music

• form of mathematical rhythm

12:9.2Love is the se­cret of ben­e­fi­cial as­so­ci­a­tion be­tween per­son­al­i­ties. You can­not re­ally know a per­son as the re­sult of a sin­gle con­tact. You can­not ap­pre­ci­at­ingly know mu­sic through math­e­mat­i­cal de­duc­tion, even though mu­sic is a form of math­e­mat­i­cal rhythm. The num­ber as­signed to a tele­phone sub­scriber does not in any man­ner iden­tify the per­son­al­ity of that sub­scriber or sig­nify any­thing con­cern­ing his char­ac­ter.

• angels enjoy our real m.

38:2.1An­gels do not have ma­te­rial bod­ies, but they are def­i­nite and dis­crete be­ings; they are of spirit na­ture and ori­gin. Though in­vis­i­ble to mor­tals, they per­ceive you as you are in the flesh with­out the aid of trans­form­ers or trans­la­tors; they in­tel­lec­tu­ally un­der­stand the mode of mor­tal life, and they share all of man’s non­sen­su­ous emo­tions and sen­ti­ments. They ap­pre­ci­ate and greatly en­joy your ef­forts in mu­sic, art, and real hu­mor. They are fully cog­nizant of your moral strug­gles and spir­i­tual dif­fi­cul­ties. They love hu­man be­ings, and only good can re­sult from your ef­forts to un­der­stand and love them.

• celestial music › spirit melodies are not material sound waves
• limited range of mortal hearing

44:1.1With the lim­ited range of mor­tal hear­ing, you can hardly con­ceive of mor­ontia mel­o­dies. There is even a ma­te­rial range of beau­ti­ful sound un­rec­og­nized by the hu­man sense of hear­ing, not to men­tion the in­con­ceiv­able scope of mor­ontia and spirit har­mony. Spirit mel­o­dies are not ma­te­rial sound waves but spirit pul­sa­tions re­ceived by the spir­its of ce­les­tial per­son­al­i­ties. There is a vast­ness of range and a soul of ex­pres­sion, as well as a grandeur of ex­e­cu­tion, as­so­ci­ated with the mel­ody of the spheres, that are wholly be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion. I have seen mil­lions of en­rap­tured be­ings held in sub­lime ec­stasy while the mel­ody of the realm rolled in upon the spirit en­ergy of the ce­les­tial cir­cuits. These mar­velous mel­o­dies can be broad­cast to the ut­ter­most parts of a uni­verse.

• celestial music › 100,000 modes analogous to our m. instruments

44:1.10There are over one hun­dred thou­sand dif­fer­ent modes of sound, color, and en­ergy ma­nip­u­la­tion, tech­niques anal­o­gous to the hu­man em­ploy­ment of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments. Your en­sem­bles of danc­ing un­doubt­edly rep­re­sent a crude and grotesque at­tempt of ma­te­rial crea­tures to ap­proach the ce­les­tial har­mony of be­ing place­ment and per­son­al­ity ar­range­ment. The other five forms of mor­ontia mel­ody are un­rec­og­nized by the sen­sory mech­a­nism of ma­te­rial bod­ies.

• celestial music › harmony is universal code of spirit communication

44:1.11Har­mony, the mu­sic of the seven lev­els of melo­di­ous as­so­ci­a­tion, is the one uni­ver­sal code of spirit com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Mu­sic, such as Uran­tia mor­tals un­der­stand, at­tains its high­est ex­pres­sion in the schools of Je­ru­sem, the sys­tem head­quar­ters, where semi­ma­te­rial be­ings are taught the har­monies of sound. Mor­tals do not re­act to the other forms of mor­ontia mel­ody and ce­les­tial har­mony.

