epicenters of justice

8/8/2019 Epicenters of Justice

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EPICENTERS OF JUSTICE:Music theory, sound-current non-dualism and radical ecology

A PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATESCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

BY DREW WILLIAM HEMPEL

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREEOF MASTER OF LIBERAL STUDIES

MAY, 2000

___________________________________DonnaMae Gustafson, Instructor LS 80002

___________________________________Stephen Daniels, Advisor

___________________________________


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INTRODUCTIONRecently a lawsuit, backed by timber corporations, was filed against a citizen group called theSuperior Wilderness Action Network (SWAN). SWAN has been successfully challenging timbersales by providing scientific data reviewing the threat to fragile ecosystems from corporatelogging practices. The timber companies argue in their lawsuit that, in reality, SWAN representsa philosophy of deep ecology that is premised on religious beliefs and thus is a violation of

church and state separation. Using religious arguments to make government decisions isunconstitutional according to the lawsuit that has been dismissed by SWAN as a typicalcorporate SLAPP-a strategic lawsuit against public participation. While the argument of SWANseems obvious, being a group lead by credible university scientists,(1) the timber companiesraise a point that could just as easily be turned on its head: Historian David F. Noble, a formerM.I.T. professor and curator for the Smithsonian, has presented extensive evidence that inactuality mainstream science is driven by a technological madness that seeks to recreate God'sdominion over the earth and works to revive mankind's original image-likeness to God.(2)

The origin of the spiritual madness defining modern science is traced to the Benedictine monksunder the Carolingian empire, as directed by court philosopher John Scotus Erigena. For the firsttime in western history the mechanical arts were motivated by an elite, materialisticmillenarianism to reconstruct "imago dei" and restore "Adam" from the Fall. " 'It was precisely[the] power over nature [that] Adam had lost by original sin.'" An urgency of the beckoningapocalypse ushered in modern science, an expression of the self-fulfilling crisis. Undermodernism Man himself became the universal co-creator with God, thus formally disconnectinga divine presence from nature itself and insisting on an abstract transcendent perspective"epitomized by mathematics." A "saintly existence" and a "new race of men" will follow the end-times via the "redemptive powers of technology." The final secularization of these "spiritualmen" occurred in the development of modern engineering elite institutions through thefreemasons and their offspring of positivism. Karl Marx even became one of the greatestproponents of the "Edenic respites from labor." Space flight, nuclear weapons production,computer-based artificial life and genetic engineering are all symptoms of an worldview to

create an Adam II that will redeem mankind through the destruction of the Fall and the dawn of anew era. The "scientific saints" renounce responsibility for necessarily risking escalation towardthe inevitable end-times.(3)Several leading philosophers have argued that, while the ecological crisis presents a newunifying common ground for united action, unless the underlying opposing worldviews areaddressed, resolution will only occur by escalating catastrophes that threaten the future of lifeon the planet.(4) The last 500 years of colonialism and its resultant ecological havoc have beenrooted in ideas based on scientific materialism, reductionism, mind/body dualism, and linearcausality-what became fortified as the modern paradigm by classical liberalism and theEnlightenment.(5) Radical ecology theory is being reconsidered by dominant institutions, in thecontext of the New Paradigm-mainly systems theory, the new physics, holistic medicine, post-

modernism.Although strongly recognized since the mid-1980s, post-modernism became theoreticallydefinitive after Professor Frederic Jameson's tome, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic ofLate-Capitalism. Post-Contemporary Interventions. Postmodernism is a zeitgeist driven byrelativism where Universal Truth, as a defining Western goal, is no longer considered possibleand the impact of late capitalism has been the mixing of high and low culture in an alienatingclimate. This cultural atmosphere called post-modernism has liberating potential if, as Jameson


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states, a new "totality of difference" can be created-what sound-current non-dualism describes.As explained by theorist Jozef Keulzart, systems theorywas formalized by Ludwig vonBertalanffy during the 1930s by applying the thermodynamics of open systems to ecology,cybernetics, and information theory. The new physicsrefers to the primacy of energy overmatter, the limit of reductionism, and the inter-connection of all reality as proven by Bell'stheorem, quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.Holistic medicine applies the above new paradigm concepts to mind/spirit/body dynamics for

