Category: Audio Books

Considerate parents are careful that their children shall be placed under the influence of wholesome books, good companions, and healthful amusements; for the impressions largely subconscious acquired from those sources help to formulate character and determine the course of subsequent life. Children seldom appreciate the full significance of all that comes within their observation. Long before they are able to detect the real meaning of pictures, or comprehend the situations they represent, they are capable of absorbing something of their atmosphere. Before they think of analyzing the aims and motives…

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Each characteristic form of music should be esteemed for the idea it expresses. The essential feature of “dance music” is rhythm. A schottische may possess as great a degree of merit, of its own order, as a symphony; but its possibilities, as a vehicle of expression, must always remain far inferior to those of the higher classical forms, for its dominant suggestion is of a lower type. Purely rhythmic ideas may be clothed, incidentally, in melodies or harmonies of real excellence. Music of this class acts as a healthy stimulant…

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According to Schopenhauef, whose treatise on Music was the first satisfactory exposition of that art, from a philosophical standpoint, “The (Platonic) Ideas are the adequate objectivation of the Will. It is the end of all the arts, except music, to facilitate the cognition of the Ideas by means of the representation of single things. . . . Music, as it ignores the Ideas, does not in the least depend on the perceptible [i.e., natural] world; it ignores it unconditionally; and it could still exist, in a certain measure, even if…

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Hearing is the most recently evolved of the five specific senses known to exist in the animal kingdom. It surpasses the others in its qualifications as a vehicle of pure ideas. Sight and hearing are far superior as avenues through which to discern the spiritual aspect of things; and it is with these two that we have to deal in considering the fine arts. The loftiest function of hearing is exhibited in musical perception. Sound brings one nearer to the realm of pure ideas than does sight. The attractions of…

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The awakened genius for discovery and invention soon placed the new-born art upon a practical foundation, by devising instruments suited to its more advanced requirements. Simultaneously with the growth of the ideal philosophy of Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant and Hegel, the religious awakening of the Lutheran reformation, and the marvelous achievements of the Italian Renaissance, the new art of Music found expression in the works of Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. So mightily was the modern world stirred by the desire to become better acquainted with the essential nature of…

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In the Renaissance, arts which had prevailed in ancient times revived, and did their utmost to manifest this fresh inspiration; but not until the inner mysteries of life were revealed in tone harmonies, was the expression adequate. Then, for the first time in human history, Music took its rank with the fine arts. Indeed it then became virtually a new art; for, although its elementary forms were handed down from a remote period, it first appeared within this modern era as an important factor in human development. On first thought,…

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12.MUSIC. Music constitutes a world of itself, co-ordinate with the worlds of Nature, Religion and Philosophy. It is not, like the other arts, an extension of the natural order, for it is characterized by an entirely different mode of revelation. The world of Music is pre-eminently the world of harmony. The idea of harmony unity in variety is exhibited not alone in the blending of tones, but in the complexion of each individual tone. Sound is sensation occasioned by atmospheric vibrations acting on the auditory nerves. Vibrations recurring at regular…

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These four worlds by no means comprise the possible scope of spiritual revelation; on the contrary they suggest an inexhaustible variety of modes by which the Infinite may radiate in finite expression. Thus far in human history, but little even of the surface of life has been explored by man. He must continue to discover new modes of manifestation, as the domain of knowledge includes wider areas. Already, in this age of discovery and inventive application, unexplored worlds are beginning to loom up, just beyond the range of his perceptive…

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The different forms simply represent particular modes in which it is manifested. The ideal human life calls for such all-around development as is afforded by intercourse with the Infinite through every possible avenue of spiritual discernment. One is in danger of growing ill-balanced by exclusively following any special bent. The pursuit of a “hobby” tends to warp and deform one’s life, until its poise and symmetry are destroyed. The hermit, the religious fanatic, the morbid mystic, the musical monomaniac, are illustrations of this tendency. The ideal life reaches out in…

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The prophet rather than the priest is the exponent of that which is most real in Religion, for he proclaims the supremacy of the Spirit over the letter.Closely allied to the world of Religion is the world of Philosophy or pure thought, in which life is viewed introspectively. All that we know of the internal characteristics of things is revealed in this way; for by outward observation, we become acquainted with externals alone. Through an inward sight (sometimes designated the sixth sense) we perceive life interiorly, just as, by the…

