unsounded

Digesting these topics surrounding Theosophy and Subsequently New Age, I was interested in developing a kind of sound equivalent to a thoughtform. I took the literal definition from the spiritual plane in Theosophy. Blavatasky referred to the spiritual plane as ‘almost liquid’. I thought about how Besant asigned colours to certain emotions, seeing all these colours swirling in a liquid cloud made me think about complex clashing chords.

I played with a Bontempi’s autoaccompany buttons, and pressed down multiple chords at once. To get a kind of undefinable cluster of not only notes but of chords. I mixed this with several field recordings of water I got in Lewes in the first term. I recorded the bomtempi with my new Lom microphone which I just dangled above it was really impressed with the sensitivity.

I layered these field recordings with the bontempi and added effects. I decided to play with Iasos’ concept of the Law of Octaves, so I overlayed samples of the bontempi, halving and doublying it’s playrate. To create a deep complex drone. I like the way the chords overlap each other into a dissonant drone, where certain notes come out. I added auto pan to the effects and put effects buses on the water elements and the bontempi elements respectfully.

I am quite happy with how this turned out. Especially the bontempi. I enjoy mic set-ups that are simple and the lom mikro Ucho is really great for this. No big stands needed. I can just dangle it above an object and it’s sensitivity is really great for capturing delicate sounds.

The water sounds are perhaps a little cheesy, I also think there could be other ways you could create an audio version of thoughtforms. The colours are distinct in the pictures, the dischordant nature of the bontempi could be heard as more of a blend of colour. However hopefully with the panning the occasional chord stands out. Perhaps it needs a few other musical elements or sound elements. I am surprised by how much the sound changed but just overlaping lower and high doubling of the rates. I think that is down the rich timbre the bontempi can produce. When I see these pictures and try to think of them as sound I do think I tend to hear reed and wind based instruments.

I tried playing this on top of a field recording I had done, in order to mimic the photographs at the top of churches but found it hard to different the sounds as clearly. The way it is done gave me more scope for sound design.

Ultimately I ended up with my interpretation of a Thoughtform

I think this type of wind-based dischordant Drone could make it into some kind of folk/occult influenced album down the road, maybe without the bubble texture.

I really liked Pamela Z’s work. Interesting abstract implication of composition, performance and scoring.

Baggage Allowance

This performance was part of a multi-media exhibition including a website which has now lost functionality with Web 2.0 due to flash becoming extinct

I’ve seen this kind of technology before famously used by Imogen Heap. A lot of technology seems to go down this road of gesturing as we perhaps grow more and more frustrated with user interface, but also because gesturing is part of the nature of musical performance, especially vocal performance. Even the simple introduction of the ‘swipe’ on the iPhone and how that has effected technology since. I think somebody made a joke about Minority Report during this lecture which was amusing but also interesting.

Turns inattentiveness into a compositional choice. Playing with how phones trigger a lack of attention, subjugating the performers to inattentiveness by sending musical queues to their phones during the performance. A good moment is where all the players start echoing the motif of a text tone whilst it is going on, I have a problem sometimes with work that I deem to be ‘on the nose’. Whilst I really like the idea of this piece, the slapstick nature of some of the events within the composition I find go a bit further than I personally would, but whilst that is the case there is a lot of very interesting concepts and poignant moments to this piece.

Thoughtforms: A Record in Clairvoyant Investigation, was repressed by Sacred Bones records, in 2021. This was quite a shock to me. As I had seen these pictures from a blogspot 10 odd years ago and it influenced a tape release I did in my early 20s, purely from the standpoint of the striking imagery. Here is what Sacred Bones had to say about the repressing:

“…In this narrative of Modernism, Wassily Kandinsky is widely viewed as one of the most important founders of abstraction, and his manifesto “On the Spiritual in Art” is mandatory reading in art school.

What was never mentioned to us in school however, was that Kandinsky was a member of the Theosophical Society, and had acquired a copy of their book Thought Forms a few years before he abandoned conventional ways of painting. Learning that Kandinsky didn’t just come upon these ideas on his own as previously thought, totally changed our understanding of his work. It’s worth mentioning that Piet Mondrian was also deeply influenced by Theosophy and later on, Jackson Pollock was as well.

