The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone
GA 283
3 December 1906, Cologne
The Inner Nature of Music I
For those who care to reflect on it, music has always been something of an enigma from the aesthetic point of view. On the one hand, music is most readily comprehensive to the soul, to the immediately sensitive realm of human feeling (Gemüt); on the other hand it also presents difficulties for those wishing to grasp its effects. If we wish to compare music with the other arts, we must say that all the others actually have models in the physical world. When a sculptor creates a statue of Apollo or Zeus, for example, he works from the idealized reality of the human world. The same is true of painting, in which today (1906) only an immediate impression of reality is considered valid. In poetry also an attempt is made to create a copy of reality. One who wished to apply this approach to music, however would arrive at scarcely any results at all. Man must ask himself what the origin is of the artistically formed tones and what they are related to in the world.
Schopenhauer, a luminary of the nineteenth century, brought clear and well-defined ideas to bear on art. He placed music in an unique position among the arts and held that art possessed a particular value for the life of man. At the foundation of his philosophy, as its leitmotif, is the tenet: Life is a disagreeable affair; I attempt to make it bearable by reflecting on it. According to Schopenhauer, a blind, unconscious will rules the entire world. It forms the stones, then brings forth plants from the stones, and so on, because it is always discontent. A yearning for the higher thus dwells in everything.
Human beings sense this, though with greatly varying intensity. The savage who lives in dim consciousness feels the discontent of the will much less than a civilized human being who can experience the pain of existence much more keenly. Schopenhauer goes on to say that the mental image or idea (Vorstellung) is a second aspect that man knows in addition to the will. It is like a Fata Morgana, a misty form or a ripple of waves in which the images of the will — this blind, dark urge — mirror themselves. The will reaches up to this phantom-image in man. When he becomes aware of the will, man becomes even more discontent. There are means, however, by which man can achieve a kind of deliverance from the blind urge of the will. One of these is art. Through art man is able to raise himself above the discontent of will.
When a person creates a work of art, he creates out of his mental image. While other mental images are merely pictures, however, it is different in the case of art. The Zeus by Phidias, for instance, was not created by copying an actual man. Here, the artist combined many impressions; he retained in his memory all the assets and discarded all the faults. He formed an archetype from many human beings, which can be embodied nowhere in nature; its features are divided among many individuals. Schopenhauer says that the true artist reproduces the archetypes — not the mental images that man normally has, which are like copies, but the archetypes. By proceeding to the depths of creative nature, as it were, man attains deliverance.
This is the case with all the arts except music. The other arts must pass through the mental image, and they therefore render up pictures of the will. Tone, however, is a direct expression of the will itself, without interpolation of the mental image. When man is artistically engaged with tone, he puts his ear to the very heart of nature itself; he perceives the will of nature and reproduces it in series of tones. In this way, according to Schopenhauer, many stands in an intimate relationship to the Thing-in-Itself and penetrates to the innermost essence of things. Because man feels himself near to this essence in music, he feels a deep contentment in music.
Out of an instinctive knowledge, Schopenhauer attributed to music the role of directly portraying the very essence of the cosmos. He had a kind of instinctive presentiment of the actual situation. The reason that the musical element can speak to everyone, that it affects the human being from earliest childhood, becomes comprehensible to us from the realm of existence in which music has its true prototypes.
When the musician composes, he cannot imitate anything. He must draw the motifs of the musical creation out of his soul. We will discover their origin by pointing to worlds that are imperceptible to the senses. We must consider how these higher worlds are actually constituted. Man is capable of awakening higher faculties of the soul that ordinarily slumber. Just as the physical world is made visible to a blind person following an operation to restore his sight, so the inner soul organs of man can also be awakened in order that he might discern the higher spiritual worlds.
When man develops these faculties that otherwise slumber, when, through meditation, concentration, and so forth, he begins to develop his soul, he ascends step by step. The first thing he experiences is a peculiar transformation of his dream world. When, during meditation, man is able to exclude all memories and experiences of the outer sense world and yet can retain a soul content, his dream world begins to acquire a great regularity. Then, when he awakens in the morning, it feels as if he arose out of a flowing cosmic ocean. He knows that he has experienced something new. It is as if he emerged from an ocean of light and colors unlike anything he has known in the physical world. His dream experiences gain increasing clarity. He recalls that in this world of light and color there were things and beings that distinguished themselves from those of the ordinary world in that one could penetrate them; they did not offer resistance. Man becomes acquainted with a number of beings whose element, whose body, consists of colors. They are beings who reveal and embody themselves in color. Gradually, man expands his consciousness throughout that world and, upon awakening, recalls that he had taken part in that realm. His next step is to take that world with him into the daily world. Man gradually learns to see what is called the astral body of the human being. He experiences a world that is much more real than the ordinary, physical world. The physical world is a kind of condensation that has been crystallized out of the astral world. In this way, man now has two levels of consciousness, the everyday waking consciousness an the dream consciousness.
Man attains a still higher stage when he is able to transform the completely unconscious state of sleep into one of consciousness. The student on the path of spiritual training learns to acquire continuity of consciousness for a part of the night, for that part of the night that does not belong to the dream life but that is wholly unconscious. He now learns to be conscious in a world about which he formerly knew nothing. This new world is not one of light and colors but announces itself first as a world of tone. In this state of consciousness, man develops the faculty to hear spiritually and to perceive tone combinations and varieties of tone inaudible to the physical ear. This world is called Devachan.