healing. The University of Minnesota, for example, offers a minor graduate degree inComplementary Therapies and Healing Practices.(6) Physicist Nick Herbert makes the followingpertinent new paradigm recommendation: "Religions assure us that we are all brothers andsisters, children of the same deity; biologists say that we are entwined with all life-forms on thisplanet; our fortunes rise or fall with theirs. Now, physicists have discovered that the very atomsof our bodies are woven out of a common superluminal fabric. Not merely in physics arehumans out of touch with reality; we ignore these connections at our peril."(7)Many institutional planners though are hesitant to implement ecologically-sound structuralreforms if only for fear of growing irrationalism, extreme relativism, and even a new all-encompassing big Other of "harmonious Nature."(8) The ecological crisis is universally erodingthe faade of the Western modern paradigm and exposing the spiritual roots of science. What

theory can provide a successful integration that meets the true and legitimate concerns ofrational humanists and that addresses the ecological justice crisis in a more compassionate andeffective manner?

Not only did modern science develop from a profound structural problem but David Bordwell, adefinitive source for film criticism and social theory, argues that, similarly, social theory "hastended to be deeply traditional in its assumptions." He, like Noble, also traces these limited andproblematic conceptual assumptions to an origin of elite spiritual institutions of the West: "Whilenot all societies believe that a symbol is inherently meaningful, Christianity has been a stronglyhermeneutical religion, seeking the kerygma, that latent sense waiting to be called forth."(9)Bordwell is not presenting a broadside attack against spirituality, nor even the practice of

deriving implicit moral meanings, but raising an institutional critique that exposes theepistemological limitations behind western, including modern and postmodern, theories to date.The same deep conundrum does not elude music analysis.

Caryl Flinn recently accomplished one of the most comprehensive analyses of the utilization ofmusic theory for social criticism in contemporary times and she comes to a similar conclusion asBordwell: By arguing that music represents a special place within the limited system of symbolicinterpretation, cultural analysts have worked to "nostaligize music as an object of study or haveit stand in for an abandoned ideal."(10) While Flinn does not deny the special role of music forWestern theorists after Pythagoras, she does deconstruct the utopian theories as still mirroringa one-dimensional bias of meaning that enforces social repression. Yet in the end Flinn positivelyencourages utopian projects around music and Bordwell makes, from his broader perspective, a

surprisingly similar promotion. To overcome the long continuous limits of analysis, traced backto Aristotelian thought, Bordwell argues for a poetics that recovers our senses by utilizing "thereconstruction of earlier acts of comprehension." He states that, like the subordinate role oftengiven to music in social analysis, styleand form are not emphasized enough in theory andcriticism.(11)My work is, as Bordwell describes theory, a "systematic propositional explanation of the natureand functions" for inferring implicit perceptional norms that challenge dominant Western


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institutions.(12) This is not a nostalgic project but meets Flinn's goal for music theorists, namely,"how to talk concretely and specifically about the effects generated by a signifying system that isso abstract."(13) Utilizing Bordwell's neo-formalist approach that creates "a set of relations ofmeaning between conceptual or linguistic units" (i.e. a relation of opposite meaning, diminutionin size, defined by inclusion, etc.), I will be presenting a field of meaning that revolves aroundmoral categories, as is the norm for interpretive criticism of rational humanism.(14)

While a few recent grand theorists, in my opinion, have each successfully achieved this newintegrative theory, they both have done so in different manners and with the sameepistemological symbolic limitations that Noble and Bordwell describe. The three mostprominent examples are Gilles Deleuze, Ken Wilber, and Slavoj Zizek. The later two qualitativelymove beyond postmodernism by similarly building from systems theory, idealist philosophy(Hegel and Schelling) and emphasizing psychoanalysis. Wilber recognizes the need for a newparadigm to address the ecological crisis with the following: "beforewe can even attempt anecological healing, we must first reach a mutual understandingand mutual agreement amongourselves as to the best way to collectively proceed....Anything short of that, no matter what themotives, perpetuates the fracture." Zizek relatedly states: "the hitherto underestimatedideological impact of the coming ecological crisis will be precisely to make the 'collapse of the bigOther' part of our everyday experience.....The way to break out of this viscous cycle is not to

fight the 'irrational' nationalist particularism but to invent forms of political practice that contain adimension of universality beyond Capital; the exemplary case today, of course, is the ecologicalmovement." And "significantly, Deleuze and Guattari express their new vision in terms of 'eco-philosophy.'" (15)Fortunately Georgia State University philosopher Mark B. Woodhouse wrote, after building onthese grand theorists, the presentation of what he calls energy monism-a model of reality thatwould not be possible, "if we were not of the very essence of music, i.e., rhythmic vibrations ofenergy."(16) His work is promoted by Tulane University philosopher Michael E. Zimmerman,author of Contesting Earth's Future: Radical ecology and postmodernity. (17) Zimmermanconsiders Woodhouse's Paradigm Wars: Worldviews for a New Ageto be "an indispensable

