1101
I I I I I ~l l ~ l~hysical
r
form of man, but also within the patr crllk*I 11 III.,
I ~ ~ y c l i o l o gIty .has oftcn been pointed out, and evcri c ' l l t l ~ r . 1 ) o l b k . .
wrictcn on the sl~bject,that the architecture of prrviotl*. I I I I I ~ - . I I I I ~ Y I
tll\l~l.~yrcl
r;~tiosand proportions such as arc fnuntl ~ I 1111I
1 1 1 1 1~ \ .II~.
III
rl1114c.I:rnm the constructions of ancient (;rc.c-~c. 1 1 1 I 1 1 t t . . (
I 111.
I I I I ) I * ~ . recent ~iiedieval and Gothic pcricl[l\. ~ I I ~ . I ( . r..ul*.l
III.III~
111
s.1111l~1t.e
of
I II
t , s t t l ~ (,,I,/, , r r t , /
2 3.2
the W o r d was God ... A l l things were made by him; and without
him was not any thing made that was made.
~ l l i l l matter
~:
and dynamic energy, 1-1I - I I . , '1r1ill11.1.' ( X I I I ~ I ~ Cwith
S
t h ~
1 1 1 illlcval Celestial Waters of the a n c i r ~lil:ylfli.~~~s.
~~
f<y 'c!yn;~nlic
tl,~.~c'
is meant God made rnanifcst; IT~(';II>~IIJ;
1111.
. L I ( . S ~ ~f
( ~ Ithc
~I
Word into the Celestial Waters. Tllc tlrscrnt 01 IIII',V I I , I - ; I I ~ W I~O ~ C V
/:ivcs rise, at its different frequency-lrvrl.;. I r ) ,111 I l ~ r~ . i ~ ~ ~
I lil'lcrent forms of energy. But the imll() l , ~ .
i s , . 111.11 ; i l l IIIV
It I I ~
~ w nenergies represent only the de.frt*~rt
1.
11 O I I I S I I ~ I - ~ I
1 1 1 1 0 matter. These energies represent ~ , I I I 1111.
~ I ~ ~ ~ ! ; ~ tlrn~il'i~.;~.
r<\i~r
of the vibration - from cosmic I.,IYS IIIIOII!:II ',IIIII w.Ivrs ;IS
slrgnetism, electricity, light and heat, :111d~ I I ~ I, 1,1 1 t l i l
,.c 1 1 1 1 1 ~ 1 . I I I ( I
~.tngible,material vibrations.
'l'he realization of the implication o f this rl1;l y provitlt. III(. kr.y 1 1 ,
llnlock the scientific discovery of the agc. Fr)r c i - ~ ~ ; ~1 ,iI cl Il r'%r~lc'l.it
qrl~ools which are said to have preserved int;~cr ~lcr11c.1-11:.
01 I I I ~ .
\ o~
c brigirlal ancient wisdom have this t o say: that thc v i l w ; ~ ~
tloes not move in 'straight lines' - but, in a scnsc, in circlrs. 11
wordS, the W o r d does not forever become progressively 11f.m
vibration. Like the reflection of a ripple off the bank of a pollcl, 111r
vibratory force reaches a point in its 'arc of descent' ;II w l ~ i c l ~
cxtrernes meet, after which the vibrations begin ascending in fi,c.[lrrcrr~v
I , R c ~ to the planes of Spirit. The point of the return is arrivcxl ; I t
Iwtween cathodicity and magnetism. From here on, just as v i b r ; ~ t i o ~ ~
hrought substance into being, even so does it once more carry it out
of being. Thus there exists, it is said, a 'Night Side of Nature' - ;I
rcalm of nature and of force which it is possible for man t o tap, and
in which all the known forces have their opposites. Here, positivc
polarity becomes negative, cold hccon~csheat, and gravity becomcs
gravity-repulsion. Between thcsr two rxtremes. a neutral point can
1,c reachcd, and this provides t l ~ kcy
t
to tht ~racticalapplication of
anti-gravity as well as numerous olhcr developments.
,
The last great unification within physics took place over a century
ago when Maxwell revealed that magnrtism and electricity were
really different apsects of the samc forr,c. It is literally the result of
this unification that today we have television sets, microwave ovens,
and thousands of other inventions. If W C wcre to tap the source of
an even more fundamental unification of forces, the possibilities
would be almost boundless. N o mattcr how mind-wrenching these
possibilities may be, the potential to rc:~lizcthcm follows by straightforward and uncomplex logic oncc i t I > c c o ~ ~possible
~cs
to convert all
forms of energy into any other. The potcnti;~lfor technological
advancement that a grand unificd ficl'l tllcory would open up would
actually be no more magical or mir:~ci~lo~~s
I ~ I ; I I I that opened up by
Maxwell. After all, a television srt or tligi~i~l
watch would have
seemed miraculous to the n i n c t t . c ~ n t l ~ - c c * ~l11;tn.
i ~ ~ ~ ~just
y
as the
~otentialsstemming from a nrw, wic11.r 1111.or~
\ o ~ ~ r just
l d as startling
to us at first. For instance, clrctric~iry , li,:l11 , I I I ~ I 11r;tt would all be
interchangeable with gravip. This we I I I I ~ II I I J I\(. i~ JX bssible to develop
machines for levitation. to cnnvcri gr;1v11y i l l 1 1 li!;l~lor heat, or even
to make gravity from clectricity. il~l(.~,!!y~ . I ) I I I ~ I)c
I transferred
(probably in the form of what modcrn p l ~ y \ i c I .rlls 'gluons') from
higher planes of existence into the physic ;II I ~ I . ~; I ~I I~~vice-versa.
(.
Thus, instant materialization and dcrnnl ( * I . I . I ~I ( ~
II
111' / ,should
be
possible as a matter of course.
+ I . into the
Opening the door for waves of forcc t o ( . I ~ I (Is(.~ly
material world would also enable man to t : ~ l , i l l f i r ~ i r c . sources of
omnipresent energy. Such supplies of infinite., o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i l > energy
rcscnt
would expose as false the very concept that V I I ~ . I . ! : ~ is 'limited' or
that its available supply is 'dwindling'. Therc :II.~.
~.r;~lly
no limits to
what might become possible if ever a grand unil ic ;I[ i c 111 theory were
brought forth. 111rffcct, it would be the 'theory' o I tllc Word itself;
and as the Bible :~J:cmantlyreminds us. ' W ~ ~(;ocl
I I all things are
possible'. All thc cvidcnce seems to tell us th;tt ;III of nature does
indeed f~~nction
by virtue of one fundamentill iorcc. The theory,
then, can be said to bc ;ilre:ady there, just waiting to be plucked from
the tree of abundancc.
Relevant to all of this ;irr the teachings of modern esoteric
schools: that though the univcrsc and its many diverse phenomena
and forms of energy may appear complex, the Creation is in essence
extremely simple. Only two force principles are at work in everyO,
tll~lcncesimultaneously affects
people
..~~I,jccts
placed six hundred feet under ground."'^"'
'['he moon also affects geomagnetic activity o n c:~rrli.;lnd this
I I I . I ~account for at least somr of its docunicntr~linll~lrlicrsovcr lil'c.
11 was reported by Harold L. Stolov xntl A. (;. W . (.:;~lnc.rol~i t 1
1064 that their analysis of 3 1 years of d ; ~ trrvc;~lr(l
:~
; I I I :tvr.l,:isr 01' ;I
I I ~ I per
I ~ cent decrease in geomapcric :~ctivity tl~lt.in~!
111rS ~ V ~ tI.~ys
I I
I~rcccdingthe f d moon, and a four per crnt :Ivrr;l!!r i11c rv;I.;c t l u l . i ~ ~ { :
111cseven days following the full moon. 11iot1,1:h 1111-.~(. 10111- prr i.(*tit
li!:urcs may not seem large, a statisticill ;~li;ilvsi\\IIOW\ 111.11 III(.Y
II;IVC 'a less than five per cent probability ot' I i ; ~ \ ~ i i ~( j, I: ( I I I . I - I ' ~ ~ I ) y
r JI:ILIC~
alone.94
The planets are much farther away from r:~rthth.~n1111. 111111111,
,tnJ sonne are at a far greater distance from us t h ; u ~cvclt ll\r .;r111, Y c-I
I llcre is strong evidence that they too exert an influencr c)vcnl.rvc-l~l'i
t 11c
I 111 eartlh. J. H. Nelson demonstrated over 30 years :tgr) I 1i:11
l)o~itionof the planets it is possible to predict changrss in 1I1r clln,
which in turn affect the earth's magnetic field, thus spoilin!: r;ltlio
~rceptions.~The alterations in earth's magnetic field ;~lstI ;I f'l'rrt
living creatures. Nerve activity, for example, is known to hr sul~tly
1111luencedby all such changes. Also, as the planets move arouncl in
tllcir orbits, corresponding variations have been found t o take pl;~ce
i l l the electrical potential of t r ~ c s . ~ "
Regarding human beings - ; ~ n dapproaching closer to the subject
OS astrology proper - Michxcl G a i ~ ~ u e l has
i n conducted a series of
*.~;~tistical
surveys over a numhcr of decades into the correlations
llrtween character and the astrologic;tl conditions at birth. His
I'indings have been widely rcportcd, and the reader may well be
I:~tttiliarwith them already. Thc most important of them are sumil in his book, The Cortrtit- Cloc.~,s."'Briefly, Gauquelin found
o be strong statistici~lct)rrcl;~rionsbetween the astrological
present at birth and t t ~ tr ype of profession later taken I I by
~
111, ii\licluals. For example, pllysici;~nsand medical doctors rendtd t t I
II.IVI. I,rm born when Mars or Sitturn had either just risen or li:~tl
. ~ t r . ~ i ~ l to
r t I their highest posit ion in the sky. O n the other Ii;~ncl.I I I ~ .
. I ~ I it. I ~ ~ > f e s s i oincluding
ns,
musicians, painters and writrr.:. I r.tl~lrcl
111 11 1 0 I~lrnishindividuals who had been born at such tin~c-~.
