Religions have their symbols. A cross, a star and crescent, a hexagram, the yin-yang circle, the wheel of Dharma. Clear communication of one's beliefs, a battle flag, a sign denoting holy places.
Building your own religion? What would your symbol be? It would need to be symbolic... Many years ago - I can't remember whether it was our religion teacher, Fr. Gilligan, or ks. Andrzej, the charismatic priest briefly attached to the Polish parish in Ealing to preach to the youth - who explained the Star of David. He said that the two triangles represented God and Man. God is represented by the triangle pointing down; "reaching down to man", Man by the triangle pointing up, "reaching up to God". As a teenager, that appealed to me. However, the symbol does not date back to Biblical times. Sometimes symbolism is read into symbols that the designer never consciously intended...
What would I want to symbolise in my personal belief system? Well, a few things. The infinitely long journey from Zero to One, the ultimate fulfilment of the Universe, universal awareness and Good. The notion of a Life in Balance, the notion of Perspective.
This is a first attempt to create such a symbol; it is the infinity sign balanced on a Golden Triangle, one where the ratio of the base to the sides is 1: 1.618, the Golden Ratio.
A windmill? How sustainable!
I'm not happy with how it looks, visually - it conjures up a pair of eyes and long nose - a baboon, or a fly and its proboscis. Conceptually, it's simple to draw and carries much meaning. Mankind reaching up to infinity, balanced at a focal point; the perspective of looking up to the heavens.
UPDATE FROM 2021: Conceptually, I have settled on an upward spiral, coming back to where you were a while back, but at a higher level, rising upward and outward to Infinity.
I trust my readers are familiar with Occam's Razor? [Paraphrased, the principle devised by William of Occam states that the simplest solution, the solution with the fewest assumptions, is most likely the right one.] Example: lights are seen in the night sky, too low, too far over to the east and too late at night to be a commercial airliner coming into land at Warsaw Okęcie airport. A UFO? Which is more likely - advanced beings from another solar system moving over Powsin, or a radar calibration flight?
Which is more likely - that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and left His tomb - or that some decades after the Crucifixion, some of followers claimed that He had indeed risen, conquering bodily death?
Which is more likely - that upon Mount Sinai, God, the Creator of the Universe - handed Moses two stone tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments, or that Moses made up a story?
OK. I shall stop there, and leave you to decide.
But which do I consider to be more likely? That after my death - that's it - eternal oblivion, or, that in some form or other, the consciousness within me outlasts my body? Here, I trust my instinct. I feel it will not perish. It is a strongly held view - to my mind at least - more valid, more real that the view that our consciousness is but a temporary, phenomenon, here for a blink of the eye for Eternity. The qualia-memories resulting from your observations in this life, detached from your ego, are what will live on.
Let's apply Occam's Razor to superstition. Mankind has a tendency towards superstition. Black cats crossing our path, avoidance of the number 13, breaking mirrors, solitary magpies etc. The superstitious mind sees an object of ill omen; and then, should something bad then actually happen, the relationship between the two unrelated events becomes causal. Good luck is also believed to be brought on by unrelated factors - placing a lottery ticket under a 'lucky object' (as my mother used to do - under the lucky Buddha) is not going to shorten the odds on winning.
The links we often make between actions and events that aren't justified by reason and observation boil down to wishful thinking or superstition. I'm also thinking here about Karma. This is also linking actions and events - do something bad, and something bad will befall you in the here and now (not in a Catholic purgatory or hell). And do an act of good, and something good will happen to you. Smacks of a religion imposing social order - but yet we often see it and believe in it.
One that came to me yesterday - the story of the Soviet submarine, the Bezbozhnik ('Atheist'). Told to us as teenagers (can't remember whether in Catholic grammar school or in the Polish church? Or by my mother?) Anyway, the Bolsheviks built a submarine, called it the Bezbozhnik, and it sank on its maiden voyage, drowning all its crew. Karma. Except it never happened. Yes, the Soviets had a submarine of that name, you can read the full story here.
I have often felt that the Universe is held together by a web of coincidence; that there is meaning to be found in the relationship between events. Is it? Should we seek it? Should we apply Occam's Razor and seek the simplest solution?
On the basis of my experience, I see it this way: if you observe a rare occurrence, it lodges in your consciousness. See it again, and it should be a call to thought, thought that can prevent disaster (dis-aster - from the Latin word for 'star' and the prefix for 'to split' or 'to reverse'.