guide to new conceptual pathways that may lead to the radical and constructive alterationsneeded to guide humankind in the 21st century." Ironically at about the same time thatWoodhouse's book came out, I also sent Zimmerman my manuscript, "The Fundamental Force,"which presents dramatically similar integrative work. Zimmerman also positively reviewed whatI have been recently calling sound-current non-dualism-a label very much like energy monism.Fortunately, and most significantly, the core concepts of this paradigm can be expressedthrough basic and easily accessible music theory-a realization that's been entertained by notonly leading scientists but by the foundation of the Western Academy-Pythagoras.(18)It's not surprising that energy monism can be easily understood "as a powerful root metaphorand as a concrete model of explanation," according to Woodhouse. The same resonatingapproach to reality is found in cultures across the globe, just as the same basis for the

sophisticated philosophy of Taoism is also found universally.(19) The harmonic and rhythmicprocesses of yin and yang forces are rooted in a "deep ecology of the body," according to thework of Taoist qi gong Master Mantak Chia. Influential physicist and music analyst James Jeansdismissed the connection between Taoism and Pythagoreanism in 1937 when he wrote, "thecentral Pythagorean doctrine that 'all nature consists of harmony arising out of number'provided of course the simplest of all answers, but only by building on an unprovedmetaphysical basis. An answer on equally uncertain foundations was given by the Chinesephilosophers of the time of Confucius, who regarded the small numbers of 1,2,3,4 as the sourceof all perfection." Esteemed mind research Dr. Philip Regal gives a more positive connection,


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"Taoism had its origins in shamanism, and much like Pythagoreanism it attempted to develop asystematic 'scientific' aspect." The brilliant philologist and historian Peter Kingsley in hisgroundbreaking work Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and PythagoreanTradition, well summarized the bias that my approach openly confronts: "To suppose that amagician is someone incapable of devising coherent theories about the structure and working ofthe universe is in the last resort sheer prejudice, denied by all the evidence."(20) Thereconstructive science of Taoist qi gong and sound-current non-dualism successfully address the

western crises of self/other dualism and subsequent reactionary irrationalism, thus enabling anecological approach to reality to be achieved. Woodhouse theorizes that the new paradigm,because of its cyclical universal principles, is a foundation for a rising global culture which ismeeting the planetary crisis of survival.(21)I contend that the theory of sound-current non-dualism demonstrates that true science-basedmusic theory and Taoist qi gong are formally equivalent. Both originate from indigenoussystems that are based on universal principles of turning fundamental quantity into quality ornatural law modeled by music theory. Music theory formally explains why indigenous societiesare not "pre-cognitive" or "backwards" and formally explains how the western self/otherrepressive system derives from closed one-dimensional western epistemology and is reflectedin linear, genocidal western development. Music theory provides the formal foundation for

radical ecology, chaos and complexity and, in so doing, successfully and formally addresses thethree main critiques of radical ecology: a) that it's irrational b) that it's still materialistic anddoesn't explain inner consciousness c) that it's another symbolic hegemony or repressive bigOther deterministic system. Music theory, by modeling the principles of universal energy,explains how to achieve what qi gong master Dr. Chow calls, "exceptional human functions" of amulti-dimensional sustainable nature.

SOUND-CURRENT NON-DUALISM

Music is derived from a very simple yet profound concept. From the definitive book Music and

Scienceby physicist Sir James Jeans: "The motion of any particle [or pulse] will be a successionof waves...but in a vibration the restoring force is exactly proportionalto the distance the particlehas moved from its position of equilibrium."(22) This is known in physics as the law ofPythagoras. The implication of this law is that "the motion of every particle will be of the samekind, whatever the structure to which it belongs." (23) Consider the clock, a defining metaphorfor the western modern paradigm(24): "the period of vibration of a pendulum depends on itslength, and not on the extent of its swing; it is because of this that our pendulum clock keepstime.... the period is independent of the extent and energy of the swing...Without this property itmay also be said that music, as we know it, would be impossible."(25) The simple motion ofregular waves enables time to be ordered and the plucked string (a.k.a. the first note, thefundamental, the pulse, or the natural free vibration of the string) when viewed on anoscilloscope, is seen as an empty circle, like the clock face.(26)This empty circle, the fundamental, notes music analyst Beaulieu, is also the same symbol of theWu Chi, the source for all reality in Taoism.(27) Taoist qi gong Master Mantak Chia states,

Through observing nature and the effects of energy within the human body, the ancientTaoists were able to trace universal energy back to its point of origin. Having developedan empirical approach with which to contact this source of observable phenomena, theyestablished the concept of the primordial void as the point of departure for all creation.


