Greetings,

As we get to know each other, it amazes me how many of you are into music, really into it, not only listening or enjoying your own talent with an instrument, but composing, and also writing poetry that seems like musical lyrics with its stanzas and rhythms.  And let's also count those who can remember lyrics and post them at opportune times,  blink.

So when I ran across a book  'Music, Mysticism, and Magic'  by J. Godwin, I thought of this virtual community with all of its talents and harmonies,  and clashes. The book is a collection of afterlife/mystical experiences from Plato to our contemporaries.

What's amazing in the longer quotes is the similarities with our own spiritual  experiences today--the levels of realities, the qualities of colors, the kinds of beings, etc. Unfortunately they're too long for here, but here are some shorter quotes from these musicians, philosophers, etc who used their inspiration to apply further in their lives:

"Whereas Melody is the cry of Man to God, Harmony is the answer of God to Man." (no author given)

"  The wise man is like a musician, haiving his soul well tuned and harmoniously put together." Attributed to Plato, 4thC BC.

"Music is a miniature of the harmony of the whole universe....Where does that music come from? Where does the dance come from? It all comes from the spiritual life within. When that spiritual life springs forth, it lightens the burdens that man has. Wht deprives man of that beauty is his heaviness of body or heaviness of heart. He is pulled down to earth; but when he shakes off that heaviness and joy comes, he feels light. All good tendencies such as gentleness and tolerance, forgiveness, love and apprecition, all these come by being light ; light in the mind, light in the soul, and light in the body." Hazrat Inayat Kahn, 19th C.

"Debussy made a study of and absorbed the characteristics of Javanese music, which is a remnant, though mellowed and modified, of the Atlantean, and which exercises a powerful influence through the astral on the physical body, especially the solar plexus."  Cyril Scott, 20th C.

" Music never ceases in these [afterlife] places: music which one hears evrywhere but is nowhere; sometimes it is a murmering like that of an aeolian harp; sometimes the ear of a mortal believes it hears the plaint of a divine harmonica, those vibrations which have nothing terrestial about them and which swim in the middle region of the air." Francois Chataeaubriand 18th C.

 

Sounds like a good read Bets. I am definetly going to find a copy. I am not that surprised that there are a lot of simularities in their experiences. This type of 'study' has been squelched all through history. The brave souls who carried on were ridiculed but we benifet from them. I think that is a great idea Bets, to dig up the older works and have a look see....

This one has always been one of my favorites:

" The wise man is like a musician, haiving his soul well tuned and harmoniously put together." Attributed to Plato, 4thC BC.

Love to you friend, Stacy

"When the music's over, turn off the lights"
Jim Morrison

...Harmony and me
We're pretty good company
Looking for an island
In our boat upon the sea....

Elton John

Hi betson,

Nice post bets, how true, if there were more harmony, instead of inharmony, what a wonderful place it would be. We are the music, of Earth and the afterlife, each and everyone of us, a musical masterpiece. Play on!

Dimensionally Yours,

Rick
ricktimet