Music is an art imbued with power to penetrate into the
very depth of the soul, imbuing man with the love of virtue.
— Plato
Music constitutes an integral part of the moral content of man’s character. The moral force of music rests on the correspondences existing between its tonal patterns and those of the ideal world. It sounds forth a superior order, it enunciates man’s highest law.
Pythagoras held that man’s nature experienced a purification when hearing solemn songs sung to the accompaniment of a lyre.
The influence of music as a cure for crime has been used with marked effectiveness in France. So successful has been the response of hitherto incorrigible children to the influence of high and lofty music that concert artists were engaged to give regularly scheduled performances in the reform schools in and around Paris.
The healing and building qualities of music were utilized extensively in the early Mysteries. Chants, mantrams, and invocations used in the Temple services were musically constructed in the light of spiritual science and were, therefore, deeply occult and productive of important spiritual results.
The keynotes of the seven planetary spirits before the throne of God were intoned in the sacred temples of Egypt. In Greece the seven vowels of the Grecian language were used as a channel for the inpouring of these planetary sounds that worked so powerfully in their regenerative effect upon the Temple neophytes.
Since every human being is keyed to one of the planets, it was possible for the Temple Priest in the ancient Mystery Schools to determine the keynote of a pupil and to teach him how to attune himself to the planet of a like note, his parent star and thereby draw on spiritual power of transcendent decree. This wisdom was part of the Mysteries, the light of which, having been allowed to go out, leaves our priesthood lacking much of this deeper wisdom possessed by the Templars of ancient days.
The Persians celebrated the entry of the sun into each zodiacal sign with appropriate music stressing the vibratory keynote of the presiding Hierarchy at the time. The more advanced celebrants were able to place themselves in harmony with the music of their own particular sign and planet and receive benefits accordingly.
At certain times in the course of history a “magical music” has been brought to earth by some high Initiate. The beautiful legends of Greece tell of Orpheus as being such a musical messenger and that by his rare skill troubled minds were stilled, flowers bloomed, waters became calm, and winds ceased. The Old Testament carries this same truth in the story of David, the sweet and illumined singer of Israel, who by the power of his magic harp soothed the madness of Saul.
The most profound truths connected with the teachings concealed in that supreme and sacred ceremonial, The Last Supper, as was performed by the Lord Chirst, are based upon the use of vibratory power. These truths He imparted at that time to His Chosen Twelve.
The rhythms of certain high and noble music raise the pitch and accelerate the motion of every atom in the body; they also activate dynamically certain vital centers hitherto latent and work, moreover, upon the mind, tending to lift it from its confinement in the concrete to freedom in the abstract.
There are seven centers, or “musical lights,” to be awakened in man’s body. These centers lie along the spinal cord and correspond with the seven notes of the octave. They are not physical, but etheric, and serve as conductors of specialized vital essences to the physical centers. These centers receive this force through corresponding etheric plexes which not only contact the physical centers, but interprenetrate them completely.
The first of these vital points is situated at the base of the spine; its color is red. Here the serpentine Kundalini sleeps. When this slumbering fire first awaJcens, its dark color begins to lighten in hue, and as the regenerative process continues through the gradual rising of the spinal spirit fire it becomes a pure, luminous, ruby red. The stimulation of this center produces the beginnings of psychic abilities.
The next, or second center, is the solar plexus, also called the epigastric plexus. Its corresponding etheric center is known as "the sun of the stomach." Its color is reddish orange. As the work of transmutation goes on, those colors are modified by radiations of a soft green light. With the awakening of this center comes the first trace of clairvoyance.
The third, or hypogastric plexus, is correlated to the spleen. When this becomes active it radiates with all the golden splendor of a miniature sun. This center, when awakened, bestows the gift of healing. In the early stages of its development there is a blend of green light with gold, which later takes on the effulgence of pure gold.
The fourth, or cardiac plexus, is over the heart. This is a vital point of peculiar sensitiveness and emits a luminous, soft, yellow radiance which in the higher stages of transmutation becomes tinged with ethereal blue. The development of this center brings memories of past life cycles. This is the power referred to in occult parlance as “heart memory.”