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This void was given the name Wu Chi. It is depicted as an empty circle in traditional Taoistart because it is beyond human description."(28) Wu Chi is literally the void or nothingnessfrom which all arises. Although Wu Chi, the source of the way of the Tao, cannot bedirectly referred to with words, music, profoundly, does measure the nothingness itself, aswe'll see next.(29)

By the same law of Pythagoras, the free vibrations, or naturally harmonious relations to thefundamental, are all "multiples of the same number."(30) The next natural multiple or harmonicis the octave, the ratio 1:2, or as its called in the Greek source, the Diapason, meaning "throughall" or "through the whole."(31) The scientific basis for proving harmony of the Diapason (thatHemholtz theory built from the law of Pythagoras) is at the next order of information, the ratio ofratios or the relation of the multiples of the ratios. Each multiple has its own set of multiples in aninfinite pattern of dynamics.(32) But for the Diapason, or the first node (where the string istouched in the center), the beats, as the physicists call the resultant sound of the second order,equal zero or nothingness itself. Normally the resulting difference between the multiples of theratios creates a pulsating sound or beat. Jeans writes, "on this theory [Helmholtz theory ofbeats] the octave becomes the most perfect of all concords, since none of the harmonics can

possibly beat worse than when one note is sounded alone." He adds "the unpleasantness [beats]remains until the octave of frequency...is reached, at which point [the beats] suddenlydisappears."(33)Since music theory is not considered a model to describe reality by the corporate-state westerninstitutions then the great cosmological magnitude of Hemholtz's beat analysis is leftsystematically marginalized in dominant society. By approaching rhythmic vibrations of energyas the new physics does, the implications of the Diapason is that the source of reality can now beunderstood easily (i.e. how something comes from nothing). As the most successful musictheorist and sympathetic vibrations physicist, John Keely, put it:

There would be no life, and therefore no action in aggregated matter, had the latentnegative force [the nothingness measured by music theory] been left out...The evolutionof power from the latent condition...proves the 'connection link' between celestial andterrestrial, the infinite and the finite.(34)

Keely's connecting link refers also to the second important implication of the law of harmony, orbeats, which is that the difference between orders of information can be measured. The problemof clarifying the difference between classes of information is a perennial quagmire to scienceand true music theory provides the answer.(35) In Taoist qi gong these different levels ofinformation are crucial to the concept of nothingness as the source of creation. The node is the

relative void, where string displacement equals zero, and the zero of the beats, signifying pureharmony and creation, is the absolute void. The brilliant and profound text Taoist Yoga states:

Seeing the void as not empty is right and seeing the void as empty is wrong [as the Westdoes], for failure to return to the (tsu ch'iao) centre (which is not empty) prevents the lightof vitality from manifesting...When spirit and vitality return to this cavity, spiritual vitalitywill soar up to form a circle (of light) which is not void. Voidness which does not radiate isrelative but voidness which radiates is absolute. Absolute voidness is not empty likerelative voidness.(36)


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This concept has been regained in the new paradigm work of new physics. Berendt citesphysicist Charon, noting,

Both the electron and the black hole [i.e. extremely dense matter or zero beats] arecharacterized by totally curved space and by curved time. This means that the time of

electrons and of black holes is opposite to our 'material' time, which moves on a straightline from past to present to future. This, in turn, may imply that if entropy grows in the'material' world, then in the world of electrons (and black holes) precisely the oppositeforce might grow, the force of negentropy.(37)

The Diapason, first overtone, or node, as the halfway spot on the vibrating string, is, Beaulieupoints out, equivalent to the complimentary halves of the Tai Chi symbol from the Wu Chi. TaiChi, just as with the Diapason, is the basis for all harmony. Music theorist Berendt comments,"the octave, the proportion 1:2, which has always been used to signify the polarity of the world:yang and yin, male and female, heaven and earth, etc."(38)

