Music of the Spheres

It is perfectly obvious that any magical Ritual is, in fact, reducible to a combination of three components: movements, symbols, and sounds.

Moreover, the success of an implementation depends on their suitability to the goal and how skillfully and harmoniously all the components are selected — not only according to the formal logic of the Ritual but also with regard to implicit factors, which is particularly challenging for the sound elements.

The idea that sound possesses a creative power reaches back to the hoary Pythagorean teachings.

In ancient Mesopotamia, people believed that the celestial bodies perform a cosmic hymn as they move across the sky.

Pythagoras cured many diseases with specially composed music, calling this therapy “musical medicine,” since he associated the notion of catharsis with music, which he recommended for the purification of the soul. Pythagoras believed that each person, as with each planet in the cosmos, has his own music — the music of his spheres.

For Pythagoras, music was derived from the divine science of mathematics, and its harmonies were strictly governed by mathematical proportions. He divided the many parts of creation into a large number of planes or spheres, each of which he ascribed a tone, a harmonic interval, a number, a name, a color, and a form.

Having established music as an exact science, Pythagoras applied the laws of harmonic relations he had discovered to all the phenomena of nature, and thereby established harmonic relations among the planets, constellations, and elements.

Pythagoras regarded the Universe as a monochord with a single string, its upper end attached to the Great Spirit and its lower end to absolute matter.

The Pythagoreans gave names to the different notes of the diatonic scale based on the speed and magnitude of planetary bodies, each of which they held to emit a sound of a particular pitch.

The Greeks also recognized a fundamental correspondence between the separate spheres of the seven planets and the seven sacred vowel sounds. The first heaven pronounces the sacred vowel A (Alpha); the second heaven, the sacred vowel E (Epsilon); the third, H (Eta); the fourth, I (Iota); the fifth, O (Omicron); the sixth, Y (Upsilon); the seventh heaven, the sacred vowel O (Omega). When the seven heavens sing together, they produce a perfect harmony that rises as eternal glory to the Creator’s Throne.

On this basis, the Names of God were conceived as forms formed from combinations of the seven planetary harmonies.

The ancient Egyptians restricted their sacred songs to the seven primary sounds, forbidding other sounds to be uttered in the temple. One of their hymns contained the following incantation:

“Seven sonic tones give praise to You, Great God, the ever-creating Father of the whole universe.”

In another hymn, the Deity describes Himself thus:

“I am the great indestructible lyre of the whole world, tuned to the songs of the heavens.”

The Pythagoreans believed that everything that exists has a voice and that all creatures eternally sing praise to the Creator.

Man was unable to retain these melodies within himself, because his soul became entangled in the illusion of material existence.

The Greek Mysteries included a doctrine of the correspondence between music and form. The rituals of the Mysteries incorporated special vocal effects in the enunciation of phrases, and for this purpose, special sound chambers were constructed. A word whispered in such a chamber would fill the entire building with an almost thunderous roar.

It is held that every element in nature has its own key. If these elements are combined into a complex structure, the result is a string which, when sounded, will cause the constituent parts to disintegrate. In the same way, every object, creature, and person has its own key so that when sounded, the object will be destroyed, or, conversely, transformed. The same idea underlies the power of Elvish songs that are in accord with the Music of the Cosmos.

It is precisely the application of such “key” sounds that underlies most sound spells, as well as the technique of “vibrating” the Divine Names and Words of Power, practised in certain schools of modern Western Magic.

Thus, when constructing a ritual, it is important to understand which sounds are used in it, how they interact with one another and with the practitioner’s state, and how appropriate they are to the goal and the method of execution.