Lines and Circles: West and East

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Biao, Zuo. "Lines and Circles: West and East." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002):140-145.

By Zuo Biao

Theosophical Society - Professor Zuo Biao teaches at Shanghai Maritime University, where he is Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. He has been honored as Shanghai Model Worker and National Excellent Teacher of China and is listed in Outstanding People of the 21st Century? by the Cambridge International Biographical Center. This article is slightly abridged and edited from English Today: The International Review of the English Language NOTHING IN THE WORLD IS ABSOLUTE. Everything is relative, cultural difference being no exception.Culture, as the total pattern of human behavior and its products, oversteps geographical limits and historical conditions in many ways, and it is characterized by its strong penetrativeness and fusibility.

The advancement of the globalized economy and the rapidity and ease of modern communication, transportation, and mass media have resulted in an ever increasing exchange between cultures,unprecedented in scale, scope, and speed. Consequently, an increase in universality and a reduction in difference between cultures is an inevitable trend. It is no surprise to see phenomena characteristic of one culture existing in another. As a result, some people even fear that the world will become a dull place when all the different nationalities behave exactly alike.

Nevertheless, the "cultural sediment" formed through long-range accumulation is not to be easily removed, and the cultural tradition handed down from generation to generation shows great consistency and continuity. The cultures of different regions and nations still have their own distinctive peculiarities, and therefore significance still needs to be attached to the study of the individualities of different cultures against the background of their universality.

By and large, linearity and circularity can be used to indicate the major difference between Western and Chinese cultures. "Western culture" here is a general term, putting aside its interior regional diversities in order to contrast it with Chinese culture. A circle is a round enclosure. Aline is a narrow continuous mark. The contrast between the linearity of Western culture and the circularity of Chinese culture embodies itself in such aspects as worldview, core value, outlook on time, and mode of thinking.

Worldview: Linear Division and Circular Enclosure

A line divides an area while a circle encloses one. As far as worldviews are concerned, Western linearity is displayed in the general belief that the Universe is divided into two opposites with a clear-cut demarcation line drawn between the two: man and nature, subject and object, mind and matter, the divine and the secular. Chinese circularity manifests itself in the prevailing viewpoint of combining the two opposites and enclosing them. Although opposites are acknowledged in both cultures, Western culture emphasizes their coexistence and opposition, whereas Chinese culture stresses their interdependence and integration.

The linear nature of the Western worldview can be traced back to such ancient Greek philosophers as Thales, Heracleitus, Plato, and Aristotle. They all advocate dividing the world into two opposing parts: element and soul, reality and reason, matter and form. Their theories laid the foundation for the further development of the one-dividing-into-two view adopted by Western culture. Archimedes said more than two thousand years ago, "Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth." A proverb says, "Nature is conquered by obeying her." Conquering or obeying, human beings in the West consider Nature as their opposite.

Christianity holds that God creates human beings and human beings sin against God. Throughout the Bible the theme of the redemption of mankind is developed. There exists a clear division between God and humanity. Later hypotheses like those of Descartes and Hegel consolidated the theoretical basis though they introduced different notions, such as matter and mind and real object and absolute spirit. The dividing worldview is the starting point of Western culture's exploring and transforming Nature and explains the rapid development of science and technology in the West.

The circular Chinese worldview originates from the notion of Tao in the proposition "Tao consists ofYin and Yang" in the Book of Changes (about 600 BC). Lao-tzu, who lived about 500 years before Christ, further enunciated the concept of Tao in chapter 42 of his Tao Te Ching: "Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand. These ten thousand creatures cannot turn their backs to the shade (Yin) without having the sun (Yang) on their bellies, and it is on this blending of the breaths (both Yin and Yang) that their harmony depends" (Arthur Maley's translation). It is obviously the One, the blending, and the harmony that are emphasized in the explanation of Tao.

Two centuries after Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu (369 –286 BC) used orderly philosophic discussion rather than poetic intuition to clarify the concept of Tao. He believed in "the One reality which is all men, gods, and things: complete, all-embracing, and the whole; it is an all-embracing unity from which nothing can be separate" (Gardener Murphy's translation). When it comes to the relationship between humanity and Nature, he proposes that "the perfect man has no self because he has transcended the finite and identified himself with the universe." Thus the concept that human beings are part of Nature is rooted in the minds of the Chinese people. Dong Zhongshu (179 –104 BC), a philosopher of the West Han dynasty, again developed the Oneness worldview. He assumed that "the energy of heaven and earth is a unified one. It consists of Yin and Yang and manifests itself in four seasons and five elements."

A number of Chinese expressions mirror the idea of identifying human beings with Nature rather than separating them. Here are some examples:

Nature affects human affairs and human behavior finds response in Nature (Tian ren ganying).
The law of Nature and the feelings of humanity are in unison (Tian li ren qing).
Nature accords with human wishes (Tian cong ren yuan).
Nature is angry and people are resentful (Tian nu ren yuan).
Nature's will brings about human affinity (Tian yi ren yuan).
Nature and humankind turn to one. (Tian yu ren gui).

The Chinese character "tian" is translated as "Nature" in the above expressions, although "tian" carries a wider sense than the English word. "Tian" (Nature) and "ren" (human) always react to and comply with each other. They can never be separated. The Oneness worldview also finds expression in Chinese poems:

Flowers smile on the happy occasion.
Birds sing with the joyful congregation.
(Wang Wei)

Trees sway in a mournful gale.
Waves surge like hill and dale.
(Cao Zhi)

Catkins scattered by wind, my motherland is being disintegrated.
Rain striking duckweed, I sink against the tide, broken-hearted.
(Wen Tianxiang)

As the above lines show, things in Nature like flowers, birds, trees, waves, wind, and rain all respond to such human feelings as happiness, sadness, anger, and sorrow. Humanity and Nature blend into a harmonious identity.