The source of nothingness from which the totality of difference arises enables further evaluationof the universal laws of harmony. To reiterate, the node, the place were the string is touched orfirst measured, is a relation of the natural free vibrations and, "a touch will kill all the vibrationsexcept those for which the point of contacts is a node."(39) The points at which the displacementof the string is zero are the nodes or the free vibration multiples of the fundamental. Byinference the closer the multiple or ratio of string parts is to the beats of zero or the absolutevoid (the source of the harmony through all) the more consonant the interval of the scale. Thus,based on the Hemholtz law of harmony, at the interval of a fourth and a fifth (ratios 4:3 and 3:2)beats similar to the octave nearly disappear (for the octave again the beats are zero).(40) Thesetwo intervals are the next natural multiples to the fundamental: "the fourth and fifth worktogether as yin and yang...The fifth, and the fourth are the basis for the 1-4-5 chordalprogressions found throughout music of all cultures," states Bealieau.(41)

Just to emphasize this point, although music is fiercely defended as an expression of freeassociation and subjective pluralism (which I completely support), at this fundamental level, truemusic theory gives proof to universal cultural values from the harmonic or natural law of energybased on the law of Pythagoras-in fact, as we'll soon see in detail, it also exposes the repressedone-dimensional symbolic value judgments (that reflect corporate-state repression and fascism)Jeans remarks,

vast numbers of tribes [sic.] and peoples...developed music independently and in the mostvaried surroundings...the principles which guided them-to choose pleasant noises rather

than unpleasant, consonances rather than dissonances...they were led to much the sameresult...with a unanimity which is remarkable...all have at least scales which are built onthe same principle....The octave, the simplest and most perfect consonance of all, musthave been discovered at a very early stage; it is fundamental in the music of allpeoples...(42)


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The law of Pythagoras, an example of the inverse-square law so fundamental to science, canalso be approached geometrically through another Pythagorean law, the law of growth-fundamental to chaos and complexity or open systems science, as we'll also see. It'srepresented by the 4:3 or 3:2 proportioned five-pointed star, "thought to have been a sign of thePythagorean brotherhood," comments Edward Rothstein, music critic for The New York Times.(43) The profound simple principle is thus: "As the whole line is to the greater segment, so is thegreater to the lesser." Rothstein notes that the power of the principle is "to contain itself within

itself in the simplest possible fashion." (called the golden mean, the golden section or the DivineProportion) Rothstein, also a mathematician, explains that the law of growth can be stated as"each number being the sum of the two previous numbers."(44) Or as the music analyst ErnoLendvai puts it: "If every branch of a tree, in one year shoots a new branch, and these newbranches double after two years, the number of the branches shows the following yearlyincrease: 2, 3, 5, 8, 21, 34." (also known as the Fibonacci number series).(45) The mathematicalanalysis Spirals: From Theodorus to Chaosby Phillip J. Davis (1993) attempts to demystify thelaw by giving it further credence at the same time:

It simply grows its stalks or florets in succession around the apex of the stem so that eachfits the gaps of the others. The plant is not in love with the Fibonacci series; it does noteven count its stalks; it just puts out stalks were they will have the most room. All the

beauty and all the mathematics are a natural by-product of a simple system of growthinteracting with its spatial environment.(46)

This law of growth has been so important to human civilization that Egyptian, Mayan, Asian,Greek, Gothic, Renaissance and modern architecture and art have all been created by its precisemeasurements.(47)The growth pattern can be applied to music analysis in at least three manners. The ratios can beattributed to the number series (i.e. 1:1, 1:2, 3:2, 5: 3, 8:5, 21:13 equals the intervals of unison,

octave, perfect fifth, major sixth, minor sixth and minor sixth again).(48) Dover publications,known for their prestigious music texts, published the book The Divine Proportion thatinvestigates how the ratio of the major sixth and the major third approximate the golden meanproportion. Lendvai applies the number series to the intervals with each number representedeach step of the scale (i.e. 1=minor second, 2=major second, 3=minor third, 5=perfect fourth and8=minor sixth).(49)

What are the implications of this further analysis derived from Pythagoras? The spiral of the lawof growth is fundamental to yin/yang transformations and the creation of form itself, through theprinciples of music theory, as will be demonstrated. Taoist qi gong Master Mantak Chia states,

From whirlpools, tornadoes, and the spiraling electrons of our cells to the spiraling

formations of galaxies and nebular, nature moves in spirals. Spirals initiate vortex-likefields of energy that gather, draw in, and condense other energies. Just as nature usesspirals throughout the universe, we can use them to improve the functions of our bodiesthrough meditation.(50)


