Jill Mattson – Throughout the age’s arcane circles, priests and students of “higher” learning wrote about the importance of planetary sounds. Pythagoras wrote about these ideas – and they were ancient in his time.
Pythagoreans studied music to gain insights into the mathematical underpinnings of the physical world. [1] Kitty Ferguson, who wrote The Music of Pythagoras , tells us, “The Pythagoreans used music to heal the body and to elevate the soul, yet they believed that Earthly music was no more than a faint echo of the universal ‘harmony of the spheres.’
In ancient cosmology, the planetary spheres ascended from Earth to Heaven like the rungs of a ladder. Each sphere corresponded to a different note of a grand musical scale. The particular tones emitted by the planets depended upon the ratios of their respective orbits, just as the tone of a lyre-string depended upon its length.
The music of the spheres was never a fixed system. Many variant schemes existed because each philosopher approached it … from a different perspective.” [2]
For many years scientists have been looking for proof of the ancients’ famed music of the spheres, the cosmic music from the heavens. In the 1600s scientist Johannes Kepler sought evidence for harmony in the universe, as described by Pythagoras and others.
Kepler found that the movement of planets creates a scale that was linked to simple, whole numeric ratios. [3] In his book, Hermonices Mundi, the Five Books on Musical Harmony, Kepler calculated the angles of the planets (as measured from the sun) from their extreme positions in elliptical orbits during a twenty-four-hour period.
A system of simple intervals emerged, sixteen in all, which are musical consonances or intervals with whole number ratios (two of the intervals were not whole number ratios). [4] He offers this as proof of harmonic laws in the cosmos.
If we take Kepler’s diatonic musical scale [5] and reduce it mathematically through octaves, these waves correspond to the brain wave patterns of alpha, beta, theta and delta. Think about that. The movements of the planets create frequencies and our brain waves emulate that wave pattern. [6] Isn’t that astounding? [7]
In 1776 Johann Titius observed the octave ratio between planets when Mercury is the center. It is known as Bodes Law, as Johann Bodes drew attention to it six years later. The ratio of 2:1 creates an octave. Earth is roughly twice as far as from Mercury’s orbital distance as Venus.
Mars is twice as far as from Mercury as was Earth. There is no known planet between Mars and Jupiter, but there should have been according to Bodes law. Later this spot became known as the asteroid belt. Some suspect that there may have been a planet here, but it was destroyed and been posthumously called Maldek. [8]
Hundreds of years later a pair of Americans detected a form of music from the heavens. “In 1993 Hulse and Taylor landed the Nobel Prize for discovering binary pulses – stars which send out electromagnetic waves in pulses. The most sensitive equipment located in one of the world’s highest places, high on a mountain top in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, picks up evidence of their existence through radio waves.” [10]
Author David Tame reports, “The sun itself has been described as a ‘great musical instrument’ by Dr. Martin Pomerantz of the Bartol Research Foundation… Scientists have detected oscillations on the sun’s surface, which they believe originate from acoustic of vibratory waves inside the fiery sphere. Eighty tones or different kinds of vibrations have been observed, with periods of two to eight minutes.”
Tame continues, “These oscillations, as well as radio waves of space have been transposed into audible sound. The results, though interesting, cannot really be said to correspond to music as we know it. However, Saturn’s magnetosphere produces waves which when transposed into sound, have been described as a slow dreamy melody.
When Voyager 2 drew close to the ringed world it picked up the whines and hisses of the magnetosphere and beamed them back to Earth.” [11] When speed up they consisted of a melody.
When the human voice is raised three octaves it sounds like crickets chirping. When raised five octaves it resembles bird chirps. When increased by nine octaves a human voice mimics whale sounds.
When raised eleven octaves it sounds like N.A.S.A.’s space sounds. There are many ways in which music occurs in the universe the frequencies from space are connected to life on Earth in a multitude of ways (uni-verse – one verse or one song).
[1] Ferguson, Kitty. The Music of Pythagoras, Walker: N.Y., 2008. Pg. 130.
[2] http://www.skyscript.co.uk/kepler.html#ch.
[3] Godwin, Joscelyn. Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of the Universe, Inner Traditions: Rochester, Vermont, 1989. Pgs. 111-112.
[4] Godwin, Joscelyn. Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of the Universe, Inner Traditions: Rochester, Vermont, 1989. Pg. 117.
[5] A diatonic scale is a seven note musical scale comprising five whole steps and two half steps. Between each of the two half steps are either two or
three whole steps, with the pattern repeating at the octave. The modern major and minor scales are diatonic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatonic_scale.
[6] Sylvia Francke said, “The harmonics of the diatonic tempered musical scale, in frequencies below normal hearing range, correspond to brainwave
cluster patterns.” Francke, Sylvia. The Tree of Life and the Holy Grail. Temple Lodge: England, 2007. Pg. 200.
[7] Brain waves are measured as frequency and magnetic potential. When magnets are attracting, coming close together, they are increasing in kinetic
energy. When the magnets are decreasing in magnetic potential energy they are getting further apart. answers.yahoo.com electromagnetic energy
[8] Tame, David. The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society Through Musical Energy, Destiny Books: Vermont; 1984. Pg. 238.
[9] Tame, David. The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society Through Musical Energy, Destiny Books: Vermont, 1984. Pg. 238.
[10] McTaggart, Lynne. The Field, Harper Collins Publishers: New York, 2002. Pg. 88.
[11] Tame, David. The Secret Power of Music: The Transformation of Self and Society Through Musical Energy, Destiny Books: Vermont; 1984. Pg.
SF Source Jill’s Wings of Light Oct 2023