A ~;',III~:
)111itc,ri l l thc birth sign tended to be found in thr 11i1-I 11 11.11 I , , I 11
1" ,111 ic.i;~~ls
and soldicrs, but rarely in those of scicnt i \ t <
'
i6.l
.' 11,
All 111ismay mean that there is, after all, something to astrology.
liut is there any evidence that the astrological influences of the
I ~ c ; ~ v ebodies
n l ~ work in some way that is related to vibration, or to
:I sort of celestial music?
Perhaps there is. From the study of our
own planetary body we do know that it is possible for planets to
'chime' like a gigantic musical instrument. Seismographs first
revealed that the earth 'rings' with deep vibrations when the
powerful Chilean earthquake of 1 9 6 0 was noticed to have sent
oscillations throughout the sphere, the 'chime' being reduced in
'volume' by a half every two days. Of course, these vibrations were
far deeper than could be heard as audible sound, having a wavefrequency of li 3.1 and also 54.7 minutes. Since 1960 many other
chimes, more subtle in volume, have been recorded on these same
two pitches. (Interestingly enough, these pitches of the earth are
twenty octaves below the audible range of man, whereas the tone of
the atom is twenty octaves :thovc i t ; rllus the hearing of man is
placed mid-way bctwccn tllr wo~.l~ls
of t l ~ cn1;tcrocosrn and those of
the microcosm.)'"
it would be quite conIf other planc~s.ilso L ~ I ~ II I II I111is
( . I:tsl~iol~,
ceivable for tl1c*111
I(
I : l ( l i . t ~r (-11.1
t I I )nl.t!:rit.i i t v il~rittionsof extremely
low frequency ;rcross 111t. v o i t i . 111us inciu~~in!:1.c.sonatlce and harmonics in cnch orlirr. (:t.rt;ti~~ly
rllc pl;tncts :Irr ' i l l c ol~tact'with one
anothcr in rill 11i);llrrr;tngcs of' tlir electronl;~~:~lrr
i t spectrum, since
radiatiom of radio ;~ntlother waves. Yet
each srncl O I I I l)owc.rf;~l
there art rvrn inilic;t~ionsthat incredibly deep vil)r;ttions in the freqilency r:tn!:ca of only one wave per forty seconil~(111c;tningthat the
W;IVCS i11.c 1 ~ 1 c . 1 1 s('vc11million miles long) travrl tl~roughthe flux of
space."" 11s yr.[. tl~cscwaves are still cloaked in n~ystrry.
Thr sun i~sc.IS11;tsbeen described as a 'grr;tr nltlsical instrument'
by Dr M:trtin Pomerantz of the Bartol Rcsr-;trch Foundation,
Newark, I)cl:tw;~~.c..
I>r Pomerantz and others 1i:tvc detected oscillations on the .;IIII'S surf;tce which they bclicve originitte from acoustic
or vibratory w;tves inside the fiery sphere. Eighty overtones or
different kinds of vihr;ttion have been observcd. with periods of
from two to eight rnint~t~s.
These oscillntions. :IS well as the radio waves of space, have been
transposed into audihlc sollnd. The results, though interesting,
cannot really be said t o correspond with music as we know it.
However, Saturn's magnetosphere produces waves which, when
transposed into sound, have been described as 'a slow, dreamy
melody'. When Voyager 2 drew dose to the ringed world it ~ i c k e d
)
237
"11
111.11
.l
IH
Perfect Octaves:
units of distance
from Mercury
Mean Orbits:
;ictual units of
distance from Mercury
Mercury
Venus
1 .l
Earth
Mars
3.7
Asteroids
Aplwox
Jupiter
16
16
Saturn
32
30.j
Uranus
64
62.6
Neptune
Pluto
( 6 4 X 1+=96)
98.9
128
130.1
239
1111-~risclves
with the observation that, 'It is probably a mere
tttl~~cidcnce'!In fact, a science based upon m;lterialism can say
~llttl~ing
else, no matter how many morc pl;tnrts 11li#l11.yrt be
lI16.(1,vcredin accordance with the Law. (Thr d;iv lipon which thc
Y I',~ctor'of God is finally admitted and rrincc~rpor:~lccl
Il;~ckinto
IIII. scientific outlook of man will hr a siKniiic;~nrr l ; ~ y indrccl.
I'rrhaps no event more than this will sipn;~lrhr ii>rni;~l
;lrr.iv;~lo f lhc
1\1l11;1rian
Age, in which religion is to hc mrlrcs scic-ntil'ir,, ;111dsci~ni.(religious, for the perfect wedding o1'tIir I WO.)
1111,r.c
llode's Law concerns itself with the distan1.c.s 0111 I'ro~iiM c.rcl1l.y
~ I rllc
I orbits of the planets; but therc may ;il'ic, rxisr olhrr. I~:~rl~lonicI lws. unnoticed by astronomers, which conccrn t l ~ c u cl~c.c.tI.~
111 r l l c
Itl.~~lrts'
movements around in their orbits. Litcr;~lly.tIi~.\v.;l~c.c.tls. O I I
I 111- harmonic level, would represent the planets' pitcl~-l't.c.cl~~c.~~~
in. 11
I I I . I ~ therefore be the case that when planets comc i r l l c , C O I I ~ I I I I I1 i o 1 1
w 11 l1 one another (i.e. become arranged in a more-or-lcss cr ~.II,I;III
I I I 11.
l:,ulig out from the sun) that 'chords' are produced. Wh;tr is ir~rvrc*s~
III,I!
in this respect is that a number of regular planetary cc~njl~rj<~ion.;
t . 1 1 ~over particular periods of time which, in their ratios 1.0 C:I,.II
1*111rr,
reflect with considerable accuracy the ratios of length wliic.li
. I I I- rlccessary to produce the diatonic notes of an octave.
This is best illustrated in diagrammatic form. Figure 3 shows ;I
I I I I ~representing an octave, divided into seven intervals by cieht
'
#lt
IIIII.~I~
4 0
.'.II)
I I I I I I ~cli;igram,
~
the numbers below the line, beginning with 24 on
I I I ~Icli, show the numbers of years involved; while above the line
.II.C ~llciicatedthe conjunctions of each planet with the sun and the
c;rrth; the planets involved being represented as two- and three-digit
rlumbers. These numbers indicate the number of conjunctions which the
planet has made with the sun and the earth within that time period.
(Since these would always be bound to occur as the two planets
continue in their orbits, they are not statistically important.)
T o take Jupiter as an example then, it encounters a conjunction
with the sun and the earth every 398 days. This being a little more
than a year, it means that Jupiter comes into conjunction eleven times
every twelve earth-years. .4s it happens. each eleventh conjunction
takes place virtually exactly every twelve years. and so we can see
that Jupiter appears on the diagram at the 24th-year, 36th-year and
48th-year points. What is more, every 2 4 years it comes into conjunction nct only with the earth, hut ,~lsowith Mcrcury and Venus,
making a four-planet line-up. 'Twclvc ycb;lrslater, on the 36th-year
point, Jupiter encounters ;i conjullrtio~~
riot only with the earth, but
also with the main portiol~of t l ~ r,i*.rrroicl hclt. Then, finally, as
shown in the right of thc di,cgr,tni, 1111. ~ + X I I Iyc;tr sces the rcpetition
of its conjunction with M c r c ~ ~ r; y~ n dV C I I I ,I I~I .I ~thc completion of
the octave.
Only further statistical evaluation i ~ ~ l eilc.tc~~lninc
!
whether or
not this table of data is open to criticism o n I wrr points which occur
to one in looking at it. Firstly, the data wo~lltlllrrtl to be examined
statistically in some detail before its real worrl~01 significance could
be known, since possibly such conjunctioli.; would always be
expected to occur, through chance. Seconrtly. t11(- tl;~taused is from
the standard astrological tables. However, .;II~.II data is earthoriented. including only conjunct~onswith t h c c.;tl.tl~,wherras there
secrns no obvious reason why significant cor~j~l~~ciions
excluding
earth. such as could be gleaned (at length) Ilom astronomical
sources, S~IOLIICI not also be included in the schrn~c-.
Yet, nevertheless,
the alignrnrnls ;ire at the very least thought-provoking. being most
suggestivr o f ;I sc.rirs of cosmic chords.
Experiments such as those with Chladni plates or with Hans
Jenny's tonoscopc leave us in no doubt as to the potential which
sound vibrations possess to take undifferentiatcd substances and
instantly organize thrrri into regular forms. From there it only
requires one step of the imagination to understand how vibrations of
a much lower frequency (such as the seven million miles long
electromagnetic waves mentioned above) or of a much higher fre-
241
c 1
S.
1
1
74.2
243
,\ k i r ~ t of
l sound as when you tear silk ;
I { I I ~ ~ I ,, I S from a stream;
I I.~l>l>i~~g,
as a flag before the wind ;
, ~ ~ t ~ hissing,
i n g , as from flames:
I(o,tring, as from a storm;
\,VIlispcring and glistering.
w l , tllings
are noticeable from tllrsr cIc.;c.~.i~~lio~~*..
1;iry.l. 111(-ir
~ ~ ~ t . ~ ~
1111ll.1ri1y
with each other, which suggrxts [II:II 1111.I ~ l t r ~ r ~ o is
,l,,r.tr ivc, and not a figment of thc i m ; ~ s i n ; ~ ~.i\ (o- t~. o~n t.l , I )I(.
. I ~ l t ~ ~ l of
, ~ rthese
i t y descriptions with thc kincl OI ~ I I I I I I111.11
~ ~ 11.s111la
~ V I I ( . I I c!learomagnetic waves in spacc are pickrtl 1111 . I I I ~ I ~ I I I I V I . I I ( . C ~
I I I I~ I ~ o u n dthrough a synthesizer ! Perhaps in sc )rnr ,,I I..II\!:I+
W , Iy I 111.