Core Value: Linear Individuality and Circular Integrity

A line is a point moving continuously onward, whereas a circle is a centripetal ring. In terms of core value, Western linearity is embodied in the priority given to developing individual potentialities, realizing individual objectives, and seeking individual interests; Chinese circularity is embodied in the importance attached to harmonizing community relationships, actualizing community objectives, and safeguarding community interests.

For most Westerners, individualism is undoubtedly a positive core value. In fact, the social systems of various Western nations, and especially the United States, are based on "rugged individualism," as described by Herbert Hoover in 1928. The pursuit of individual rights and interests is considered utterly legitimate. Self-actualization and the maximal realization of individual potential are supremeaims in life. It is fully justified for individuals to protect their private interests when they are in conflict with those of the community or the state. Weight is given to the individual rather than to the community, as Margaret Thatcher said in a speech in 1987: "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women." Westerners prefer to discipline themselves rather than be disciplined by others. They take pride in their independence and their right to make their own decisions. They go their own way, not caring much about what others might think about their doings.

In Western culture, an individual is like an independent point, moving forward continuously in aself-chosen direction, forming a line of self-fulfillment. If different people's lines run parallel, they will each smoothly attain their own aims in life. As one American professor put it: "You are selfish and I am selfish, but you don't stand in my way and I don't stand in your way. We are both selfish, and we are both happy."

However, if two lines intersect, the stronger line must cut off the other one in order to keep moving on itself, thus conforming to the law of the survival of the fittest. Guided by linear competition-oriented value, everyone seeks independence and self-reliance, and everyone feels insecure and makes unremitting efforts. The linear road of an individual's life is made and extended by the individual's own feet, and success is achieved through individual effort.

Chinese culture, on the other hand, takes circular integrity as the basis of its value. An individual is incorporated into the integrity of the whole. The center of the circle represents the community's interests and serves as the common objective of all its individual members. The individual exists in the community and finds the meaning of his existence through it. An individual in isolation has no meaningful existence.

More than two thousand years ago, Confucius advocated that "a public spirit should rule everything under the sun and a gentleman should put others' interests above his own." An ancient Chinese would consider it the primary aim in life "to cultivate his own moral character, put family affairs in order, administer state affairs well, and pacify the whole world." It is evident that the interests of the small circle (family), the intermediate circle (state), and the large circle (world) come above one's own, and one has to cultivate one's own moral character and to exert oneself in order to achieve the goal of serving the community's interests. A couplet from a Ming dynasty academy of classical learning says, "The sounds of wind, rain, and reading each come into my ears; the affairs of family, state, and world are all kept in my mind." Fan Zhongyan, a Song dynasty poet, expressed his desire "to show concern over state affairs before others and enjoy comforts after them."

It has been a widely accepted motto that "everyone has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country." In present-day China, prioritizing community interests remains the mainstream value, in spite of the importation of different values from other cultures. Jean Brick, as an outsider who has come inside for some time, has observed the circular group-oriented Chinese value with keen cross-cultural awareness. She says in her book China, "Private interests are vested in the group, that is in the family or in the community, and not in the individual. True self-fulfillment for the individual lies in fulfilling social responsibilities to the greatest extent possible. In fact, the establishment of harmonious social relations is seen as an absolute necessity, without which any development is impossible."

Outlook on Time: Linear Extension and Circular Rotation

A line extends and a circle rotates. Western culture looks upon time as the extension of a line going ceaselessly forward and never returning, and therefore holds the future in high regard and plans for it. In contrast Chinese culture thinks of time as the rotation of a circle, going repeatedly round and round, day in and day out, and thus cherishes and reveres the past.

The linear outlook on time finds reflection in many Western literary works. Men of letters compare time to "the devourer of everything" (Ovid, 15 AD), "the subtle thief of youth" (Milton, 1645), and a "winged chariot hurrying near" (Marvel, 1681). Shakespeare in 1601 described time as "most brisk and giddy-paced." As Jia Yuxin says, "Time is viewed in Western culture as an unceasing one-way movement. It means marching, flowing, and flying. It resembles the river, the waterfall, and the torrent." Edward T. Hall points out that nobody in the Western world can escape the iron-handed control of unidirectional time. The linear view of time is also evidenced in such proverbs as "Time lost is never found again" and "Time and tide wait for no man."

As time is regarded as something moving on in one direction and never coming back, Westerners have a strong sense of the shortage of time, which quickens their pace of life and makes them habitually look ahead, having their eyes on the future. People are used to writing in their calendars what is to be done in the future and focus much of their attention on planning for it. They tend to defy authorities and enjoy blazing new trails rather than following the beaten track. It might be said that the linear view encourages bold exploration and promotes scientific creation.

The Chinese circular outlook on time is also revealed in literary writings and proverbs. The flight of time is compared in classical writings to the movement of a shuttle (suo), which flits back and forth in a weaving loom. Qu Yuan (about 270 BC), a patriotic poet of the Warring States Period, writes in his masterpiece The Lament, "The sun alternates with the moon; autumn returns after spring soon." Time is looked upon not as a never returning, one-way movement, but as a back-and-forth rotation like the endless cycle of the seasons. It is true that time goes quickly, but it comes back soon as the sun and moon do. The circular view results in a sense of the abundance of time and thus doing things in an unhurried manner.

