Music

Jakob Lorber

Received through Jakob Lorber on 2 May 1840.

British English translation of the prose text in Psalms and Poems, checked against the online transcription of the 1898 edition. Paragraph identifiers follow the German project text.

Deutscher Text · German reference edition

[JL.Prosa.001,01] If you wish to know what music is, take heed of what I tell you. Much will then become clear to you that is not music, but the action of pure love in itself, without the addition of wisdom, just as it is in love in its blindness.

[JL.Prosa.001,02] See, you have no purer image of the pure love in Me than music, which might better be called blind love. This love is a confluence of the seven spirits of the Godhead, which unite as they meet in the steady, tranquil flow of their activity. [1]

[JL.Prosa.001,03] This encounter gives birth to tone in sevenfold form, according to the nature of the spirit that meets itself. The tone then grows from the fundamental note onwards through all seven spirits. Each spirit thus has its own note in the order of the scale you know.

[JL.Prosa.001,04] Since each of the seven spirits permeates all seven, all seven are present in each one individually. They flow into one another again in concord and with a harmonious sound. This is the great delight of the Godhead in its love.

[JL.Prosa.001,05] Tone is thus a vibration. This vibration sets the spirits trembling, and they recognise one another. Their recognition becomes manifest according to the relation of the vibrations. The vibrations are perceived together in love, and this communion is true harmony.

[JL.Prosa.001,06] When love then trembles with delight in this great and purest harmony, that trembling flows back into the Godhead. There the spirits press together, and in this gathering they grow warm and catch fire in love. This kindling is light, and in this light the countless forms arising from the vibrations are discerned. Now you know what tone and music are, how music arises, what it is for and what it is.

[JL.Prosa.001,07] So it is given to you as a secret sign of weighty and profound meaning, which can be fully deciphered only in the purest love for Me. You are therefore to learn it, contemplate it, use it and enjoy it as you offer Me your highest praise and deepest thanks, with nothing impure still clinging to them.

[JL.Prosa.001,08] But how do you use this gift from the highest of all the heavens? Oh, the shame of it! Through men I have shown you what is pure in oratorios and symphonies, but you use it to gild dung and then even trample it underfoot.

[JL.Prosa.001,09] Consider, then, what music is and what it is for! Do not profane the delight in Me! [2] I, the purest love in God, JEOUA. Amen! Amen! Amen!

Footnotes from the German edition

1. [JL.Prosa.001,02.FN] See the appendix in No. 10, ‘The Three Days in the Temple’, and in No. 30, ‘Explanation of the Apocalypse’.
2. [JL.Prosa.001,09.FN] See also the text in No. 28, ‘Language, Art and Music’.

The numbering in the footnotes refers to the German collection. The spelling “JEOUA” follows the chosen German edition.