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At this point we can use music theory to examine the basic processes of energy that derive fromthe harmonics resonance spirals of yin/yang dynamics based in the void.We've now deduced, from the void itself, the formation of the first fundamental free vibrations,or natural harmonics, that govern all of reality or rhythmic vibrations of energy. Based on thelaw of harmony (the second level of the law of Pythagoras) the major sixth (or inversely theminor third) is the next overtone in the creation of the musical scale. From this next basic

harmonic we achieve the pentatonic scale and the ability to resolve the first basic structure ofpsychological and spiritual completion, as the Gestalt or cognitive laws of psychology applied bymusic analyst Leonard Meyer will show. Jeans states, "the pentatonic scale in which aconsiderable amount of Chinese and ancient Scottish music is written, as well as much of themusic of the primitive peoples [sic.] in Southern Asia, East Africa and elsewhere."(51) Or as theNew Harvard Dictionary states, "scales of this type [pentatony], of which there are many, arewidely distributed geographically and historically."(52)Although the specific five notes may change, they can be derived from the infinite complexitiesof the fundamental rhythmic processes of energy that resolve the musical scale. The principlesof energy dynamics derived from the basic scale enable a multi-dimensional matrix of reality(i.e. resonance and opposite phase transformations described in advanced science viasynthesize analysis of the Fourier wave theorem).(53) Or as the equivalent of Taoist qi gongdescribes, "each of the Five processes of energy depends on the interactions of Yin and Yangemanating from the primordial void."(54) These energy processes, through an experientialscience of universal Truth and Harmony, have been correlated by Taoist qi gong Master MantakChia as the following: 1) Energy rising:South, Fire, Heart, virtue of love, joy, happiness,gratitude, small intestine, Summer, taste: bitter, color: red, negative emotions: impatience,arrogance, hastiness, cruelty, violence, Mars, mantra of "Hawwwww." 2) Energy sinking:North,Water, kidney, bladder, virtue of gentleness, generosity, alert stillness, Winter, taste: salty, color:black or dark blue, negative emotion: fear, Mercury, mantra of "Woooooo." 3) Energy expandingEast, Wood, liver/gallbladder, virtue of kindness, forgiveness, Spring, taste: sour, color: green,negative emotions: anger, aggression, Jupiter, mantra of "Shhhhhh." 4) Energy solidifying:West,

Metal, lungs, large intestine, virtue of courage, righteousness, appropriateness, Autumn, taste:pungent, color: white, negative emotions: sadness. Venus, mantra of "Ssssssss." 5)Energystable:Center, Earth, spleen, pancreas, stomach, virtue of openness, fairness, justice, IndianSummer, taste: neutral, color: yellow, negative emotions: worry, sympathy, pity, Saturn, mantraof "WHOoooooo."(55)The most important implication of the five forces, as derived from the completed pentatony ofthe basic rhythms of energy, is the connection not only of energy, nature, body and mind but, theconnection between inner (consciousness) and outer reality. This point needs to be furthersolidified since the implications of universal laws of thought are again easily dismissed asrepressive hegemonic ideology. Meyer is a neo-formalist and, like film analysts Bordwell andThompson, uses psychological laws of gestalt science to emphasize the learned and

conventional norms that need to be contextualized throughout different individuals and cultures.The crucial point not to be lost is that these infinite varieties stem from basic universalprinciples.(56) As the Gestalt analysts state there are "natural modes of expectation" with gooddefined as regularity, symmetry, simplicity, and completion, otherwise known as the law ofPrgnamz. Meyer emphasizes that "violation of the law of completion, for example, almostalways involves disturbances in the factor of good continuation...a dissonance which might beunpleasant when heard in isolation may be beautiful within a piece of music where itsrelationships to past events and impending resolutions is understandable."(57)


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The processes of Gestalt neo-formalist analysis (Prgnamz--proximity and similarity; law ofReturn or the need for cyclic formal structures; law of saturation; law of completion and law ofcontinuity) reflect the five process of energy described by Chia (i.e. solidifying, expanding,sinking, rising, stable). But again, crucial to the application of Gestalt analysis in music theory isthat--just like the law of Pythagoras expresses fundamental relations for music, "the mostimportant pattern-forming parameter [are] pitch and duration." As Meyer clarifies, in a

