Nutation

“ Every thought, emotion or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by an effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate—just as color may be reproduced in the same way. By a knowledge of the Principle of Vibration, as applied to Mental Phenomena, one may polarize his mind at any degree he wishes, thus gaining a perfect control over his mental states, moods, etc. ”

“ So I shall ask you to imagine a tone at a high rate of vibration, to see it striking the hearer’s brain at a certain focus, creating there a centre of energy, which tending to crystallization, fixes the thought in the mind. And the more366 permanent duration of pleasant (which are high) thoughts and tones is evident if we glance back over a long period of time and note how the joys stand out and the griefs disappear; so we always forget physical suffering. ”

“ If you take up a violin and sound the F one octave above the treble staff, there are produced, in the course of a single second, several thousand psychical states which together make up the sensation of pitch, fifty-five times as many psychical states which together make up the sensation of tone quality, and an immense number of other psychical states which together make up the sensation of intensity. ”

“ When we speak of a sound coming from a bell, what we really mean is that the vibrations of the bell have set up waves in the air between it and our ear, which have produced corresponding vibrations in the ear; that a nerve current was thereby produced; and that a sound was heard. But the sound (i.e., sensation) is a mental thing, and exists only in our own consciousness. What passed between the sounding object and ourselves was waves in the intervening air, ready to be translated through the machinery of nerves and brain into the beautiful tones and melodies and harmonies of the mind. ”

“ The dulness of the poet's ear shows itself in the defective melody of his verse; for both metre and rhythm have a physiological basis; they represent and express the harmony which is in the body when the body is finely attuned to the spirit. ”

“ Yes, the body represents the keys of the inner Harmonica through all its scales. Hitherto only the corporeal outward signs have been called feelings, as the swelling heart and the slowly-beating pulse--longing; the outpouring of gall, anger, and so on. But the net-like texture, the anastomy between the inner and outer man, is so life-full, so warm, that to every picture, every thought,--a nerve, a fibre must move. We should also observe, and put into the notes of speech all the bodily after sounds of poetic, algebraic, artistic, numismatic, and anatomic ideas. ”

“ For a sound stimulus awakens not only a sensory process in the ear, the correlative of which is a sensation, but also incipient motor reactions, which, if carried out, would be an emotion, but which, being too slight and diffuse, produce only what we call a mood. Every sensation has a meaning for the organism in an environment where it has constantly to be on its guard for danger or assistance; every sensation is therefore connected with the mechanism of reaction, with its attendant emotions. ”

“ The melody of a flute, if we had had no sense but that of hearing—the redness of a rose, if we had had no sense but that of vision, would as little, as the sensation of smell when considered as a transient state of the mind, have involved, or given occasion to, the notion of corporeal substance. ”

“ In some way or other the brain receives an impression of feeling. Just how it does, I understand, is not known; but scientists tell us that these impressions of sight, while they are not quite similar to the feelings aroused by sound, have something in common. Just as some sounds give pleasure while others are disturbing, so with colors—we receive from them sensations of pain or pleasure. According to the degree of our sensitiveness to sound or color our feelings are aroused. ”

“ We may add, that novelty of notes and tones in music, or of their combinations or successions, are equally agreeable to the ear, as the novelty of forms and colours, and of their combinations or successions are to the eye; but that the greater quantity or degree of novelty, the sentiment of which is generally termed Surprise, is more frequently excited by unusual or unexpected sounds; which are liable to alarm us with fear, as well as surprise us with novelty. ”

“ It has been said, again, that high notes in nature are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head. ”

“ The feeling of pleasure will, as is well known, become more intense, when harmonious tones combine with the rhythmical beat into one melodious whole. The agreeable feeling that then arises from the melody can scarcely be wanting in any individual consciousness. Just here we note that the degree of this feeling of pleasure for one and the same melody can vary extraordinarily for different individuals. And these subjective differences increase more and more as the melodious compound becomes more complicated. ”

“ The Complete Breath produces a rhythm which is Nature's own plan for keeping this important part of the system in normal condition, and, from the first, it will be noticed that the reproductive functions are strengthened and vitalized, thus, by sympathetic reflex action, giving tone to the whole system. ”

“ When the radical and vanishing movements are effected smoothly, distinctly, and without intensity or emotion, commencing fully and with some abruptness, and terminating gently and almost inaudibly, the result is the equable concrete. This of course may be produced with intervals, either upward or downward, of any degree—tone, semitone, third, fifth, or octave. ”

“ The fact that a repetition of sensations is productive of pleasant effects is not restricted to the realm of the visible. To-day, both the musician and the physicist know that the harmonic or the melodic addition of one tone to another affects us agreeably only when the added tone reproduces a part of the sensation which the first one excited. When I add an octave to a fundamental tone, I hear in the octave a part of what was heard in the fundamental tone. ”

“ In the somber tone the flute predominates. To express joy or happiness we use the clear timbre, and the ring of high forward placing predominates. To express a deeper feeling, a more serious but not a sad tone, that which we call the emotional form, both the clear and the somber are heard in various proportions; the high placing and the low resonance are about equally balanced. To express sadness the somber color or low resonance predominates.
Apply these ideas on all the exercises given. Use sentences which contain thought or sentiment that will enable you to arouse a definite feeling. ”