The fifth center is the pharyngeal plexus located in the throat just over the larynx. Its color is azure blue and the refining processes of the body cause it to sparkle and glow with silver lights. The development of this center brings a recovery of the Lost Word. The creative power of speech is its high function. "My words shall accomplish that whereunto they are sent," proclaimed the Master of Masters who possessed the power belonging to this center.
The sixth, or cavernous plexus, is situated in the head at a point between the eyebrows. When fully developed there ray forth from this point kaleidoscopic color patterns of indescribable beauty of splendor, their primary tones being rose, yellow, blue and purple. When this center functions fully, consciousness is continuous, neither sleep nor death interrupting it henceforth.
The seventh, or chorioid plexus, is in the top of the head. When the body has been fully regenerated this center emits a pure white effulgent light, blessing all who come under its luminous, healing rays. Its development brings liberation from the wheel of birth and death. “He that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more." is a statement referring to One who has attained to this high state.
Thus we see that the several etheric centers in the vital body unfold their powers progressively from the lowest to the highest as regeneration takes place, and that the seven-toned musical scale to which these centers correspond sound forth their respective notes in accordance with man’s development. The lifting of the spinal spirit fire is in perfect accompaniment to the tones of the musical scale. The expanding consciousness releases one note after another in an ever ascending series. In this way the body of man becomes more and more closely attuned to that larger body known as the Grand Man of the Universe, both sounding forth the music of the spheres. Rudolph Steiner, the eminent Rosicrucian occultist, refers to this development as "the wonder of the octave experience." Dr. George S. Arundale, Theosophical writer and teacher, describes this same scientific truth with a poet’s imagination when he declares: "The Kundalini is music as it is color. It is a rainbow as it is a perfect song." The single string of the monochord has its counterpart in the spinal cord of man, the lower part of which is connected with the generative organs (earth) and the upper part with the head (heaven).
On the monochord, the interval between heaven and earth is conceived as being spanned by the double octave. Similarly, when man has harmoniously developed the double octave of the physical and the etheric, he, too, will have an instrument that will make him a conscious citizen even here and now of two worlds. To sound the upper or heavenly notes of the monochord is to know liberation from the cycle of recurrent birth. To sound the lower note is to establish an understanding accord with humanity at large that has not yet risen above the deadening toils of transitory physical existence. To sound the two is "To walk with kings (Master-Initiates), nor lose the common touch."
The diapason of struggle for supremacy is sounding continuously upon the human monochord between the Luciferian spirits on the one hand and the angels on the other. Therefore, as the Lucifers are endeavoring to keep this channel charged with the fiery forces of Mars, the angels strive to suffuse it with ethereal lunar radiations.
As regeneration supersedes generation in the life of the individual, the spirit fire in the spinal column, the human monochord, is awakened, and the tonal pitch is gradually raised as the sacred creative fire ascends toward the head. By this process the natural man is at length transformed into the celestial man.
In the cosmic monochord, the earth, the sun, and the heavens all sound the same identical note, the difference being one of octave only. Man, a creature innately divine, is being worked upon by Neptune, the planet of divinity, in a manner calculated to arouse and lift the inner, sacred fires of his being so that the key of his soul will harmonize with the heavenly chord instead of that of the earth.
The call of man, in the words of one of the greatest of all biblical seers, is to “Put off the old man and put on the new.”
It was the ecstatic realization of this unity with the divine selfhood within,that brought forth from that illumined medieval seer, Angelus Silesius, his victorious chant:
In all eternity there is no tone so sweet
As when man's heart with God’s doth beat.
Rudolph Steiner states that when man can steep himself sufficiently in the consciousness of the Saturn Period he will know again the lost secret of architecture; when he can enter into the direct consciousness of the Sun Period he will know the full mystery of sculpture; and that with the full consciousness of the Moon Period he will enter into the mystery of painting. To the present Earth Period belongs the mystery of music, the last of the arts to be developed, as it is the highest of them all.
During what may be spoken of as the “Cathedral Age” in Europe, master workmen were in incarnation whose labors in dicated that they were qualified to receive the wages permitting them "to travel in foreign countries." The Greeks of the Golden Age of Pericles were masters of the art of sculpture. The 15th and 16th centuries produced the masters of color and also the towering geniuses of the literature and drama of the Elizabethan Era. Music, of all the arts, remains yet in its infancy.