I I I I ~ I ~ : L makes it possible t o hear the eternal whispc.rin!: . I I I ~I .~O . I I I I I ) :
( I 5 1 3 ; ~ ~It. is not at all impossible for ele~troma~ncti5111
~ 1 1 1 r r - 1 Iuw I I 1
t rrli~cnaturally converted into audible air vibration.;. I ;c rr. , I III~III.,
.I ~ttlmberof reported sighting5 of meteors and mctcorirc.s .t1.1.
1111
I
crrd where the observer first had his attention dl.;iwll t o 1111.
a,l~c.ctacle
by a rushing or roaring sound from the burning Ilcrtly. Yt.1
~~tr-tcors
are usually seen at such a great distance that it w o ~ ~ l111.
(l
~r~!~ossible
for ordinary sound-waves to arrive at the ol)sc.~.vr.r'.~
I~,\itionat the same time as the visible light .. unless the ol>.;crvc.l.
wc.rr. hearing electromagnetic waves which had somehow I,rrl~
I l.;~nslated
into air vibrations in his locality.
A lengthy scientific paper by Charles R. Wilson in the Jorrrnnl o/'
(,'ropbysical Research of April 1969 provides support for the ide:~
III;IL the aurora is related to frecjurncics of sound which man cannot
t ~ c ~ r n ~ ahear.
l l ~ Recording and ;in;llysing infrasonic waves at
(:allege, Alaska, Wilson found their structure to be related to the
I imc and space distribution of the s~ipersonic
auroral motions during
I ~ ~ lmagnetic
;~r
substorms. Kitpid :iuror;ll motions accompany thc
I)~~c;tk-ii~
phase of magnetic s ~ ~ h s t o r nand
~ s , it was then that t l ~ r
.
were observcil r o occur. Wilson was able to vcril'y
i~~I.r;~.;onic
waves
~uroralellectrojets gencr;ttc. the infrasonic shock waves."" 'l'l~r
I , then, seems to be ;tssociated with acoustic frcquc.ncit*\
In, I,clow :m d above thr r;lllgc of the human ear.
I
.- by ultrvsonic and infrasonic wavrs, ~lO1lll.I 11
/ \ PI;IIIC':
111c.ni!?(.ingrclated to thc cyclrs of the sun and the plnnr.~.;. . .
'I'hc occasional translation into audibility nf ; I C O I I ~ ; I I ( 1 1 1 r l
vil)r:~tor~
evcnts normally beyond the range of hti111;11l
l1v.11III!! I I I . I Y
.tI.;o hc rcsponsiblc for the large number of nr11c.r .,I I .III!:I.
IIIII~I*,J I I
1 1 t ( - air which are reported from time to tin11.. \ I I I I I rt.lll,lfb,,111.
11-t
1.t
..l
o ~ ~
' 1.1
245
I,
n
1.
' n ~ ~ l
)111111
I ' ~ . .11it1
1 1
I I
~l' l
(01
1111
I~I!:
v 1 l l l l l ~ ~
I(,
THE PHYSICS OF T H E OM
I I., I I I I C , I ~ I O I I
(by loose tooth fillings and the like) of the pulsc111ocli11,tted
signal. A peak of electromagnetic powcr density of as
IOW '45 400 microwatts per square centimetre at the observer
W e shall not discuss here the
could be perceived '1s sound
possible mechanisms for electrophonic hearing, but perhaps the
electromagneticwaves act direc~lyon the brain [my italic^].'^^
...
Would not such signals also act upon the brains of those who could
not hear them? Perhaps it is time for the invention of a portable
anti-radio-wave body shield. But in the meantime we are going to
have t o live with thirty o r forty simultaneous transmissions of pop
and punk coursing through our blood, bones and brain. Which
brings us directly back t o the subject of music and its power .
..
247
r l I . ~ I I Icmtury.
I
W h o can say what scientific dicr.ovcrics are yet
grl~l~,?
I \ I I I ~ I ( - 1I1 1t1;~nneeds t o treat music with a grcatcr rc.sprct. Mlisic is
#I I r l l ~ I I .:incl vibration is the energy of thc Suprr.nic-. 1,ikc liuclc~r
which can be used t o destroy an rntirc city, 01. to ('11111isI1;l11
, ~ ; y requirements of that same city, musir I O O is ;L 11n1tt;tl
.lnd its ultimate effects, for good o r cvil, 111,ly 1101 IIC ;l1 .l11
- 1 1 s . ~ ~ ~in
~ their
I I ; ~potency
r
t o those of nuclenr c.ncr!:y. O n l y m;ln can
. I ' I,!V IIOW music is t o be used; and thus, pcrlinp.;, tlr.i.~tl(. ;II,II wll;lr
1 1 1 - I rwll ~ ; I C Cis t o be. As w e treat the energy of t11r . I I O I ~ I . will1 ~:I.~.;II
114. -tnd caution, so too d o w e need to handlc ni,~sic.111 ~ l i c - l i 1 1 ; t l
is. we should strive t o realize more fully, it .;(.t9~ns,
tl1.11 w l i ~ r ~
;tl with sound we are dealing not merely with 111(. c.r~c.l.~:ic.~
of
r, nor only with the art of mortal minds, but wit11 ( ; o t I .
4,111'
CONCLUSON
W e have seen that wave-forms, whcther nudiblc o r otherwise, are a
far more important phmomr.nnn than is usually recognized. The
information w e have lookcd at ;llso strol~glysi~ggcststhc objective
reality of the OM, its link with astrology. ; I I I ~its actual ability to
affect matter o n earth. All this 11;~s( ' I I O I . I I I O ~ I ~implications for the
r Oh1 is that
musician and music-lover. This vcry 5;irnc. ~ ~ o w ocf~the
which was said to be contained within ,111 . 1 1 1 c l i l 7 l c ' solind. Chladni
the power of
plates and tonoscopes demonstrate n l o s t ,t:r;~~~liic:~lly
music to organize and re-organizc suhs~;~ncc.\
.~it,ordingt o the tones
produced. All this leaves us not vcry 1-ts A I ;III from thc idea that
some music is objectizrely good and somc n~usir-ohj~rtivelybad or evil.
(Once. passing by a crowded dance hall wl~c.l.c.rock was being
played, I could not help perceiving the floor I 11 thr I1;t11 in terms of a
world like the
Chladni plate, and the danccrs appeared f1)1.. l 1 1
j u m p i v , hclplcssly manipulated grains of s:~ntl.)
Consiciering that Western man only emrrl:cll ;I k w decades ago
frclm thr. ninctcenth-century style 'little p r ; ~ n ~ ~ l oc rs ' 'tiny coiled
springs' thcorics of the atom, the fact t h ; ~ tr l ~ rearliest rccorded
civilizations wcrc already aware of the in.;uhstantial, vibratory
nature of mattcr can only leave us awe-struck. Whence came this
knowledge? Whcrc., ;tnd how long ago did it first arise?
Whatever thc ;InSWer, that the ancicnts possessed such
knowledge makes clnr thing clear: that it would be most unwise for
us t o dismiss other aspccts of the ancient wisdom such as those
appertaining to the inncr powcr of music. It might be said that our
current understanding of the real nature and ability of sound is as
yet in the same kindergarten stage as was the physics of the
1 1 1 ( 8
/\I
Notes
'11 was the particular hallmark of thc god, M a r d ~ k ' s , ~ o w that
e r hc
~ ) u l dcausc objects t o vanish and to be crcated by his words. This
other gods asked him t o clcrnonstrate as they spread out a
!;:krmcnt in front of him. Thcn, 'As Mnrdnk uttered the word, the
g;rrrnent disappeared; and ag;~illhc spoke, and, behold, the garment
w ; ~ there.'
s
I
I X I W C ~the
Appendix to
6.
The Mystery of Pythagoras' Comma
11
249
4 11
111
r I 1 I
111
10
'
l![\
'I'I~(,l~t:ll
~ h comma
c
may be a symbol of the imperfection of man's
rrf:~lsticte, the very same comma
provides the way
11.11 Ic r o the original state of perfection. For the comma is not a slight
lesr than seven octaves, but in excess of them. In the ancient
~rl~c~rval
world this fact was widely conceived as a symbol of renewd. The
and finish a cycle o f seven
c.yclc of twelve perfect fifths did not
octaves, but exceeded it, and thus, as it wcre, spiralled upward.
There is cvidencc that this upward spiral of renewal was mystically
associated with the widespread ancient myth of the
the
archetypal 'bird' which is resrlrrcctcd from its o w n ashes.
Pythagora.;' corntna, then, can be Seen as being God's o w n engram
writtcn into the very laws of the universe and of physics. And it is
by thc nature of this engram that man is heir to the promise of
cvcntual resurrection and ascension our of thc dim caverns of mortality.
~ OftC'rl
;
wrestled
~
~
with
~
the
Through the ages civilizatiorls J
riilcrnma o f whether to put up sit11 ilrllx'r~c:ctmusical pitchcs while
retaining pure idealism in thcir sysrc.nl
I'itc]~-calculation,or else t o
ideal by taking the
depart a little from alienrncnt wirll t \ , , . Ilc.:~vrnl~
~ r a c t i c a path
l
of slightly a d j r ~ s t i l lr I~l c . i l Il,,tc.s in order t o harmonize
them. Though there were indi~,iJll:tl li!:lirc*s who dissented, the
ancirnt cultures
optcd, ill ~ll(.iritIc.;~Iisni,for heavenly
alignment at the expense of having sliKI1tIFimlx~rl'cctrelationships
century AD the
betwecn their notes. However, by the sr.v~.ntc.c.l\~li
Wcstcrn world had begun its mLry into t l l ~I,l.c.s(-nt era of science
and logic. This era was marked not only
;ru ;trritude of overn~atcrialism,but also by a most useful p r a g n l . l t i ~ ; ~ ~.I.llis
~.
pragmatism
cntcrcd into the debate on tuning, and
c,,lltlovr.rsy heightened:
should man opt for hcave~ilyperfection
I I I I I \ ~ ( . ; I ~inharmony, o r
for :I dcphtrture from abstract idealism for r l l r . s.~kc.of expanding
music's l i ; l ~ n o n i cpossibilities? ( ~ l on~ tIlr
~ ,wry down-to-earth
level, thc (.on<trl~ction
of instruments such as Itcvl)oards according t o
the Frccct1[\ of' idcalism was proving insupct.;~I)lyproblematic in
somc aspect.;: :I grr:it many more keys were tlc.ccssary in order tv
incorporate the 1ii;111y 'extra' notCS CrCateLl a cycle of perfect
fifths.)
