The Arts

The Hidden Side of Music

"Please turn on your speakers"         

(music is the overture from Parsifal by Richard Wagner illustrated above)

“Each note, when sounded or sung, produces ... a typical form in superphysical matter. These forms are coloured by the way the sound is produced, and the size of the form is decided by the length of time in which a note is sounded or sung ... The composer originates and establishes the form, partly by the play of his consciousness during composition and partly by his own performance of the piece.”

Hodson,Geoffrey. Music Forms, T.P.H. 1976, p.19

In this research Mr. Hodson worked closely with a noted musician of his day Dr. Gordon Kingsley D.Mus, of California, U.S.A. and in New Zealand with Mr. Murray Stentiford M.Sc and various members of the well-known and musically gifted Dixon family. Such investigations are described in his book Music Forms, T.P.H. 1976. In this revealing book, the building blocks of music are shown as a ribbon of melody and the astral shimmer of a chord. Many examples of completed music forms such as this “Grail motif” from the Overture of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal  are shown. I have also appended the music accompaniment with this example. This image of the grail chalice shows how very accurate the musical seership of some great  composers like Richard Wagner actually are. These forms are constantly changing in their shape and colour and are multidimensional in appearance – Mr. Hodson's two dimensional illustrations  are only intended to give an idea of what music looks like on the inner planes of consciousness. In his book Mr. Hodson describes his spiritual understanding of the meaning of each musical composition and says that it makes a link with the composer when properly played. 

Of course these music forms with their brilliant colours and energy flows are not just decorative, they also have an important function. They impinge upon the auras and energy fields of the people listening or playing, and help to untangle blockages so that their bodily energies can flow in the direction that nature intended. This has significant ramifications for physical, psychological, and spiritual health of the whole of humanity and is part of the occult basis of music therapy.

          Earlier in his life Mr. Hodson had been a gifted baritone singer and his mother had been a church organist. He always valued the contribution of music to the expansion of human consciousness. He conducted many clairvoyant investigations into the superphysical forms thrown up by various songs and orchestral music.

            I might just add here that I personally know of several musicians who have actually caught glimpses of this inner side of music, but some dismiss it as imagination or else don’t want their friends and colleagues to think that they may be having visual hallucinations. Our day to day life is not very open to conversation on these subtle, invisible aspects of music, which in a way is just as well, since not all music moves to the good and noble and some produces quite horrific and demonic forms in superphysical matter.

The Source of Inspiration of a Poetic Genius:

            Some people may have already suspected that high artistic inspiration is related to a Sixth Sense that the artist possesses. Because Mr. Hodson had causal consciousness which he was able to activate at will, there was virtually no matter related to earthly mysterious circumstances that could not be investigated by him. Due to his modesty he would always express his research results in a tentative way, but such was the richness of his explanations that the sensitive listener would realize that his words rang true. In this extract of a case history, printed in The Theosophist of July 1930, he suggests a possible solution to an intriguing mystery of a lady’s poetic creativity. Briefly put, the lady herself, whom he called Miriam, was born with the ability that:

"… she can at any moment, and without reference to her mental, emotional and physical condition and activities, dictate poems upon any subject, or any person to whom her attention is drawn, whether she knows them or not. These poems are always apposite….

"A voice rings in Miriam’s ears whenever she wills it, reciting in language of matchless beauty, poetry or prose so faultless in construction, so original in style, expression, and even meter, that leading scientific and literary men have alike confessed themselves unable to advance even a theory in explanation of the miracle…. The words resound subjectively in her brain and Miriam repeats them as she hears them (and she sees pictures and even senses odours while the voice continues). There is nothing savouring of spiritualism – no trance or lowered lights, cabinets, trumpets, or any other paraphernalia. She will break the thread of her conversation, nonchalantly resuming perhaps five minutes later, the very word at which she left off.

"And this voice from a higher world never plagiarizes. It is always original, with a gripping, compelling, utterly unique style of expression, which has in it a sort of unearthly beauty."

Some examples of Miriam’s poetry were then supplied from a private gathering where the people present named subjects and personalities at random:

“The subject given was “English Hedgerows.”

                          ENGLISH HEDGEROWS

The boundaries of main hairt

A’ throttled through a busy wing

All tangled, dew sagged in the morn.

Webs spread, nestlin’ close.

Aye, and at the noon busy –

Busy wi’ the in and out o’ wing;

And in the eve shadowful,

White in the moonlight,

Like phantom clouds fettered upon

The fields

Spanning mine ain beloved land.