Last year the Guggenheim held the first US retrospective of Hilma af Klint’s paintings. She was a member of the Theosophical Society and was undoubtedly influenced by the spiritualistic currents of the time. Theosophy was the first occult group to open its doors to women, and it deeply questioned gender roles, many of these ideas are also in Af Klint’s paintings. This show was one of the first times the all-male origin story of abstraction was challenged within the ivory tower. Af Klint, made these paintings before Kandinsky, and she was a woman. Thought Forms came out before Af Klint began her abstract paintings and it is certain that she must have come across this book.

We’re republishing this beautiful, overlooked book, so that it may be widely accessible and no longer omitted from the past. Thought Forms offers a reminder that the history of modernist abstraction and women’s contribution to it is still being written.

Theosophy’s motto seems as appropriate today as it did in 1880, “there is no religion higher than truth.”

This is a significant book of interest to me, in our first lecture on this module, we read Constance Classen’s Anthropology of the Senses, which got me thinking about visuo-centrism as the main 19th century tool of science. There seems to have been a counter movement to modern rationalism and science; Theosophy and Anthroposophy. I am interested in these two distinctly similar “studies” of spirituality, as I feel they are related to visuo-centrism in their choice to attempt to visualize the invisible. This paradox shows a failure of mysticism to take account for the ‘lesser’ senses (hearing, touch, smell) when claiming to be a medium between a physical and spiritual plane. In a pre-Schaeffer, Chion, Cage, Oliveros world… where Sound Studies did not have an extensive canon yet, were these mystic surveyors aware of any form of deep listening? Vibration and Sound have immersive effects on the body. Sound travels differently in spaces. Reverb, Humidity, time of day, weather… Innumerable variables change the affect of a given environment on the senses and so when interpreting this book, I am interested if there is any mention of an unhearable sound, mystic aroma (like ‘Odour of Sanctity’ within Catholicism mentioned by Classen), ghostly sensations of touch – and whether the lack of these examples showcases a conformity to science principles of ‘see it to believe it’ visuo-centrism. Perhaps even the reverb of a church could’ve been perceived as magic than acoustic theory? Esoteric thinkers believed there could be a liquid form to the spiritual plane and sound was newly proven to be some kind of waveform. …

After listening to some podcasts on Theosophy, I have begun to gain a loose understanding of the background to these Spiritualist figures. Theosophy in the 1800s was a direct response to modern rationalism/science. It was mostly explorations by the ruling class of the west travelling to the newly opened east, taking Hindu and Buddhist principles back with them and appropriating them into a mixture of all religions… Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of this ‘research’ was permeated with racist values of that time and representative of upper class thought. The Theosophy Society has a dark underbelly through leader Blavatsky’s book ‘The Secret Doctrine’ – this work is deeply racist and filled with proto-nazi thought. The Theosophy Society is perhaps in part responsible for popularising concepts of the Aryan Race. It’s emblem also includes symbols from all mainstream religions, including the swastika. Which was commonly used before the Nazi Party, however quite eerie in conjunction with the Aryan concepts present within the society. The Anthroposophy society also delved into these concepts of root races but were later perceived as an enemy to the Nazi Party. So whilst, they were not outward supporters of Fascism, evidence suggests a lot of these unfounded musings influenced it.

According to podcasts ………, there was a lot of in-fightning in the Theosophical society, as members would attempt to claim their evidence-free proof of concepts to each other as truth (echoes new age cults of today) and when the leader of the Theosophical Society, Blavatsky died, these communities branched off… Blavatsky loyalists splintered off into Neo-Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner rejected Besant’s Theosophy (who became leader of the society after Blatlavsky’s death) due to rejecting the concepts of the ‘Mahatma’ (chosen leaders with divine knowledge of the spirit realm). Steiner went on to create Spiritual Science movement ‘Anthroposophy’, the fundamental ideas of which exist today filtered through Steiner Schools as alternative education. Steiner did not believe in disease and subsequently was anti-vaccine… which is interesting to think about. As a lot of modern New Agers during the pandemic are branching off into QAnon due to anti-vaccine/lockdown sentiments, the founder of alternative, creativity-focussed education expressed views in line with those a hundred years prior. I think about New-Age music and “healing music” within this context… I have found no evidence of the New Age musicians I am reading about being against vaccines however, but I have found evidence of a clear connection to Theosophy teachings and Thoughtforms. Other noticeable artists who have been influenced by Theosophy are Stravinsky, Kandinsky, Hilma Af Klint and more recently Lou Reed, who claimed White Light/White Heat was a reference to Theosophist author Alice Bailey’s book, “A Treatise on White Magic”.