Seeing meaning in coincidence should not be taken as an omen that something bad will happen - but it should be seen as a wake-up call to shake us out of complacency, to consider that the ways things are right now will pass; to a better state or worse state. Coincidences may be read as flashing beacons that warn.
Occam's Razor is a useful tool, though it has its limitations. One of them is to be able to slice through the subjective experience and state, irrefutably, what another person's subjective experience really means. And here, I'd agree with William of Occam - science is a question of empirical fact based on experiments that can be replicated, but the metaphysical remains a matter of personal revelation.
Can you apply Occam's razor to the qualia of my subjective experience?
The question 'how much spirituality do we need'? is always pertinent. I have asked it in previous Lenten posts over the years; the answer is intensely personal and varies from 'none whatsoever' to 'a lot'. For many, the answer is 'one a week for an hour'. For me, sometimes more, sometimes less. Always more at this Lenten time of year.
"Man shall not live by bread alone," words ascribed to Jesus (Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4) quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. I'd read this as "human beings cannot live on materialism alone"; we have spiritual needs too. Needs too often overlooked in our headlong rush to acquire more possessions. The extremes can be seen; at one end of the spectrum, multi-billionaires spending money to acquire more power than can be converted into more wealth. On the other hand, the ascetic mendicant Sadhus of Hinduism, who have renounced all worldly goods. Human beings all.
The need to engage with the spiritual differs greatly from person to person. I have asked the question "how much spirituality do we need"; the stock answer from many believers is "once a week should do", but then even this answer varies greatly from ultra-orthodox Jews who won't switch on a lightbulb on Shabbos to Catholics who pop into church for a 45-minute long Sunday mass - and they're done for the week.
The full Matthew 4:4/Luke 4:4/Deuteronomy 8:3 quote is as follows: "Man shall not live by bread alone/but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God". Rejecting the notion of an anthropomorphic divinity with an oral cavity containing a larynx, I interpret this Biblical injunction to mean - "Listen".
Listen to that inner voice, that comes in periods of meditative calmness, and offers a more universal view of matters. Listen to the inner voice that suggests, guides, consoles. Listen and observe the big picture; that momentary consciousness of the seven thousand trillion trillion atoms that have come together to form you, living on a planet orbiting a star that's one of hundreds of billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way, that in turn is one of a trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
Yet if you were to spend your life obsessively thinking of yourself in terms of your near insignificance in universal terms, you'd never get anything done other than maybe keep body and soul together, the Sadhu's minimum. But forget what you are in a cosmic context, you lose your humility and humanity. Getting this balance right is essential to spiritual well-being; acquiring material comfort and having no money worries - is an important part of piece of mind. But strive not beyond this level.
But I am puzzled - and indeed troubled - by the presence among us of the hyper-rich. If you have tens of millions of dollars in assets - why strive to make yet more millions? These people seem entirely detached from the spiritual world; zombies almost; living organisms conspiring to secure more wealth - and to what end?
There has to be a moment - a cut-off point - at which a rich person says enough is enough, retreats to a monastery, yeshiva or ashram to meditate on God, consciousness, the unfolding universe and the purpose of human life. I fear however, looking at such people, that maybe there is no spiritual awareness behind those eyes. Their greed distorts our society and holds us back from moving forward along the eternally long road from Zero to One, from barbarism to civilisation, from the bestial to the angelic.
Striking the balance is essential to achieving and maintaining inner peace.
Is 'spirituality' the mirror opposite of the physical realm, the tangible, the day-to-day? I'd posit that dwelling deeply on the challenging questions of physics itself is actually quite a spiritual occupation. Astrophysics is at at one end of the spectrum - the search for the furthest galaxies and exoplanets in our own galaxy, understanding the Big Bang and black holes, trying to explain why the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. At the other end of the spectrum is subatomic physics - identifying more and more subatomic particles and forces and making sense of them all.
Such elemental research is as far away from driving a car to the supermarket, mowing the lawn, looking at the bus timetable or buying a new suit as considering the nature of the subjective conscious experience. And whether or not it transcends mortality.
Whatever your worldview, however you consider religion, the quest for knowledge and wisdom should be something that's universally admired. All too often, religious fundamentalists would have you believe that all the answers are in this book or other. And similarly, reductionist rationalists would have you believe that we'll 'soon' crack the final equations and tie all of physics together. And that 'soon' we'll have created artificial consciousness in a computer. Both views are wrong. The idea of an unquestionable authority that cannot be improved upon flies in the face of evolution. (Who knows - are the laws of physics evolve? And do they govern or describe our universe? What do you instinctively believe?)