People believe that loss can be made up for as time rotates. This belief is expressed in a line fromThe Biography of Feng Yi written in the East Han dynasty, "What is lost at sunrise can be regained at sunset." Although people also sigh over "time waiting for no one" (Tao Yuanming, Jin dynasty) and feel "regret for the negligent loss of time" (Han Yu, Tang dynasty), yet they expect "the favor of the time cycle and the change from bad to good luck." The unhurried and leisurely manner is so appreciated that advice is given and farewell remarks are made by frequently using the phrases "go (eat, play, watch, discuss, do something) slowly" or "take your time." The road sign "slow down, look around, and then cross" can be found at crossroads everywhere in China.

The view of time as a cycle often directs people's attention to the past. People keep diaries to record what has been done in the past instead of listing what is to be done in the future. They tend to look back, value past experience, respect authorities, and follow established practice. Confucius advises people "to engage in introspection every day on three points." He means that everyone should constantly reflect on his own past behavior and try to find out whether he has done anything unfaithful and dishonest or has shunned his studies. It might be surmised that the circular view motivates self-examination and contributes to social stability.

Mode of Thinking: Linear Dissection and Circular Synthesis

With regard to modes of thinking, people nurtured in Western culture tend to dissect things into partsand analyze their relationships. On the other hand, people brought up in Chinese culture are likely to synthesize parts and examine the whole. Linear dissection contributes to the development of logical thinking by abstract reasoning, whereas circular synthesis helps a person to think in terms of images and to gain intuitive insight.

Analytical thinking prevails in Western culture. People are good at classifying things and arranging them systematically. Encyclopedic works appeared long ago and taxonomy was advanced early. Animals, plants, and objects are clearly divided, subdivided, and further divided according to their similarities, differences, and relationships. If you glance at the title, subtitles, and topic sentences of each paragraph of an article, you instantly know its content. When a speech is made, the audience can easily get the message by following the cohesive connectors signaling time relationships, like "first," "second," "next," and "finally" and so on, and words signaling logical relationships, such as "because," "however," "actually," and "supposing."

Experimental analysis has long been used as the major method of scientific research. Doctors of Western medicine treat their patients by examining parts of the body through tests and X rays before making a diagnosis. Linear dissection is related to abstraction. Qian Xuesen says, "Abstractive thinking seems to be linear or branch-like." Westerners are relatively stronger in making use of concepts for logical judgment and reasoning. Abstraction is synonymous with precision and clarity, and that may help to explain why more theoretical works on science and technology have been produced in the West.

The synthetic mode of thinking holds sway in Chinese culture. People are accustomed to observing and judging things as an enclosed whole. Analysis is not rejected, but synthesis predominates. There was no encyclopedia of the Western kind in ancient China. Leishu, a kind of reference book that comes closest to an encyclopedia, is a set of political, social, and ethical data dealt with in a circular way with "emperor" as the center. It does not take into account the essential nature of the included items and their fundamental differences. When writing an article, a classical writer would attach great importance to the unity and harmony of the whole piece, giving much attention to the correspondence between introduction and conclusion and the natural transition from one point to another, rather than the clear-cut division between different sections.

A doctor of Chinese medicine diagnoses a patient's disease by first looking at the patient's complexion and tongue for its coating, feeling the pulse and eliciting complaints, in order to form a correct judgment of the patient's general physical condition. The Chinese doctor tries to get at the root of the trouble and effect a permanent cure rather than apply a palliative remedy. Incidentally, Chinese people eat an apple by peeling it around and reserving the whole before biting, whereas Westerners tend to divide the apple into parts.

The synthetic mode of thinking is closely associated with intuition and thinking in terms of images, and it is synonymous with implicitness and fuzziness. As Rudolf Fleisch puts it, the Chinese "formed the habit of expressing ideas by metaphors, similes and allegories, in short, by every known device for making a thing plain by comparing it with something else." An apprentice learns cooking not by following recipes with precise quantitative descriptions, but by intuitively acquiring his master's technique after repeated imitations. A Chinese painter seeks close resemblance in spirit instead of accurate likeness in appearance. A Buddhist monk rarely makes or attends religious speeches with clear-cut viewpoints about virtues and vices, but he practices transcendental meditation and seeks intuitive insight. In fact, intuitive feeling and fuzzy beauty are held in great esteem in almost all forms of Chinese art, such as poetry, drama, and painting. As Shen Xiaolong says, "This is a circular dialectic mode of thinking with a strong plastic, flexible, and stochastic nature."

Conclusion

The linearity-versus-circularity difference in Western and Chinese cultures is merely a matter of degree. There is no absolute distinction between the two cultures. Exceptions are numerous and counter evidence exists. However, the observations above suggest the main historical trend in each culture. To compare them is not to judge which is superior but to promote understanding. A complete understanding of the individualities of the two cultures will clear the way for further cultural exchange and cultural fusion and accelerate the expansion of cultural universality. Different cultures can learn from each other's strengths to offset their own weaknesses. The moon of the West is not rounder and the Sun of the east has its spots as well. An extensive exchange between Western and Chinese cultures will certainly contribute to the creation of an even more splendid world civilization.


References

  • Brick, Jean. China: A Handbook in Intercultural Communication.Sydney: Macquarie University Press, 1991.

  • Fleisch, Rudolf F. The Art of Plain Talk. New York: Harpers & Brothers Publishers, 1946.

  • Hall, Edward T. The Silent Language. New York: Doubleday, 1959.

  • Jia Yuxin. Cross-cultural Communication. Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1997.

  • Murphy, Gardner, and Lois B. Murphy, eds. Asian Psychology. New York: Basic Books, 1968.

  • Qian Xuesen. On the Science of Thinking. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Press, 1986.

  • Shen Xiaolong. On Chinese Humanistic Spirit. Shenyang: Liaoning People's Press, 1990.

  • Thatcher, Margaret. "Speech.” Woman's Own, October 31, 1987.