description of the basic rhythmic vibrations of energy, "relaxation and quiescence...is associatedwith the decline in tension which is effected when pitches are lower-when a progressiondescends at its close."(58)From the resolution of the scale or the harmonic relaxation at the fundamental--the void ofinfinite potential is accessed--the secret for supreme harmony where the unity of infinite realityis experienced. This connection of all multidimensional reality has been described by the newphysics (i.e. the superstring theory) in the same manner as Nick Herbert explains the secret ofquantum theory-"using ordinary waves in unusual ways."(59) The means of quantum mechanicsare still based in the linear closed systems of one-dimensional western epistemology.Subsequently the final message of physicist Margaret Wertheim's Pythagoras' Trousers: God,Physics and the Gender Warsis to seriously reconsider the mega-astrophysics projects that putthe future of the planet directly at risk, i.e. the superconducting supercollider. Instead she urgesthat we ground physics in an ethically balanced framework--reflecting the original foundation ofenergy wisdom.(60) Fortunately, with the principles of resonance, the goal of unifying reality canbe accomplished by means of humans without any outside tools.(61) In reflection of the fiveprocesses of energy, physicist K.C. Cole writes, after analyzing the research of LinearAccelerator Centers, "resonance may provide a good analogy for learning...Resonance, in otherwords, determines what we see, and what's reflected; what goes right through, what gets stuck,and what sinks in....resonance can make things seem to appear out of nowhere."(62)Even though fully existing in the void is the ultimate example of the principles of resonance,Pythagoras could also heal "without touch" just as Taoist qi gong (vital energy work) Masters are

well-documented at doing today.(63) Everyday in China more people then the whole populationof the U.S. practice qi gong. Ironically, because of China's Marxist scientific materialism, therehas been a great research effort to scientifically examine the workings of qi gong-in 1998 theChinese Government officially approved eleven different styles of qi gong based on theimmense scientific evidence supporting their validity. China has several institutes that use hightechnology to research qi gong and there's even a qi gong university in Beijing which produceshigh-level "healers without touch." There are several qi gong masters that either live in the U.S.or have traveled here to conduct double-blind experiments demonstrating qi gong at prestigiousuniversities and research institutes. Master Chunyi Lin who teaches Spring Forest Qi Gong inMinnesota has been documented to heal cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's disease and he has evenchanged the structure of bones.(64) Master Dr. Yan Xin, considered China's leading qi gongpractitioner, has conducted several experiments where he's actually slowed down the decay

rate of nuclear particles from a great distance as well-considered an impossibility by westernscience.(65) Master Effie P. Chow, based in the U.S., has also been a documented healer ofcancer, cerebal palsy, etc. The same type of multi-dimensional resonance healing is foundaround the world. Obviously there are charlatans as well as those who abuse the power ofspiritual energy for manipulation and harm, in the end causing damage to themselves as well,because of the reciprocal principle (the law of Pythagoras) of universal energy. If Taoist qi gongis practiced accurately than it can only be used for good. Why is that? Because reality itself is, aswe have shown, inherently structured as harmony and works by resonance as Dr. Yan Xin hasexplained-unfortunately the dominant and inaccurate epistemology of the west does not reflect


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this fundamental wisdom.(66)By the principle of the synthesizer theorem, Fourier's wave analysis, all waves can betransposed from one level of information to the next, because of their inherent harmonicresonance based in the void, as described by the law of Pythagoras. We've already modeled thistransformation with the difference between ratios and beats (or ratios of ratios). The way thisprinciple is explained in basic music theory also inversely reflects how deeply and

fundamentally the closed epistemology of the West is an inaccurate portrayal of the multi-dimensions of information, consciousness and reality. Again music analyst and physicist Jeansstates:

Thus, for perfect concord, each step of one 'hour' on the clock face [the cycle ofharmonics] would increase the frequency by a factor of 1.5 (3:2 or fifth) [the natural freemultiples] and twelve such steps would increase it by a factor of (1.5) to the twelfth, ofwhich the value is 129.75...the frequency of this last C [the true Diapason] is only 128times that of our starting-point, so that our twelve steps slightly overshoot the mark.(67)

Because Pythagoras limited his mathematical analysis to ratios, as "the severity of Greek tasteresulted in melodies being restricted to a compass of an octave," the 'comma of Pythagoras,' or"overshoot" was created. Trying to squeeze the comma of Pythagoras into a one-dimensionalclosed symbolic system also created an inaccurate, one-dimensional symbolic portrayal ofreality. The Equal Temperament Scale, the Just Scale, the Mean-Tone Scale are all examples oftrying to compensate for the overshoot that Jeans describe, by maintaining closed systems ofincreasing abstraction based on the comma of Pythagoras.(68) In response to this fundamentalproblem, the very influential contemporary composer Harry Partch built a new toning systemthat reflects music as an accurate model of reality. His system is called the "tonality diamond"and is identical to the Pythagorean Lambdoma or matrix of harmonic resonance.(69)Contemporary composer Sun Ra also conveyed an accurate multi-dimensional model of music

with it's logical cultural consequences. As he states,

The music is not part of this planet in a sense that the spirit of it is about happiness. Mostmusicians play earth things, about what they know, but I found out that they are mostlyunhappy and frustrated and that creeps over into their music.... I'm dealing with puresounds... People have a lot more of the UNKNOWN than the known in their minds....Prepare for the journey! ...you will step out of the pages of the Blinding Blend of the Book,and gaze astounded at the ENDLESS SPACE of the COSMO-VOID.(70)