What I find compelling about Besant is her socialism and political activism. She was responsible for helping indigenous people protest colonial rule and supported Indian and Irish independence movements. Meeting and befriending Ghandi in the process, given him the title ‘Mahatma’. She was also an early advocator of Women’s Rights. Whilst she believed she was a clairvoyant, I can’t see any indication that she self-proclaimed Mahatma ascendance like Blavatsky before her and many more cult-like figures who came later in Theosophy. These so called masters were thought to posses an innate understanding of the fabric of the spiritual plane. They claimed french lord Saint Germain from 1300s was a five hundred year old Mahatma, who’s name today is attached the one of the richest football clubs in the world, Paris-Saint-Germain.

Besant adopted a son whom she thought to be such an emissary, he ended up rejecting Theosophy and forming his own Spiritual ideas separately. From what I have read, Besant, whilst holding some very questionable assertions and work that is largely considered pseudo-science. Did so under the intention of unification, the damage in these New Age esoteric thinkers is perhaps the less clear forms of bigotry through spiritual narcissism. Annie Besant seems to attempt to be as neutral as possible in Thoughtforms, expressing a limit to what science can help us postulate. Esotericism vs Rationalism. Occult vs Science. Perhaps she possessed a form of synaesthesia… could you call that a type of Extra-sensory Perception? Being a mediatory to a spiritual plane sounds similar to Deep Listening in some ways. How do we differentiate forms of meditation from spiritual practice.. and how do we differentiate clairvoyance from the delicate arsenal of senses we possess? In my opinion Theosophy’s motto should be ‘There is no religion higher than imagination’ but clearly something from Thoughtforms resonated with many artists, and whether or not all that can be extracted from the pseudo-science is some of the earliest forms of Abstract art, it undeniably was hugely influential.

From Iasos’ bandcamp

“The Angels of Comfort are the carriers and distributors of a golden-pink energy called the Comfort Flame – an energy specifically created to bring comfort to all Life, wherever it is needed. This energy was created when humanity began experimenting with free will in a manner wherein they began creating discomfort for themselves. These angels “deliver” this energy wherever they are sent, whenever they are called forth, and wherever they are requested.” – Bandcamp description for Iasos’ Angels of Comfort

Iasos is an early pioneer of New Age Music, writing mostly with synthesizer, flute and lapsteel. His compositions utilize heavy delays and reverbs and are based on a higher spiritual plane, which Iasos claims to be a conduit too. Iasos does not self identify as a New Age Musician. But rather someone who makes ‘Inter-Dimensional Music’

This particular piece Angels of Comfort has been something I have been fascinated by for a long time. Many people who have near death experiences, have claimed to hear this music as an experience of an after life.

“Here’s the deal, for a few years I was hearing paradise music in my mind, and I was hearing it telepathically. I didn’t know where it was coming from. It sounded heavenly, sounded wonderful, and it melted my heart.” – Iasos speaking to Red Bull Music Academy.

“Basically, each musician puts out where he’s at… In other words, a musician is a merchant. He’s not selling music, he’s selling emotions served on a platter of sound. In my case I’m a merchant selling ecstatic emotions served through sound. So, if a person is feeling a lot of rage in their being, they might put out heavy metal. So those people that enjoy feeling rage (because it’s confirming the emotion they have inside them anyway) are going to love heavy metal. It boils down to frequency matching; whatever you basically feel all the time or would like to feel – you gravitate towards that style of music. So people that like feeling love, harmony, and ecstatic feelings tend to like what I do. People that love feeling rage, sadness, or anger – they’re not going to resonate with what I do at all. They’re going to gravitate towards other stuff…”

“music doesn’t have any built in obligations or roles, but it is capable of producing divine emotions, meaning high frequency pure emotions. Visuals are capable of inducing divine thought forms. When music and visuals are working together synchronistically and synergistically, their combined influence can ignite a state of higher consciousness. It can pop a person into a state of higher awareness.”

