THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #5

There are certain things that have universal attributes, like music.

Something of greater magnitudes conveyed by them.

They connect us with the universal storehouse of life and knowledge."

Swami Paramananda

Robert Johnson confessed to making a contract and selling his soul to the devil - after

'meeting the Devil at the crossroads.' Subsequently,

Johnson, previously a mediocre musician became a master of the blues.

Tartini's most famous work - The Devil's Trill Sonata

- is a solo violin sonata Tartini was inspired to write after a dream

in which the Devil appeared at the foot of his bed and played his violin. 

The sonata is a piece that still tests the limits of even accomplished violinists.

"One night in the year 1773 I dreamed I made a pact with the devil

for my soul. Everything went as I had wished -

my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things

I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment

on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with

such art and intelligence as I had never even conceived

in my boldest moments of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported

and enchanted - my breath failed me and I awoke.

I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least,

the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I

at this time composed indeed is the best that I ever wrote and I still call it

the 'Devil's Trill',

but the difference between it and what so moved me

is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and said farewell to music

forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me."

 Lucifer was said to be God's most beautiful angel and the chief musician in heaven. 

Because he wanted to be above God. he was kicked out of heaven together with the fallen 

angels and then became Satan. 

Whether you believe this as metaphor or truth it has huge relevance in our world today.

Music is a huge power for good or bad.

 We have a choice between harmony and disharmony, concordance or discordance,

coherence or incoherence, resonance or dissonance, tonality or no tonality.

Chassidic wisdom teaches that song is the most powerful way to mourn and that with song

one can open the gates of heaven. Africans say that they pray by singing and dancing.

There are only two feelings love and fear.

When we live in a love vibration we are resonating with higher frequencies

which raise our consciousness and affect our D.N.A., even lengthening our telomeres,

giving us greater health, longevity and more spiritual attainment.

Fear does the opposite.

...when the mind is doubtful, when the mind drinks deep of doubt's

poison, the senses have no capacity to inject faith into the mind.

Here also music comes to the rescue." Shri Chinmoy

"Music alone can take you to the highest." Swami Vivekenanda 

Or the lowest - a Beethoven symphony versus for instance a toxic Heavy Metal concert

(not all Heavy Metal is bad.)

It would be difficult to talk about music without also presenting its dark side.

Moreover, the words used in song can have a greater impact than those words by themselves

- positive or negative.

“Guard your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from speaking deceit.” Psalms 

The Buddha and Gandhi both stressed how thoughts becomes words and those become our

behavior, deeds, values, habits, character and destiny.

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” Marcus Aurelius 

The words used in many Rap songs can be extremely dark and carry a message which can

become pervasive. Rap itself, to me, is a form of prose or poetry. The sound itself is

monotonous and numbing rather that healing. Its neutral but words can heal or harm.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

Marcus Antonius

“What we speak becomes the house we live in.” Hafiz

As you think it so it can be. As you believe it so it will be.

As we will see in the next blog many musicians have gained notoriety

by aligning themselves with "Satan" and the Tritone or what the church called

the 'Devil's Interval.'

  

THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #4

"The secret codes of nature, like D.N.A and other models

in the natural world are similar to musical notes 

through which every component of creation sings 

and plays its part in the cosmic harmony." Rev Ginsburg

Music can be

Happy/Joyous, Healing/Spiritual, Sad/Mournful, Romantic,

Inspirational, Martial, Patriotic or Demonic.

In other words - creating either relaxation or agitation.

"Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm

the agitation of the soul. It is one of the most magnificent,

delightful presents God has given us." Martin Luther

Music can do many things to our inner beings

and we have to be careful in how we select it.

Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse.

The Nazis used it to torture Jews,

the military to march soldiers to their deaths in war,

others to court and woo prospective mates ...

 and all shades of light and dark in-between ...

 Schoenberg, Boulez and Cage had different ideas about tonality

which have influenced where we are today. In fact they applauded no tonality at all.

John Cage in the early 90's called it 

"... purposeful purposeless - to have absolutely no organization." 

and encouraged being emancipated from the tyranny

of meaning and order. He and others have had a huge influence on world music today.

"I am conscious of having removed all traces of a past aesthetic. I am cured of

the delusion that the artists aim is to create beauty." Arnold Schoenberg 1920

and musical narcissism...

"Once the past has been gotten out of the way, one may think only of oneself."

Pierre Boulez

"Tonality died somewhere around the time that Nietzsche's God died."

John Adams

Vagn, Holmboe and John Adams rebelled against these "modern" ideas and stuck to

tonal music, the music that connected them to Pythagoras and Saint Clement.

They are a reflection of a musical recovery of our time but there is still much opposition

as in Heavy Metal and in Rap, especially depending on the words that are used.

Christian Rock also has arisen in opposition to this.

At the end of the day music is a part of the 'mathematics' of God, and

tonality, for our maximum benefit, should conform to these laws and not 

"purposeful purposeless" 

Nevertheless, formless chaos often seems to have replaced essence and is a reflection of

the disturbance of what is going on inside of us and around our planet. 

The right musical vibration can help us return to our true Selves.

432 Hz is said to be rooted in musical history and has been linked without real proof to

geometry, science, architecture, the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, mystical events

and other phenomena. It is also said to shift consciousness, soothe and reduce anxiety,

heighten perception, increase mental clarity and align one

with the heartbeat of the universe.

Whatever the case it has been replaced by 440Hz, now the standard pitch around the

world. 

However, 432 is making a comeback especially in sound healing, therapeutic work

and meditation. 