Professor Zuo Biao teaches at Shanghai Maritime University, where he is Dean of the Foreign Languages Department. He has been honored as Shanghai Model Worker and National Excellent Teacher of China and is listed in Outstanding People of the 21st Century? by the Cambridge International Biographical Center. This article is slightly abridged and edited from English Today: The International Review of the English Language (Cambridge University Press), reprinted by permission of the author and the editor, Tom McArthur. English Today is a quarterly surveying the use of the English language around the world http://uk.Cambridge.org/journals. 


The View from Adyar: Being in the World, But Not of It

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation:Burnier, Radha. "Being in the World, But Not of It." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002): 122.

the view from Adyar

By Radha Burnier

[extracted from The Theosophist, February 2002]

Theosophical Society - Radha Burnier was born in Adyar, India. She was president of the Theosophical Society Adyar from 1980 until her death in 2013. She was General Secretary of the Indian Section of the Society between 1960 and 1978, and was previously an actress in Indian films and Jean Renoir's The River.Let us consider briefly what it is to be out of the world. Not in a physical sense of course, but free and in command of one's life and its course, not dragged into adopting attitudes, values, and beliefs by outer or inner compulsion. In the Yoga-vasishtha and the Bible, we find advice given by Vasishtha and Jesus respectively to become like little children. A child is by nature happy. Even an ill-treated child manages to be happy whenever given the opportunity. Children do not struggle with the world or engage in acquisitive activities or self-aggrandizement. They are just themselves.

By contrast, the essence of worldliness expresses itself in the adult in conscious or unconscious attitudes of struggle and confrontation. We do not expect the starving millions not to struggle to keep body and soul together. But with others who experience no such dire circumstances, at a subtler level and all the time, there is something which struggles. So there is a contest with surroundings, family, professional, and other obligations and with what one is. Even those who join philanthropic, well-intentioned bodies are unable to refrain from strife. Then, becoming weary of struggle, they strive to be free of struggle! We dare not be still, at peace, but want always to accomplish something, get somewhere.

Have we asked what we are struggling about? Why stress arises from deep within us? Is the physical struggle of our animal past still active in the brain? Why do people who have enough to eat and who enjoy all the necessities of life feel "poor"? Is the mind addicted to attaining a different condition? In modern society, children are trained to exert themselves and prepare for better and better positions, more skill, more achievement. Furthermore, there is a struggle to be loved. The more people crave love, admiration, or recognition, the more stressful their lives are. They crave and demand instead of being themselves loving, kind, and helpful; thus they spend their lives tussling.

Without trying to make a complete list, we can see that struggling is a destructive, psychological habit to prove one's merit, appear smart, obtain advantages, make quick progress, and do a thousand other things. At the Feet of the Master says we should not try to appear clever, but why should we appear to be anything at all? Why all this striving? Is it possible to act and live, do what is worthwhile, helpful, and good, without needing psychologically to struggle for it?

Struggling is an ego-habit, so even when people wish not to be part of the world and aspire to lead the spiritual life, their minds continue to be anxious to have the guru's attention, to quickly become enlightened, or to find the best method to overcome their defects. So it is not peaceful. "Do not let yourself be easily deceived by your own heart," says Light on the Path. It is easy to be worldly, while imagining one is spiritual. On the other hand, by learning to be aware that the egoistic self feeds itself on struggle and confrontation with people, ideas, circumstances, and its own defects, the tension is shed and there is calm.

Wholesome living, being natural and happy like children, means not demanding, not struggling, but being still and calm with whatever is. Taoism teaches nonresistance, implying deep inner contentment of the mind, in harmony with earth and heaven. The Bhagavadgita also advises one to act while "being established in Yoga." Yoga is realizing fully the harmony of earth and heaven of which we are part. When there is no feeling of struggle in whatever we do or think (a state the ancients called sama or "tranquility"), there is a remarkable change in all our relationships and in our very being.

So we must stop to realize how we are functioning—not what we are doing and how to find solutions for problems—but how we are functioning. Perhaps even a small deed done in the right state of mind does far more good than many things done by egocentric struggling. In the ocean, when a strong wind blows, at first there are little undulations; but as the wind keeps on blowing, the undulations become stronger and larger; then they turn into huge waves and breakers. Even sturdy sailing ships of old could not withstand such waves. We all struggle in small ways because of petty ambitions and imaginary needs. In the psychological realm, as in the ocean, there is a cumulative process, as we see when something happens in a crowd. A few people get frightened, then everybody panics resulting in a stampede. The whole world is like that. Our little struggles mount up and are magnified into large struggles and wars. People like Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama say, "You are responsible for the whole world!" When we do not live in serenity and peace, we create wars.

Being bodily in the world is not of importance, provided there is harmony and tranquility within. The Buddhas take birth in the world when there is degeneration, but they do not cease to be Buddhas. They are never of the world, they are free and karma-less, since they are embodiments of peace. Karma is not just physical action; it comprehends the kind of energy we put into outer action. The energy of the Buddhas is love and peace, while the energy ordinary people generate is selfish to a lesser or greater degree, and it is therefore the cause of violence. For peace to come to the suffering world, inside us there must be neither struggle nor the illusions of insecurity and ambition. When our illusions end, we shall be harbingers of peace.


Radha Burnier, the President of the international Theosophical Society since 1980, is the author of several books, including Human Regeneration; No Other Path to Go; and Truth, Beauty and Goodness. She is a tireless worker for animal welfare and the education of socially deprived children in India.


Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Lachman, Gary. "Concerto for Magic and Mysticism: Esotericism and Western Music." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002): 132-137

By Gary Lachman

Theosophical Society - Gary Lachman is the author of In Search of P. D. Ouspensky:The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff and the Politics and the Occult:The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen, and, as Gary Valentine, New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation. His new book, A Secret History of Consciousness. A regular contributor to Fortean Times, Times Literary Supplement, Quest, and other journals, he lives in London with his partner and their two sons.On February 19, 1786, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart attended a mxasquerade ball in his adopted city of Vienna, dressed in the guise of a Hindu philosopher. Along with his turban and robes, Mozart also carried some leaflets which he distributed to the crowd, on which were written various"esoteric" puzzles and strange sayings, purported to be"Fragments of the Writings of Zoroaster." In Vienna that year, esoterica was all the rage. Freemasonry was popular, as were dark intrigues, like the secret Order of the Illuminati, which combined rituals and initiations with radical politics. Indeed, the Baron Swieten, a patron of both Mozart and Beethoven and a collaborator with Haydn (also a Mason), was involved in an alleged Illuminati plot in 1791, the same year as Mozart's death. Many of Mozart's other friends and colleagues were possible members of the Illuminati. And although there is no evidence that Mozart himself was involved, he would certainly have found the egalitarian ideals of the society's founder, Adam Weishaupt, a worthy cause (Landon, Mozart: The Golden Years, 105 -22, 225 -36).

Mozart became a Mason in 1784, joining Lodge Benevolence in Vienna, which would later be renamed New Crowned Hope. Other members included "the Magnificent" Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy, Haydn's famous patron. Mozart was certainly not the first to combine an interest in music with a taste for esotericism. Christoph Gluck was a Mason, and his Orpheus contains many elements from the Craft. The earliest operas, like Jacopo Peri's Eurydice, dating from 1600, also deal with sacred themes, and Claudio Monteverdi, the new form's first major figure, was a practicing alchemist (Martin 12).

Indeed, the link between music and esotericism goes back at least as far as the sixth century BCE, when the Greek sage Pythagoras discovered the laws of harmony and developed a mystical brotherhood around them. But Mozart can surely stand as an archetype for an association that runs throughout Western music. In fact, as the musicologist Wilfrid Mellers (295) suggests, the central musical forms of the Classical and Romantic traditions, the sonata and symphony, are musical initiation journeys, sonic spiritual pilgrimages in which the hero–central theme–undergoes trials and challenges–variations–to arrive at a new level of integration–resolution. The symphony orchestra itself is an example of Masonic brotherhood, fellows"banding" together for a common cause.

Mozart took to Masonry with a passion, introducing Masonic elements into many of his works, and writing music specifically for Masonic affairs, like his moving Masonic Funeral Music (K. 477). His final three symphonies form a triptych of Masonic initiation symbolism (Mellers). But his greatest Masonic work is his opera The Magic Flute (1791), which centers on the archetypal struggle between Darkness and Light. Masonic, Egyptian, and hermetic elements crowd the work–too many to elucidate here–but by the time Mozart wrote it, Freemasonry was on the defensive. The Illuminati had been suppressed in Bavaria, and Mozart had to muffle his esoteric themes in the innocuous fabric of a fairy tale. Nevertheless, much of the message got through, and one wonders if it is just by chance that Prague, the city that loved Mozart most, was the age-old home of alchemists, Rosicrucians, astrologers, and esotericists?

In the next century, the Romantics, who followed Mozart and adopted him as a hero, were also keen on the link between music and magic. E. T. A. Hoffmann, best known for his story"The Nutcracker," on which Tchaikovsky based his ballet, was one of the most musical-minded geniuses of any age, who even took Amadeus as his name, in honor of Mozart. By day a respected juror and civil servant, at night Hoffmann plunged into the magical waters of Romanticism, writing weird, fantastic stories, brilliant musical criticism, and even composing music himself. His tales are full of alchemists, magicians, strange states of consciousness, and accounts of initiation. One collection, The Serapion Brotherhood, smacks of secret societies and magical orders. In it, one character speaks of the sun as"the triad from which the chords of the stars shower down at our feet to wrap us in the threads of their crystallized fire. A chrysalis in flames, we await Psyche to carry us on high to the sun!" (Godwin, Music 196).

As Joscelyn Godwin remarks in Harmonies of Heaven and Earth (61), in those few lines Hoffmann states the perennial doctrine of the soul's ascent through the starry spheres to its destined place in the sun. Like the ancients before him, he believed in music's power to transport us to another realm. In an essay on Beethoven, Hoffmann (96) wrote:"Music opens to man an unknown region, a world that has nothing in common with the world that surrounds him, in which he leaves behind all ordinary feeling to surrender himself to an inexpressible longing."

Beethoven, too, lived in an atmosphere charged with esotericism. Christian Gottlob Neefe, a composer, organist, and conductor, was Beethoven's composition instructor in Bonn from 1781 to 1792. Neefe nurtured Beethoven's genius. It is also possible that he steered Beethoven's thoughts toward the esoteric. Neefe was a Mason and, perhaps more important, had been involved in a branch of the Illuminati (Solomon 194). Neefe encouraged Beethoven's interest in Enlightenment ideas of freedom and brotherhood, which would occupy Beethoven throughout his life and achieve their most powerful expression in the magnificent Ninth Symphony. In the famous"Ode to Joy"–adapted from Friedrich Schiller's poem–the chorus sings:"Joy, thou source of light immortal, Daughter of Elysium," suggesting Eleusis, an earlier portal to"another world." Like Mozart, Beethoven had other links to the Masons and dedicated his Piano Sonata Op. 28 to a leading Freemason, Joseph von Sonnenfels.