• among primitives › barbarous, monotonous
• appreciation on Urantia
• majority react to m. with material muscles

44:1.12Ap­pre­ci­a­tion of mu­sic on Uran­tia is both phys­i­cal and spir­i­tual; and your hu­man mu­si­cians have done much to el­e­vate mu­si­cal taste from the bar­barous mo­not­ony of your early an­ces­tors to the higher lev­els of sound ap­pre­ci­a­tion. The ma­jor­ity of Uran­tia mor­tals re­act to mu­sic so largely with the ma­te­rial mus­cles and so slightly with the mind and spirit; but there has been a steady im­prove­ment in mu­si­cal ap­pre­ci­a­tion for more than thirty-five thou­sand years.

• among primitives › earlier types of m. appeal to immature or spiritually indolent individuals
• involves exertion of higher intellectual powers

44:1.13Tune­ful syn­co­pa­tion rep­re­sents a tran­si­tion from the mu­si­cal mo­not­ony of prim­i­tive man to the ex­pres­sion­ful har­mony and mean­ing­ful mel­o­dies of your later-day mu­si­cians. These ear­lier types of rhythm stim­u­late the re­ac­tion of the mu­sic-lov­ing sense with­out en­tail­ing the ex­er­tion of the higher in­tel­lec­tual pow­ers of har­mony ap­pre­ci­a­tion and thus more gen­er­ally ap­peal to im­ma­ture or spir­i­tu­ally in­do­lent in­di­vid­u­als.

• celestial associates of our musicians

44:1.14The best mu­sic of Uran­tia is just a fleet­ing echo of the mag­nif­i­cent strains heard by the ce­les­tial as­so­ciates of your mu­si­cians, who left but snatches of these har­monies of mor­ontia forces on rec­ord as the mu­si­cal mel­o­dies of sound har­mon­ics. Spirit-mor­ontia mu­sic not in­fre­quently em­ploys all seven modes of ex­pres­sion and re­pro­duc­tion, so that the hu­man mind is tremen­dously hand­i­capped in any at­tempt to re­duce these mel­o­dies of the higher spheres to mere notes of mu­si­cal sound. Such an ef­fort would be some­thing like en­deav­or­ing to re­pro­duce the strains of a great or­ches­tra by means of a sin­gle mu­si­cal in­stru­ment.

• better if Adam and Eve had survived
• celestial music › harmony is universal code of spirit communication
• gift of harmony occurs only once in 1000 mortals
• real musician could change course of a nation

44:1.15While you have as­sem­bled some beau­ti­ful mel­o­dies on Uran­tia, you have not pro­gressed mu­si­cally nearly so far as many of your neigh­bor­ing plan­ets in Sa­ta­nia. If Adam and Eve had only sur­vived, then would you have had mu­sic in re­al­ity; but the gift of har­mony, so large in their na­tures, has been so di­luted by strains of un­mu­si­cal ten­den­cies that only once in a thou­sand mor­tal lives is there any great ap­pre­ci­a­tion of har­mon­ics. But be not dis­cour­aged; some day a real mu­si­cian may ap­pear on Uran­tia, and whole peo­ples will be en­thralled by the mag­nif­i­cent strains of his mel­o­dies. One such hu­man be­ing could for­ever change the course of a whole na­tion, even the en­tire civ­i­lized world. It is lit­er­ally true, “mel­ody has power a whole world to trans­form.” For­ever, mu­sic will re­main the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of men, an­gels, and spir­its. Har­mony is the speech of Ha­vona.

• celestial music › morontia functions often executed in rhythm

44:4.116. The rhythm re­cord­ers. Uran­tians would un­doubt­edly de­nom­i­nate these ar­ti­sans po­ets, al­though their work is very dif­fer­ent from, and al­most in­finitely tran­scends, your po­etic pro­duc­tions. Rhythm is less ex­haust­ing to both mor­ontia and spirit be­ings, and so an ef­fort is fre­quently made to in­crease ef­fi­ciency, as well as to aug­ment plea­sure, by ex­e­cut­ing nu­mer­ous func­tions in rhyth­mic form. I only wish you might be priv­i­leged to hear some of the po­etic broad­casts of the Eden­tia as­sem­blies and to en­joy the rich­ness of the color and tone of the con­stel­la­tion ge­niuses who are mas­ters of this ex­qui­site form of self-ex­pres­sion and so­cial har­mo­niza­tion.