Just as biology evolves, so consciousness evolves. The borders of knowledge are pushed further away, yet they remain tantalisingly close - and have done so since the time of Leibniz (the last man said to know 'everything') . We are kidding ourselves that a Grand Unified Theory is within our grasp.
Newton's quote about "standing on the shoulders of giants" holds vast truth. Our curiosity drives us further; we observe, we think, we discuss - and we should never stop questing - and this goes for our spirituality too. Having time for a metaphysical marvel at the universe around us.
Building one's own religion means if not abandoning the old dogmas then at least questioning them rigorously. And pursuing a determined quest for to take the next spiritual step for oneself - based on what has gone before, based on discussion with fellow-seekers, based on broad reading and analysis of one's own subjective experiences. The balance between science and spirituality is crucial; a basic understanding of cosmology, evolutionary biology and quantum mechanics goes a long way towards building a new awareness.
Blogger informs me that this is the 3,000th post on the W-wa Jeziorki blog. Just under 13 years have passed since I published my first-ever post on 1 April 2007. It has grown significantly since then - back in the days before microblogging in the form of Facebook and Twitter really took off, my blog served to carry short daily snippets accompanied by a single photo. Since then, long-form essays (written and photographic) have come to dominate my blog's content.
Looking back over the years, I can see how my writing, my photography - and my thinking has developed. Although my first Lent during which I denied myself alcohol for the duration was in 1992, my early blogged Lents also focused on self-denial rather than on spiritual contemplations. These came later; in 2013 I began more serious Lenten coverage with the Tischner-Żakowski dialogue about faith as a starting point. But every now and then, some random thought, often striking me while out walking. One post that's worth looking at again is this one, from May 2009, Balancing on the Edge of Chaos. My thinking has become more refined, more nuanced over the years, but one thing remains important - the danger of complacency.
The current global Covid-19 pandemic offers us all an excellent example of how easily a relatively stable Western world (Brexit, Trump and Putin excepted) can tumble into chaos.
How do we react?
The outcomes are binary: either you get infected, or you don't. If you do, either you get it seriously, or it passes mildly. If you do get it seriously, either you die or you recover.
Can prayer help? Social distancing - avoiding close contact (less than two metres) with other humans, regular washing of hands with soapy water, and not touching your face. That can help. But there is happenstance. Regular flu is harder to catch (it has lower basic reproduction number than Covid-19) but I caught a bad dose two years ago [How I caught it and how it affected me, see here and here.] I caught it because I was off guard, collecting a handful of viruses from a infected person travelling on the same bus, grabbing the same handrail and then rubbing my eye with the same hand. It took me two whole weeks to fully recover.
But can prayer help?
Define 'prayer'. I'd argue that two elements are crucial. Firstly - not being complacent. [Complacency - a missing word in Polish.] Being on guard, being acutely aware of the dangers and acting accordingly. Nothing metaphysical there. Secondly, gratitude that you are currently well, untouched by the virus. Are the grateful less liable to infection? Yes - but only if you weave gratitude into the constant fight against complacency; train yourself to be observant, grateful and aware. Simply not wanting to get ill can help if that triggers good behaviours. And if you believe in the power of belief.
Am I healthy because I’m happy? Or am I happy because I am healthy? Is my positive approach to life a result of the fact that I’m happy and healthy – or does the fact that I’m happy and healthy stem from my positive approach to life? Those who like to think of themselves as rationalists would stick to the first answer. Yet many of us would instinctively say “well, there’s something to be said for the second”. Indeed, but is there a deeper, scientifically determinable mechanism at work? Am I really able to think myself into a state of healthiness and happiness? Does being positive in life boost the immune system? Research into the placebo effect (and its evil twin, the nocebo effect) suggests that this may indeed be the case. Again, let’s take the question a stage further. Belief in the power of belief. If you don’t believe that a positive outlook can improve your health or slow down disease – then the likelihood is it won’t. If you do believe in belief, then the likelihood is - it will.
And there's the role of luck. Can you steer it? Can you will yourself lucky?
If you are experiencing a run of good luck, be aware of it, be thankful for it, be appreciative of it - and don't count on good luck to cover up your complacency. As the Rabbi says - if today you're having a shitty day, remember, tomorrow will be better. And if today you're having a great day, remember - tomorrow could be shit.
Will I make it home before the heavens open?
My father got the balance right - acceptance and fortitude. He knew there was nothing he could do to stave off the advancing years, but he kept on going; he didn't buckle or weaken. Right to the end, aged 96.