Now, one should not believe that when man hears the world of tone welling up he does not retain the world of light and colors as well. The world of tone is permeated also with the light and colors that belong to the astral world. The most characteristic element of the Devachanic world, however, is this flowing ocean of tones. From this world of the continuity of consciousness, man can bring the tone element down with him and thus hear the tone element in the physical world. A tone lies at the foundation of everything in the physical world. Each aspect of the physical represents certain Devachanic tones. All objects have a spiritual tone at the foundation of their being, and, in his deepest nature, man himself is such a spiritual tone. On this basis, Paracelsus said, “The realms of nature are the letters, and man is the word that is composed of these letters.”
Each time the human being falls asleep and loses consciousness, his astral body emerges from his physical body. In this state man is certainly unconscious but living in the spiritual world. The spiritual sounds make an impression on his soul. The human being awakens each morning from a world of the music of the spheres, and from this region of harmony he re-enters the physical world. If it is true that man's soul experiences Devachan between two incarnations on earth, then we may also say that during the night the soul feasts and lives in flowing tone, as the element from which it is actually woven and which is the soul's true home.
The creative musician transposes the rhythm, the harmonies, and the melodies that impress themselves on his etheric body during the night into physical tone. Unconsciously, the musician has received the musical prototype from the spiritual world, which he then transposes into physical sounds. This is the mysterious relationship between music that resounds here in the physical world and hearing spiritual music during the night.
When a person is illuminated by light, he casts a shadow on the wall. The shadow is not the actual personal. In the same way, music produced in the physical world is a shadow, a real shadow of the much loftier music of Devachan. The archetype, the pattern, of music exists in Devachan, and physical music is but a reflection of the spiritual reality.
Now that we have made this clear, we will try to grasp the effect of music on the human being. This is the configuration of the human being that forms the basis of esoteric investigation: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego or “I.” The etheric body is an etheric archetype of the physical body. A much more delicate body, which is related to the etheric body and inclines toward the astral realm, is the sentient body. Within these three levels of the body we see the soul. The soul is the most closely connected with the sentient body. The sentient soul 1Rudolph Steiner distinguishes here between the sentient body, which is the container, as it were, and the actual individualized human soul, the content. The latter consists of sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul. See Theosophy by Rudolf Steiner for details. Frequently the term “sentient body” refers both to the container and the content. is incorporated, as it were, into the sentient body; it is placed within the sentient body. Just as a sword forms a whole with the scabbard into which it is placed, so the sentient body and the sentient soul represent a whole. In addition to these, man also possesses a feeling or intellectual soul and, as a still higher member, the consciousness soul. The latter is connected with Manas, or spirit self.2Manas (spirit self), Buddhi (life spirit), and Atma (spirit man) are still-higher members of man's organization that come into being as man's “I” works consciously on the purification and transformation of astral (sentient) body, etheric body, and physical body. Sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul were prepared by man's “I” in an unconscious state. When the human being is asleep, the sentient body remains in bed with the physical and etheric bodies, but the higher soul members, including the sentient soul, dwell in the world of Devachan.
In physical space we feel all other beings as outside of us. In Devachan, however, we do not feel ourselves outside of other beings; instead, they permeate us, and we are within them as well. Therefore, in all esoteric schools, the sphere of Devachan and also the astral realm have been called “the world of permeability.”
When man lives and weaves in the world of flowing tones, he himself is saturated by these tones. When he returns, from the Devachanic world, his own consciousness soul, intellectual, and sentient soul are permeated with the vibrations of the Devachanic realm; he has these within himself, and with them he penetrates the physical world. When man has absorbed these vibrations, they enable him to work from his sentient soul onto the sentient body and the etheric body. Having brought these vibrations of Devachan along with him, man can convey them to his etheric body, which then resonates with these vibrations. The nature of the etheric and the sentient bodies is based on the same elements, on spiritual tone and spiritual vibrations. The etheric body is lower than the astral body, but the activity exercised in the etheric body stands higher than the activity of the astral body. Man's evolution consists of his transforming with his “I” the bodies he possesses: first, the astral body is transformed into Manas (spirit self), then the etheric body into Buddhi (life spirit), and finally the physical body into Atma (spirit man). Since the astral body is the most delicate, man requires the least force to work on it. The force needed to work on the etheric body must be acquired from the Devachanic world, and the force man needs for the transformation of the physical body must be attained from the higher Devachanic world. One can work on the astral body with the forces of the astral world itself, but the etheric body requires the forces of the Devachanic world. One can work on the physical body only with the forces of the still higher Devachanic world.
During the night, from the world of flowing tones, man receives the force he needs to communicate these sounds to his sentient body and his etheric body. A person is musically creative or sensitive to music because these sounds are present already in his sentient body. Although man is unaware of having absorbed tones during the night, when he awakens in the morning, he nevertheless senses these imprints of the spiritual world within him when he listens to music. When he hears music, a clairvoyant can perceive how the tones flow, how they seize the more solid substance of the etheric body and cause it to reverberate. From this reverberation a person experiences pleasure, because he feels like a victor over his etheric body by means of his astral body. This pleasurable feeling is strongest when a person is able to overcome what is already in his etheric body.