“ Thus, when we speak of the intensity of a sound of medium force as a magnitude, we allude principally to the greater or less effort which we should have ourselves to expend in order to summon, by our own effort, the same auditory sensation. ”

“ What you call love is but the multiple of lust and cosmic love, that is, gravitation.”
I stared at the man.
“It is quite as I say. About two hundred thousand vibrations make in man’s cerebrum what you call lust; about four billion per second, [Pg 31] that is gravitation, make what the philosophers call will, the poets, cosmic love; this comes just after light, white light, which is the sum of all the lights. And their multiple again, of love and light, makes many sextillions, and that is love of God, what the priests name religion.”... ”

“ If the tone is to have life, it must always be able to conform to any vowel sound. The least displacement of the form or interruption of the breath breaks up the whirling currents and vibrations, and consequently affects the tone, its vibrancy, its strength, and its duration. ”

“ Articular sensations, indeed, are not themselves graduated intensively. In the case of tone, the difficulty is mechanical,—that of graduating minutely the objective intensity of simple periodic vibrations. ”

“ If he admit the simple case of the connexion between the soul and body, in respect of sensation, as it is laid down in the first proposition, and only suppose, that there is a change made in the medullary substance, proportional and correspondent to every change in the sensations, the doctrine of vibrations, as here delivered, undertakes to account for all the rest, the origin of our ideas and motions, and the manner in which both the sensations and these are performed. ”

“ Like the large pulsation, made up of innumerable small pulses fused in one, so is every great and clear act of the mind, or intuition of the soul, made up of the results of countless efforts, countless experiences of the past. An irresistible conjecture is often unremembered knowledge. ”

“ Is not Vision perform'd chiefly by the Vibrations of this Medium, excited in the bottom of the Eye by the Rays of Light, and propagated through the solid, pellucid and uniform Capillamenta of the optick Nerves into the place of Sensation? And is not Hearing perform'd by the Vibrations either of this or some other Medium, excited in the auditory Nerves by the Tremors of the Air, and propagated through the solid, pellucid and uniform Capillamenta of those Nerves into the place of Sensation? And so of the other Senses. ”

“ It was shown that the diffusion of a feeling-tone always corresponds to some active manifestation, generally outward, which increases in the same degree as the state of consciousness gains in intensity and distinctness. Besides these immediate transformations of energy which, owing to the law of inertia, follow the primary enhancement or inhibition of function, we met with reactions of a more conscious kind, by which the organism strives to overcome the inhibition of pain, and to keep up the excitement of pleasure. ”

“ Certain vibrations, acting through the visual apparatus, cause within the brain those motions which are followed by the sensations of light and color;—other vibrations, acting upon the auditory mechanism, give rise to the sensation of sound;—other vibrations, setting up changes in specialized tissue, produce sensations of taste, smell, touch. All our knowledge is derived and developed, directly or indirectly, from physical sensation,—from touch. ”

“ To develop the full glory of this Science, the discords of corporeal sense must yield to the harmony of spiritual sense; even as the science of sound corrects false tones caught by the ear, and gives sweet concord to music. ”

“ The pleasure we experience from music, is, like that from viewing a landscape, derived from various sources; as first from the excitement of the auditory nerve into certain quantities of action, when there exists any accumulation of sensorial power. 2. When the auditory nerve is exerted in such successive actions as relieve each other, like stretching or yawning, as described in Botanic Garden, Vol. II, Interlude the third, these successions of sound are termed melody, and their combinations harmony. 3. From the repetition of sounds at certain intervals of time ”

“ Now we may consider that there is pervading the whole universe a single homogeneous resonance, sound, or tone, which acts, so to speak, as the awakener or vivifying power, stirring all the molecules into action. ”

“ And, connected with this inquiry, is the remark, that even in the usual outward senses there lies a spark of higher spiritual perception—such, for instance, as the artistic eye for beauty of form and color, and for grace of motion, or the musical ear for lovely sounds and measures; so that even the senses are not so purely corporeal, so totally material and grossly sensuous, as at the first glance they appear. ”

“ Within the texture of every poem beats a pulse like the throb of coursing blood in a living body; and this pulse or rhythm is the life of poetic form. Indeed rhythm is the very heart of the universe itself. No manifestation of the active principle in the great frame of things is so intimate or so pervasive. ”

“ Place yourself upon a level with the first tone as suggested, and allow the tone to start spontaneously, striking, as it were, the roof of the mouth and the chest simultaneously. Move body and hands down with the voice to the low tone, and then instantly but rhythmically, lift back to the level of the upper tone. Feel as though you were under the tone with body and hands in moving up, and let the tone strike by impulse, the roof of the mouth, and instantly reflect into the chest. Practice this exercise until it can be done with perfect freedom of form and action. ”

“ The more simple is the relation the greater is the harmony. For example, if we take the first note, termed the fundamental note, of what is called the scale in music, it harmonizes better with the octave than with any other of the eight notes, because for every vibration in it there are just two in the octave. ”

“ The same difficulty which is found in the observation of subjective sensations to which no external object corresponds is found also in the analysis of compound sensations which correspond to a single object. Of this sort are many of our sensations of sound. When the sound of a violin, no matter how often we hear it, excites over and over again in our ear the same sum of partial tones, the result is that our feeling of this sum of tones ends by becoming for our mind a mere sign for the voice of the violin. ”