I must have taken this photo (below) around 35 years ago; I was out and about with my camera near my childhood home in Hanwell one summer's Sunday when I met these two delightful ladies near the Salvation Army citadel (as their churches are called) on Leeland Road.
I was struck by the happiness and serenity in their faces and asked if I could take their photo; they obliged. As we got chatting, they told me that indeed, their religion had brought these qualities into their lives - although there was a note of moral smugness in their tone, as if their serenity had been paid for by good behaviour and charitable action.
A few Sundays later, while repeating my sentimental stroll down memory lane, I heard a brass band playing Onward, Christian Soldiers! from around the corner as I neared Grosvenor Road (not far from Leeland Road). This was the mid-1980s, but I remembered that in the 1960s the Salvation Army were similarly active on Sundays, bringing their particular brand of religion to the streets.
I daresay that many of the residents of West Ealing and neighbouring Hanwell, after a big night at the Grosvenor, the Old Hat, the Halfway House or the Green Man, were in no mood to have their lie-in terminated by a brass band with drums. But it was a tradition, I enjoyed coming across the Salvation Army on my strolls, and it's good to see they are still there at Leeland Road in anno domini 2020.
Ah yes - the Salvation Army even had a pop group that achieved chart success, the Joystrings.
Music is important to our samopoczucie (a great Polish word that had no direct translation in English - it's more that 'frame of mind' as it includes the body too). Some religions, some strands of Christianity - Puritanism, Calvinism, stress rejection of pleasure on the road to salvation. One must reach a balance (more on that soon).
A few days ago, I posited that religion offers some people certainty of eternal life after death (in the form of salvation), while for others, it was about peace of mind. I also mentioned that one can attribute good luck in one's life to religious beliefs. But there's also the notion of 'feel-good' religion, and anyone who has seen the film Blues Brothers will instantly remember the Triple Rock Baptist Church and our beloved the Reverend Cleophus James (played by James Brown), singing The Old Landmark. "When I woke up this morning/I heard a disturbin' sound..." "Don't be lost when the time comes/For the Day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night"
Hit it...
"Kneel an' pray in that ol' time way!"
Now, if that performance left you unmoved, left you sad, failed to bring a tear of joy to your eyes - then Jack, you dead.
"HAVE YOU SEEN THE LIGHT?"
"The band!"
"The band?"
"THE BAND!"
There is an elemental power at work here (as I mentioned in my post about music a few days ago, something entirely lacking in the Polish Catholic Church...)
DAMN. I just realised I have broken my Lenten resolution not to listen to any soul music!
I believe in the primacy of subjective experience. No one else can get a peek inside your consciousness; no one else is aware of what you are aware of; no one else can intercept your train of thoughts. What goes on within you is not just private - it is secret. Thus no one can can say to you that you have not experienced what you have just experienced.
I have learned to abandon the notion of God as a omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent (male) deity; rather I see the Universe - all things visible and invisible - as One. It is an Unfolding, a process from imperfection to perfection, towards a state of understanding all and being conscious of all. There - that's my God. An eternal journey, taking as long as the Universe will take to reach its fullness. God as Destination rather than as an overseer.
I have long ago rejected the notion that I must be good so that my soul can be saved so that when I die I can go to Heaven. One brief life is not enough to acquire awareness; consciousness dwells, it abides within the Universe and it has been evolving upward, as we have evolved upward from apes, from shrews, from reptiles, from fish, from amoeba.
We know little of consciousness. An increasing number of scientists are starting to wonder whether it is a innate property of matter, along with mass and energy, increasing with complexity, present not between the neurons of the brain, but at an atomic level. In the three and half billion years since the first living creature appeared upon our planet, consciousness has expanded vastly. Consciousness, I would argue, is what's driving evolution, pushing at the biology. It would be interesting to see just how it would look three and half billion years hence.
The other reason I have rejected the Christian Heaven is because it is ego-focused; you are promised to remain you in your Christian afterlife - providing you behave. I don't believe that you in your afterlife will still be you. Your consciousness will intrude, it will permeate, it may even clash with, a follow-on consciousness - but it will no longer be you. Qualia memories from your current life, subjective experiences that you have felt - will flash into someone else's consciousness after your physical demise.