The idea of ~ I ; I I I ' \ ini\'~rfcctState being rcl.\tcd to a tonal rnisalignment with thc Ahovc was widcsprcad in the poetry of thc
seventeenth century Clcn~cntPaman wrote:
1111
.#
al~!:~n
:,S
10
211
;~ssoci;ttcman's tonal
1t~1111.l
1.
?
m
ffi
.I
Coda :
The Ancient Wisdom Revisited:
The Modern Esoteric Viewpoint
'r )l), please, Master, will you tell us all about t hc Ikc .;i'
ironically naive question if ever therc w;ts (III(.!YCI 111c
c.r smiled benevolently at the chela (disciplc), c ,111 , I IIIIIII(II.OII%
I
111k1r
of the eye betraying his inner reflections.
'Wcll, I cannot tell you all about them,' he c;~rrl;~llv~ ~ c ~ ~ l l i r ~ ~ l .
1 1 1 1 1 11 you have reached a very high Initiation. Will you li;~vc.wl1.11I
1(.11 you, which will be partial and inevitably misleading, t r r w~ll
,,
witit until you can be told the whole thing?"06
/\I)
F$ l
18,r
tt
d.,,,
l111
Ilc.
. r ~ ~ k l
Id
CODA
210
2j7
114
14 111
11
411
1111
i'inf.
Hr.irt
-- -
.--
p-.
:<:F::.
L:,
L,.;;-.-
;... .~
...
I I I V I N E FREEDOhl-
Minirtratinn, ~ r r v i c c .
~ C ~ I ~ P I C < S ~ C <hdrnllc~snrss
\.
DIVINE PEACE.
abundance
SCIENCE:
Truth, healing, divine visinn,
DI\'!NE
<l~,irtt:,.~cc..tit-~ti
(:1.7,.,:?:
.
.
- 2 .
,-F
.- . .- - . . ,-,.--
D I V I N E \,trlSDOhl
D l V l N E \YII,L:
Ornnipotcncc. pcrlci:tio:1.
prurection. faith
<
\~lfi\ht~ci\,
Crete, Grccce
11,
Saint Cicrnl~il;
~ r a n s v l v a n i a .R n m a n i ~ 2nd
.
T ~ t b l chlounrain in
Tcton Range. I t ' y o m ~ n p .
lJSA
Nada:
Saudi Arabia
Emotion21 ti~rbulcncr,
h~occntricity.<oct.~lc l i q ~ ~ c s .
gnngs, ww;cr, i'rec ~:Ivc,
disruption of f a ~ n i l y,ind
community life
:*
H ilarion :
absrnce of nlnnifesr
works, lack
5otrtllrrn 1:r;cnc.c
P.~itlrllr \'c.i~'tiicn
I l ' y o c ~ i n g .US24
L*llltr>.
Gr.inJ T r t o n . T c r t ~ nI<angc.
El M o r y a :
Darjceling. India
the Clirist-conbciousnos of
t h r r;iy a t this tirnr; l o c a t i ~ ~ n
of thcir retreats"
C h o h ~ no r Lord f o i u s i ~ i ~
C I \ ~ ; I y- , I ~
hurran .)
n p a r h y . \~-1liu,4li1>.
H.,l,.*r11s.:~.
F! --.:Y !,,.!,:.
- . F : I ~ A :l,)y;c,
I
. . ..~-.r
,. :C I , <
- ---,. . -?<..<.-. , ,,~r,.~,,.
- . .. . .
.
!n*-c~x:~<i,~n.
,int~bc
L .
lrr offices of r h r wvcn Ctloh.:n\ 01 rhe rn)? *re pn\lrii,n\ In thc hierarchy of the (;rent \ % i t ~ R ~ ~ ~ t h e r h owhich
n d h,~\.<crrhrrJ srnis: r l n c
n.,mcc i,f conlr ci the grcaf souls whvsc ~ttainmrnth;is qual~frrdthem to rlrhody rtlrtr pwitions ~t [hi\ tltilc drc .n.clLknw.n
>:ud:nti i1f:hc
- --r~.hT\ ~ l the
f scvcn Chohnns art. ldrgclr focutcd un the crhcr;' planc of hcing, but thcy al\o includc concc'~lcdFhy\'cai .~sfccrs I r I \ the rc>plln:?"-ne r l i thr Choh;~nsro ovcrsrr anli direcr thc acritrities occurrtng on cach rxy at aU levds of hcinp t h r ~ u ~ h r ~
thc
u !r!atlct.[ry hr~dy
~c
#g\
Pwplc aijd
Gold
.9(11:u. plcxus
Grccn
Third c y r
Ycllow
Crown
Blue
Throat
Corresptrnding
colour
Chakr.t o r
ccutre which
sustains rhc
trrqucncy of
rhc ray in
the Anammv
oi nl.tn
nu.
Kay
?(I()
CODA
26 1
llornberg delved deeply into the Old Testament and into the
..,,~l.ilist
teachings of Swedenborg. W h a t influcncc this had upon his
bIl*vc.lopmentof the revolutionary technique of scrialism w e can only
c tl~~jecture,
but it must have been considerablr. Tt is an alnlost
l ~ ~ ~ i v c rfeature
sal
of students of the esoteric, and understandably so,
I ~ I . I I their studies assume prime importance over almost anything clse
111 tl~cirlife, and certainly in their inner life of intuition and intellect.
('I'lrc standard kind of biography which is written about composers,
.I<.well as othcr great figures such as politicians, writers and scicnII*,IS,
continually neglects to note this vital factor. Whenever the
I t*c.ord shows that a musician studied esoteric matters (and someI IIIICS when the record does not show it!) we can in fact be sure that
studies were of at least equal importance t o him as his music.
I II('SC
/ \ I I ~t herefore esotericism will have lent itself greatly t o the shaping
01 his personality and his artistic style.)
rollowing in the footsteps of Schoenberg, the other serialists
wcbre also esotericists. Webern studied, among other things, cab11;~listicnumerology. Josef Hauer (1 88 3-19 59) was a Rosicrucian
ilriliate who saw each note of the scale as havi.ng its own particular
-q)iritual effect, and thus devised his note-series in order to group
I l~cseeffects into particular sequences. Other well-known musicians
I1;tve also reflected various esoteric doctrines or aspects of occultism
i l l thr:ir works, among these being Olivier Messiaen ;ind C;irl Orff,
l
.tnd even, in certain pieces, Sergei Prokofirv i ~ r ~ c P;tul
~
~..i l n a e m i t h . ' ~As for the contemporary ;Iv;tnr j:;irtl(+, I I I ~ . draw
I I o r rhcir works.
111orethan ever upon esotericism 3s tllc f;
I I I O I I ~ ~their own particulnr hritncl 01'
~ I I I ' 11;~slittle in
c)lllrl,on with the genuine ;trric.lc. *1'11(. 0 1 1
rp1111 Cage is very
1,trj;cly oriented around his ~IV;II-%C*II
~ ~ l ~ i l o ~(cvolved
o ~ ~ l ~ after
i~s
.ling the lectures of thr Zcmn M:I\I1.1. I ). T. Suzuki, for several
Ils during the 1940s). l'111. nlohl rcccnt major work by
I\ . I ll~rinzStockhausen, entitlccl .\/ri~iu,w;is released in an LP format
( w i t 11 .i tmver very much 01' 111~.I l< music style) accompanied by
~ I ; I , I ; V ;lItcr page of metaphysic.;tl !:il>l)i.rish written by the composer,
,tttc.\ti~~!:10 how his latest prr,dr~ction reflects the Music of the
Sl)llr*rrs;IIIJ
the sacred tones rclcased by the astronomical body of
I
tillc.
'l'hcsc 1lI;iny distortions of the genuine principles of esotercism arc
111o\i 11111;)rti11l;~te
for, as Mozart, Beethoven and others have
11~.11ionrlr;itccl,
nlctaphysics and mysticism are capable of providing a
11c.111cndor1s
fount of creativity. But this is true only for those who
l-
'
262
I l l
~i
I
I
~i
l
I
,
I'
I.
l:~'
I
l
l
CODA
263
1; ;
11
,1
'
~ 111
~1
'
l
'
'
!~
ll
Ill
; l
2 64
around 1920 that Cyril Scott was, 'undoubtedly the richest harmonist we [the British] possess'.'10 In Debussy's estimate, Scott
was, 'one of the rarest artists of the present generation'.
Besides possessing the aforernentioncd talents, Cyril Scott was also
an accomplished conductor, a lecturer. a translator, and a writer on
.music. In addition to this, at the agc of 2 1 he began writing verse,
and became well known thereafter as A poet. His first published
collection of verse, The Shadows of .Filenre and the Songs of Yesterday, ' l 1 came out during his early twentirs, and reflected what was
then his rather pessimistic outlook of agl~osticism.The second, The
Grave of Eros and the Book of Mozrrnful Mdodies, l I 2 was written
during what he later called, not altogcrl~rrseriously, his 'decadent'
phase. However, he went through this pll;~sronly half-heartedly,
and without conviction. This phasc W;IS 1 1 ) c ~ abruptly
~ d
upon his
. ~.
discovery of Theosophy and Indixr
~ l l y Inde
.
cd, it would be
difficult to conceive of a morc g r ~ r
])l(. t11;111 t:he life of Cyril
Scott following his finding 01' 1 1
11 wisdoln in order to
demonstrate the close rrl;ctionsIiip 111.11 II.I\ ofirti prevailed in
,11111 I I I I I ' , ~ .~
modern times between esc~tcsici\t~~
According to Scott himself. hc W;IS c - v r ~ l r ~ contacted
~ ; ~ l l ~ directly
-l~
and
by the Great White Brothcrhoocl, :~ncl i ~ ~ t i t t l : ~ l c sponsored
guided by them in the production of mur.l~t r l 11;sn1.llill.r musical and
literary works. Already hailed by Eugrnc (,oo.;rns .IS the 'father of
British modern music', Scott now turnccl ; t l \ o I ( I 11r writing of
books; books on esotericism and alternacivc. ir~rcli~.i~~c'
,. He was , too,
the author of the series of three 'Initiate' hot4.ca,wl~ic
41 :ire still! very
well-known among csoteric circles. Thcsc wr.l.c. Iwnnea1 anonymously by Scott, using autobiographical mntrri.11j:ivc*n to him by an
unnamed poet. The first of the three, The Initi,r/r, .Some Impressions
of a Great Sou1113,describes the poet's cncoilr\trrs in England
with a high initiate of the Brothcrhood who ;tccr.pl.rdthe poe.t as his
disciple. The second book, The Initiate in ~ k rhrew W prldl
C 14,
follows the spiritual career and teachings of rhc initiatc in the
United States, and in the third volume this initiate of the Great
White Brotherhood again returns to the British Isles, after many
years of absence.
