SATURN  

Harmony of the celestial bodies. Examples of the art

of music. The secrets of the teachings of sound

and creation. Correspondence of the wild

animals on Saturn and Earth.

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1. You already know that we have only described those animals in detail, which is extraordinary considering their species. From what has been disclosed thus far, you have learned about the peculiar animals indigenous to this planet. When these animals were described, you must have noticed that most were of such a kind that, as a whole, no animal on Earth or any other planet could be compared with them.

2. However, there is a perpetual harmony in everything between one planer and another, without which two celestial bodies cannot exist, even if they are far removed. To understand this correctly, I must point out that harmony can only occur where the exact cause brings forth the effect.

3. For example, if you were to tighten a string over a flat board and pull the string, it would always give you a particular high or low tone. Should you tighten the string more, the sound will become more intense, or, as you would express it, the tone will be higher. However, the less the string is tightened, the lower the tone. What is the cause of this sonorous effect? You will probably find or specify no other cause than the board and the string that is tightened over it. As often as you renew the cause, that is how often you will have the same effect. As far as the sound produced is low or high, the changes make no difference because a sound remains a sound, regardless of whether it is high or low. You might ask: What causes the sound - is it the string or the flat board? And I will tell you: It is neither the board by itself nor the string by itself, but both objects together. The flat board as a coherent whole has all conceivable forms for the formation of a tone at all times in readiness. The vibrating string above the board calls forth these forms in a manner distinguishable. Therefore, the flat board contains all conceivable forms of sound. The string stretched over it is there to awaken these forms of sound and transfer them into a perceptible appearance. For this to occur, an undeniable harmony between the flat board and the string must exist.

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4. If you consider the air as a means of forming sound, it must be shown when bringing forth any effect that more than two polar causes can't be brought forth into a reciprocal connection. The means, however, cannot be considered a cause but only a path by which the effect of the two polarities is brought forth to appear.

5. For example, observe the magnetic fluidum! Can the magnetic fluidum when absorbed by an iron rod, only be found polarly? Or, instead, is it polarly freely effective within itself throughout the entire infinity? Therefore, an iron rod is only the path upon which this fluidum can express itself tangibly to your senses. It would be impossible to consider the iron rod as bringing forth the magnetic fluidum itself.

6. Or would you say that the air and the ether between a sun and a planet are the source of light? They are no more than the path upon which the light reaches a planet while emanating from a sun, provided that the planet is structured and capable of absorbing the light that overcomes it.

7. Therefore, we shall not consider the air in this manner when forming a tone as a means of being the cause of the sound, but only as a path upon which the tone forms as they are developed between the string and flat board can be perceived by the ear.

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8. Do not imagine the sound when you think about “tone,” but only a form which, through a certain degree of vibration, is drawn out of some smooth and elastic surface. The sound is no more than a witness who develops the forms of another underlying body through the regular vibration of some body that can vibrate. Even though you might believe that you are well-versed in the art of music, I say that there is hardly a subject with which you are less acquainted or more ill-informed than the art of music. As far as this subject is concerned, you do not know more than the worms that gnaw on the dead bark of a tree. Consequently, you compose a few different high and low tones and delight in them, just like the worms when they gnaw on the dead bark of a tree. But who among you has thought that the tone is one of the most beautiful forms?

9. If you sing a note or a tone or generate sound with an instrument, you have nothing more to say about it other than this tone is a C or an A, and it belongs to this or that octave. You may also have the ability to know which instrument produced that tone or sound. Admit it: You do not know much about a tone, except perhaps that you can assess the quality of a tone and can rate its proportion in comparison with your ear, but that is about the extent of your knowledge of the tone.

10. That you may have a fundamental understanding of how little knowledge you possess in music, I will enlighten you a little in passing about the tone itself.

11. You know that many strings can be tightened over one board, and each string will, following its tension, produce a different high or low tone, and everything will occur on the same board. Suppose all possible sound differences can be brought forth on the same board. In that case, there must be an infinite number of forms in that board so that they can appear utterly perceptible through each possible degree of string tension.

