Cosmic music : musical keys to the interpretation of reality : essays

The idea that the universe is created out of sound or music (and therefore is music) is a very ancient one. In this book, Joscelyn Godwin brings together three contemporary German thinkers who exemplify this tradition in its modern variants: Marius Schneider, Rudolf Haase, and Hans Erhard Lauer. The selections draw on ancient Indian sources and mythology; Kepler's Platonic vision of a musical, geometric universe; and the evolution of the tone systems of music. While every music lover senses the power and truth that reside in music, very few actually approach music as a path to cosmic knowledge. Godwin takes literally Beethoven's assertion that "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom or philosophy." Godwin writes, ". . .to penetrate the mysteries of music is to prepare for initiation into those fathomless mysteries of man and cosmos." Professor of music at Colgate University, Joscelyn Godwin is also the author of Harmonies of Heaven and Earth . Although complete in itself, Cosmic Music is his contribution to a larger movement that seeks to deepen and broaden our consciousness of what music is, and what it can be. East West The most original and exciting text currently available on the ancient musical mysteries... SURELY one of the greatest errors commited by nineteenth-century religious historians and their successors was the attempt to explain the origin of religious feeling as lying primarily in the human fear of natural forces and to consider supplication, consequently, as the actual core of the relationship between gods and man.