Beethoven developed an interest in"oriental mysteries" through reading the Idealist philosophers Schelling and Schlegel, both of whom were heavily influenced by mythology. When he came across an inscription in The Paintings of Egypt, by J. F. Champollion (who decoded the Rosetta Stone), Beethoven copied it, had it framed, and hung it over his desk. It read:"I am that which is. I am everything that was and is and shall be. No mortal has raised my veil. HE is himself alone, and to this Only One all things owe their existence." Later these verses found their way into Masonic ritual (Solomon 350).

In a diary for 1816, Beethoven wrote about the"Indian literature" he had been reading, which prompted him to add the comment that"God is immaterial and transcends every conception," an idea reminiscent of the Hindu doctrine of neti-neti,"not this, not that." This transcendent God became a central theme for Beethoven. While working on his great Missa Solemnis (1819 -23), which has its fair share of Masonic influence, a friend remarked that Beethoven appeared"oblivious to everything worldly.""There is nothing higher than to approach more nearly to the Godhead," Beethoven told the Archduke Rudolf, something he did in his late string quartets and, perhaps most spectacularly, in the stellar Hammerklavier Sonata (1817), in which he employs his favorite"Godhead key," D major (Mellers 298).

After Beethoven, Romanticism erupted across Europe, spreading magical and esoteric ideas. In 1830,witchcraft arrived in Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. But it was Richard Wagner who forged the next major link between the musical and the mystical. Wagner's mammoth Ring Cycle, composed over a period of many years, as well as his other music dramas like Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, created a new musical mysticism and have since proved happy hunting grounds for Jungian and other esoteric interpreters–Robert Donington's Wagner's Ring and Its Symbols being the classic in the field. With its tale of the fall of the old gods and the rise of the new, Wagner's Ring Cycle presaged the evolutionary themes that would occupy Theosophists like Madame Blavatsky and Anthroposophists like Rudolf Steiner. By the 1880s, Wagner himself was espousing ideas remarkably similar to Madame Blavatsky's. He spoke of"universal currents of Divine Thought," a"vibrating ether," and the"great cosmic law" that"Imagination creates reality" (Godwin, Music 238). Wagner wanted to create a"trance state" in his audience, effecting a kind of"musical clairvoyance" that would transcend the critical mind and release unconscious energies. Wagner was successful; hardly a thinker of note escaped his influence. His fruitful plundering of the Grail legend and Norse mythology provided the closest thing to Mystery dramas since the ancient Greek festivals, and performances of his works made Bayreuth a nineteenth-century Delphi. Wagner's music too, had moved beyond the sonata form, opening up new areas of spiritual expression, which would eventually lead to our own"dissonant" sonic landscape.

Perhaps his influence was too great. By the 1900s, Romanticism had faded into decadence. Esotericism saturated the cultural capitals of Europe, with major occult revivals in London and Paris. Russia was no exception. One of the central works of modernism, Igor Stravinksy's Le Sacre du Printemps–first premiered in Paris in 1913–was charged with pagan mysticism and primitivism. Stravinsky's ballet grew out of the fascination with prehistoric Russia that raged across fin-de-siecle Moscow and St. Petersburg. Along with the saintly Nijinsky–whose Diary is one of the great spiritual works of the twentieth century–Stravinsky's other collaborator on Le Sacre du Printemps was Nicholas Roerich, who designed the sets and was even said to have suggested the idea for the ballet itself. A painter, writer, and later campaigner for world peace, Roerich was obsessed with ancient Russia; he also recorded one of the earliest accounts of a UFO sighting, during an expedition to the Himalayas. Roerich later devoted himself to Tibetan mysticism and developed a spiritual teaching based on a coming new age of enlightenment, the era of Shambhala.

The other Russian esoteric composer was Alexander Scriabin, a Theosophist who, in his brief, fiery life, was to carry on and–at least in his visions–exceed Wagner's grandiose designs. His interest in music was the exact opposite of Plato's. Deeply influenced by Pythagoras, Plato would allow only two musical modes into his Republic: the Phrygian and the Dorian. These, he said, would boost morale and instill prudence. Censored was all music that caused ecstasy or sorrow–all music that threatened rational self-control. (One wonders what he would have thought of rock and roll.) But for Scriabin, it was precisely the ecstatic, Dionysian powers of music that he conjured in his symphonic works like Poem of Fire (1909 -10) and Poem of Ecstacy (1917) that were of most importance. Scriabin developed a"mystic chord" of superimposed fourths and, like Wagner, believed in the"total art work." He saw music as a means of transforming humanity by hurrying on its spiritual evolution. His last years were spent in planning a gargantuan Mystery drama, combining music, dance, theatre, poetry, ritual, and even incense in an attempt to create a synthesis of the sensual and spiritual and inaugurate a New Age. Scriabin's"Mystery" was to be performed in a hemispherical temple in India, inducing a supreme ecstasy that would dissolve the physical plane and start a metaphysical chain reaction eventually enveloping the world. Scriabin introduced many Theosophical ideas into his compositions and also experimented with"synesthesia," the strange experience of"hearing colors" and"seeing music," going so far as to devise a organ that would project different colored lights that he associated hermetically with different notes and chords.

Other composers also looked to the mystical. In 1913, Gustav Holst was introduced to astrology by a friend. As his most famous work, The Planets Suite, clearly shows, Holst composed his own"music of the spheres," depicting a forceful, at times violent universe, much different from that envisioned by the ancients. Holst also studied Hindu philosophy, and taught himself Sanskrit in order to translate from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Rig Veda and composed several works based on these ancient Indian scriptures, among them the chamber opera and instill (1908), based on a tale from the Mahabharata, and his Hymns from the Rig Veda (1909). A few years later, Holst's countryman, Arnold Bax, followed Wagner and turned toward the Grail. Moved by Arthurian legend, Bax in 1917 wrote his mystical tone poem Tintagel, named after the legendary home of the king.