“How is it that music can resonate with one’s energy field? One of the principles of Hermes is The Law of Correspondence: as above, so below. Resonance in musical instruments means, for example, that when 2 strings are tuned to the same note (same frequency), if one is plucked the other will also tend to start vibrating. The Law of Octaves also extends this same principle: When one string is tuned to 2 or 3 times the frequency of another, if one is vibrating the other will also tend to vibrate. In other words, through resonance with the Law of Octaves, a sound vibration can actually sympathetically vibrate the energies in one’s aura which are precise multiples of that sound, but many many octaves higher in frequency than the sound. Consequently, if the musical energies are harmoniously integrated, they will tend to have an aligning effect on the listener’s energy field. For that matter, any harmonious energy field does have an aligning effect on one’s energies. The perfect example is nature: going for a walk in nature is harmonizing to one’s being since nature is itself saturated with harmonious energy patterns. However, music has an especially potent effect on the emotional body. When a car engine gets a “tune up,” it runs better. When a person’s physical, emotional, mental and etheric bodies become more fully aligned, that person feels better, is more alive, has more fun, and is a more perfect vessel through which Divine Intelligence can flow. Music is one of the more powerful tools for such inter-body alignment.” – Iasos Interview for ‘It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine’

“Another subtle potential service of new age music is to introduce mankind to higher-octave emotions with which we are not yet that familiar. Through such familiarization we will facilitate our ability to naturally express such feelings, to vibrate such emotions, to FEEL such feelings. Each emotion vibrates at a particular rate in the emotional spectrum, the harmonious emotions vibrating at higher frequencies. The Law of Octaves applies within this emotional range, just as it applies to music or to the periodic table of chemistry. You can have the well-known emotion of “gladness”, and if you double that frequency to the next octave up, you have the emotion “happiness”. Take that one octave higher and you have “joy”. One octave higher, “bliss”. Then “ecstasy”. Then “rapture”…………” – Iasos Interview for ‘It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine’

‘Celestial, Heavenly, Inter-Dimensional Music’

In reference to Iasos’ ideas of a ‘Law of Octaves’ are based of Anthroposophist thought. In the chapter “The Esoteric World of Sound and Research into Harmonics”… Hamel talks about ‘The World Monochord’ a single string instrument created by the Pythagoreans to measure harmonics.

“The interval between sun and earth produces a ‘diapason materialis’, the Greek designmation for the octave, corresponding on the left to a proportio dupla, i.e 1:2. Further ‘material’ intervals protrayed include diatesseron (i.e, the fourth), diapente (the fifth), diapason cum diapente etc. The whole universe is thus divided into a double octave, with the sun at its centre… Examination of the interval system reveals the absence of the tierce or third. The octave and fifth rule the universe as the basis of all our music; and indeed it was only later that the chord of the third entered man’s conceptual horizons as a typically ‘human’ phenomenon.” Manel quotes F. Stege: Musik, Mystik, Remagen 1961, p. 133.

“It is precisely this experience of the single note that the significance of the intervals that are once more of interest in the new spiritual music. Rulolf Steiner was already interpreting the intervals in his day, associating subjectivity and destiny with the ‘experience of the third’, the discovery of the higher self with ‘octave experience’ and imagination with the ‘fith experience’.

These are interesting quotes related to Iasos ‘law of octaves’, which nicely links back into esoteric thought, this law of octaves, linking nicely with Steiner’s work and the mention of Thoughtforms. I will try to also find a quote relating to ‘Saint Germain’, as I believe that’s another useful link. Iasos is one of the pioneers of New Age, so it is quite lucky that I can find a link between Theosophy and New Age through him. However, he does technically refer to himself as a creator of heavenly, celestial inter-dimensional music. I don’t have time to unpack anymore of Iasos ideas in this essay, but these nicely link to Thoughtforms.