• harmony and rhythm spiritually akin to beauty

44:7.2Beauty, rhythm, and har­mony are in­tel­lec­tu­ally as­so­ci­ated and spir­i­tu­ally akin. Truth, fact, and re­la­tion­ship are in­tel­lec­tu­ally in­sep­a­ra­ble and as­so­ci­ated with the philo­sophic con­cepts of beauty. Good­ness, righ­teous­ness, and jus­tice are phil­o­soph­i­cally in­ter­re­lated and spir­i­tu­ally bound up to­gether with liv­ing truth and di­vine beauty.

• among primitives › little progress until Adamites

66:5.24Art and sci­ence were at a low ebb through­out the world, but the rudi­ments of physics and chem­istry were taught the Dala­ma­tians. Pot­tery was ad­vanced, dec­o­ra­tive arts were all im­proved, and the ide­als of hu­man beauty were greatly en­hanced. But mu­sic made lit­tle prog­ress un­til af­ter the ar­rival of the vi­o­let race.

• military trained in m. in continental nation

72:11.3Mil­i­tary ser­vice dur­ing peace­time is purely vol­un­tary, and the en­list­ments in all branches of the ser­vice are for four years, dur­ing which ev­ery man pur­sues some spe­cial line of study in ad­di­tion to the mas­tery of mil­i­tary tac­tics. Train­ing in mu­sic is one of the chief pur­suits of the cen­tral mil­i­tary schools and of the twenty-five train­ing camps dis­tributed about the pe­riph­ery of the con­ti­nent. Dur­ing pe­ri­ods of in­dus­trial slack­ness many thou­sands of un­em­ployed are au­to­mat­i­cally uti­lized in up­build­ing the mil­i­tary de­fenses of the con­ti­nent on land and sea and in the air.

• among primitives › little progress until Adamites

74:6.7The Adamic chil­dren at­tended their own schools un­til they were six­teen, the younger be­ing taught by the el­der. The lit­tle folks changed ac­tiv­i­ties ev­ery thirty min­utes, the older ev­ery hour. And it was cer­tainly a new sight on Uran­tia to ob­serve these chil­dren of Adam and Eve at play, joy­ous and ex­hil­a­rat­ing ac­tiv­ity just for the sheer fun of it. The play and hu­mor of the pres­ent-day races are largely de­rived from the Adamic stock. The Adamites all had a great ap­pre­ci­a­tion of mu­sic as well as a keen sense of hu­mor.

• among primitives › little progress until Adamites

78:5.8The mi­gra­tory con­quests of the And­ites con­tin­ued on down to their fi­nal dis­per­sions, from 8000 to 6000 B.C. As they poured out of Mes­o­po­ta­mia, they con­tin­u­ously de­pleted the bi­o­logic re­serves of their home­lands while markedly strength­en­ing the sur­round­ing peo­ples. And to ev­ery na­tion to which they jour­neyed, they con­tributed hu­mor, art, ad­ven­ture, mu­sic, and man­u­fac­ture. They were skill­ful do­mes­ti­ca­tors of an­i­mals and ex­pert agri­cul­tur­ists. For the time be­ing, at least, their pres­ence usu­ally im­proved the re­li­gious be­liefs and moral prac­tices of the older races. And so the cul­ture of Mes­o­po­ta­mia qui­etly spread out over Eu­rope, In­dia, China, north­ern Africa, and the Pa­cific Is­lands.

• cannot elevate soul or nourish spirit

84:8.4There is real dan­ger in the com­bi­na­tion of rest­less­ness, cu­rios­ity, ad­ven­ture, and plea­sure-aban­don char­ac­ter­is­tic of the post-And­ite races. The hunger of the soul can­not be sat­is­fied with phys­i­cal plea­sures; the love of home and chil­dren is not aug­mented by the un­wise pur­suit of plea­sure. Though you ex­haust the re­sources of art, color, sound, rhythm, mu­sic, and adorn­ment of per­son, you can­not hope thereby to el­e­vate the soul or to nour­ish the spirit. Van­ity and fash­ion can­not min­is­ter to home build­ing and child cul­ture; pride and ri­valry are pow­er­less to en­hance the sur­vival qual­i­ties of suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.