Across the Channel, France produced its own esoteric musicians. Claude Debussy, that master of musical impressionism, was familiar with the occult circles of fin-de-siecle Paris and incorporated many esoteric ideas in his works (Orledge 46, 47, 49, 124 -7). Ethereal compositions like Prelude l'Apres-midi d'un Faune (1894) evoke the astral realm of nature spirits and elementals. Debussy wrote his opera Pelleas et Melisande(1902) based on the play by the Belgian symbolist and esotericist Maurice Maeterlinck, and used phi, the golden section–part of the canon of ancient sacred geometry–in his compositions. (Another composer who used the golden section was the Hungarian Bela Bartok.)

Claims for Debussy's occult pedigree run high. In his book Music: Its Secret Influence throughout theAges(first published in 1933), Cyril Scott, a composer and Theosophist, remarked that Debussy was used by the"Higher Ones" to introduce ancient Atlantean music into the modern age. More recently, the authors of the best selling Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln) claimed that Debussy was one of the"Grand Masters" of the mysterious esoteric society the Priory of Sion–coming in between Victor Hugo and Jean Cocteau. Erik Satie, Debussy's contemporary, was a member of the occultist Joséphin Péladan's Salon de la Rose+Croix and Ordre de la Rose+Croix Catholique, and hob-nobbed at Edmond Bailly's occult bookshop, a famous rendezvous for Parisian esotericists at the turn of the last century.

Another esoteric French composer, Olivier Messiaen, was like Scriabin deeply interested in the correspondences between color and music. But he needed no"color organ" to see them. Whenever he heard–or even read–music, Messiaen saw"ordered melodies and chords, familiar hues and forms" that opened into"a vortex, a dizzying interpretation of superhuman sounds and colors," a remark that seems to corroborate Rudolf Steiner's teaching about the astral and devachanic realms recorded in his lectures on"The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone," given in Berlin in 1906 (Hill 203 -19). Messiaen believed that this"dazzling"–the name he gave his synesthetic experiences–was like the effect of looking at stained glass in a Gothic cathedral, a spiritual"dizzying" that puts us in touch with another reality.

Messiaen's best-known composition, Quartet for the End of Time, written while he was a prisoner of war in1941, takes its title from a section of the Book of Revelation, in which an angel appears and declares,"There shall be time no longer," thus announcing the"timeless" state familiar to lovers of music. Although steeped in Catholic spirituality, like Holst, Messiaen was open to Indian philosophies. His massive Turangalila Symphony (1946 -8) is based on the Tristan legend and, according to the notes on an Angel recording, is named after two Sanskrit words: turanga, meaning"flowing time," and lila,"love" or"play," thus expressing a superhuman joy, transcending all boundaries.

Messiaen's pantheistic love for the natural world, exemplified in his fascination with birdsong, also has esoteric resonances. His belief that birdsong is not mere noise or territorial marking, but actual music, is reminiscent of P. D. Ouspensky's remark in Tertium Organum that birdsong"may be the main function of the given species, the meaning of its existence" and that it contributes to"some general harmony of nature we only sometimes vaguely feel" (Ouspensky 141).

Even the new, disturbing atonal world, emerging out of Mozart's Vienna, had links to the esoteric. Arnold Schoenberg, high priest of atonality, was a deeply religious man, with a lasting interest in number mysticism. He was also a friend of the painter Wassily Kandinsky, a devotee of Theosophy. Schoenberg was influenced by the doctrines of the Scandanavian mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, which he came upon by way of the French novelist Honore de Balzac. Balzac was a follower of Swedenborg, and Schoenberg became obsessed with his Swedenborgian novel Seraphita and its central figure, the androgynous angel, Seraphita/Seraphitus. In Schoenberg's unfinished oratorio Jacob's Ladder, the angel Gabriel announces:"Whether right, left, forward or backward, up or down–one has to go on without asking what lies before or behind us," paraphrasing Swedenborg's teaching that in heaven, all angels face God. Schoenberg developed an intricate system of angelology, based on his number mysticism. His fascination with number, however, manifested in other ways, among them a fear of the number 13. Strangely, Schoenberg was born on September 13, 1874, and died on Friday, July 13, 1951.

After Schoenberg, music moved into realms far stranger than any suspected by the Romantics. John Cage, one of the most influential avant-garde composers of the twentieth century, was a devotee of Zen, as well as a great believer in C. G. Jung's notion of synchronicity or"meaningful coincidence." Cage used the I Ching as a compositional tool, and reportedly threw the coins some 18,000 times throughout the writing of one work. The late Sir Michael Tippett, another student of Jung, sought to evoke the archetypes through his music; his most famous work, the oratorio A Child of Our Time (1939 -41), begun after a period of dream analysis, depicts the shadows of anti-Semitism and the dark realm of the Nazis. More recently, John Tavener's devotion to Greek Orthodox spirituality is well known, his music rising to prominence when it was used in one of the most spectacular rituals of modern times, the funeral of Princess Diana.

But perhaps the most"esoteric" composer of recent times is Karlheinz Stockhausen, who has gone on recordas saying that his birth place is the star Sirius, an important body in Egyptian mythology, long believed to have a special role in the Earth's destiny. Stockhausen's compositions–like Sternklang ("Starsound" 1971), Tierkreis ("Zodiac" 1975), and Sirius (1975)–put him in the same league as other composers whose music comes from"other worlds." But even more so does his belief that the purpose of music is to ask fundamental spiritual questions, deep existential queries like"Who am I, why am I alive, where do I want to go from here, and what happens when I die?" (Godwin, Music 291), metaphysical ponderings sorely lacking from our"post-everything" contemporary culture. Great music by itself can pose these questions powerfully. When it allies itself with some of the West's great inner traditions, to the discerning ear they are doubly insistent.