The following are some quotable passages from book ‘Why I became A Theosophist’, I am interested in her use of the term ‘vibration’ in relation to thought. As Vibration is so intrinsic with sound. Except for atomic types of vibration like light particles. Hearing besant use the terminology Audition and ‘Clairaudience’ is fascinating also. It seems Besant’s interest in philosophy comes from a Science/Philosophy angle. It’s interesting how little she is concerned with belief systems of Theosophy but more following her nature of discovery… I think from these texts she is very driven by discovery. Perhaps that is what is so charming about her work, that it acts like a sort of playful creative science, where you don’t have to worry about results. Your imagination is allowed to bend theories and variables to your will and in a sense this makes it a form of creative fiction within the style of an academic paper. Whilst it is most likely unfathomable, that is kind of the point of it. Why study this world when you can invent a better one?… To me it feels like there is a certain impatience to Besant, she seems to have academic prowess and has strived to work out answers as to why we are here but she can’t wait for Science to confirm these hypothesise. Postulating theories on Thoughtforms, Chemistry, Telekinesis, Evolution. Esoteric thought allowed her to cross disciplines and follow her interests and theosophy allowed her to go wild with her imagination….

In an ancient occult treatise, however, we read of a “colorless spiritual fluid” “which exists everywhere and forms the first foundation on which our solar system is built. Outside the latter, it is found in its pristine purity only between the stars [suns] of the universe…. As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing through it, believe, in their illusion and ignorance, that it is empty space. There is not one finger’s breadth of void space in the whole boundless universe.”^[21] “The mother-substance” is said, in this treatise, to produce this æther of space as its seventh grade of density, and all objective suns are said to have this for their “substance.”

21 is ‘The Secret Doctrine’ by Helena Blavatsky

I think it’s important to discuss Spiritual Narcissism, whilst on the topic of New Age philosophy and subsequently Theosophy and Anthroposophy. When describing Thoughtforms, Besant lays out a colour chart, which attaches certain colours to thoughts, following a set of criteria.

In Thoughtforms, Besant begins to outline the difference between the thoughtforms of a ‘man [whose] energy flows outwards towards external objects of desire or is occupied in passional and emotional activities’ and a “thinker, is clothed in a body composed of innumerable combinations of the subtle matter of the mental plane, this body being more or less refined in its constituents and organised more or less fully for its functions..”… The passion led man’s thoughtform is “dull in hue, browns and dirty greens and reds playing a great part in it. Through this will flash various characteristic colours, as his passions are excited.”… The thinker with a ‘higher type’ of form in the astral world is “accompanied with a marvellous play of colour, like that in the spray of a waterfall as the sunlight strikes it”. Besant then states “As selfishness is eliminated all the duller and heavier shades disappear”. The text reads like the musings of an imaginative child… whilst Besant has her activism endeavours, these musings are harmful in their assertion of a ‘higher type’ of being. This kind of spiritual narcissism is very dangerous and whilst often through spiritual means, people apply these karmic principles of control and passivity to being more enlightened.. We run the risk of dehumanising the people we deem ‘lesser’. Notions of Purity, pure thoughts produce beautiful astral projections. Much like visuo-centrism and the rejection of touch and smell, I think that Thoughtforms follow these same conventions. ‘Passional desires’ and a lack of control are often applied to indigenous cultures by the colonialist as a way of mitigating how ‘advanced’ a culture is. It is highly possible that Besant does not intend to draw such conclusions but there is a link to this kind of scientific racism. Which is interesting, one thing that esoteric and rational thought practices around the 19th century have in common is their affinity with unfounded and insensitive, racist musings.

Spiritual superiority and spiritual narcissism are long described phenomena in wake of New Age movements. The heirarchical nature of spritual groups are based around modes of improvement through spiritual awakening. Through this practice a distortion begins, much like how power corrupts in tandem with wealth, a kind of corruption occurs where a raised figure begins to exert power in their superiority.