The etheric body continuously resounds in the astral body. When a person hears music, the impression is experienced first in the astral body. Then, the tones are consciously sent to the etheric body, and man overcomes the tones already there. This is the basis both of the pleasure of listening to music and of musical creativity.
Along with certain musical sounds, something of the astral body flows into the etheric body. The latter now has received new tones. A kind of struggle arises between the sentient body and the etheric body. If these tones are strong enough to overcome the etheric body's own tones, a major key, one can observe how the sentient body is the victor over the etheric body. In the case of minor keys, the etheric body has been victor over the sentient body; the etheric body has opposed the vibrations of the sentient body.
When man dwells within the musical element, he lives in a reflection of his spiritual home. In this shadow image of the spiritual, the human soul finds its highest exaltation, the most intimate connection with the primeval element of man. This is why even the most humble soul feels in music an echo of what it has experienced in Devachan. The soul feels at home there. Each time he listens to music man senses, “Yes, I am from another world!”
From an intuitive knowledge of this Schopenhauer assigned the central position among the arts to music, and he said that in music man perceives the heartbeat of the will of the world.
In music, man feels the echoes of the element that weaves and lives in the innermost core of things, which is so closely related to him. Because feelings are the innermost elements of the soul, akin to the spiritual world, and because in tone the soul finds the element in which it actually moves, man's soul dwells in a world where the bodily mediators of feelings no longer exist but where feelings themselves live on. The archetype of music is in the spiritual, whereas the archetypes for the other arts lie in the physical world itself. When the human being hears music, he has a sense of well-being, because these tones harmonize with what he has experienced in the world of his spiritual home.
Erster Vortrag
Das Musikalische hat für die, welche darüber nachgedacht haben, immer etwas Rätselvolles gehabt in bezug auf die ästhetische Anschauungsweise. Die Musik ist auf der einen Seite das Verständlichste für die Seele, für das unmittelbar empfindende Menschengemüt, auf der anderen Seite etwas Schwieriges für die, welche ihre Wirkung begreifen wollen. Wenn wir die Musik vergleichen wollen mit den anderen Künsten, so müssen wir sagen: Eigentlich haben die anderen Künste alle in der physischen Welt ein Vorbild. Wenn zum Beispiel der Bildhauer die Statue eines Apoll oder Zeus schafft, dann arbeitet er nach der idealisierten Wirklichkeit der menschlichen Welt. Ebenso ist es in der Malerei. Heute will man sogar in der Malerei nur das gelten lassen, was unmittelbar den Eindruck der Wirklichkeit gibt. Ebenso bemüht sich die Poesie, ein Abbild der Wirklichkeit zu schaffen. Wer diese Theorie auf die Musik anwenden wollte, würde wohl kaum zu irgendeinem Resultat kommen können. Der Mensch muß sich fragen: Woher kommt denn eigentlich der künstlerisch geformte Ton, worauf in der Welt hat er Bezug?
Ein Geist des 19. Jahrhunderts, der in bezug auf die Kunst klare und treffende Vorstellungen gebracht hat, ist Schopenhauer. Er weist der Musik eine ganz besondere Stellung zu unter den Künsten und der Kunst als solcher einen ganz besonderen Wert im Leben des Menschen. Er hat im Grunde genommen als Leitmotiv seiner Philosophie den Satz: Das Leben ist eine mißliche Sache und ich suche es erträglich zu machen dadurch, daß ich darüber nachdenke. — In der ganzen Welt herrscht nach seiner Darstellung ein unbewußter, blinder Wille. Er bildet den Stein und dann aus dem Stein die Pflanze und so weiter, weil er immer unbefriedigt ist. So lebt in allem die Sehnsucht nach dem Höheren.
Der Mensch selbst spürt dies, doch bestehen da große Unterschiede: Der im dumpfen Bewußtsein dahinlebende Wilde fühlt viel weniger das Unbefriedigtsein des Willens als der höherstehende Mensch, der viel klarer den Schmerz des Daseins empfinden kann. Da sagt Schopenhauer: Es gibt noch ein zweites, das der Mensch kennt außer dem Willen, das ist die Vorstellung. Sie ist wie eine Fata Morgana, wie ein Nebelgebilde oder ein Gekräusel der Wellen, in dem die Gebilde des Willens, des dunkeln Dranges sich spiegeln. Im Menschen erhebt sich der Wille zu diesem Scheingebilde. Wenn er dadurch den Willen sieht, wird er noch unbefriedigter. Es gibt aber Mittel, durch die der Mensch zu einer Art Erlösung von dem blinden Drang des Willens kommen kann. Eines dieser Mittel ist die Kunst. Durch sie vermag der Mensch sich hinwegzuversetzen über das Unbefriedigtsein des Willens.
Wenn der Mensch ein Kunstwerk schafft, schafft er aus seiner Vorstellung heraus. Während aber andere Vorstellungen bloß Bilder sind, ist es bei der Kunst etwas anderes. Zum Beispiel der Zeus des Phidias ist nicht durch die Abbildung eines wirklichen Menschen zustande gekommen. Da hat der Künstler viele Eindrücke kombiniert, alle Vorzüge im Gedächtnis behalten und alle Mängel weggelassen. Aus vielen Menschen hat er sich ein Urbild geformt, das nirgends in der Natur verwirklicht ist, aber doch auf viele einzelne Individualitäten verteilt ist. Schopenhauer sagt, daß der wahre Künstler die Urbilder wiedergibt, nicht die Vorstellungen, die sonst der Mensch hat, nicht die Abbilder, sondern die Urbilder. Dadurch, daß der Mensch sich so gleichsam in der schaffenden Natur zu ihren "Tiefen begibt, schafft er sich eine Erlösung.
