Music and the Soul, 15-16
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15 |
Cosmic Consciousness |
196-208 |
pp. 197-9 cosmic consciousness & NDE
p. 197 |
"I've experienced the cosmic normative balance in altered states that ... often take the form of out-of-body or lucid dream-based forays into nonphysical reality, including the Afterlife. During such adventures, I've discovered that ... the Afterlife Zone, where we go when we die, is permeated with a glorious light ... . ... Exposure to the cosmic normative balance can take place in near-death, out-of-body, or mystical experiences. ... |
p. 198 |
My own exposure to it has taught me that the cosmic normative balance ... weighs our every action and attempts to adjust our course ... . ... The eighteenth-century Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg refers to what I call the cosmic normative balance as "the light of heaven." I believe this glorious light is the same as that encountered by many near-death experiencers on their brief, unintentional journeys into the Afterlife. ... People who have had near-death experiences (NDEers) describe this light as ... imbued not only with consciousness, but also with a sense of reality far greater than anything they've experienced on Earth. ... |
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Some NDEers have reported hearing heavenly music during their NDEs. For example, ... Arthur E. Yensen had an NDE in 1932 ... . He wrote about it in a booklet first published in 1955 ... . |
p. 199 |
Yensen describes the heavenly music ... : [quoted from 1955, p. 16 :] seemed to be coming from everywhere. ... The whole country resounded with it, and everything seemed to be in tune. |
Yensen 1955 = Arthur E. Yensen : I Saw Heaven.
pp. 199-200 metarhythmic radiance
p. 199 |
"The musical element that applies ... is metarhythm. ... Metarhythmically composed music is timeless. It seems either to take place outside of time, or to describe a state of being, or a place, like heaven, that exists beyond our time- and space-bound physical universe. Another characteristic ... is that it seems to radiate toward, wash over, and bathe the listener in what could be described as waves of light or goodness. |
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It provides the closest thing we have in the physical world |
{Some entheogens, such as lysergic acid, are reputed to provide yet closer exposures.} |
p. 200 |
to exposure to the cosmic normative balance, short of having an out-of-body or near-death experience." |
p. 203 praeternatural tinkle of chimes
"In one of my adventures in consciousness [AC 221], I once heard the almost inaudible tinkle of distant chimes. ... I was told by a helpful spiritual Guide that these chimes represent the nearly inaudible call of the Source to align ourselves[,] and our journey toward oneness[,] with it." |
AC 221 = "Adventure in Consciousness #221". http://www.kurtleland.com/astral-projection-log/2003/128-hearing-the-call-of-the-source-upper-mental-plane
p. 205 music to enable evolution into divine beings
"the last in the line of human evolution ... associated with the Numen ... is ... the evolution of humanity into what Satyananda calls divine beings. Beyond this point, our evolution takes place in |
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nonphysical reality, where ... there's no physical source of sound. |
{Dreams may be instances of this : though music can be abundant in them, that music may sometimes lack a source in the material universe.} |
The crisis point ... is translation {i.e., ascension/assumption of the soul into Heaven}, the transition from physicality to nonphysicality. |
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"the Russian mystic Alexander Scriabin ... wanted to compose a Mysterium that would ... trnsfigure humankind, and lead people into the paradise of a new age." |
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16 |
Praeparing for TMEs |
209-28 |
p. 212 rasa-s [of theatrical performance]
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rasa |
meaning |
1 |
s`r.ngara ['horny'] |
"romantic ... sentiment filled with longing for an absent lover" |
2 |
hasya |
"comic, humorous, and laughter-provoking" |
3 |
karun.a |
"compassion" |
8 |
adbhuta |
"wonderment and amazement" |
9 |
s`anta |
"peace, tranquillity" |
pp. 213-4 a TME resembling an entheogenic experience
p. 213 |
"With his eyes closed, [he] saw what he describes as "color and energy shapes" that were "morphing." ... After a while, [he] began to feel that that energy constellation was "galactic, huge, set within deep reaches of space." ... It seemed as if |
p. 214 |
he became the galaxy ... . ... "At that moment, I felt that the galaxy I had become was exploding into glory."" |
p. 214 soul-energy embodied in music-composition
"In chapter 2, I mentioned that nameless, imageless waves of emotional intensity or feeling-toned energy are the basis of my compositions until I find the notes that would express and embody them." |
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"In chapter 14, I introduced the notion of energy transformations, which I defined as the way that the nonphysical soul experiences our lives in physical reality. ... The result is spiritual wisdom. |
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Such wisdom is encoded in music, which is the closest thing we have in the physical world to the energy transformations experienced by the nonphysical soul." |
