Quote from Rudolf Steiner....

[Phillipa]

Hello Itladians...it just so happened that at one time i tried to write a book - mis-80s-which seeded from the idea i had that Beethoven et al had a 'secret antenna' which enable them to tap into realms of inspiration whilst they were alseep. I was very much into reading about Quantum physics at the time and seeing how it would fit on my own philisophical journey..and the ensuing fantasy thoughts i was having myself concerning music as being a manifestation of the mathematics and ensuing forces that make our universe...forces that govern everything for the tiniest atom upwards....and so i plodded along...didn't finish the book at i have ADD .majority of my writing is in rhyming verse and seems to be the only way i can get a story from start to finish...the longest poem being a humerous look at a true story that goes on for 10 pages....any how you can imagine my delight upon finding the sourse book which i mentioned in my introductory blog. With delight i realised that i had never been alone with these kinds of thought..All this stuff is very what you call Itladian which is why i want to share with you some quotes of famous people who you may know and whose writing inspired me at least to think my own ramblings had been thought before by various famous people.....so with i hope you're approval as i'm sure you're gonna love it is my first and favourite quote...it is be Rudolf Steiner if any of you know him...notes taken from a lecture in 1906


Music, The Astral World and Devachan

Rudolf Steiner 1861 - 1925

Austrian scholar, educationalist, lecturer, seer, clairvoyant, founder of Anthroposophy - worldwide movement devoted to the
spiritual development of mankind.


...This new dimension that opens to man is Devachan1, the so-called mental world, and he enters this wondrous world through the portals of the "great stillness". Through the great stillness, the tone of this other world rings out to him. This is how the Devachanic world truly appears...

...Of course, one must not imagine that the Devachanic world does not radiate colours as well. It is penetrated by light emanating from the astral world, for the two worlds are not separated; the astral world penetrates the Devachanic world. The essence of the Devachanic realm, however, lies in tone. That which was light in the great stillness now begins to resound.

On a still higher plane of Devachan, tone becomes something akin to words. All true inspiration originates on this plane, and in this region dwell inspired authors. Here they experience a real permeation with the truths of the higher worlds. This phenomenon is entirely possible...

...The ordinary human being passes through these worlds time after time, but he know nothing about it, because he is conscious neither of himself nor of his experiences there. Nevertheless, he returns with some of the effects that these experiences called forth in him. When he awakens in the morning, not only is he physically rejuvenated by the sleep, but he also brings back art from those worlds. When a painter, for example, goes far beyond the reality of colours in the physical world in his choice of the tones and colour harmonies that he paints on his canvas, it is none other than a recollection, albeit an unconscious one, of experiences in the astral world. Where has he seen these tones, these shining colours? Where has he experienced them? They are the after-effects of the astral experiences he has had during the night...

...The composer conjures a still higher world; he conjures the Devachanic world into the physical world. The melodies and harmonies that speak to us from the compositions of our great masters are actually faithful copies of the Devachanic world. If we are at all capable of experiencing a foretaste of the spiritual world, this would be found in the melodies and harmonies of music and effects it has on the human soul.

When man sleeps, the astral body and the sentient soul release themselves from the lower nature of man. Physical man lies in bed connected with his etheric body. All his other members loosen and dwell in the astral and Devachanic worlds. In these worlds, specifically in the Devachanic world, the soul absorbs into itself the world of tones. When he awakens each morning, man actually has passed through an element of music, an ocean of tones. A musical person is one whose physical nature is such that it follows these impressions, though he need not know this. A sense of musical pleasure is based on nothing other than the right accord between the harmonies brought from beyond and the tones and melodies here. We experience musical pleasure when outer tones correspond with those within...

...Now we can grasp the basis of the profound significance of music. We understand why music has been elevated throughout the ages to the highest position among the arts by those who know the relationships of the inner life, when even those who do not know these relationships grant music a special place, and why music stirs the deepest strings of our soul, causing them to resound.

Alternating between sleeping and waking, man continuously passes from the physical to the astral and from these worlds to the Devachanic world, a reflection of his overall course of incarnation...

...Just as the human soul flows downward from its home in Devachan and flows back to it again, so do its shadows, the tones, the harmonies. Hence the intimate effect of music on the soul.. Out of music, the most primordial kinship speaks to the soul; in the most inwardly deep sense, sounds of home rebound from it. From the soul's primeval home, the spiritual world, the sounds of music are borne across to us and speak comfortingly and encouragingly to us in surging melodies and harmonies.


Source: Lecture given Berlin, November 12, 1906, trans. by Marie St Goar in Rudolf Steiner, The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone c.1983. pp. 10-21 . Anthroposophic Press

1. Devachan: a word borrowed from Hinduism meaning the place of the devas (angels), to indicate the state of the higher ego between incarnations.

[MAC]

Phillipa: Fascinating bit of reading; more information to perhaps expand the horizons of what my beliefs might otherwise dictate as being possible or probable.

Interesting insights / explanations offered about musical attractiveness. One might ask what it is we tune into when certain music resonates strongly for us.

It seems Rudolf Steiner offers a few suggestions there.

Thanks for the posting.

Cam

NB: I'm sure I'll come back to re-read the quotes from Rudolf Steiner a few times ...

[Phillipa]

Hello thanks for reply. I believe we are 'urged' to create as all our emotional expression in that way is our expression of the vibrations of the univerese that we are in tune with ..or something like that. Rhythm music art..Andrew Lloyd Webber said last night that he could be moved to tears by the site of an architectural masterpiece ie a building. We are programmed to absorb and create patterns. And this is to do with the part of the brain that creates emotion. That is what i think...why we can be so moved by music and art in all its forms..or the harmony contained in a beautiful natural landscape..or the perfect symmetry to be found in a flower..the more your consciousness is wide open and receptive to these things. The creative source being the creative force of the universe...and how well you are tuned into it affects your creative output... Have you ever found you can't get a song out of your head? I've seen it all 'repetitive tune syndrome'..i think that is just the brains response to stress..maybe it's a healing process to fixate on a rhythm. Have you noticed how autistic people, often who have no speech will rock or spin or something like...that is their emotional responses showing as they can't show them any other way...so you have to figure they could be rocking because they are happy, or stressed or 'distressed. but are expressing emotion with rhythm. I noticed this when my mum died and my stressful self imploded and i started 'joining dots' to make what others could not see (some could and that was strange)..and losing myself in the patterns of nature and marvelling at the force which created them..oh yes i was on planet Zod for a while:-) but i came out of that with an understanding of the brains need for patterns and its creation of them to bring order to chaos..which was the true state of my mental affairs at the time...

do you know the autstic guy , a savant artist..who took a 20 min helicopter ride over the City of London without a sketch pad..then he went back and faithfully created every building down to the last window. This man obviously has not only photographic memory banks but total access to them at will......now that is the way evolution would like us to go i think:-)