111/115 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS By FRANK H. SPRAGUE

The value of music as a therapeutic agent has long been a subject of more or less speculation and practical experiment. In “Music and Morals,” Mr. Haweis has hinted at certain possibilities in this direction. Music has frequently been employed, with highly satisfactory results, to alleviate suffering and dispel the morbid atmosphere which envelops sick-rooms, hospitals, and sanitariums.

Suitable music is a sure antidote for “the blues,” if one is sufficiently receptive to its influence. Its importance as a remedial agent cannot be properly estimated until the general public shall have been educated to a better appreciation of its merits. The healing potency of Nature is universally recognized, while that of Music is known only to the few.

Physicians have testified that “under the influence of certain kinds of music the nerve cells, if depleted or too relaxed, may be stimulated to more vigorous action. Music of an opposite character will diminish too great nervous activity, and tend to produce a condition of peace and restfulness.”

Evidently, Musical Therapeutics offers a wide and little cultivated field for usefulness. The claims of music as a healing medium are becoming more clearly understood in the light of “the new philosophy of health.”

Spiritual poise is the basis of health. Health is wholeness, harmony. The root of disease (dis-ease) is discord, inharmony. The world of Music is preeminently the world of harmony. Finite thought, when absorbed in selfish desires, merely personal interests, becomes out of tune with the Universal, and ceases to blend with the other tones in the symphony of life.

Then we need to assume a standpoint outside the realm of finite things, and see each part in its true relation to the whole. This we do when our attention is completely absorbed in the greatest music. The proper adjustment of finite relations ensues, and our lives assume their normal proportions.