{Entheogenic-drug experiences are closer, and more realistic in encoding such wisdom.} |
pp. 214-5 process-configurations within the transceptual field
p. 214 |
"The process configuration behind a piece of music is what allows this transmission to take place. A process configuration contains not only the |
p. 215 |
processes by which the music was composed and by which it unfolds in time, but also the energy transformations and spiritual wisdom encoded within it. ... process configurations reside in a nonphysical reality ... the transceptual field ... a zone of nonphysical reality in which all ... ideas or concepts ... exist like suspended particles, capable of coming together in ever-new conglomerates. When creative artists or thinkers are trying to solve a problem, they may enter this field, usually in a meditative state. Their need for a solution to that problem carries a charge that causes the contents of the transceptual field to reposition themselves and recombine. ... Process configurations contain not only the resolution of the artist's or thinker's problem, but also the steps necessary to realize this resolution in physical reality." |
pp. 215-6 instances of music-composition by means of discovering process-configurations
p. 215 |
"The Russian musical mystic Alexander Scriabin seems to have been familiar with process configurations. ... Scriabin described his compositional process as follows : |
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[quoting de Schloezer 1987, p. 85] the music existed outside him in images that he could not express verbally. He was not creating this music ..., he declared, but rather he had removed a veil that had obscured it, and thus made it visible. His task was to render this inner image into sounds ...; he liked to call this image a "sounding body" |
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possessing a color of its own. |
{via an occult synaisthesia} |
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He observed it in his inner self and at the same time separate from him or, rather, above him. He sensed it with his entire self, not only through the sense organs. ... |
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p. 216 |
[quoting de Schloezer 1987, p. 86] as though he were projecting a three-dimensional body on a flat surface, stretching and flattening in time and space a prophetic vision that he experienced as an instant revelation". |
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"When Scriabin lost his awareness of this inner image, he would "seek to regain it" by engaging in a practice he called [de Schloezer 1987, p. 87] placing himself "upon the plane of oneness."" |
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"Ruth also uses process configurations to compose. A TME lets her know when she has realized the process configuration behind a piece accurately. For example, she once transcribed a ... piece for string orchestra that she heard in a dream. ... Ruth ... suddenly felt ... her "joints ... turning into pure shafts of light." That's when she knew ... . ... Now she has a motto ... : "When my joints turn to light, that's when I know it's right."" |
de Schloezer 1987 = Boris de Schloezer (transl. by Nicolas Slonimsky) : Scriabin : Artist and Mystic. Berkeley : U of CA Pr.
p. 216 similarity of process-configuration in music-composition to trance-channeling in spirit-mediumship
"Scriabin's, Ruth's, and my own compositional processes are also remarkably like my experience of channeling ... . While in trance, I feel the energy that's about to come through me first as patterns of energy, a kind of inner image. ... If I lose my connection with the energy or information, I must deepen the trance ... in order to continue -- a process that corresponds to Scriabin's placing himself "on the plane of oneness."" |
p. 217 Butterfly
"My friend Beth tapped into a process configuration when she listened to Puccini's Madama Butterfly ... . |
{A Butterfly-goddess is prominent in the religion of the Miao of southern China.} {Incidentally, one of Arnold Schoenberg's better-known compositions is likewise about a butterfly.} |
Beth's TME ... I described in chapter 3". |
pp. 218-9 psychicly-visible thought-forms of music-composers
p. 218 |
"TMEs may include inner visions such as odd colors and geometric shapes as visual presentations of process configurations. A number of esotericists who have writeen about music mention such shapes, which they call thought forms." |
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"Cyril Scott wrote : "Every musical composition produces a thought-and-colour form in the astral space, and according to that form and colour is to be gauged the spiritual value of the composition under review." Perception of this form is accomplished only by "someone who has developed psychic abilities." Scott listed "lilac, violet, blue, pink, yellow, apple-green" as spiritual colors, |
p. 219 |
especially when linked with "a form of lofty structure and vastness." ... Works "of a lower order,"however, are colored with "muddy browns, greys, cloudy reds."" (Scott 1917, pp. 106-7) |
Scott 1917 = Cyril Scott : The Philosphy of Modernism in Its Connection with Music. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Tru:bner & Co.
