Hedge90 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 1:39 pm
Hey, thanks for responding. That's very interesting, I've always been fascinated by what music is and I believe it may have a very fundamental quality to it - a metaphor that we naturally understand. People are cross-culturally able to identify whether a piece of music is happy or sad, calm or angry, etc. And someone's musical taste tends to be very much in correlation with their personality. Both of these things are backed by many studies.
As for the other thing. I'm sure you can get much better prepared for your first mystical experience than I was (if you read my other thread you'll see what I mean - it took me some time to "recover"). I basically just overdosed and flung out of reality. I had the choice of trying to resist or just letting go, and I knew the only thing that could bring me closer to truth was letting go, so I did.
But I believe there's so much knowledge can do for you, and empirical experience of the transcendent will require a degree of courage and a jump into the unknown regardless of how much you know, because it's impossible to rationally prove what will happen. It"s something all of us have to do alone, because no one can escort you beyond the veil. I think that's what religions mean by the concept of faith. There comes a point at which no rational thinking can help you advance anymore. You just have to trust that existence is good and that it will hold you.
Indeed, music, as all aesthetics, is fundamentally
transpersonal. It's interesting that the notion of personality types, most significantly detailed by Jung (especially extroversion and introversion), was more recently confirmed by statistical analysis. In other words, they naturally emerged as patterns from the individual data. That also speaks to their transpersonal essence.
I forgot you had posted about this before, and if I remember correctly, Cleric responded with basically what I am responding here but with much more practical detail. So consider what I am writing a brief synopsis and addendum. We use the word "
Thinking" because it is really the only word which can differentiate this faculty from Willing (instincts, desires, etc.) and Feeling (emotions), while also encompassing a diverse range of faculties - intellect, reason, imagination, inspiration, intuition. Aesthetics is most effective at stimulating our imaginative knowing first, also referred to as "picture-consciousness", although I prefer "
image-consciousness". It is not direct experience of the noumenal realm of the spiritual beyond the threshold, but it certainly takes us beyond mere intellect and reason into the realm where all spiritual mythology lives. It is not strictly rational, as you say. Yet it is still a mode of attaining
objective transpersonal knowledge. Every soul-mood has its proper place and time and function - belief/faith was very important in the dawning of Pisces, but not so much in the dawning of Aquarius. There is a real danger in just "letting go", which Cleric also detailed in his previous response. To develop spiritual freedom, we must come to
know that which was previously held only in faith. That is one of the core meanings to the conclusion of my latest essay:
Ashvin wrote:The Valkyries are the 'archetypal moods' of the World-Soul - they remain virgins, undefiled by the physical world, and transport those who voluntarily and bravely confront the death of their bodily senses into the ceaseless musical movements of eternal life-processes. All ancient myths speak to these same realities of Soul and Spirit, and all ancient mysteries spoke of the One "who is and who was and who is to come". It was no coincidence that there were twelve tribes of Israel and its prophesied Messiah, the ever-traveling Sun, chose twelve disciples to surround Him. Neither is it a coincidence that this Messiah stated He is the eternal "I AM" seven times to those who had ears to hear what the Spirit spoke, nor that He sent seven letters to seven churches by way of the seven spirits. He appeared among seven golden lampstands to John the Revelator, His voice booming like a trumpet and the roaring of many waters. This musical symphony of the Soul has the greatest significance for our Spiritual story, as it orients our imagination towards the fulfillment of our Spiritual freedom in this everlasting relation - "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends..."