Esoteric Theories of Music, 7-8


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Chapter 7 : "Cyril Scott : a Theosophical True Believer".


p. 132 greatly admired by other music-composers

"Scott has been called the "father of modern British music", his work being greatly admired by Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky." (Tame 1984, p. 264)

Tame 1984 = D. Tame : The Secret Power of Music. Wellingborough : Turnstone Pr.



p. 136 intelligent mortals are guided by praeternatural hierarchy

"the moral and spiritual evolution of humankind has been overseen and guided by a hierarchy of great sages, adepts and initiates known as the Great White Lodge".

{Such guidance, more actually, is provided by co-operation amongst great deities who never incarnate in material bodies, such deities acting upon mortals through spirit-guides (also known as "guardian angels") who each remain close association (and thus quasi-incarnate) with particular individual mortals, and at certain occasions also acting upon mortals by means of temporary assistance by possessing-spirits who are ofter designated by a medium as the "control" (who, though the mortal usually cannot afterwards recall this, do deliver messages through that mortal's mouth to other mortals; and a variant type of process, one easily recalled by a mortal, can involve instead automatic writing performed by the mortal's hand under control by another order of spirit-"control").}

{The notion that living mortals are guided by semi-divinized defunct mortals is mainly Taoist, but to some extent also Bauddha and Jaina. It is not Zarathustrian, where instead the fravas^i ('guardian angel') is described as similar to the Platonic ideas/forms (which do not themselves incarnate).}


p. 137 relationship between ethical philosophies and musics

"Scott writes [Music : Its Secret Influence, p. 40] :

[quoted] Each specific type of music has exercised a profound effect on history, on morals and on culture; music is a more potent force in the molding of character than ... moral philosophies; for though these show the desirability of these qualities, it is music that facilitates their acquisition."

{Music, both instrumental and vocal, it capable (in the context of ethical philosophies) of generating and sustaining, through inducing moods, the emotions-and-sentiments appropriate for such continued acquisition.}


p. 138 transcriber-cum-editor

"Scott's primary book on music was ... channeled via a clairvoyant medium, Nelsa Chaplin, who worked with him for seven years. ... She not only had the gifts of clairvoyance and clairaudience, she also had the power to leave her body and transport herself to the higher planes."

"Scott was ... not the author of the book of but acted only as a scribe."

{He was, besides being transcriber of dictation from her, but also the book's editor; for, it was not published until after her demise.}

fn. 649 "A full account of Nelsa Chaplin is given by Scott in Chapter 30 of Bone of Contention".


p. 147 relationship of materially-oriented oikonomics to spiritually-oriented music

"Scott's view ... ignores other external factors such as political events and economics as contributing to the overall changes in society, therefore making the link between music and social changes a direct causal one."

{The basic guiding principle to socio-oikomic evolution hath been the overall plan of intercommunicating networks comprising the diverse categories of entities (ensconced in higher-than-material pure subtle planes-of-existence), and acting upon mortals through the ministrations by those mortals' spirit-guides, to assure progress in industrial production (in the material universe) to the level of all such production's being performed by mechanical robots, at which point in evolution : because not being constrained to perform any sort of labor of a material type, all mortal beings shall be in a situation fit for contemplating solely the divine worlds and, thus, the divine denizens of those worlds; and therefore fit for performing spiritual activities at the behest of such divine worlds and their divine denizens, of such nature of activities as will be appropriate for further ongoing guidance of themselves (viz., the organic-material-body-residing mortals -- i.e., indwelling in biochemical material bodies) along with such guidance of the elemental spirits (viz., inorganic-material-body-residing beings -- i.e., indwelling in non-biochemical material bodies). Music (and its being ongoingly composed) is, of course, included in such evolution -- as a mode of facilitating the emotions-and-sentiments appropriate for such evolution's sucessful-and-successive stages of progress. Inasmuch as all factors in political events and in oikonomics (being in actuality NOT-AT-ALL "independent") operate entirely under control by divine command-networks, therefore the musical intents of praeternatural entities are a praedominatingly determining factor in social evolution, which is wholly divinely organized, divinely arranged, and divinely guided.}


p. 149 hearing music in a dream

"a person in the dream state hearing the music of Devachan ... could bring back the memory of the Devas after super-conscious trance." (Scott : Music, p. 119)

"The music heard reveals to the listener a "sense of the divine, giving ... a sense of ... higher self." (Scott : Music, p. 122)

{This "higher self" (called "oversoul" in Rosicrucian litterature) is a variety of personal spirit-guide.}


p. 150 musical diapason in divine Temple in Heaven

[quoted from Besant & Leadbeater : Man, p. 377] "the chord ... repeated by a thousand invisible musicians, ... resounds through the great dome of the Temple and pours in a great flood of harmony, a sea of rushing sound, over the entire congregation. ... Thus every member is brought into harmony with the principal idea which the Deva wishes to emphasize."