I know this because I have felt it from childhood - I am open to it. I have not suppressed those *PAFF* moments because they interfere either with the dogmas taught in my Catholic upbringing, nor with reductionist rationalism, which seeks to replace the metaphysical in the Universe with equations and laws. I alone know what I feel - I have trained myself to identify those moments, how they feel and where and when they might be coming from. There is a familiarity, a canon of qualia, the spirit of a time and place other than the here and now. I've had them all my life, they fit, they are congruent. They feel like - and are as valid as - memories from my current life. There is far more going on that we can grasp - as yet. I can but sense it, but not explain it fully. With each passing year, insight grows, my ability to put it into words improves.
I believe that with future generations, the recycling of consciousness will snowball, we will acquire greater understanding of the process - the vectors of transmission that are at work here - and the in the process, our levels of consciousness, our awareness will increase. We will advance yet further away from the primitive life forms that once carried our genes.
It was 4.1 billion years ago that the first cells are believed to be formed (Earth is 4.5 billion years old). Around 3.5 billion years ago lived the most recent population of organisms from which all organisms now living on Earth have common descent (the Last Universal Common Ancestor, LUCA), a single-celled organism with a ring of DNA floating freely within it. In the intervening years between the last LUCA dying and the first Homo Sapiens being born, an amazing parade of life forms has come and gone; 99% of all the species that ever lived on Earth are now extinct.
Now just imagine the massive leap from single-celled organisms to us. That took around 3.5 billion years. Not imagine a leap of that same magnitude that can be attained over the next 3.5 billion years. What angelic beings could exist then? How great their consciousness? [Our Sun is expected to remain stable for the next 5 billion years, but the Solar System should not be a constraint for our descendants. Never mind the technology - just consider that consciousness...
Our consciousness - not our bodies nor our egos - will survive and evolve. Humanity has shown dogged fortitude - and despite everything - has been blessed with more good luck than it deserves.
You have nine trillion (9 x 1012) ancestors, if you trace your lineage back all the way to the first life form to appear on our planet 4.1 billion years ago. Each of those nine trillion ancestors had to reproduce successfully for you to be alive today. Just one broken link in that chain - just one ancestor that failed to reproduce - and there'd be no you. There is purpose behind all this - but only if you observe it and thrill to its magnificence.
Gratitude and observation, curiosity and a burning desire to know what's next. That's what drives my metaphysical journey.
A consciousness, moving over the face of the Earth
Every religion has its own rituals and its own rites. Roman Catholicism has its sacred Seven Sacraments - rites (baptism, confirmation and marriage being rites of passage, Holy Communion preceded by Penance, the taking of Holy Orders, and finally the last rites). Ritual can mean making the sign of the cross (a gesture which differs between Western and Eastern Christianity), it can be ritual purification as in Judaism and Islam. Rituals mark differences between religions and their denominations. Fundamentalism in religion is often manifested by extreme adherence to ritual.
If participated in, rituals should not be empty. They should be conscious, accompanied by a mind focusing on an aspect of human spirituality, metaphoric or symbolic; too often worshippers are merely going through the motions, paying lip-service, automatically complying with social norms. Participation in ritual ought to deliver a higher state of enlightenment.
Ritual - presenting Mystery as Spectacle
Superstitions and ritual often go hand in hand in anthropology; a sign of the cross can ward off back luck that might occur as the result of seeing a solitary magpie, a behaviour once common across Europe. Good luck, along with eternal salvation and peace of mind, is something worth connecting to the supernatural for. Rites and rituals can help with that.
Organised religions have developed rites and rituals over the centuries, offering certainty and comfort. Devout people may have their own daily rituals around prayer at set times. But how often do they genuinely feel that they have engaged in meaningful contact with the metaphysical? Some indeed will have, and do so frequently. But for others - the ritual brings comfort, rather than genuine spiritual insight.
This is not about religion or being religious. Some people go to church each week, but they do so because they feel that one should go - a social ritual - rather than this being an active form of seeking contact with God, a chance to enter an exalted state of existence.
Prayer is a two-way communication with God; it requires a sincerity and an openness to the return channel. It can happen when you create the right conditions - a calm mind unfocused on the worldly, a readiness to listen to that inner voice. Some people need ritual for this to happen, familiar magic words that open the door to a spiritual state. Others can let their consciousness attain that state readily.
Now, if you were building a religion from scratch, what would yours be?