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12. What do you find When you closely examine this particular board? Nothing but an empty, flat board! And when you read the strings attached to this board, what do you find? You find a uniform elastic string, either made of metal or the guts of an animal. And you have nothing but two flat uniformities about which you cannot philosophize. Despite this, such multifariousness lies within these two flat uniformities that all the composers who have ever lived, dating back to the times of David, have not even taken a one billionth (one milliard in Britain and Germany = one billion in France and the United States) part of this in all their compositions. These external tones are, in respect to the actual real tone, nothing but what the dead bark of a tree is for its internal, invisible spiritual life.

13. Following this, what is a tone? The tone is nothing more than a self-expression of the many endless harmonious spiritual forms and how they are inherent in matter or how they project into this matter. Therefore, the board of a musical instrument that vibrates with that instrument is an infinite world filled with spiritual forms. For example, if you strike a C or an A, then an entire creation with an eternally innumerable number of beings of all kinds reports to your ear uniformly perceptibly through that rudimentary sound.

14. As a human being, you remain with what you perceive but do not examine what is behind it. And even when, after several successive sounds, you are seized by some great ideas and these living spiritual forms grab you by the neck, you are blind and gnaw on the bark without thinking that with every single tone, through the perceptible tone of a single word, all things that fill the entire infinity come forth. Now, you should have a slight idea of what a tone is and how different its great significance is from the monotonous sound that you call “tone.”

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15. Since we previously proceeded from harmonious conditions and described how a continuous harmony exists between a flat board and a string and how these effects at least outwardly originate out of this harmony, we can, therefore, bestow complete validity upon our first sentence, when it was said that between two celestial bodies, there must exist a continuous harmony regardless of their distance from each other.

16. Why is that so? Please think of the sun as the vibrating board and the planets as the strings tightened. Now, when the planets or strings that float around the vibrating board of the sun are struck by the light that emanates from the sun, the planets take on all the underlying forms that exist on the sun after they have received this legacy using the light and make the forms appear outwardly.

17. If you now direct your attention upon the string of Saturn, which is tightened over the same sun as the string of the earth which you inhabit, you should easily understand the exact cause which affects your earth and allows its forms to appear will therefore have the same effect on Saturn.

18. For example, compare a piano with seven octaves to one with only five; you cannot deny that the piano with seven octaves has much higher or much lower tones than the one with five octaves. However, when you start playing the scales on the piano with the seven octaves at the same spot where the highest or lowest tone begins on the piano with five octaves, you will find that the scale will have the same rising and falling sound as it does on the piano with the five octaves; of course, the tones of the larger instrument will probably sound stronger, have more volume and be more developed than on the smaller instrument.

19. Actually, we already have all this information. Initially, I said we would take a general overview of the entire wild animal kingdom on Saturn; before we describe the domesticated animals individually, I just wanted to tell you that we have already made such a general overview. The description of the productive power of the sun had to be mentioned before so that what still has to be said does not appear as blather or as a compelling representation of things on this planet, which makes it appear as if the one who declares this has lost his imagination and therefore seeks refuge in what the earth has to offer as regards formal appearances. So you would have to say: All the animals you find on Earth will also be found on Saturn, though, of course, with a few variations; they are proportionately more significant in size and stronger, and, as a consequence, the light of the sun is more refracted, and the animals are more colorful.

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20. Since such an anatomical analytical representation of the harmonious condition has preceded this, there should not be one person with a believing heart who would object when I say: Beginning with your most giant original elephant down to the smallest mouse, Saturn has all of these animals as well on its surface, only they are proportionately more extensive and more substantial and more varied in color between blue, green, red, white and black, while the colors of the animals on earth are rarely as completely developed, since the rays of the sun are still too intense and therefore they are not sufficiently separated when they fall to the ground. The coloration is, at all times, a consequence of the light. The flowers on Earth are colored with all kinds of perfect colors, but these colors lack a specific living luster, whereas the flowers on Saturn become much more lively; not only does this coloration apply to the animals, but also to the humans on this planet.

21. This should suffice as a general overview of the four-footed and other animals on this planet. We will briefly examine only those few tame animals that the earthly piano with its five octaves does not contain.

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Jakob Lorber: SATURN (page: 160 - 165)