• among primitives › originated in worship chants

92:3.6Re­li­gion has hand­i­capped so­cial de­vel­op­ment in many ways, but with­out re­li­gion there would have been no en­dur­ing moral­ity nor ethics, no worth-while civ­i­liza­tion. Re­li­gion en­moth­ered much non­re­li­gious cul­ture: Sculp­ture orig­i­nated in idol mak­ing, ar­chi­tec­ture in tem­ple build­ing, po­etry in in­can­ta­tions, mu­sic in wor­ship chants, drama in the act­ing for spirit guid­ance, and danc­ing in the sea­sonal wor­ship fes­ti­vals.

• Jesus loved harp

123:6.5This year Je­sus made ar­range­ments to ex­change dairy prod­ucts for lessons on the harp. He had an un­usual lik­ing for ev­ery­thing mu­si­cal. Later on he did much to pro­mote an in­ter­est in vo­cal mu­sic among his youth­ful as­so­ciates. By the time he was eleven years of age, he was a skill­ful harpist and greatly en­joyed en­ter­tain­ing both fam­ily and friends with his ex­traor­di­nary in­ter­pre­ta­tions and able im­pro­vi­sa­tions.

• Jesus loved harp

126:1.6The im­proved eco­nomic con­di­tion of the Naz­a­reth fam­ily was re­flected in many ways about the home and es­pe­cially in the in­creased num­ber of smooth white boards which were used as writ­ing slates, the writ­ing be­ing done with char­coal. Je­sus was also per­mit­ted to re­sume his mu­sic lessons; he was very fond of play­ing the harp.

• Jesus loved harp

127:4.10This year Jude started to school, and it was nec­es­sary for Je­sus to sell his harp in or­der to de­fray these ex­penses. Thus dis­ap­peared the last of his recre­ational plea­sures. He much loved to play the harp when tired in mind and weary in body, but he com­forted him­self with the thought that at least the harp was safe from seizure by the tax col­lec­tor.

• flute played at mourning

152:1.1Jairus was, of course, ter­ri­bly im­pa­tient of this de­lay in reach­ing his home; so they now has­tened on at quick­ened pace. Even be­fore they en­tered the ruler’s yard, one of his ser­vants came out, say­ing: “Trou­ble not the Mas­ter; your daugh­ter is dead.” But Je­sus seemed not to heed the ser­vant’s words, for, tak­ing with him Pe­ter, James, and John, he turned and said to the grief-stricken fa­ther: “Fear not; only be­lieve.” When he en­tered the house, he found the flute-play­ers al­ready there with the mourn­ers, who were mak­ing an un­seemly tu­mult; al­ready were the rel­a­tives en­gaged in weep­ing and wail­ing. And when he had put all the mourn­ers out of the room, he went in with the fa­ther and mother and his three apos­tles. He had told the mourn­ers that the damsel was not dead, but they laughed him to scorn. Je­sus now turned to the mother, say­ing: “Your daugh­ter is not dead; she is only asleep.” And when the house had qui­eted down, Je­sus, go­ing up to where the child lay, took her by the hand and said, “Daugh­ter, I say to you, awake and arise!” And when the girl heard these words, she im­me­di­ately rose up and walked across the room. And pres­ently, af­ter she had re­cov­ered from her daze, Je­sus di­rected that they should give her some­thing to eat, for she had been a long time with­out food.

• expresses tempo of emotions

195:7.20Sci­ence lives by the math­e­mat­ics of the mind; mu­sic ex­presses the tempo of the emo­tions. Re­li­gion is the spir­i­tual rhythm of the soul in time-space har­mony with the higher and eter­nal mel­ody mea­sure­ments of In­fin­ity. Re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence is some­thing in hu­man life which is truly super­math­e­mat­i­cal.