So ist es mit allen Künsten, außer der Musik. Die anderen Künste müssen durch die Vorstellung hindurchgehen, also Bilder des Willens geben. Aber der Ton ist ein unmittelbarer Ausdruck des Willens selbst, ohne Einschiebung der Vorstellung. Wenn der Mensch im Ton künstlerisch tätig ist, ist er gleichsam mit seinem Ohr am Herzen der Natur selbst liegend; er vernimmt den Willen der Natur und gibt ihn in der Folge der Töne wieder. So - sagt Schopenhauer — steht der Mensch in einem vertrauten Verhältnis zu den Dingen an sich, so dringt er ein in das innerste Wesen der Dinge. Weil sich der Mensch dem Wesen nahe fühlt in der Musik, deshalb fühlt er in der Musik jene tiefe Befriedigung.
So hat Schopenhauer aus einer instinktiven Erkenntnis heraus der Musik die Rolle zugewiesen, das Wesen des Kosmos unmittelbar darzustellen. Er hatte eine Art instinktiver Ahnung von dem wirklichen Sachverhalt. Warum das Musikalische zu allen sprechen kann, warum das Musikalische von der frühesten Kindheit an auf den Menschen wirkt, das wird uns erklärlich werden auf dem Gebiet des Daseins, wo die Musik ihre wirklichen Vorbilder hat.
Wenn der Musiker komponiert, kann er nichts nachahmen. Er muß aus seiner Seele herausholen die Motive des musikalischen Schaffens. Woher er sie holt, das wird sich uns ergeben, wenn wir hinweisen auf die Welten, die für die Sinne nicht wahrnehmbar sind. Wir müssen da nachsehen, wie die höheren Welten eigentlich beschaffen sind. Der Mensch ist in der Lage, sich höhere, in der Seele liegende Fähigkeiten zu erschließen, die sonst schlummern. Wie dem Blindgeborenen durch Operation die physische Welt sichtbar wird, so können auch dem Menschen die inneren Organe erschlossen werden, um höhere geistige Welten zu erkennen.
Wenn der Mensch solche Fähigkeiten entwickelt, die sonst in ihm schlummern, wenn er anfängt, durch Meditation und Konzentration und so weiter seine Seele zu entwickeln, da geht es stufenweise mit ihm aufwärts. Das erste, was er dann erlebt, ist eine besondere Umgestaltung seiner Traumwelt. Wenn der Mensch vermag, bei der Meditation alle Erinnerungen an die äußere Sinneswelt und an sonstige Erlebnisse auszuschalten, und wenn er dann doch noch einen Seeleninhalt hat, dann fängt seine Traumwelt an, eine große Regelmäßigkeit zu bekommen. Es ist dann, wenn er erwacht, als ob er sich aus einem flutenden Weltenmeer erhöbe. Er weiß, er hat jetzt etwas Neues erlebt, er ist wie herausgekommen aus einem solchen Meer von Licht und Farben, wie er es noch nicht gekannt hat in der physischen Welt. Immer mehr gewinnen seine Traumerlebnisse an Deutlichkeit. Er erinnert sich, daß in dieser Licht- und Farbenwelt Dinge und Wesenheiten waren, die sich dadurch von den anderen Gegenständen unterscheiden, daß man durch sie hindurchgehen kann, daß sie keinen Widerstand entgegensetzen. Er lernt eine Summe von Wesenheiten kennen, deren Element, deren Körper die Farben sind. Es sind Wesenheiten, die in der Farbe sich offenbaren, sich verkörpern. Allmählich dehnt der Mensch sein Bewußtsein über diese Welt aus und erinnert sich beim Erwachen, daß er darin handelnd aufgetreten ist. Der nächste Schritt ist dann, daß er diese Welt mit hinübernimmt in die Tageswelt. Dann lernt der Mensch allmählich das zu sehen, was man den Astralleib des Menschen nennt. Er erlebt eine Welt, die viel realer ist als die gewöhnliche physische Welt. Die physische Welt ist eine Art Verdichtung, herauskristallisiert aus der Astralwelt. Auf diese Weise hat der Mensch dann zwei Stufen des Bewußtseins: das alltägliche Wachbewußtsein und das Traumbewußstsein.
Eine noch höhere Stufe erreicht der Mensch, wenn er den völlig bewußtlosen Zustand umzuwandeln vermag in einen bewußten Zustand. Der Chela oder Schüler lernt die Kontinuität des Bewußtseins für einen Teil der Nacht zu erlangen, für die Teile der Nacht, die nicht dem Traumleben angehören, sondern die noch ganz bewußtlos sind. Er lernt dann, bewußt zu werden in einer Welt, von der er sonst nichts weiß. Diese neue Welt ist nicht eine Licht- und Farbenwelt, sondern kündet sich zuerst an als eine Tonwelt. In diesem Bewußtseinszustand erlangt der Mensch die Fähigkeit geistig zu hören, Tonkombinationen, Tonmannigfaltigkeiten zu vernehmen, die dem physischen Ohre unhörbar sind. Diese Welt nennt man die Devachanwelt.
