a contribution for your loverly thread, Shadow Dancer!

Singing Down the Spirits: an exploration of music, shamanism, and the physics of sound.


By Jeff Charest


One of the most ancient and universal ideas in the world-views of Mankind is that belief that creation began in and has its roots in sound. In Christian thought, this idea finds its clearest expression in the opening line of the Gospel of John that says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Both Islamic and Jewish traditions expound this creed in their alphabets; the first letter of both is the ‘Aleph in Hebraic/’Alif in Arabic. This letter, in the philosophies of both religions, comes first because it represents the position of the mouth before it begins to speak; in other words, it is the sound God made before He spoke creation into existence. As such it also establishes the pre-eminence of sound over sense, feeling over meaning. But by this I mean not simple emotional feeling, but something more trans-personal, what Islam calls ‘Zawq’, or ‘taste.’ This refers to a certain transcendent state, a rapture one falls into when touched by poetry or music and is ‘transported’ out of one’s self; a visionary trance, often involving synesthesia, the experiencing of one sense in terms of another.


for the rest of the article:
[link to evolver.net]