p. 219 sound-to-color synaisthesia in music-composers
"Scriabin perceived colors inwardly in response to hearing external sounds. [Peacock 1985] ... When that feeling became especially intense, it would show up as an inner image of the color. For example, Scriabin often saw the key of C major as red, D as yellow, and F-sharp as blue. |
The musical composer Olivier Messiaen was also able to perceive sounds as color. He said : |
[quoting Samuel 1976, p. 14] When I hear a score or read it, hearing it in my mind, I also see in my mind's eye correspnding colours which turn, mix, and blend with each other just like the sounds which turn, mix and intermingle, and at the same time as them. |
... He insisted [Samuel 1976, p. 19] that this experience was ... "an inward reality."" |
Peacock 1985 = Kenneth Peacock : "Alexander Scriabin's Color Hearing". MUSIC PERCEPTION 2:496.
Samuel 1976 = Claude Samuel (transl. by Felix Aprahamian) : Conversations with Olivier Messiaen. London : Stainer & Bell.
p. 219 process-configurations (of music-composers) designated as "superphysical matter"
"esotericist Geoffrey Hodson hinted at the importance of process configurations, which he called "music forms," ... in the "play" of a composer's "consciousness during composition." It's [Hodson 1976, p. 18] "an expression of superphysical matter, partly ... the composer's ... inspiration and partly the superphysical effects of the physical sound" when the piece is performed. ... Hodson ... appears to be ... implying that musical forms, like process configurations, develop in a nonphysical ... transceptual field. |
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Hodson went on to say [1976, pp. 18-19] than in any music form "a measure" of the composer's "egoic life and consciousness is encarnated as an ensouling principle, ... a relatively permanent entity." This "entity" resides in ... the astral plane. |
{Quite the contrary : instead, the aeternal "entities" (deities) subsisting in the higher planes-of-existence produce this [the material] plane-of-existence, and arrange all events in this "relatively permanent" material world.} |
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When "a composition is performed," said Hodson [1976, p. 19], "an instant rapport with the original composer's [music-]form -- |
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and therefore with his life and consciousness -- is established." |
{This could be possible if the composer's personal stock-of-merit (pun.ya-alaya) in the praeternatural realm were somehow denoted by those composer's music-compositions so very appretiated in the pertinent unearthly otherworld.} |
Hodson 1976 = Geoffrey Hodson : Music Forms : Superphysical Effects of Music Clairvoyantly Observed. Adyar (Madras) : Theosophical Publ House.