Nun darf man nicht glauben, daß, wenn der Mensch die geistige, tönende Welt aufsteigen hört, er nicht auch behält die Licht- und Farbenwelt. Auch die Tonwelt ist durchsetzt von Licht und Farbe, die aber der astralen Welt angehören. Aber das ureigenste Element der Devachanwelt ist das flutende Meer der Töne. Auch aus dieser Welt der Bewußtseinskontinuität kann der Mensch das Tönende herüberbringen und dadurch auch das Tönende in der physischen Welt hören. Allem in der physischen Welt liegt ein Ton zugrunde. Ein jedes Gesicht repräsentiert bestimmte devachanische Töne. Alle Gegenstände haben auf dem Grunde ihres Wesens einen geistigen Ton, und der Mensch selbst ist in seiner tiefsten Wesenheit ein solch geistiger Ton. Aus diesem Grunde hat Paracelsus gesagt: Die Reiche der Natur sind die Buchstaben und der Mensch ist das Wort, welches sich aus diesen Buchstaben zusammensetzt. — Jedesmal, wenn der Mensch einschläft, bewußtlos wird, tritt sein Astralleib heraus aus dem physischen Leib. Dann ist der Mensch zwar unbewußt, aber doch lebend in der geistigen Welt. Auf seine Seele machen die geistigen Klänge einen Eindruck. Jeden Morgen wacht der Mensch auf aus einer Welt der Sphärenmusik, und aus einem Gebiet des Wohllauts zieht er ein in die physische Welt. Wenn es wahr ist, daß die Seele des Menschen zwischen zwei Verkörperungen ein Devachan hat, so dürfen wir auch sagen, daß die Seele während der Nacht schwelgt und lebt in dem flutenden Ton, als dem Element, aus dem sie eigentlich gewoben ist, das eigentlich ihre Heimat ist.
Der schaffende Tonkünstler nun setzt den Rhythmus, die Harmonien und Melodien, die sich während der Nacht seinem Astralleib einprägen, um in einen physischen Ton. Unbewußt hat der Musiker das Vorbild der geistigen Welt, das er umsetzt in die physischen Klänge. Das ist der geheimnisvolle Zusammenhang zwischen der Musik, die hier im Physischen erklingt, und dem Hören der geistigen Musik in der Nacht.
Wenn ein Mensch beleuchtet ist vom Lichte, dann bildet sich von ihm ein Schatten an der Wand. Das ist nicht der wirkliche Mensch. So ist die Musik, die im Physischen erzeugt wird, ein Schatten, ein wirklicher Schatten von einer viel höheren Musik des Devachans. Das Urbild, die Vorlage der Musik ist im Devachan, die physische Musik ist nur ein Abbild der geistigen Wirklichkeit.
Nachdem wir uns dies klargemacht haben, wollen wir die Wirkung der Musik auf den Menschen zu begreifen suchen. Die Einteilung des Menschen, die der okkulten Untersuchung zugrunde liegt, ist diese: Physischer Leib, Ätherleib, Astralleib und Ich. Der Ätherleib ist ein ätherisches Urbild des physischen Leibes. Ein noch feinerer Leib, der dem Ätherleib verwandt ist und zu dem Astralen hinneigt, ist der Empfindungsleib. Innerhalb dieser drei Stufen des Leibes sehen wir die Seele. Die hängt zunächst mit dem Empfindungsleib zusammen. Dem Empfindungsleib ist wie eingegliedert die Empfindungsseele. Die steckt im Empfindungsleib darinnen. Wie ein Schwert mit der Scheide, in der es steckt, ein Ganzes bildet, so sind auch der Empfindungsleib und die Empfindungsseele ein Ganzes. Außerdem hat der Mensch noch die Gemüts- oder Verstandesseele und als noch höheres Glied die Bewußtseinsseele, und diese ist verknüpft mit dem Geistselbst oder Manas. Wenn der Mensch schläft, liegt im Bett mit dem physischen und Ätherleib der Empfindungsleib; die höheren Glieder, also auch die Empfindungsseele, sind in der Welt des Devachans. Im physischen Raum fühlen wir alle anderen Wesen außer uns. Im Devachan fühlen wir uns nicht außerhalb der Wesen, sondern da durchdringen sie uns, da sind wir in den Wesen darinnen. Darum hat man in allen okkulten Schulen die Sphäre des Devachans und auch des Astralen die Welt der Durchlässigkeit genannt.