Some have doubtcd the veracity of these three immensely
readable and steadily popular books, considering them to be fiction.
But certainly Scott himself maintained that the books are factual
accounts of episodes in the life and teachings of the grrat soul about
whom they were written. Before continuing, what attitude st~ould
we take in regard to Scott's belief that he received ciirect con.tacts
CODA
265
'LLCVI U I
-- -
L (3 0
teachings in the form that they are given out. Therefore, besides the
giving forth of their pure and undiluted words, the Masters have
often taken the course of training disciples to stGP-down their
message and vibration. In the broadest sense, this is literally a stage
in the stepping-down of the frequencies of the Word. The disciples
then promulgate through their line of service the principles of ethics,
morality and spirituality, as well as any more specific concepts
which the times might demand for the betterment of the race. But
they d o so without usually ever revealing the Source of their initial
inspiration. In this way, many chelas of the Brotherhood have
worked throughout history - in the arts, the sciences, and also as
politicians and as the great, moral leaders of men. Many a famous
and important episode of history - such as the American Revolution, which WC discussed earlier, to name but one - has an entirely
different and unrevealed story behind it if the truth were but
known: the story of the causes behind thr cffccts; the story of the
Adrpts of the Great Whitc Brotherhood and thosc historical figures
who were, unbeknownst to thc world, tlir~irchrlas. This has a most
important bearing upon our sttldy o i t l ~ csccrzt power of music. For
the story of the prcat music ol' ;111cicnttin1c.s. and also that of the
Western classical tradition - oi w h : ~;~~ c ~ u ; ~inspired
lly
it and of
where much of it really camc fro111- r~ onr ~ ~ ~ l i goes
z l $ ~ completely
rtnsuspected by all but the few.
And yet, a hint of this story of tlic :11!1- t,:111 Pt'~.I~;ip~
be gathered
from the life and writings of Cyril Scat t
Following his encounter with esntcrir,isn~,S r c ~ ~was
r never the
same person again. Oriental philosophy. " I ' l ~ c + r 1 1 > 1 1and
~
the practice
~;
in life.
of yoga and meditation became his a b t a l ~ i l ~interest
Immediately, from this moment on, s~~ct,c*c.cling
compositions
entered into the realms of mysticism and Orirn1:tlism. From his pen
there now came musical works such the tl inclu-style Jungle B o o k
the darkly magical Sphinx, Lotus-land, the Cl~i?rrse
Songs, and many
more. His third volume of verse, The Voil.c* of the A n ~ i e n t , " ~
displayed a radical change in subject matter ancl cmotional effect, as
did succeeding volumes. Scott's raison d'e"tre as an artist in any
medium was now absolutely goal-oriented towards the highest
purpose and aim in life - the spiritual path.
Where would Scott have taken his stand in relation to the
subjects we have discussed in this book, about the use and misuse of
the power of music? With regard to the artistic directions of the
fellow-composers of his generation, Scott made his position quite
clear. In a hard-hitting but well-argued criticism of the avant-garde,
CODA
1 l.,
267
I'l~~lrlropl!~
of Modernism in its (:nni~rcttni, r<lirh M r t . ~ i c , " Cyril
~
1111
411
'
268
CODA
...
si11(.11
269
CODA
The male rock star, Alice Cooper, says that he took the name after
contacting a discarnate called Alice Cooper during a seance, and
that it is the discarnate who partly takes over his actions and singing
on stage. All said for the sake of publicity? Our answer probably
depends on just how real, or else how non-existent, we consider the
non-physical dimensions to be. Certainly the idea of evil entities
bringng forth new and disruptive forrns of music through their
human channels receives a number of mentions in early Christian
literature. St Chrysostom, for onc, said that: 'lest demons introducing lascivious so& should overthrow cvcrything, God established
the psalms'. Rarely, however, has thr proc9cssof musical revelation
(from one 'side' or the other) hcrn so cxndidly described as in
Scott's book.
Meanwhile, concurrent with thc cpisoclc o f the musical revelation, Cyril Scott was at work 11po11I I I C hook which was first
released in 193 3 under thc rirlr. ' / ' / W Itr/lrrc~t/c.r
of Music on History
this one was released
a n d Morals.1o9 Unlikr. t l ~ rI n i ~ i ~ ~ I)ook\,
rt.
under Cyril Scott's own nllnlr. I I I I ') IH ;l11 11pdated edition came
out, being the still-nv;lil:~l)leAI r r r r r , 11, .\rc rrt lt//lrrence Throughout the.
Ages.' Only in r.1ii.i sr~ontlc - c l i ~ ~ rt )l ~ c~ l Scrhtl 1.c.vca1his belief that
both editions o f ~ I I Chc~ok11:lcl Irrc.11i ~ ~ s ~ ~ i11po11
r t . t l lliln by numerous
and detailed disc~~.isIo~v,
will1 K o o t I l o o l ~ ~I ..II
i
Sillgh. one of the
great Aderrs wl~c)11:1ti ;~lso I>crn hrllir~cl I l ~ rI;)rmation of the
Theosophic.;~lSocirry in thc I;ist quarter oit11r ~ ~ i ~ l r ~ rcentury.
cnth
After ;I Ior~):; ~ l l t l 11.11it1'11l lifC during wliir,l~IIV t 1 . 1 1 l ~pioneered the
reawakeninf: o f 1n;in's awarcncss of thc secrrl Ilowcr inherent in all'
music. Cyril SCOIIp;~sscdfrom this world in 107 1 . And yet, after
all, to ~ U Ir his own lines :
I I I I I I . 11;id been one of the major inspiring factors behind his creative
270
W h a t nrr / / J P r~~nrld'sfoolish
toys, anddeath's ~phmn~rral
sorrows,
rntll~rr,yut by the Endless,fleeter than lyb~?ring'sflashes.'l'
Seerni~~:
Needless to w y , nl:tny among the mainstream of the music world
looked ask:incr ;II these 'eccentricities' of Scott's; his talk of
'Masters', his hooks 011 alternative medicine, esotericism and the
like. Further, it I1,15 I~ccnsuggested that his decline in popularity
after the heady days of his young maturity, when some felt him to
be the father of British modern music, must be directly related to
this 'dissipation' of his t;ilents.
But in an autobiography published at the age of ninety (Bone of
Contention, Aquarian Press, 1969), Scoa discounted this, and
claimed that esotericism, and in particular the Masters who guided
271
I I I I I I N Indeed,
II.
at the age of sixty-five he had made his own
11f.1
\u11a1decision to bring his years of composing to an end; but the
M;~.;rrrs,he says, had urged him to continue, which he did until the
r11t1ol' his life. (At the Masters' own request, Scott recounted, the
III-;T work he next completed was his third opera, Maureen
( 1 'M'ira.)
Certainly it must be said that whatever the source of his inspira-1cse revelations of Scott's arc of major importance in again
jtrating the reality of the influence of esotericism upon music.
. ~
-ver
. our own standpoint with regard to Scott's unusual claims,
I l1;1t he believed them makes the great influence of esotericism upon
llic music undeniable. That a modern composer of such significance
sl~ouldhave felt himself to be in rapport with the legendary Great
Whit e Brotherhood is a quite extraordinary fact. And who can say
I 1l;lt among Cyril Scott's many compositions there are not those
whicln are indeed his transcriptions, to the best of his ability, of the
nspired upon him by the Master Koot Hoomi, and which are
sct reflections of the music of the spheres ?
,as once said of Scott that he was a hundred years in advance
01 ms generation. Perhaps this gives a hint as to the meaning of the
I;iter decades of his life. For while the critics, music publishers and
Iwrformers generally ignored both his early and later work. and
while he more than once felt discouraged and ready to throw in the
rowel, he was prevailed upon by those he believed to be his Guides
ro cont inue composing up until the last. This, even though the works
1"
CLIL ldrgely unpublished snct i~n~trrformed.
ne autobiography Scntt st;ttm that fro111rltr Mnsters' point of
he first thing is to get t h r work writ1c.n; the rest if needs be
lit - sometimes even :IS Ion/: :I\ t i l l ;~fterthe composer's
death'. True it is that many 01 r l ~ c * I I I O ~ . ~f;tnious works of today's
concert: hall repaoire were :IIIIIO!JI , ) t . ~ l l [Inknown during the lives
o f rhosc who brought them Llr111.'I'.tkr most of the works of J.S.
. ,
.
)finished1 Symphony of
rcvived in the 1800s) 01.
cript after h s death) for
r t (discovered as a iii>c;~rtlt
m e forth from his pen, a
P. If Scott's work wns inrlrc,
~lunulrdvears in advance of his );rrlrlauull, it may therefore be most
rntcreslting to ol3serve the corlrsr of events concerning it in years to
come.
....-.-L
W.
L..
272
l11ik11ow11
cnergy is, it radiates from all music;~linsrrumrn~h; ~ r l t lfrom
,111 I l~ingswhich emit sound.