pp. 220-2 musical value-fields : their relation (or lack thereof) to one's soul's purpose
p. 220 |
instances of "the astral forms produced by the music billowing above it" [Besant & Leadbeater 1969, p. 74] :- "The Mendelssohn cloud is filled with simple lines and colors and rises 150 feet above ground level. The Gounod cloud contains a psychedelic swirl and rises 600 feet. The Wagner cloud produces a "mountain-range" that rises 900 feet into the air. |
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Such clouds may last "an hour or two at least," during which they're "radiating forth their characteristic vibrations in every direction." The spiritual |
p. 221 |
vibrations present in these clouds of astral matter have an "uplifting effect on anyone in their vicinity."" (Besant & Leadbeater 1969, p. 69) |
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"The enormous size of these thought-forms suggests that they may be ... value fields. ... a value field is established whenever a group of people who share similar values come together, as in a concert hall. Being in the presence of others who share our values creates a sense of safety. The energy field that surrounds our bodies -- ... the aura ... -- begins to expand and merge with that of others. This merging creates a value field. The shared experience of listening to music often mediates, enhances, and accelerates the creation of a value field. The music itself may express certain values, so the process configuration behind it is the actual source of the value field." |
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"In chapter 2, I recounted esotericist David Tame's ... TME, in which he received waves of goodness emanating from the music, filling the concert hall, and radiating through the walls. ... Tame, too, was perceiving a value field, which had its source in the music. He described [Tame 1984, p. 20] the music he was hearing as "a tangible, living filigree lattice-work of matematical precision which I could almost reach out and touch," which means that he was in touch with the process configuration behind it." |
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"Sometimes a value field becomes so strong that people in its vicinity are taken over by it. They end up acting in accordance with the value field ... . I can often sense the presence of a value field ... . ... If this perception were translated into color and shape, the psychic might be able to tell what sorts of people were |
p. 222 |
gathered there, what kind of music was being played, and what values were contributing to the value field. ... Becoming aware of the presence of a value field in a live concert can be valuable ... . ... Aligning yourself more deeply with these values can result in a TME, connecting you to the process configuration behind the piece, or providing you with an ecstatic sense of ... connection with your soul ... . ... The ecstatic feelings that result when your energy field opens and merges with the energy fields of others often carries the force of a conversion experience." |
Besant & Leadbeater 1969 = Annie Besant & C. W. Leadbeater : Thought-Forms. 1901. abridged reprint, 1969.
Tame 1984 = David Tame : The Secret Power of Music. Rochester (VT) : Destiny Bks.
pp. 222-3 "inner image", or "sounding body", of musics
p. 222 |
"everything experienced in nonphysical reality ... needs to be translated -- represented to us in quasi-physical form -- in order to be understood by the mind and communicated via words to others. Several people may inwardly perceive the process configuration of a certain piece of music. |
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Each may describe it differently. |
{Each person will witness it differently, because the divinity who is displaying it to a particular person will display it in accordance with its mode of interaction with that person's soul.} |
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Yet the function of what's perceived remains the same in each description : a sense of the music's having had its origin in what Scriabin called |
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an "inner image" or "sounding body," |
{Such could manifest a genuinely independent existence only if it were aeternally prae-existent, and were a divine revelation to the composer through a praedestined process for some praedestined purpose.} |
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p. 223 |
which represents not only what the composer wished to express, but also the process of the work's creation and the process of its unfolding in the performance." |
p. 223 psychic signatures of musics
"The psychic signature ... reveals the location [of the process-configuration]. ... Large-scale pieces of music ... have psychic signatures. So the the subdivisions -- acts, movements, or sections -- of such pieces. Even a single phrase can have its characteristic energetic profile. |
Hodson's book Music Forms conains artistic representations of the thought forms perceived while he listened to ... pieces of classical music. ... these renderings ... required many hearings, since each note, phrase, section, and movement added its own "superphysical effect" ... . Some of the features he perceived were "relatively permanent," others "evanescent." [Hodson 1976, p. 18] |
p. 226 perceiving the psychic signature of a piece of music
"Perceiving the psychic signature of a piece or the process configuration behind it requires the use of intuitive senses ... . ... The results, in terms of ... deeper receptivity to energies and states of consciousness it targets, may well be worth the effort. ... Following the piece's psychic signature in this way can not only put ... in touch with the process configuration underlying a piece, but also help ... develop ... the ability to move from psychic signature to process when listening to other music. ... This exercise is useful for composers, too, since it demonstrates how they can create various effects ... when composing a piece. It can also help themto develop the ability to perceive the process configurations behind their own music, which can speed up the compositional process and perhaps make the piece a gateway for the soul or cosmic normative balance for future listeners ... . In part 3 [chapters 17 to 25] of this book, I provide other exercises to suggest how to attne yourself to the psychic signature of rock songs, jazz instrumentals, and pieces of classical music, especially those whose process configurations involve access to the soul or cosmic normative balance. All of these exercises, including the present one, are ways of using the yoga of listening to prepare yourself for achieving TMEs." |
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Kurt Leland : Music and the Soul : a Listener's Guide to Achieving Transcendent Musical Experiences. Hampton Rds Publ Co, Charlottesville (VA), 2004.