Indem der Mensch so lebt und webt in der Welt der flutenden Töne, wird er selbst durchflutet von diesen Tönen. Wenn er nun aus dieser devachanischen Welt zurückkehrt, dann sind seine eigene Bewußtseinsseele, Verstandes- und Empfindungsseele von den Schwingungen der devachanischen Welt durchsetzt; er hat sie selbst in sich. Mit ihnen dringt er in die physische Welt ein. Wenn er diese Schwingungen aufgenommen hat, dann sind die Schwingungen so, daß er aus der Empfindungsseele heraus zurückwirken kann auf den Empfindungsleib und den Ätherleib. Dadurch, daß er die Schwingungen mitbringt aus dem Devachan, kann er die Schwingungen auf seinen Ätherleib übertragen. Dann schwingt der eigene Ätherleib mit. Das Wesen des Äther- und Empfindungsleibes beruht im Grunde genommen auf denselben Elementen, auf dem geistigen Ton und auf geistigen Schwingungen. Der Ätherleib ist niedriger als der Astralleib, aber die Tätigkeit, die im Ätherleib ausgeübt wird, steht höher als die Tätigkeit des Astralleibes. Die Entwickelung des Menschen besteht darin, daß er das, was er hat, vom Ich aus umformt, zuerst den Astralleib in Manas, dann den Ätherleib in Buddhi, dann den physischen Leib in Atma. Weil der Astralleib der dünnste ist, braucht man die wenigste Kraft, um in ihn hineinzuarbeiten. Die Kraft, die man braucht, um in den Ätherleib hineinzuarbeiten, die braucht man aus der Devachanwelt, die Kraft der Umwandlung des physischen Leibes braucht man aus der höheren Devachanwelt. Auf den Astralleib kann man wirken mit den Kräften der astralen Welt selbst, auf den Ätherleib aber nur mit den Kräften der Devachanwelt. Auf den physischen Leib kann man nur wirken mit den Kräften der oberen Devachanwelt. Während der Nacht holt sich der Mensch die Kraft aus der Welt der flutenden Töne, die Kraft, dies auf den Empfindungsleib und Ätherleib zu übertragen. Wenn der Mensch musikalisch schafft oder wahrnimmt, so liegt das daran, daß er diese Klänge in dem Empfindungsleib schon hat. Während der Mensch beim Aufwachen des morgens sich nicht bewußt wird, daß er nachts Töne aufgenommen hat, spürt er doch, wenn er Musik anhört, daß diese Abdrücke der geistigen Welt in ihm sind. Wenn er Musik hört, kann der Hellseher sehen, wie die Töne fluten, die festere Materie des Ätherleibes ergreifen und diesen mitschwingen lassen, daher hat der Mensch dann das Wohlgefühl. Das kommt daher, daß der Mensch sich dann als Sieger fühlt über den Ätherleib durch seinen Astralleib. Dies ist am stärksten, wenn der Mensch es erreicht, das zu überwinden, was im Ätherleib schon ist. Immer tönt der Ätherleib herauf in den Astralleib. Wenn er Musik hört, ist der Eindruck zuerst im Astralleib. Dann schickt er die Töne bewußt in den Ätherleib und überwindet die Töne, die im Ätherleib schon sind. Das ist das Wohlgefühl des musikalischen Zuhörens und auch des musikalischen Schaffens. Bei gewissen musikalischen Klängen geht aus dem Astralleib etwas hinein in den Ätherleib. Der hat nun neue Töne erhalten. Es entsteht eine Art von Kampf zwischen dem Empfindungsleib und dem Ätherleib. Sind diese Töne so stark, daß sie die eigenen Töne des Ätherleibes überwinden, dann entsteht heitere Musik, in der Dur-Tonart. Wenn ein Musikalisches in der Dur-Tonart wirkt, dann kann man verfolgen, wie der Empfindungsleib Sieger ist über den Ätherleib. Bei der Moll-Tonart ist der Ätherleib Sieger über den Empfindungsleib. Der Ätherleib widersetzt sich den Schwingungen des Empfindungsleibes.
Wenn der Mensch im Musikalischen lebt, so lebt er in einem Abbild seiner geistigen Heimat. In dem Schattenbild des Geistigen findet die Seele die höchste Erhebung, die intimste Beziehung zum Urelement des Menschen. Daher ist es, daß die Musik so tief auch auf die schlichteste Seele wirkt. Die schlichteste Seele fühlt in der Musik den Nachklang dessen, was sie im Devachan erlebt hat. Sie fühlt sich da in ihrer Heimat. Jedesmal fühlt der Mensch dann: Ja, du bist aus einer anderen Welt! Aus dieser intuitiven Erkenntnis heraus hat Schopenhauer der Musik jene zentrale Stellung unter den Künsten angewiesen und gesagt, daß der Mensch in der Musik den Herzschlag des Willens der Welt wahrnimmt.
Der Mensch fühlt in der Musik die Nachklänge dessen, was im Innersten der Dinge webt und lebt, was mit ihm so verwandt ist. Weil die Gefühle das innerste Element der Seele sind, verwandt mit der geistigen Welt, und weil die Seele im Ton ihr Element hat, in dem sie sich eigentlich bewegt, so lebt sie da in einer Welt, wo die körperlichen Vermittler der Gefühle nicht mehr vorhanden sind, wo aber die Gefühle noch leben. Das Urbild der Musik ist im Geistigen, während die Urbilder für die übrigen Künste in der physischen Welt selbst liegen. Wenn der Mensch Musik hört, fühlt er sich wohl, weil diese Töne übereinstimmen mit dem, was er in der Welt seiner geistigen Heimat erlebt hat.
First Lecture
For those who have thought about it, music has always had something mysterious about it in terms of aesthetic perception. On the one hand, music is the most comprehensible thing for the soul, for the immediately sensitive human mind; on the other hand, it is something difficult for those who want to understand its effect. If we want to compare music with the other arts, we must say that all the other arts have a model in the physical world. When, for example, a sculptor creates a statue of Apollo or Zeus, he works according to the idealized reality of the human world. The same is true in painting. Today, even in painting, only what gives an immediate impression of reality is accepted. Poetry also strives to create a reflection of reality. Anyone who wanted to apply this theory to music would hardly be able to come to any conclusion. We must ask ourselves: Where does artistically formed sound actually come from, and to what in the world does it relate?