{These heavenly instrumental musicians are caran.a-s; the heavenly site is the divine court of Brahma, where (according to the puran.a) such music is constantly resounding with praeternatural effect.}

"The cosmic symphony described is also similar to the "symphony of all souls" described by Von Dalberg, describing a consistency in the esoteric".

J. F. H. von Dalberg : "A Composer's Glimpses of the Music of Spirits". In :- J. Godwin (ed.) : Music, Mysticism and Magic. pp. 177-83.


p. 151 Debussy's occult devotions

"Claude Debussy was a friend of Cyril Scott ... . His mission was to ... echo the music of gnomes and fairies, as well as {of} water and cloud spirits."

"Esoterically ..., he was influenced by ..., according to David Goldman [1991, p. 131], ... his interest in Rosicrucianism, Satanism {S`at.an-ism}, Eastern mysticism and Gnosticism."

Goldman 1991 = D. P. Goldman : "Esotericism as a Determinant of Debussy's Harmonic Language". MUSICAL QUARTERLY 75.2:130-47.


p. 152 hidden messages (viz., occult religious symbolism) in much of modern-day artworks

"Crystall states that painters ... often ... carry hidden messages; therefore, she suggests [1996, p. 164], Debussy -- being a ... grand master of the Priory of Sion --

may have encoded messages in his music ... ."

{Likewise, Mozart is known to have encoded Freemasonry in his opera.}

Crystall 1996 = E. Crystall : Esoteric Traditions and Music in the Early Twentieth Century with an Appraisal of Composer Cyril Scott. NY Univ Pr.


p. 155, Table 7.2 Scriabin's correspondences of musical notes (for the chromatic scale) to colors

{before dawn 12 March 2018 : discovery of correlation of Scriabin's 12 with 13 in Ap. of Io.}

musical note

color (according to Bowers)

crystalline stones in Apokalupsis of Ioannes 21:19-21

ordinal sequence

C

red

"pure gold, as it were transparent glass" (i.e., red hue of gold colloidally suspended in glass)

13th (21:21; 21:18)

C#

violet

amethyst

12th (21:20)

D

yellow

jacinth (huakinthos)

11th (21:20)

D#

metallic bluish


10th

E

sky-blue


9th

F

red-purple


8th

F#

blue-violet


7th

G

orange


6th

G#

lilac-violet


5th

A

dark green

emerald (smaragdos)

4th (21:19)

A#

metallic grey


3rd

B

blue

sapphire

2nd (21:19)

--

[missing]

pearl (margarites/gabiys^)

1st (21:21)

Bowers : "Foreward" to the full score of Scriabin's opus #60, "Prometheus : the Poem of Fire".


p. 156 breaking away from the sort of music as was composed with the intent of gratifying the royalty

[quoted from Scott : Music, p. 136] "the work of destroying ... noisome moral germs has been allotted to Stravinsky, Schoenberg and other ultra-modernists, who ... are needed esoterically speaking ... also

to break down that conventionality which was one of the by{e}-effects of Handel's music."

{Ha:ndel would appear to have composed music specifically intended to gratify, and to enhance the authority of, hereditary royalty [such as, of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty].}


p. 156 Cyril Scott's optimism for the future

"Scott ... concludes the 1958 edition of his Music with a new message ... : "We seek, primarily through the medium of inspired music, to diffuse the spirit of unification ..., and thus quicken the vibration of this planet.""


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Chapter 8 : "Continuing Influence of Theosophical Notions in Esoteric Music Theory, 1970 to the Praesent".


p. 162 surat-s`abda yoga

"Jonathan Goldman, in his two books Healing Sounds and Shifting Frequencies, moves ... to be guided by

one of Masters of the "Sound Current" {\surat\ 'current' [of] \s`abda\ 'sound'},

{These are r.s.i-s of the 5 timbres of musical instruments played by their respective orders of caran.a-s, who are invoked in the meditations practiced within the Radha-Swami.}

whom he identifies as Shamael {more accurately, \S^ama<-el\} , the angel of music."

{More accurately, this angel would praeside over the faculty of hearing (Strong's 8085 \s^ama<\ 'hear'), and not "of music". 'Instrumental music' is Strong's 2170 \zmar\; so that mal>ak of instrumental music would be, instead, \Zmar-el\.}

Strong's Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary of Bible Words.


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Ronald Kenneth Butler : The Influence of Theosophy on the Tradition of Speculative and Esoteric Theories of Music. M.A. thesis, Griffith Univ, 2013.2.

https://www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/file/...070b.../Butler_2013_02Thesis.pdf