Girdling it comfortfully.

The exquisite language in which the above is couched was produced without one pause for thought. The poem was begun in less than fifteen seconds after the subject was given.

“Give us something on ‘Creeds,’ ”

Asked a listener, and dryly the voice answered:

                          CREEDS

What is a Creed?

A packet of man’s yeas and nays

    Tied w’ a cord of conviction.

What is a Creed?

A bit of grain run through the hopper

That it come forth a meal to man’s liking.

“Karma,” said someone, and without a second of perceptible

hesitation came this:

                          KARMA

The Law writ by each man.

He readeth his ain script,

Having writ it,

And reads slow

And learns.

             TO A LADY WHO HAD LOST A

                         YOUNG CHILD

(This fact was not communicated to Miriam until after

The poem had been given.)

Within the treasures of the Lord

There lies a pearl,

A pearl of rare, rare price;

Tinted of my heart’s blood,

Illumined of my hope—

A roseate pearl, mine ain,

Mine very ain.

Of all the treasures of the Lord

I envy none save this.

             FAIRIES

Dewdrops and the jewelled spray

And a wee, wee imp

Bathed of perfume.

His sceptre mayhap

A spider’s limb.

Imprisoned in an empty lily cup

With golden dust

Upon her fair, fair cheek

Where the impish feet

Have trodden.

             TRAVEL

I shall read the script

Of a new day.

The script of my brothers.

I shall become renewed

In a new contact.

Oh, I shall traverse

The seven seas

And shall find no new thing

Like the hearth I left.

              The last two poems are especially remarkable in that they were given simultaneously, one line of the first being followed by a line of the second, together line on line; they were meaningless as they came, but when separated, beautiful and full of life.

              In the brief time which the author had the privilege of being with Miriam, he came to the tentative conclusion that these inspirations came from one special aspect of Miriam’s higher consciousness and were the result of her having been granted an occult boon. Apparently she was present at the last coming of the Lord. She served the Master in Palestine, walked with Him and, in a humble yet effective way, helped to bear His physical burdens and make His pathway smooth.

             After some especially self sacrificing act, the Master asked her: “What can I give you in return?”

             Now Miriam, though she often failed to understand the Master’s words, loved his voice. To her His power of speech was the most wonderful of all His gifts. When He began to speak, the whole world vanished for her, and she lived in His words, hung upon the music of His voice, transported, lost to all else save that wondrous sound.

             So she answered: “Lord, give me the gift of perfect speech.”

             The Master bowed His head in silence, and with a rare smile upon His lips, the boon was granted and received. Though faithful in service and devotion, the soul of Miriam was not spiritually old nor far advanced. She was one of the younger brethren who served the Lord. The effect of the granting of the boon was to make a change in her causal body, to link her with the Lord, at that level, and to make an eternal tie between them; this link was made especially, with His aspect of Master poet and orator. In those two qualities, as far as her limitations would permit, she was adept by the conferring of His adeptship upon her.

             This was made manifest in succeeding personalities by means of a special mechanism through which such inspiration as she could receive descended upon her at will. In this way her Lord granted her boon.

             One later incarnation appears to have been in Devonshire, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and there her gift was oftimes displayed. She frequently spoke with a wisdom and a beauty beyond her years; yet life was not kind to her, and the gift was rarely used despite the inward urge. She died, the author thinks, in America, to which country she emigrated with a strong sense of a life unfulfilled, of a power unused, and a prayer upon her lips for opportunity in some other world. Again she came to earth, again in female form, and understood the holy task of motherhood, serving the Master and Our Lady once again through her husband, her home and little ones. The power of the boon manifests itself in the strange way described, quite outside of and apart from her personality.The author has called this lovely story 'Miriam’s Boon'. ”

            In a similar manner to Miriam, Mr. Hodson’s journeys around the world gave him other opportunities to clairvoyantly investigate art-forms in various cultural settings, therefore in some of his books and journal articles interesting insights are also given into the inner side of dance, opera, and literature. Here, as in other respects, the compendium of collected journal articles by John and Elizabeth Sell entitled Sharing the Light (2008) will give the researcher further valuable insights into Mr. Hodson’s point of view, based upon his experiences and investigations. This section on Clairvoyant Investigations has been rather extensive but I think necessarily so, in order to paint a picture of the profound extent of Mr. Hodson’s research capacity. In particular, he showed that behind the outer facade of human life and aspiration there are many wellsprings of inner life - in truth, no human endeavour based upon a feeling of heart is ever without great significance in the inner worlds.

 Bill Keidan