Schopenhauer is a 19th-century thinker who had clear and accurate ideas about art. He assigns music a very special place among the arts and art as such a very special value in human life. Basically, the leitmotif of his philosophy is the sentence: Life is a difficult thing, and I try to make it bearable by thinking about it. According to his description, an unconscious, blind will reigns throughout the world. It forms the stone, and then from the stone the plant, and so on, because it is always unsatisfied. Thus, the longing for something higher lives in everything.
Humans themselves sense this, but there are great differences: the savage, living in a dull consciousness, feels the dissatisfaction of the will much less than the higher human being, who can feel the pain of existence much more clearly. Schopenhauer says: There is a second thing that man knows besides the will, and that is the idea. It is like a mirage, like a mist or a ripple on the waves, in which the forms of the will, the dark urge, are reflected. In man, the will rises to this illusory form. When he sees the will through it, he becomes even more dissatisfied. However, there are means by which man can achieve a kind of redemption from the blind urge of the will. One of these means is art. Through it, man is able to transcend the dissatisfaction of the will.
When man creates a work of art, he creates from his imagination. But while other ideas are merely images, art is something else. For example, Phidias' Zeus was not created by depicting a real person. The artist combined many impressions, retaining all the virtues in his memory and omitting all the flaws. From many people, he formed an archetype that is not realized anywhere in nature, but is nevertheless distributed among many individual personalities. Schopenhauer says that the true artist reproduces archetypes, not the ideas that people otherwise have, not images, but archetypes. By delving into the depths of creative nature, so to speak, people create their own salvation.
This is true of all the arts except music. The other arts must pass through the imagination, that is, they must give images of the will. But sound is a direct expression of the will itself, without the intervention of the imagination. When man is artistically active in sound, he is, as it were, lying with his ear to the heart of nature itself; he hears the will of nature and reproduces it in the sequence of sounds. Thus, says Schopenhauer, man stands in a familiar relationship to things in themselves; he penetrates into the innermost essence of things. Because man feels close to the essence in music, he feels that deep satisfaction in music.
Thus, based on an instinctive insight, Schopenhauer assigned music the role of directly representing the essence of the cosmos. He had a kind of instinctive intuition about the real state of affairs. Why music can speak to everyone, why music has an effect on people from early childhood onwards, will become clear to us in the realm of existence where music has its real models.
When a musician composes, he cannot imitate anything. He must draw the motifs of musical creation from his soul. Where he gets them from will become clear to us when we point to the worlds that are not perceptible to the senses. We must look there to see what the higher worlds are actually like. Human beings are capable of tapping into higher abilities that lie dormant in the soul. Just as the physical world becomes visible to those born blind through surgery, so too can the inner organs be opened up to humans in order to recognize higher spiritual worlds.
When humans develop such abilities that otherwise lie dormant within them, when they begin to develop their soul through meditation and concentration and so on, they gradually ascend. The first thing they experience is a special transformation of their dream world. When people are able to switch off all memories of the external sensory world and other experiences during meditation, and when they still have soul content, their dream world begins to take on a great regularity. When they awaken, it is as if they are rising from a flooding sea of worlds. They know that they have now experienced something new; they have emerged from a sea of light and colors that they have never known before in the physical world. His dream experiences become increasingly clear. He remembers that in this world of light and color there were things and beings that differed from other objects in that one could pass through them, that they offered no resistance. He gets to know a number of beings whose element, whose body, is color. These are beings that reveal themselves in color, that embody themselves in color. Gradually, the person expands their consciousness beyond this world and remembers upon awakening that they have acted within it. The next step is to take this world with them into the waking world. Then the person gradually learns to see what is called the astral body of the human being. They experience a world that is much more real than the ordinary physical world. The physical world is a kind of condensation, crystallized out of the astral world. In this way, the human being then has two levels of consciousness: everyday waking consciousness and dream consciousness.
The human being reaches an even higher level when he is able to transform the completely unconscious state into a conscious state. The chela or disciple learns to attain continuity of consciousness for part of the night, for those parts of the night that do not belong to dream life but are still completely unconscious. He then learns to become conscious in a world of which he otherwise knows nothing. This new world is not a world of light and color, but first announces itself as a world of sound. In this state of consciousness, the human being acquires the ability to hear spiritually, to hear combinations of sounds, a multitude of sounds that are inaudible to the physical ear. This world is called the Devachan world.
Now, one must not believe that when the human being hears the spiritual, sounding world rising, he does not also retain the world of light and color. The world of sound is also permeated with light and color, but these belong to the astral world. However, the most essential element of the Devachan world is the flowing sea of sounds. From this world of continuous consciousness, humans can also bring over the sounds and thereby hear them in the physical world. Everything in the physical world is based on sound. Every face represents certain devachanic sounds. All objects have a spiritual sound at the core of their being, and human beings themselves are such spiritual sounds in their deepest essence. For this reason, Paracelsus said: The realms of nature are the letters, and human beings are the word composed of these letters. Every time a human being falls asleep and becomes unconscious, their astral body leaves their physical body. Then the human being is unconscious, but still alive in the spiritual world. The spiritual sounds make an impression on their soul. Every morning, humans wake up from a world of spherical music, and from a realm of melodious sounds, they enter the physical world. If it is true that the human soul has a devachan between two incarnations, then we can also say that during the night, the soul revels and lives in the flowing sound, as the element from which it is actually woven, which is actually its home.