( ) L I T own century has witnesscd the appcarnncr OI I I I , I I I ~ o(.(,l~lt
I
!!~,otrpsand systems of esoteric thought. While many ~ I I I . I ~ I!,i~riil;rr
r.lrments to each other, they also each possess tlirir O W I I cIi~,li~~(.t
It;uures; but a number of these groups, rnovcmcnls , I I I I ~ NI.MJ/Ij:c
writers have had things to say about thc esoteric * > i ~ l Ir, I I I I I I \ I ( . .
I Iuivcrsally, they agree with the beliefs of the a n c i r n ~ .(~111,. , ; I I ~11
New Age writer, Corinne Heline, who was born into t11v I ' I . ~ , I I I ~ I I ( . I I I
I )uke family of America's Old South, wrote c o n s i d c r : ~ l ~O IlI~ I llrwbject. She considered there to be t w o distinct strtams 111 1 1 1 ~I ~ I I I \ ; ~ .
OS the world. Each releases a different tonal force into ~ l r cp l : r r ~ c , ~ .
Consonances bring forth the constructive force and srsr-ll{:ll~rn
man's higher nature; dissonances bring forth the destrrlc~ivtI O S ~ T
;tnd strengthen man's desire nature. Jazz and modern p o p u l : ~n111aic
~
she believed to be responsible for many of society's present ills : '~:ITI
and juvenile delinquency are twins. Where one flourishes thc o ~ l ~ r r
will appear.'13 O n the optimistic side, besides extolling thr arcis1 ic.
merits of Western and Eastern classical music, and writing COII.
siderably of their beneficial effects, Corinne Heline was also
supremely confident that in the near future we are to witness tlicbirth of a more advanced and evcn more sublime form of tonal art a New Age music, the effccrs of which will radically transform all of
civilization. After the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, Corinne
Heline believed that music and man's dcgree of spirituality and
other character traits are indissolubly linked; that in fact styles of
music and man's degree of spiritu;rlity :
stand apart only to our lirn~tedpcrcc.ption. In their essence they
are inseparably united, ,end In higher realms of being it i.:
recognized that musical ~ ~ ~ ~ t l c ~ \ t . r and
n d i nspiritual
g
realization
are identical.'
Such writings seem definitely to foreshadow an imminent rn,I,ot
resurgence of the Pythagorean dnd other ancient stylm of I I111lkIII!:
on the subjects of sound and tonal art Yet for this rctllrli t o 111,lrrll
principles to be truly powerful and effective in in arl lrll~,11 i ~1 ,1 l t r . l ~
that it will need to combine not only a rrrltr!:rr~rt. ,,I Ictr~nc.~
wisdom, but also something entirely new and r r v ~ ~ l1tl ~~1l1 . 1 r ySII(11 .I
<
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CODA
111I11111
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111b111.~.4.
m
14
r.1
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1 1 1 1 3
. I
111 1 1 1
I I ! ~ ~ I ~ , ,
. 1 l e 11.
\l
.. .
11
1111(.
r\
a l l ~,ta;~lize
that whcn groups of indivic111,tls.Ire
I'l~ok~'
WIIO
III,II
I I ~ ' I I I . I II ,
I~II,I:.I,L:I.I~
,r
ir~
~ r ~ v o l c the
i ~ ~ energies
g
of G o d , they are nor merely ;iclclin!: I ~ I I W I - I
l l ~ number
r
of people in the group on a onc-plus-ol~c.I~.I..IV..11111
I I I V V arc cntcring into a vcry old covenant of thc srlu.irc- wl11111
*.llll.lrcsthe release of power to accomplish the spoken \2.!otiI Iry
111~.I lrtmbcr o f individuals who are decreeing and by rllr IIIIIIII)I.I
1 1 1 I ~nes
I that cbath decree is given.
Vv'c hcartily recommend individual decrees t o acconil>ii~;l~
I I I I I O ~ blessings
~
in the lives of those who will disciplinc thclrl5c.lvi.s in this ritual of invoking light to a darkrned world. Kur
,:l.c)iip decreeing, when accompanied by an intense visualization
r ~ f ' the good desired, is mort eificacious on a world scale th;tn
decreeing and will result in a spccdy responsc to those
i~~cfividual
c.lrgaged in it, not only t o themselves but also on bchalf of all
Inankind . .
Rhythm is also important in decrees. Proprr rhythm crcates a
most penetrating projection of the spirit~l~il
vibrations that will
magnetize all over the plrinct t h r clualitics of God that arc bcing
invoked through the dccrccs. V1r ~~iorncnr~irn
of these waves that
form undulating circles over thc pl,~~lctnr.y
body creates an intcnsification of light whercvtsr drvotccs cortir together t o participatr
.
..~ k endeavor.'13t
e
It\.
c,tIl
:P
v.,
I/
( i f ,!;.c
tr
CODA
taking place in the royal standard of Ur, the city of Abraham, for
the purpose of driving a wave of glooni and pestilence away from
the city. Priest-King Gudea and his musicians are accomplishing this
by the power of music and vocalizations, given together. Corinne
Heline commented on the depiction :
280
281
J a l u
'
itb
~ l i l ~ l . ~ f ~ l
#11,
282
I;
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CODA
have yet their secrets t o reveal. WCh:lvr John Miclicll t o thank for
the discovery that there exist certain clcar associ;ttions hetwccn the
account in the Welsh Triad and the dceply mystical tcxt of Rcvclation revealed to St John on the Isle of Patmos. 'l'lrc :~nglcformcd
between the lines linking Llantwit with G l a s t o n h ~ r:tnA
~ C;I:isr onbury with Stonehenge is about 144O, a sacred n ~ ~ t t ~wliicl~
l ~ r r (,(cxrs
: r ~ l t li l l
in Revelation both in the measurements of thc Nrw Jr~.lr\:~lrtn
the archetypal number of saints - 'an l~undrril iotr y : ~ n l l l o l l s
thousand, having his Father's name written in ~ l i r . i r , lfrr.(.l~r.:ctl\'
(purified third-eye chakras?). The total numbrr of I{ril i5l1 \ . I ~ I I I5 i t r
the three sacred choirs was 2,400 X 3 = 7,200: cxncr Iy o r i t * 11:11f# I T
14,400 (or one twentieth of the Biblical 144,001)). 'l'hi.. r~t~rnl)rrsurely did not occur by chance. Further, Michell intlicittrs III;II 111r
complete circle formed by the completion of the arc of thr t 11rr.1.\ I I I-.
has a radius of 504 furlongs and a circumference of 3. l hX I ' I I ~ ~ ( I I \ ! : ~ .
These numbers are an essential ingredient of the proportions 111 tlir
archetypal New Jerusalem of Revelation. They are also rn;tniI ccr rt l
in the traditional systems of metrology themselves, sincc tlir r:t~litr\
of the earth combined with the radius of the moon gives ;I IOI.II
figure of 5,040 miles; and a circle of this radius would 1i:rvr ;I
perimeter of 3 1,680 miles.
The number 144 also occurs in the Old Testament's account of
Solomon's consecration of the Temple into which the Ark o f tlir
Covenant was placed. There is
no more awesome a record
than this of the power of specific tones to invoke sacred energy from
heaven for the blessing and healing of the land.
Previously, King Solomon's f;~lhcr,David, in making preparations for the Temple, had divided his musicians according to thrir
service into 2 4 categories consisting of twclve in each category,
giving a total of 288.lZ6 Hcrr, thc 2 4 categories represent the d ~ l i l
yin-yang polarities of the twclvc Toncs of the zodiac, and the tnt:rl
number is therefore 1 4 4 2~.
For the consecration of thc l'emple itself, King Snloliillzr
assemblcd together a11 of the I,rvitical priesthood, the elclrrc, 1111.
heads of the tribes, and all the nicn of Israel. The accnilrll, i l l .'
Chroniclcs, conveys very t;tngibly the great hush anil n.r.cio.r.
cxpcctation which envelops the gathering as the Ark is I ~ r r ~ l ~ 1~1 1l l ~ r
Then comes that penultimately powerful moment whrrl 11ir 1 1 . 1 1 1 1 4 1 1
priest-musicians invoke the fiery Presence of the Onr :
1 1 1
111
11
114
#l
11111
CODA
'
l;
l ; ,,
I
l
!!,
'l
I;
'
281
...
II~.
..
I I I I W 'y.~I~~l.;~rccl
with thc dccpcs~o f meanings is that lint*: ' A ~ \ t l\lrl.r;
,I< I/
;I new song' (my italics)! The 'new \OII!:'
I-.
(4
Il..rh (11 councl it1 both Ncw Agc music and in c n l ~ ~ ~ i . i . ~I rl t~. yi Ill\ ,I I I \ ~
111vt11.;11ions. O n e of thc most important thinss ; I I ~ O I I I 1 1 1 1 % 111 M
~II!!
I - , it, ~.c.l;\tionsl~i~
W l i h tllc Ncw Age ay n fullv ~ n , ~ ~ ~ l I r !:rbltlr.~~
. , . ~ t . t lr.l.1
'.1111!:
1 1 1 4
111
llll,~ls;~nds
from all o r c r thc world, ;IIT 11ow hcIc1 .it rhc four cardinal
of the year, as well as :L(oth(.r tin;::\. I I I 1l1c [Ul~itedStates
(wl1c.1.~
the largest :ind central g ; ~ t h c r i ~; iI ~~ C\I1c.Ic1) ,~ncl, ~ I s oin other
~~.llions.
Let us therefore clc)bc wit11 1 l l c 8 wol,cl\ 0 1 ' }!I Morya
lllllls~lf:~
1 1 1
l1
11c.1
111
1 1 1
. l l\ ;1.I I V I I llnn,1I )I I .
hlonrana 59047. All Rights Rcscrved. Reprinted by Permission. Frorn 17~1r I w f ,~i d t i + ,1!1fh
by El Moq-a. pp. 77-8; 1976 ed.
?MU
Further Reading
(And Listening !)
'This list is designed not simply to go over material which 1111. 131-r-t V
ding pages have already covered, but t o expand into furtllcr I r.1.11t.11
areas of music and esotericism.