The first real school of music is said to have been founded by the prophet Samuel among the Levite choristers, with David as its music master and the Psalms as its hymnal. These Psalms are an Initiate's musically poetic description of the awakening of the seven centers previously mentioned and the successive steps in their unfoldment.
The seven-stringed harp of David was within himself. It was by means of his own spiritually awakened powers that he soothed the madness of Saul. It was by the magic of this same seven-stringed harp that David built for himself that spiritual armor that protected him from Saul at the time when Saul would have taken David’s life. This celestial harp is also the seven-stringed lyre of Orpheus with which he calmed the waters and caused the tempest to cease.
Consider further the nature of this seven-stringed harp as it exists within the body of man. There are seven cavities or ventricles within the brain, each sounding its own note and emanating its own individual color. This sevenfold tone is a miniature choral of the celestial song intoned by the seven Planetary Spirits before the throne of God, namely, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury.
The brain cavities are filled with a subtile life essence, now dormant in most people, but which begin to glow or sparkle with inconceivable brilliance as man develops his spiritual nature. Physiologically, these seven centers bear the following names: Olfactory, Lateral, Third, Fourth, the Cavernous Ventricles, and the Pineal and Pituitary Glands.
The lyre, or the harp of seven strings, has always borne much esoteric symbolism. Hargrave Jennings in The Rites and Mysteries of the Rosicrucians thus describes it:
The seven strings of the magic harp sound the music of the spheres. They mean also the seven tones of pure music and stand again for the seven prismatic colors which again describe the seven vowels by which speech first came to man. They represent also the seven rulers of the seven planets which have their seven spirits or Celestial Flames which are the seven angels or Spirits of God who keep the way round about the Throne of the Ancient of Days.
Music in its highest spiritual aspects is on the way toward a recovery of much that has been lost, and also to a further development of this, the youngest and the highest of all the arts. As this phase devleops, music will become an increasingly important factor in the work of groups devoted to healing by the power of the spoken word, and to the work involved in the attainment of spiritual illumination.
The Grail music of Richard Wagner is literally a transcription of the music of angelic choirs and was given to earth for the specific purpose of furthering man’s spiritual evolution. It possesses the highest vibratory rate of any music yet heard upon the earth and will be used increasingly by New Age groups, for the further emancipation of spirit from the bondage of fleshly limitations.
The sacred consecrational music-drama, Parsifal, is attuned to the same rhythmic harmonies as was the Last Supper observed by the Christ, and is a direct channel for contacting the Christian Mysteries on the higher planes of true spiritual illumination.
Wagner, an Initiate of the "Musical Ray," qualified himself as a messenger to help prepare others “to partake of redemption in advance as he expressed it, or in the biblical phrase, to "take the kingdom of heaven by storm," both statements referring to the attainment of the Hidden Wisdom and the triumphant passage through the mystic portal of Initiation.
The Temple of the Grail, wherein this sublime music is performed, is not a poetrical phantasy about which poets dream, but an actuality within the spiritual realms. Tennyson describes it as being “built to the music of fairy harps,” and Wagner says it is “located on a high and inaccessible mountain, and that the path leading thereto no human foot has ever trod.”
In this Temple, Illumined Ones are working with music in relation to the further processes of man’s development. There are upon the earth persons who have learned to attune themselves with the musical Ray of this Temple and consciously partake of its instruction. Richard Wagner was one of these.
Many musicians are being unconsciously influenced through its rhythms. The finer and purer the life of the musician, the more sensitive does he become to the influences emanating from this Holy Place.
The knights and maidens of the Grail are those who have been initiated into the sacred meanings and purposes of this Temple and have brought to man some phases of its truths for his betterment and ultimate regeneration. Much knowledge will be given to the world in the near future in connection with the spritual forces of rhythm.
The early Church received and used most effectually for a time much of this inner knowledge in the melodic rhythms of the Masses. Some of these were composed by the great Masters under the direct inspiration of the musical Ray of the Temple. Music has been aptly termed the handmaid of religion. Plato declared that so exalted an art was no invention of man, but a gift of the gods and was first taught to man by divine instructors.
— Corinne Heline