The creative musician now translates the rhythms, harmonies, and melodies that are imprinted on his astral body during the night into physical sound. Unconsciously, the musician has the model of the spiritual world, which he translates into physical sounds. This is the mysterious connection between the music that resounds here in the physical world and the hearing of spiritual music at night.
When a person is illuminated by light, a shadow is cast on the wall. This is not the real person. In the same way, the music that is produced in the physical world is a shadow, a real shadow of a much higher music of the Devachan. The archetype, the model of music, is in the Devachan; physical music is only a reflection of spiritual reality.
Now that we have clarified this, let us try to understand the effect of music on human beings. The division of the human being, which forms the basis of occult research, is as follows: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. The etheric body is an etheric archetype of the physical body. An even finer body, related to the etheric body and inclined toward the astral, is the sentient body. Within these three stages of the body we see the soul. This is initially connected with the sentient body. The sentient soul is integrated into the sentient body. It is contained within the sentient body. Just as a sword and its sheath form a whole, so too do the sentient body and the sentient soul form a whole. In addition, the human being also has the soul of the mind or intellect and, as an even higher member, the soul of consciousness, which is connected with the spirit self or manas. When the human being sleeps, the feeling body lies in bed with the physical and etheric bodies; the higher members, including the feeling soul, are in the world of Devachan. In physical space, we feel all other beings except ourselves. In Devachan, we do not feel ourselves outside of beings, but rather they permeate us, and we are within them. That is why all occult schools have called the sphere of Devachan and also the astral world the world of permeability.
As human beings live and weave in the world of flowing tones, they themselves are flooded by these tones. When they return from this Devachanic world, their own consciousness soul, mind soul, and feeling soul are permeated by the vibrations of the Devachanic world; they have them within themselves. With them, they enter the physical world. Once they have absorbed these vibrations, the vibrations are such that they can react back from the sentient soul to the sentient body and the etheric body. By bringing the vibrations with them from the devachan, they can transfer the vibrations to their etheric body. Then their own etheric body vibrates along with them. The essence of the etheric and sentient bodies is basically based on the same elements, on spiritual sound and spiritual vibrations. The etheric body is lower than the astral body, but the activity carried out in the etheric body is higher than the activity of the astral body. Human development consists in transforming what one has from the ego, first the astral body into manas, then the etheric body into buddhi, then the physical body into atma. Because the astral body is the thinnest, the least amount of energy is needed to work into it. The power needed to work into the etheric body must be drawn from the Devachan world, while the power to transform the physical body must be drawn from the higher Devachan world. The astral body can be influenced with the powers of the astral world itself, but the etheric body can only be influenced with the powers of the Devachan world. The physical body can only be influenced with the forces of the higher Devachan world. During the night, human beings draw strength from the world of flowing sounds, the strength to transfer this to the sentient body and etheric body. When human beings create or perceive music, it is because they already have these sounds in their sentient body. Although human beings are not aware when they wake up in the morning that they have absorbed sounds during the night, they do feel, when they listen to music, that these impressions of the spiritual world are within them. When they listen to music, clairvoyants can see how the sounds flow, grasp the denser matter of the etheric body and cause it to resonate, which is why human beings then feel a sense of well-being. This is because they then feel victorious over the etheric body through their astral body. This is strongest when they manage to overcome what is already in the etheric body. The etheric body always resonates up into the astral body. When a person hears music, the impression is first in the astral body. Then they consciously send the sounds into the etheric body and overcome the sounds that are already in the etheric body. This is the feeling of well-being that comes from listening to music and also from creating music. With certain musical sounds, something from the astral body enters the etheric body. It has now received new tones. A kind of struggle arises between the sentient body and the etheric body. If these tones are so strong that they overcome the etheric body's own tones, then cheerful music arises, in the major key. When music in a major key is heard, one can observe how the feeling body triumphs over the etheric body. In a minor key, the etheric body triumphs over the feeling body. The etheric body resists the vibrations of the feeling body.
When a person lives in music, they live in a reflection of their spiritual home. In the shadow image of the spiritual, the soul finds the highest elevation, the most intimate relationship with the primordial element of the human being. That is why music has such a profound effect even on the simplest soul. The simplest soul feels in music the echo of what it experienced in Devachan. It feels at home there. Each time, the human being feels: Yes, you are from another world! Based on this intuitive insight, Schopenhauer assigned music a central position among the arts and said that in music, the human being perceives the heartbeat of the will of the world.
In music, human beings feel the echoes of what weaves and lives at the heart of things, what is so closely related to us. Because feelings are the innermost element of the soul, related to the spiritual world, and because the soul has its element in sound, in which it actually moves, it lives there in a world where the physical mediators of feelings are no longer present, but where feelings still live. The archetype of music lies in the spiritual realm, while the archetypes for the other arts lie in the physical world itself. When people hear music, they feel good because these sounds correspond to what they have experienced in the world of their spiritual home.