On Beethoven
Why 'On Beethoven'? Though the subject of Beethoven - lllc I I ~ . I I I ,
[he music and the mission t o which he set himself - has not hcrn ;I
1)rominent part of this book, a study of Beethoven is aau;tlly ;l11
ltrchetypal musical experience. For Beethoven himself was :In
;irchetypal spiritual artist. In studying the music and Iifc ot'
I3cethoven we actually attune ourselves to much broader issues - tllc
cwential spiritual philosophy behind all good music; the necessity
Ii)r altruistic motive; the struggle between purity and error in thr
Iwrsonality of the artist himself; how music can be used to
sl>iritualizethe race, and what kind of music does this. Beethovcn
was quite aware of the power of music, and in his life story and
works w e see how supremely he put this knowledge into practice.
Beethoven, His Sjiritual Derelopnren~by J . W . N. Sullivan (firsr
l ) t ~ l ~1927,
.
now in
edition, by George Allen & Unwin,
I .o~ldon).The most author;~titivchook on the subject of its title.
I I i!:llly readable and quite short ( 1 2 7 pages), yet full of penetratin,t:
;ll..i!:ll~ into the spiritual aspccts o f I<cc.thovenand music in gencr;~l.
Iirv*/hoc~en
and the Voice o/' Got/ by Wilfrid Mellers (Fahrsr S,
I .ondon, 1983). his I,ook is a companion volunlc. 1
Il&r(-h
and the Dnwre o/'God, by which we can br crrt.1111 I
I I r ~l t t . ~ l i ly . Sure to become a key tcxt for a deeper u n d c w t ; ~ ~ t c l ~ l ~ ~ :
rl~c.\l>il~i~.~l;tl/mmotional
mcanings behind the notes of ! l c ~ r ~ ~ l t l l \ ' l ~ ~ t ' ~ ~
~ I I . Iworks.
~ I I Mcllers analyses the music in great r l r . t ; ~ i l , I I I I L I ~\~. ( - l ,
t t o ~ r .t ~ ~ - n o t rn:tking
c,
this title more suitable for hc wlict I 1..1t1*.
11111..11
I I I , I ~ Itor 111c1;1y111;1n.
\ - l y Marion M . Scott (1. M . DCIII
t% \ ~ I I I - , , I . I ~ I I ~ I I I I I ,
II(t~//)oa~n
11
t t
111
.ltN~
1') ;,l),
Quite possibly thc best onc-colunic work ;iv.~il;tblco n
bc.c,~llovcnas man and mu\ici;in. AI intelligent introdtlction to thc
.;ubjcct, but without being over-scholarly. Marion Scott sprinkles
hcr pages with a good deal morc h c x t than is oftcn t o bc found in
st~ldiesof composers.
Beethoven's Nine .Symphoities Covrelaled 2ci1h /he Nine .Sjiri/ztu!
~\/Iy.iterie.vby Corinnc Heline (J. F. Rowny Pt,css. Santa Barbara,
1971). New Age writer ~ o i i n n eHelinc examines the esoteric
aspects of each of the Bcethovcn symphonies.
O n Rock M ~ s i c
R o d andRok: The Impact ofRock MusiG 012 S e l f a n d S ~ c i e by
t ~ David
Tame. Available from Veritas Publishing Co., P.O. Box 20, Bullsbrook 6084,
Western Australia.
291
FURTHER READING
11,
111
By Cyril Scott
Music, Its .Secret Inf7ue?zn Throughout the Ages. First p p e r b a c k
(,Jition by the Aquarian Press, Wellingborough. 1 9 7 6 . T h c Initiatc
lxnks are published in Great Britain by Routlcdgc Rr Kcgan Paul:
i n the USA by Samuel Weiscr: The Initiate, .sotr,~lmpresrions of a
(,tljat So141;The Initiate in /he NP,'~World; The lnitiafe in [he D a r k
as mentioned in the C n d a under the heading 'Cyril Scott,
';,hc Father of British Modern M ~ ~ i i c "(The
.'
Initiate books arc. stil!
I~t~l,lished
anonyrnouslv, accrcditrd to 'his pupil'.)
cyi/e.
Other Uscfi~lBooks
l ~ r Hidden Face of tMlrrir l ) y I-lerbcrt W h o n e ( G o l l a n n ,
Ion, 1974). Also: The .Si,,pl~ri!~
qt'Pla~ingthe Violin. Each a
01' 'Zen of musical p c * r I ' o ~ . ~ ~ ~Important
. ~ ~ l ~ e ' . reading for the
~ ~ , ~ l l ~ - i n ~practisil~g
lined
n~\~\ic.ian,
but also absorbing for the
I ; I I ~ c ; ~ J c rHerbert
.
MJhonc- Il;ts thc ability to word thc most
vbolc~.i<01. subjects in such ;L wily its t o make it appear sensible and
cll~viollsto cvcn thc most sccptic;illy-minded.
Tlrr Golrlet7 1300k of 1,tfi by Azclda. A beautifully poetic and
ilt.ri'ly r ~ ~ y ~ t i ctrestisc
iil
on the seven Toncs and thcir 49 subdivi\ ~ O I ~ S I. ,Lg~t,ldrecommend it, except that although it was written in
111v I 920s. this 190,OOO-wc-)rd rn;inuscril>r, unlike anything else in
,'v,'
Reference Notes
Menuhin, Yehudi Theme and Variations Heinemann. 1 (1 7 2
Joshua 6 :1-20
Most of the major works written by both Aristotle ant1 I l g
Plato include at least several pages on the psychological ;incl
societary effects of music.
Portnoy, J d u s Music in the Life of Man Holt, Rhinrharr
and Winston, 1 9 6 3
Scott. Cyril Music, Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages
Aquarian Press, 1 9 J 8
Blom, Eric (Ed.) Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musictans
Macmillan London, 1 9 J 4
Medhurst, W.H. (tsans.) The Shu King
Martens, F.H. 'Music in Chinese Fairy Tale and Legend'
Music Quarterly V I I I , 4, October 1 9 2 2
New Era Communiry Agni Yoga Society, 1 9 2 6 (transcribed
by Nicholas Roerich)
Rudhyar, Dane The Rebirth of Hindu Music Theosophical
Publishing House, Ady;~r,India, 1 9 2 8
Gulik, R.H. van TAPLore o/'/be Chi~leseLute Tokyo, 1 9 4 0
Oriental Music Vol. 1 of
Wellcsz. Egon (Ed.) Anriotl/ ~/II[/
'The New Oxford Histoy a/ Mtrsic Oxford University Press,
1057
I l (aline, Corinne Mllvil-: 'Tbrg Keynofe of Human Evolr~tioti
41-W Age Press, Santa Moliicn (undated)
It~c~llojaediaBritmltriii~ ( l 5th edition) Encycltrp;~r~~li.~
I \ I i~ ;~nnicaInternational
A,II>I.1 .A. van Chinese Music Shanghai, 18 84
S,~c.lls,Curt The Rzse of Music in the Anlirtrt IVor1,l. I..r,r
, ~ I I CW
~ F 1.M.
. ~ Dent & Sons, 1 9 4 4
S W 6)s cxamplc the books on Rrcthovc~l I i . . r ~ , r l 1 1 1 ~ l ~ r
I ;11rt11cr liracting section of the prcscnt lu )c 'k
2 7.
I
28.
29.
30.
3 1.
l1
l;
32.
3 3.
34.
35.
'l
3 8.
39.
/l
40.
'I
36.
3 7.
REFERENCE NOTES
295
, 1 1 7 7
/ , , / I I , ~ I ~ ~ ~ Vl, , ~; V~ l i n ~
, It V
~/ I
REFERENCE NOTES
U L .
8 3.
297
, 1 1 1 ~
ll
18
111.
1~
112.
113.
'l
114.
l l j.
116.
11 7.
118.
Rcvcl;itio~l'l :.l
120. Rcvcl.~rionI 2 : 3
12 1. El Mory;t 'l'llr Chela and the Path Summit University Press,
USA, l970
122. Prophet, Elizrhcth Clare The Science of Rhythm for the
Mastety of the Srrcr~dEnergies of Life; Uses and Misuses of the
Word in the Mtisir of East and West (see Furrher Reading
119.
I
I
12 3.
REFERENCE NOTES
Isaiah 45 :11
Michell, Tohn Cig of Revelation Sphere Books. I97
- -
Revelation 9 :19
Revelation 11 :5
Revelation 12 : 1 l
Revelation 19:13- 1
Revelation 14 5 - 1
>
299
Index
Aalst. JAvan, 58
Acoustia. 18. 113. 114. 116.
117, 159.242-246
A~k~nrt~n.
( ;n;rltl. 241
AI~IIII(~),
1l K 1 ~ ' l
Ata~t~.~l~tv,
94. I 3 I
A I I I ~ 14
N ~+,, 244
ArrIt1.1, >'>l
Attre~,?!ft
B m y . Chudr. l 8 8
Brrnstn'n. Lconard. 230
Bcsant, Annic, 265
B ~ a n s 174
.
Big Hum. 244
Blakc William. 1 13
Blavatnky. ~ r l c n aP.. 218.
219.274.27Y
Rlun, 68. 187-205
Bode. Joha~ln.237
Badc's I t w . 237-241
Boldm. R~ddv.190. 191.
197
RmJn., Pierrr. 1 1R
Rnhma(n). 173.201
Britain. 281)-ZR6
'Rmadhmt. Charln'. 267.
261
Rnrwn. Julicnnc. l l 8
GF.John, 103-112.122.
124.129.131.261
Ca1iTnrni.r. 109. 121
Carntmdia. h7
(:.t~nrrun.A Tr W 7 16
Capra, Fritjof, 2 18
Caribbean, 189, 190
Carlos, Waltcr. 103, 104
Carlylc. Thornas, 227
Cclrs. 206
Ccrcmony, 41. 172.21 3
Chakra(s), 183, 217. 218.
277
Chambm, Lnlic A.. 137
Character. 146, 147. 2 13
Chicago. 192.197
China. 14-17. 25. 30, 31. 3371, 77, 80. 91. 131. 156.
180. 181, 183. 206. 209.