In my case, walking (my 10,000+ paces daily) is a bit ritualistic - it is more than getting from A to B while exercising the body - it is a time for collecting thoughts and contemplation. The need to hit that magic figure every day might be seen as a bit obsessive, but I see it as duty to keep fit. My annual spiritual quest, coupled with self-denial, is an annual ritual; again it serves body and soul. Many of my daily rituals and dietary observances were introduced into my life during Lent and stayed there (cutting out confectionery, cakes and biscuits, doing physical exercises the whole year round rather than just for the 46 days of Lent). A recent ritual for me has been my weekend retreats to the działka, to my personal space, to the peace of the countryside.
Those of us who seek our own paths towards higher levels of enlightenment, of awareness, have a need for personal ritual - it is worth pondering on the rites and rituals in our own lives.
Music is an important part of any religion; ideally its purpose should be to raise the human consciousness to a higher state of awareness, touching Eternity.
Polish Catholicism does not place an important store on church music. Hymns are there to be sung by the entire congregation joining in, so the tunes are basic. Unless there's a choir, hymns are not sung in parts; there's one melody - and often sung at a dirge-like tempo. Even joyous Easter hymns are dreary. Larger churches, in particular monastic ones, abbeys, will have treat their flock to the marvels of polyphony. Mediaeval English church music - Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, still has the power to elevate the spirit in a way that Bądźże pozdrowiona just doesn't.
I also have much time for American-style revivalist Baptist music, both black (think the Rev. Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Baptist Church) and white (ol' timey material bringin' songs of salvation to salve the soul).
The effect that music plays upon our consciousness is partly the result of our experiences, coming of age, dancing, falling in love, musical memories that trigger when the right sequence of notes is played. But strip away memory - are there universal cues that work for you, me, them, everyone? Do specific successions of notes, musical intervals, major and minor keys, harmonies, tempo - do they have the same subjective effect on everyone's consciousness? Are there cultural differences? Is this something we've gotten used to over time? And is it just consciousness - is it biology too? Certainly musical beat and heartbeat have something in common. And why does a minor chord sound sadder, darker - than a major one? It's only sound, vibrations through air, after all...
Music has its place in the mystical experience. Church music should elevate the spirit and put one in the right state of consciousness. Music holds atmosphere, klimat. But not all music equally. Compare the Romantic composers to what came before. Johann Sebastian Bach to me sounds overly mathematical, his music doesn't carry in it an atmosphere that would take me to a time and a place. Fryderyk Chopin's music, however, immediately whisks me off to moonlit water meadows and coppiced willows alongside meandering riverbanks in Mazowsze - just as Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan-Williams transport me to Edwardian England. I have similar strong associations sparked by American popular music from the 1930s to the 1950s. The power of music over our conscious minds transcends the here-and-now.
Listening to T-Rex, David Bowie, Roxy Music or Pink Floyd - takes me right back, totally, to the klimaty of the early 1970s. I am there in spirit. And yet I can feel that same momentary spatial-temporal congruence listening to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys' New San Antonio Rose (1940) or Lowell Fulson's Reconsider Baby (1954). And I'm there, I'm back.
Music and memory are inextricably linked and again linked to identity. From Christmas carols to national anthems to dance-floor anthems, we are bound together in communities by music. But is it just a matter of familiarity? Is there something that makes one piece of music intrinsically better than another? Or is it just a matter of taste? De gustibus non est disputandum - in matters of taste, there can be no disputes. Or can there? From any objective measure, a Chopin nocturne is far more sublime than a Disco Polo song.
Science is nearer to understanding how different aspects of music - timbre, tempo, musical interval, tone, beat - in particular, their complexity - is received by the human brain. Instinct will help you find the beat and move your feet. But how a piece of music is received by your consciousness, the nuance of mood, the pictures in your mind - the subjective experience - is a different matter. Today, we're assailed by music from every corner - mobile phone ringtones, adverts on the radio with a simple, whistled tune designed to be catchy; snatches of pop songs in shops.
But can you imagine the silence of the Middle Ages, where your communion with God each Sunday in the village church would bring hymns into your life that you'd hum and repeat over the week while working in the fields, or earlier still, in the African Savannah, literally inventing rhythm and song with the birth of humanity.
And if a tune has with it lyrics of profundity that touch on the essence of what it is to be human - then so much the better.
A handful of pop musicians make it to a higher plane. And usually it is only a handful of their works that makes the cut. Songs of mystical transcendence. Jimi Hendrix was one. His music transcended mere time and place, he is gone but that consciousness will be back again and again, each time at a higher level of awareness, on the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth that connects an evolving universe.
So - in building your own religion - what would be the music played within your temples? What songs would bring people together and take them up towards God?
In my playlist I would definitely include Gorecki's 3rd Symphony in its entirety. Takes me there.
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