Others have warned against imposing a single system based on it having

a superior vibration. Its not the pitch of the note but one's intention for the music

which will prevail. It's all a question of the skill used in releasing that intention.

Conspiracy theorists believe that Goebbels and the Nazis promoted 440 Hz as part of a

plan to warp the consciousness of the masses. However, it was in use in Italy, Holland,

England, France and Germany long before the Nazi regime. 

Although this theory has been discredited there is no doubt that the Nazis used music to

torture their victims especially the Jews. Forced singing of German songs was

accompanied by torture meted out in freezing weather.

One labor battalion called the "Singing Horses" was harnessed to a heavily loaded

wheel barrow which they had to pull as they sang at the top of their voices while straining

or they were beaten. 

Inmates also had to sing while being asphyxiated and play the violin while being tortured.

Others - fully knowing their fate - were forced to play calming music as new inmates

entered the death camps.

Musicologist Ruth Hacohen has called it the 

music libel against the Jews." 

It was the intention of the SS to rob Jews and Jewish musicians

of the only vital resource that they had for their survival.

Music can be healthful, enhance immune function and positive

emotional states; the wrong kind - the opposite.

 

THE SPIRITUAL POWER OF MUSIC #3

... and the earth was without form and void and

darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters ... Genesis

Isaac Luria the great Kabbalist described Kabbalah's equivalent,

of the Big Bang - Tzimtzum or Contraction.

The Creator inserted His/Her presence for the sake of creation.

This caused a "shattering of vessels"containing holy sparks that were held in shards

and needed to be released in order to heal the world.

Sacred music is one effective way of releasing these sparks.

"A river arose out of Eden forming Four Rivers and Four Winds.

They joined to form a singular spirit which animates all creation." The Zohar

These Four Winds, from the breath of the Divine, animated all creation in vibration,

logos and maybe sound and song ... In Hebrew the word Ruach means spirit, wind, breath,

vibration, sound.

"What is God, the breath within the breath." Kabir

The Zohar states that God animated the Still Beings, Growing , Wild and Talking Beings

with "Four Winds" (Spirit, Breath, Ruach (Hebrew,) Prana (Yoga,) Moya (Zulu.)

"The Spirit that moves in all things." Native American wisdom

Each Being is animated with its own particular "Wind" or vibration.

Without Wind, Prana, Ruach, Moya, Spirit there could be no sound.

Sound was implicit at the beginning of creation.

"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe,

wings to the mind, flight to the imagination

and charm and gaiety to life and to everything." Plato

The right kind of music enhances our parasympathetic nervous system creating a relaxation

response with positive affects on our nervous system as well as spiritual and heart coherence.

The opposite can be true in the case of military and other songs or music such

as heavy metal which can enhance our sympathetic flight or fight response.

Everything in the multiverse is vibration and electromagnetic energy, making music and

sound fundamental to our spiritual reality.

CYMATICS AND SACRED GEOMETRY

Ernst Chladni first showed how tiny particles arrange themselves in patterns

when exposed to music on a receptive, metal, flat surface.

 Hans Jenny in the 60's expanded on this work. Experiments showed patterns in water

as well. You can find the visuals on You Tube resembling shapes in nature

such as;

a spiders web, a millipede a tortoise's shell or a leopard's skin - sacred geometry.

These forms are repeatable and not random.

If you pass sine waves through a water medium patterns appear and change if you

change the sound frequency. 

The higher the frequency, the more complex the shape.

Emoto's work on frozen water demonstrates how the

crystalline structure of water changes with the different emotions of love and fear. 

Love in his experiments was contained notably, amongst other stimulants ..., in

classical music. These all created exquisite crystalline structures.

Fear, including Heavy Metal music did the opposite, creating ugly images.

 Low frequencies form simpler patterns than higher frequencies. Low frequencies

are more commonly associated with fear as in the threat response and in the aggressive

tone of the human voice. A growl is a threat response (as is the sound of a

Harley Davidson, the sound of which makes a motorist wary.) Since our cells are 80% water,

think of what sound or music as well as thought, intention, emotion and feeling

can do to our bodies, the cells of which are 80% water. 

Such is the power of sound and music be it dark or light.

Since we are all mostly vibrational, empty space with orbiting subatomic particles

rotating around a nucleus, sound may find a way

to insinuate itself into this empty space between these particles,

to align our vibration or not..

Credo Mutwa the famous Zulu sangoma or sanusi (high prophet) taught that one could cure any disease with the right sound.

Patterns also seen in water droplets exposed to high frequencies in other

Cymatic experiments demonstrated; octahedrons, tetrahedrons, hexagons,

and the geometrical patterns also seen in plants and animals

- Sacred Geometry. 

This might confirm how important complex sounds combined with sacred letters in words

were in creating the universe.

Entheogens contained in mind-altering plants also demonstrate sacred geometry.

The hexagon of the San Pedro cactus which contains Mescaline.

Below, connecting the "dots" - the cross-section of the vision vine of the Amazon which

contains Ayahuasca. During Ayahuasca ritual, sacred songs call Icaros are essential

in driving the experience.

Even the grooves in Peyote, sacred to the Native Americans, resembles the six pointed star.

The hexagon is the symbol of the heart chakra indicating that these plant entheogens

especially when combined with sound have the capacity to open our hearts

and give us a deeper vision.

The sounds in nature may be the closest thing we can experience

to the music of the spheres;

the soft fascinations of the wind rustling in the trees and a babbling brook and more..

"This song of the waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all. On a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand..." Aldo Leopold

It suggested that possibly the Creator "sang" the creation into being with complex sound vibrations.

For those interested in more check out Cymatics, Chladni, Jenny and others on You Tube.