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The world of Religion comprehends those phases of life which concern the attitude of the individual man toward other beings. Its mode of expression, like the natural world, represents the Absolute Essence of things, differentiated in variously related centers. The Supreme Being, fellow men, and hosts of inferior creatures, appeal to the individual, prompting emotions of reverence, love, sympathy, compassion. When man first begins to realize something of the higher consciousness, to know that he is more than a superior animal, and that the human creature is nothing less than…

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Plato conceived this world to be the “diversified appearance of Ideas,” which the soul, having known in a pre-existent state, previous to its birth into this relative sphere, is able to recognize, in some measure, in all things, but, in most instances, in a confused and obscured manner; so that the earthly life is a process of recollection or rediscovery of the essential nature of things. The man who aspires to a higher life, who earnestly desires to become acquainted with his deeper Self and more fully conscious of the…

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Poets have always sung the praises of Nature. The natural world sustains a close relation to the world of Philosophy of pure thought, as an embodiment of ideal visions. In “Music and Morals” Mr. Haweis has described the peculiarly intimate associations existing between the world of Religion the moral sphere, and the world of Music, which embodies emotions. In dealing with deep soul-experiences all terms are hopelessly inadequate to convey one’s meaning intelligibly. Words can only suggest to another person such experiences as he is already acquainted with.The world of…

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The life of the deeper Self is manifested in beauty, truth, goodness and harmony. Through their influence the real Being, which lies beneath every finite, human mask, may be appealed to, until it responds in some degree, at least. The man who has supposed himself to be a mortal creature, obeying the quickening impulse from within, aspires to realize his essential nature, the Divine and Eternal. This is the tale of evolution; as the Divine reaches down to the human in revelation, so the human reaches up to the Divine…

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From time immemorial, seers have recognized an inner Presence with which they could hold communion, and have found in it the source of wisdom, knowledge, power, joy and peace, in fact, of all that is real and enduring in life. In moments of purest spiritual consciousness, when our vision penetrates beyond the barriers of finite thought, and human consciousness blends with the Divine, its existence becomes an axiomatic certainty. The entire outer world, a structure infinitely complex and varied, from a finite point of view, is resolved, in the mind…

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He who avails himself of the advantages offered by every accessible medium of spiritual perception, is certain to find the richest and fullest appreciation of life. Every vision of beauty, every thought of truth, every impulse of good, every aspiration for a larger, more real life, is evidence of the presence of a deeper Self, the infinite, God-self within. One may grow to recognize its presence more clearly by cultivating greater intimacy with nature, a more ardent desire for the real and substantial, a more positive love of right, and…

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Every man’s first acquaintance with the world is made through separate impressions, which of themselves afford no suggestion of relationship. Only as he begins to be conscious of his own individuality or organic unity does he discover unity in the world around him. Perception leads from the many to the one, from variety to unity; expression leads from the one to the many, from unity to variety. To gain the spiritual consciousness, to live “as seeing the invisible,” one must, first of all, be filled with a single, deep desire…

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11.MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE. In all ages there have lived seers, prophets and men of genius, who have professed to find in life a deep, esoteric meaning, unappreciated and unrecognized by the restless throng of human beings, who crave only amusement or entertainment. Individuals of these rarer types are often accounted eccentric, by their less aspiring fellows, because they are uninfluenced by motives and considerations that appeal to the average man. How one can be serene in the midst of tumult and strife; contented when surrounded by poverty and…

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Every state of consciousness serves as a lens to focus the diffused rays of love and truth upon mentalities that lie within its range. When colored by prejudice and opinion, or marred by flaws of caprice and selfishness, its capacity as a concentrating medium is impaired, for it projects unfaithful and distorted images; but if pure, transparent, and free from the obstructing element of personal bias, the picture it projects is one of ideal perfection. Whenever we live in an atmosphere of spiritual consciousness, we inevitably radiate love and truth…

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Symptoms of disease are due to derangement of the natural functions of the bodily parts. Nearly every person is so sensitive to suggestions from subconscious sources, that any appreciable change in the attitude or relations of the constituent parts of his body, produces, under ordinary circumstances, a corresponding change in his own states of consciousness. Such sensations as pain or sickness are ordinarily due to suggestions we receive from a bodily source. A condition of the body may be the occasion of a mental state, as in the case of…

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