“As predicted, our Spiritual Superiority scale was correlated with narcissism significantly more strongly than with self-esteem. This is the first empirical demonstra-tion of the interconnection between the two, corroborating the no-tion of spiritual narcissism.Our correlational results obviously do not indicate the direc-tion of this relation. We speculate it works in both directions. On the one hand, spirituality can be seized as a way to bolster the self, allowing one to see the self as very special. Considering that spirituality can be a contingency of self-worth, and that perceived progress in this domain is more easily accomplished than in do-mains with hard objective outcomes, it is a quite reliable way of boosting feelings of superiority. This may be especially true for energetic training, where self-serving inferences can easily over-ride any objective evidence of one’s accomplishments. In Study 3, narcissism was in fact substantially higher in the energetic group (Table D in Data S1).Conversely, spiritual training programs may attract people with strong personal development motives, related to our western nar-cissistic culture. Many people now engage in their own privatized search for meaning; they do not need to humbly subordinate them-selves to a community, a greater philosophy, or God, as in traditional religions. In line with the current “me”-culture, they develop their own personal religion. This self-importance, and the extensive ex-ploration of one’s personal thoughts and feelings, may be particularly appealing to both overt and covert narcissists (Vitz & Modesti, 1993; Wink et al., 2005).”

This paper spoke about the differing forms of Supernatural Overconfidence, you believe your energy outwardly effects the world. Spiritual Guidance, whether or not you teach others enlightenment ‘I can help those on their path’, which may imply ‘higher/lesser’ power structures and Spiritual Superiority, defined as ‘I am more enlightened than most others’. And contingent self-worth, that when someone practices spirituality they tend to feel better about themselves. These terms may come in handy when attempting to define aspects of dehumanising thought within New Age principles.

“the road to spiritual enlightenment may yield the exact same mundane distortions that are all too familiar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illusory superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (clinging to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged “higher” values. It is possible, then, that the actual effects of spiritual training on self-enhancement stand in sharp contrast with the presumed diminishment of ego motives.” – Roos Vonk and Anouk Visser – An Exploration of Spiritual Superiority: The Paradox of Self Improvement.

Effectively this paper tries to link evidence through extensive interview between certain spiritual practices and this kind of spiritual narcissism. These movements seem to attract both those looking for answers, and those looking to be the answer.

“It hits you, but you feel no pain – instead, pleasure. This is is the visceral
experience of audition, immersed in auditory volumes, swimming in a sea of
sound, between cliffs of speakers towering almost to the sky, sound stacked
upon sound”

Julian Hendriques – Thinking Through Sound

In the opening pages of the text Annie set for this lesson, Hendriques talks about audition in the dancehall space, through a sound system. This reminded me of Yassmin Foster, visitng lecturer from last year. Who’s work drew on the documentation of sound system culture and the experience of that system, also dance culture. With the aim to faithfully document to teach and preserve evolution of black culture. Transmission of ideas, concepts of heritage.

“Sonic bodies may be contrasted with light bodies in the way that audition
carries a corporeal weight – exemplified by the liminal extremes of the sonic
dominance sound system session – that vision has traditionally been used to
escape. Sonic bodies have to be heard, felt and given the attention of listening.
It is of little use looking for them. Sonic bodies demand being approached in
a certain way, one based on a relationship of mutual recognition and respect,
as distinct from the positivist scientific paradigm of prediction and control.” – Julian Hendriques

In previous post I was reflecting on the work of Hannah Wallis, speaking about the sensory experience of bass music. Ain Bailey’s Art installation “Version” had a loudspeaker area where low end bass could be felt in your body and through the floor. Sound affects the body through vibrations, in this passage of text Hendriques speaks about the weight of sound and how it is felt not only heard. In a lecture with Patrick Farmer for On Vibration (a course I have taken on), he spoke about how you can detect electromagnetic vibrations from the human body up to 10 metres away. – This is not evidence that we can detect presence from 10 metres, but its interesting to think that we omit some sort of field. Each body in a room with a sound system will subtly affect the acoustics of a space. We are all sonic bodies, experiencing and omitting sound and vibration.

During Lockdown, I would listen to NTS where showrunners would talk about missing the experience of human bodies and even the humidity of the dancefloor. It didn’t strike me at the time, but I believe this was following a line of thought similar to that of Hendriques, and stating that the significance of the dancefloor as this sensory space, not just music, but touch, humidity.. and the ‘experience of bodies’. Bodies create a significant ‘Affect’ that we did not get to experience in the stricter phases of this pandemic which now we are in the process of re-learning. In the last lecture we spoke about Constance Classen and visuo-centrism. Hendriques work shines light on the sensory experiences that are often considered ‘less than’ sight and sound. The soundsystem, and senses activated in these spaces create this all-encompassing sensory togetherness. Attention to sensory phenomena in this case gives credence to under-represented forms of music.