212,216.276.280
Chladni. Emst. 216, 217.
240,246
Chohans. 217, 218. 262
Chopin, Frcderick, 132, 260
Cbmmatic scale. 47, 130
Chrysostom. Saint, 27 1
Civilization, 1J-18. 21, 56,
59.62.69.160,162,183,
187,203,246
Colc, Nar King. 200
Colcman. Ornmc. 202
&lour. 44. 149.222-227.
257.218
Comm, thc. 201
Communism. 69. 1 10. 163.
164.204.275
Computcr(s).
121. 130.131
106. 1 1 5. 1 19Confucius. 16.17.34.40.63.
C ~ V ~ T ~A. C
. I I~ I~CW0I C
,1 .
( ' ~ c d t a d ~ n.'%,
~,
4 1 , .Ir, 114,
. ' I f # , ,'!l,
! l l l ~ <'IO,! l ? ,
Hilarion, 271
Hillagc, Stcvc. 126
Hillcr. Lejarm, 129
Hindemith. Paul. 94. 9T. 261
Hippocrates, 156
Hippolytus. 209
Hoist. Gustav, 41. 133. 262
Holy Grail. 17. 262
Homer, l 16
Hooker. John Lec. 200
Hopkinson. Franas, 166
Hnangcbung. 10. 53, 15. 16,
170,211
H d , A. Eaglefield, 263
Humanism, 29.71.79.99
Hwton, Aletha C.. 147
Idealism. 73-71, 210
Imprasionism. 90.9 1
Indeterminacy. 106. 109. 129
India. 14.26, 30. 80. 141.
116, 170-186. 209, 256
Infrasonin, 242-246
Innovation in music. 18. 19,
66, 71. 76. 91. 188
Instn~rncnts,musical. 44.45.
4 8 - 6 7 , 71. 100. 101. 118122. 137. 141. 172. 189.
212
I~ltcrval.;.42.61-67.92. 137,
170. 183. 220. 228.229.
2 39.277
I I I I I I I I . 24.
I ~ ~l~7 ~2 ,
I~tv~aation.
42. 213. 285.
7H7
Iir1.111d.John, 133
I*.~acro~~.
Imnud. 129
Ivn. C:lmrla. 94-96
J w m , Mlck. 120. 153. 114
Ia~iary.Chnstophcr. 118
J ~ p l n67
.
1.111.27.68.96.98, 103105. 127. 187-204. 273
Jmny. Hnns. 216-218.240
Jrnrho. 17. 18
Jmr, Trim. I 2 0
Jnu* Chr~st.33. 14. 71. 89.
209.21 5.254. 271, 282
1r~h11
of the Crors. Salnt, 2 1
I(lhn thc Bclovcd. Satnt. 201.
21 5,231,283
Johnson. Robm. 195
Joshua, 17. 18
Kayscr. Ham, 227
Kcrouac*Jack, 8 1.108
Key. 41. 76. 81, 91. 93
Khan, Ali Akbar, 17 7
Khan. Imrat. 177
Khan. Vilayat. 177
Khatcharunan, h a m , 1 3 3
King. B B . 200
INDEX
K~n~alcy.
Waltm. 191
K jrr (rock group). 269
Krtnlrgm. Johanncs. 1 58
Knycr. Wifricd. 220
Rung. 17-61
Kr~thurni(also known as Koot
Hwmi La1 Singh and as the
Master KH). 268. 270.
271
Idng. Paul Hcnry. 90.91.
'I '4
1.1nguage. 148. 119. 176.
192.208
IjlPlantc, Skip. 121. 122.
131
1.1rson. Bob, 137. 138. 141.
290
1.cadbcatcr. Charles W . 2 1 1.
216.292
I.rd Zcppclin. 143
1
JTda, 200
Txbar. Franz, 114
1.cnin. Vladimir Ilyitch. 16 3
I.i\zt, Franz. 73. 77. 98
IJoyd. David. 11 1
I rrcicr. Alvin, 1 14
l.yrin. 194-197
I
--
'"C'
.'96.
136.112.193
Morya. El. 262. 274.271.
286.287
Mozan. Wolfgang Amadcus.
26.74.77.78.99, 11 3.
114.121.219.261
Music: church. 72.73;
classical, 73.76. 141.163;
country. 201 ;curativc
d f c m of. 1 16; of dapair,
87; cffccrs of, 28.63. 198200; d m n i c . 78.79.
102. 132; function of, 46;
hcldcntal. 27 ; mama!,
146: m o d m pop. 137.
185 ; motives for. 112-111;
mystical powcr of. 20.2 1.
25.46; the 'ncw'. 73-1 31.
143; New Age. 134.262.
281;objmof, 34.61;
of, 13-31. 61, 246:
scalc, 16; of the sphcrcs.
23,225.233-231;styla
of, 2 1 ; Tones. of the
twclvc. 18; usc of, l l 6
Mussorgsky. Modest
Petrovitch. 80-82.91
Mysticism of music. 41-46,
70.96. 124. 134. 173171. 259
Namc(s). 176,177
Nelson, J.H.. 231
Ncuhaus. Max. 1 18
Ncw Age, 121. 126, 127.
132
..N m Jerusalem. 283
Ncwman. Pncr. 140
Ncw Orleans, 190-192. 197
Nijinsky. Vaslav. 96
Nictccnth ccntury. 73. 76
Nocbcl. David A.. 161.290
Norm (of music), 16. 33. 40.
43.47.60.61.92. 129.
141.242
Novali3. I I 8
Number (and nummlogy):
onc.47.60. hl.212.213:
two. 47.14; thrcc. 48.60:
fnrs. 14; five, 47.60.61.
212,213:rolm. 18. 13.
60.61.209.212.228;
riRht, 48; rwclvc. 5 l. 17,
61. 106. 197.240. 2492 12; thirtccn, 54.2 13 ;
twcnty-four. 106
Odic force. 272
Olivcr, Joc 'King', 197
OM, 23. 37. 170-172, 174.
ONCE pnup. I 1 1
Orff. Carl. 261
--. - -
hchmaninov. Serge. 1 3 3
Raga. the. 172. 177. 179-183
Ravcl. Maurice, 91. 260
Rays, the scvm. 2 17
Realism in music. 80-83.91.
101
Reductionism. l 3.28, 1 16.
124
Reich, Steve. l l 0
Rcichmbach. Baron van. 272
Retallack. Dorothy, 14!.14f
Rcvolutioo 71-87. 102. I I 4.
127,131,188
Rhythm, 14. 19. 26.41. 7fa.
94, 100. 134. 1 37.1 3').
113. 173. 179. 181. IH?.
189. 194, IQ', 701. I ' l l
Rigidity (in rnur~~
JI
dcvclopmrnr). l H. 1'1. 7 1
77
Rilcy. Terry. 104, l(\'>
Rimlky-K~brr~h,~~,
N ~ h l r l ,H~I ~ .
Ric~ral,1 4 , '17. I H')
H t ~ 11111*1t
k
, 1111, 10.1, 1 3 1 .
147. 1411. 141, 147. 111.
'
+f\'t
I nn. I 90.202
Icctrrit h. Hclma, 271
I{r,rrich. Nicholas, 96. 271
Hogrn. Shony, 97
H~rllingStones, 98. 113, 114
Rnmc (-an). 30. 116, 189
Romig. Donald and M a y ,
241
Rosiauaanism. 260
Ross. Brim, 261
Routh, Eranas, 101. 108.
126,127
Rusria(n). 81. M, 97. 163.
164,271
'Solomon.
283.284
Solmim. 46,14.11.286.287
Sophodes, 99
Sound. 17-20.23-29. 3741.
232.236,241
Spcech, 120, 173-175. 213
Stcbbing. Lioncl, 292
Stcphcns, R.W.B.. 241
Stockhausm. Karlhcinz. 1 12114,131,261
Stolov. Harold L.. 231
Stonehcngc. 28 1
Stravinsky. Igor. 94.96-98.
269
Subomik, Morton. 102,103
Sultan. Gary, 2 19
Summit Lighrhousc, the, 274279,287,290.291
SW&, D.T.. 261
Synthcsizcr(s). 102. 103.
111,130
Tai chi, 47. 48. 60
Tartchanoff. Dr. 138
Tchaikovsky. Pctcr Ilyitih.
82.87, 188
T h e ~ o ~ h i cSociny.
rl
2 1 1.
2 16.270.274.292
Ihtrapy, mtlric!1n Hcalinl:
Thomrnn. Vlrgil. 101
Thnrcxu. Hcnry David. 29
'Ihorh (Hcrmn Tri.imc*rm*).
50.211
Tihcr. 226
Timbre. 44.41. 179
Tilnothn~sof Milctus, 188
Tippet, Michacl. 1 33
Titius. Joham D.. 2 37
Tonality, 76, 91-91, 162
Tones: in music, 3 5, 60, 102.
124,141, 178, 226; five,
16.224; the twclvc
Cosmic. 22. 37. 38.41
Trinity, 60.128.173.222
Trotsky. Leon, 163
Troubadours. 13 1
Trumholt, Sophus. 242
T d ( s ) . 22. 34. 73. 80. 127.
128.110.203
Tudor. David. 109
Twcnticth ccnnuy. 2428, 19,
187-204
Ultrasonics, 242-246
Virdcn. PM,l62
Visbnu, 173
Vogt. Douglas. 2 19
Voltairc. Francuis Mane
Aronet dc. 261
Voodoo. 110.111.189.190
W;t~ncr.Richard, 71-77.98.
U?. 134.114
Wal5h. Stephm. 122
W.~ltrr.Rmno. 229
Wnrrrn. Dr Joscph. 168
W.lshinpon, Georgc, 161
Wrlrrrn, Anton von. 261
W ~ I I I IHcrbm,
I ~ , 291
W ~ l l i a ~Hank.
n ~ ~ 201
W I ~ \ I )Charles.
II,
243
Wi\hart, Trcvor. 162
Witchrrafr. 11. 88
Wrrcd. rhc. 49. 12. 171, 214.
221-227.231.254; the
apnken. 274-286