 

References

Baigent,

Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Holy Blood, Holy Grail. New York: Delacorte, 1982.

Donington,

Robert. Wagner's Ring and Its Symbols: The Music and theMyth. 3rd ed. London: Faber and Faber, 1984.

Godwin,

Joscelyn. Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: The Spiritual Dimensions of Music from Antiquity to the Avant-Garde. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Hill,

Peter, ed. The Messiaen Companion. London: Faber and Faber,1995.

Hoffmann,

Ernst Theodor Amadeus. E. T. A. Hoffmann's MusicalWritings. Ed. David Charlton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Landon,

Howard Chandler Robbins. Mozart: The Golden Years:1781 -1791. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.

–––.

Mozart and the Masons: New Light on the Lodge"Crowned Hope." London: Thames and Hudson, 1982.

Martin,

Sean. Alchemy and Alchemists. London: Pocket Essentials,2001.

Mellers,

Wilfrid. Beethoven and the Voice of God. London: Faber and Faber; New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Orledge,

Robert. Debussy and the Theatre. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982.

Ouspensky,

P. D. Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought, a Key to the Enigmas of the World. Trans. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Scott,

Cyril. Music: Its Secret Influence throughout the Ages. London: Rider, 1933.

Solomon,

Maynard. Beethoven Essays. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1988.


Gary Lachman is the author of In Search of P. D. Ouspensky:The Genius in the Shadow of Gurdjieff and the Politics and the Occult:The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen, and, as Gary Valentine, New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation. His new book, A Secret History of Consciousness. A regular contributor to Fortean Times, Times Literary Supplement, Quest, and other journals, he lives in London with his partner and their two sons.


Thinking Aloud: The Power of the Word

Originally printed in the July - August 2002 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Rajan, Ananya S. "The Power of the Word." Quest  90.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2002):146-147.

By Ananya S. Rajan

Much can happen in an hour. Even during an hour of driving you can catch up on the latest news on the radio, make a few phone calls to friends you never seem to have time for, or listen to your favorite CD from start to finish. I look forward to my hour-long drive to work, as otherwise I don't have much time to myself, but in my car I am alone and can do whatever I want. It's liberating.

One recent morning as I drove to work, I heard a little voice telling me not to turn on the radio or pick up the phone. It was a strange sensation, knowing that this particular morning my phone wasn't going to ring because the little voice wasn't going to allow it. For some this may sound frightening, but I delight in such things and always have. I take it as a journey into the unknown with the attitude of "what can I learn today?" and I have realized from years of meditating that whatever lesson I need to learn is for my own betterment. Some lessons are easy to understand, while others pull me through the wringer and make me want to go back to bed.

On this particular morning, the feeling was different . . . serious.

"We talk too much" was the first statement I heard. It evoked a reaction within me that was not pleasant, so I braced myself for one of those lessons that was going to be harder than others.

Nothing happened for a while after that. I sat in silence listening to the hum of daily life, watching the endless stream of cars heading toward some destination or other and the massive number of people talking on their cell phones while driving. It seemed surreal to watch an example of what I had just been told.

"The word is a very powerful tool, but we no longer use it as such. It has become vulgar and desecrated." That was the next thing I heard as I watched people in the other cars talking, absorbed in the reality we call life.

As I watched, I recalled many examples of myself in conversation. I could remember trying to express my point of view, feeling the clenching in my stomach like a small child wanting to blurt out the right answer. Looking at those memories from a distance in time made me see how silly the events looked and also how much it helps our human ego to feel we have something profound to say.

"It has all been said before," I was told. And as I began to feel a little disillusioned, I recalled reading somewhere that there is no difference between the word and the breath (prana). The breath is the word and the word is the breath. So often we take breathing for granted because it is something we do without thinking. Just like talking, I thought.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Breath, and the Word was Breath" popped into my head. I felt awed by this statement and everything stopped. Suddenly it all made sense in the way I interpret the world.

Theosophical teachings speak about the Breath of the Universe, and in that Breath there is creation (manvantara) and there is rest (pralaya). Because humans are the microcosm of the macrocosm, created in the image of all that is and a reflection of the forces of the Universe, we hold that power of the Universe within us. We've been given Breath and, from that, the ability to create vibration to make sounds and therefore words. We hold the power within ourselves to create and bring equilibrium to our world through our breath and therefore our words. What an amazing ability we have. If we really think about it we might never speak again!

The use of breath in healing (prana healing) has become one of the latest practices among holistic healers. However, I think we need to be careful about practicing such methods. They come from another culture, originally taught in another language, and to practice them well and be considered a healer took many years. Today's New Age practices are a shallow fast-food version of ancient practices that yogis dedicated their lives to learning. You could not develop such practices on your own; others had to give you the right to use them.

When I arrived at work that day, I felt a mixture of emotions. It is one thing to understand something mentally and quite another to feel it penetrate into your very being. Stepping out of the car into the fresh air helped to clear my head a little. I began to think about the opening verse of the Gospel according to Saint John: "In the beginning was the Word . . . ." Yes, I already understood that part, but "The Word was God . . . ."? For some reason, that rubbed me the wrong way. We've had enough turmoil in this world in the name of God. What is this Word? What was the original Word? What was the import of the Word? As I asked myself those questions, suddenly I heard the very soft voice say:

"The Word is Love."

Enough said.


Ananya S. Rajan, M.P.A., is an editorial assistant for the Quest magazine and the director of the healing department for the Theosophical Order of Service. This is her first contribution to Quest.


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