Music on earth allows us to hear an echo of those sweet modulations that the common ear of mortals cannot apprehend, and that awakens in them the spiritual memory of what they heard in a previous life. By purifying their souls, it instills in them a passionate love for divine things; it detaches them from the earthly to the point that they forget to eat or drink, and raises their desires towards the starry vault, which they will reach when they are free of their mud envelope. Of all the instruments, the seven-stringed lyre is the most apt to remind men of the eternal concert of the great cosmic symphony. Those who cultivate the art of music prepare for themselves a path through the heavens to the place of the Holy of Holies, as sure as that of the mightiest spirits. And the chorus of divine singers exhorts the rising soul to complete its ascension, or else each greets it on its way as it rises from one heaven to another… Macrobius says that “The laws of many peoples and lands prescribe that the dead should be accompanied with songs during their burial: this custom is based on the belief that souls, upon leaving the body, return to the origin of the magic of music, that is, to heaven”.
Johann Mattheson in 1747 took the trouble to show that there had to be music in heaven and that this music existed before the creation of man, just as it would last for eternity.
Visions of this world that included heavenly music became particularly prevalent during the Middle Ages when the liturgy began to spread to common people, encouraging them not only to attend services but also to subjectively understand them.
Even more important than eye or ear testimonials are the experiences of mystics who have actually taken part in a higher type of music.
All religious traditions that recognize the existence of angels coincide in granting them musical attributes. The Kabbalistic tradition of Judaism tells of a song that the angels sing each time Israel sings their human song of praise, causing the two to resonate together.
There are many other testimonies about the possibility of living an earthly life in that state of angelic consciousness. It is confirmed by very convincing Theosophists. Some explain that just as each person potentially contains the qualities of the universal man, the three states of consciousness, which we know in everyday life, that of wakefulness, that of dreams, and sleep without dreams, embody experiences in the three worlds: the elemental, the planetary or astral, and the angelic. Rudolf Steiner briefly describes in a lecture on music the transformation of these states when a sufficient degree of consciousness or spiritual initiation has been reached.
The angels’ song is their gnosis, or to put it another way, what they know cannot be spoken, only sung.
In The Silmarillion, by J.R.R.Tolkien, the first chapter is entitled “The Music of the Ainur“, and it describes how “Eru, the One, who is called Ilúvatar” announced a very strong theme to the Ainur (“The Holy which were offshoots of his thought“). Iluvatar said:
“From the subject that I have announced to you, I would like that now all of you together make a Great Music. And since I have ignited you with the inextinguishable Flame, you must show your powers by adorning this theme, each one, if he wants, with his own thoughts and resources. But I will sit down to listen and I would be happy that through you a great beauty became a song.
Then the voices of the Ainur, as if they were harps, and lutes, and pipes, and trumpets, and fiddles, and organs, and as if they were innumerable choirs singing with words, began to carve Ilúvatar’s theme into great music. A sound rose of endless interchangeable melodies that entwined in a harmony that went beyond hearing to the depths and to the heights, and the places where Ilúvatar dwelt were filled to overflowing, and music and the echo of music went forth. to the Void, and ceased to be empty.” Tolkien, The Silmarillion.
(Extract from the book entitled: Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, written by Joscelyn Godwin).
