Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Godwin Joscelyn
Title : Music and the Occult French Musical Philosophies, 1750-1950 Eastman Studies in Music
Year : 1995

Link download : Godwin_Joscelyn_-_Music_and_the_Occult_French_Musical_Philosophies.zip

Chapter One. The Harmony of the Spheres in the Age of Enlightenment. Preamble: Defining Terms. A book of this kind inevitably uses words that are not fully established in academic discourse, and which it is well to define from the outset. The ''occult" of the title is the subject of the famous work of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta philosophia (first published 1533), whose three volumes treat of "Natural Magic," "Celestial Magic," and "Ceremonial Magic." The occult philosophy holds that the universe is articulated by a network of correspondences, "occulted" or invisible to the senses. Agrippa's various types of magic exploit these correspondences, using objects in the lower realms of existence (e.g., words, metals, herbs) to draw down the influences of their higher counterparts (e.g., angels, planets). Springing out of the occult philosophy are the "occult sciences" that include astrology, alchemy, magic, and divination. These all depend on the doctrine of correspondences. When that doctrine was discarded after the Scientific Revolution, they no longer appeared to merit the name of "sciences," and have enjoyed only a twilight existence ever since. Whereas the occult sciences are as old as civilization, the figure of the "occultist" has only existed since the middle of the nineteenth century. It refers to persons who pursue the occult sciences, especially in an eclectic way, in conscious defiance of scientific materialism. "Exoteric" and "esoteric," as used in this book, refer to the division within a field between what is generally known and accepted, and what is reserved for only a few. This "reservation" may be simply a matter of choice, as in the case of Christianity, whose esoteric doctrines interest only a minority of believers, or else it may be a formal division, as in the case of the Mysteries of Antiquity, which were only accessible after due qualification and trials. Because of such usage, "esoteric" often carries an implication of something mystical or spiritual that touches the deeper levels of the human being. When I use it in the context of music theory, it is to distinguish the exoteric theory that is content with rational analysis from the esoteric theory that introduces concepts from the occult sciences. ...