The comma of Pythagoras thus, if not repressed to one symbolic dimension, explains how

resonance works to transform energy from one cycle or level of information, via the spiral, toanother. Jeans states, "the true clock-face extends to infinity in both directions."(71) (myemphasis) As I stated the implications of this symbolic one-dimensional error are immenseindeed and below I will examine the origins of that western error at greater length. Just asimportantly though, in the face of today's ecological and social crisis, is the inverse implication ofspiral infinite reality being accessible through the use of sound-current or as Taoists call it, vitalenergy.


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The vowel mantras are the linguistic and psycho-spiritual connection between rhythmicvibrations of energy and symbolic language. Martin Buber, a strong influence for M.I.T. professoNoam Chomsky and his brilliant structural analysis of symbols and society, made the followingremarks:

The word is an abyss through which the speaker strides. One should speak words as if theheavens were opened in them...He who knows the secret melody that bears the inner into

the outer, who knows the holy song that merges the lonely, shy letters into the singing ofthe spheres, he is full of the power of God.(72)

Music analyst Berendt comments, "The science of linguistics reveals that the Christian Amengradually grew from the primordial mantra OM."(73) Sound therapist Jonathan Goldmanremarks, "We can actually feel different parts of our body vibrate with sound. For those whohave had no experience working with the subtle body [vital energy or chi], this physicalresonance makes it easier for them to accept the possibility of resonating subtle energy aswell...."(74)In fact vital energy or qi gong can also be translated as "breath work" and by using resonance ofthe negative ions and oxygen from air, a spiral of energy is created which resonates withfundamental frequencies that structure the very nature of matter and time. Biologist RupertSheldrake calls this process of creation through resonance, "morphogenesis" from "morphic"(form) "fields."(75) The same generative process can be shown in a more basic manner againwith simple music. Dr. Hans Jenny discovered that by placing various mediums on a steel platewith a crystal sound oscillator attached to the bottom, the complex biological forms on the plateare examples of sound nodes organizing matter, called cymatics.(76) Taoist qi gong MasterMantak Chia explains, "By resonance, this spinning ball [of chi], helps stimulate the flow of theorbit [or the main energy channel of the body]."(77)

The term sound-current non-dualism is inspired by an ancient meditation practice called theQuan Yin Method literally translated as "sound-current." Although the Quan Yin Method is

practiced freely the main proponent of it is Master Suma Ching Hai. The history of her initiationmay seem unbelievable to westerners but, impressively, she was also the recipient of the 1994World Spiritual Leadership Award that was presented by the Governors of six States in theUnited States (viz., Illinois, Iowa,Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota). Her principles arethe same as those of Pythagoras and worth quoting at length:

In the Surangama Sutra, Sakyamuni Buddha said that the Quan Yin Method was thehighest of all methods. However none of Her teachers knew it. [Suma Ching Hai] traveledand searched everywhere and finally, after many years, found a Himalayan Master whoinitiated Her into the Quan Yin Method and gave Her the Divine Transmission that Shehad sought for so many years....That Master was the great Master Khuda Ji, who lived inseclusion deep in the Himalayas. Master Khuda Ji was four hundred and fifty years old

when He initiated The Supreme Master Ching Hai into the ancient art of meditation on theheavenly Sound and divine Light. He had remained patiently in His Himalayan abodewaiting for Her. She would be His first and only disciple. Although, She had practiced thisform of meditation before, Master Khuda Ji was to impart to Her the ultimate spiritualtransmission that is the essence of Initiation. Only the few great Masters, who haveattained the Ultimate, can perform Initiation....After a brief period of Quan Yin practice,She became fully enlightened and continued practicing and improving Her understanding.She remained in retreat in the Himalayas for some time, continuing Her daily


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practice....This primal Vibration or Sound is in its nature transcendental and thereforeperceived in silence. Jesus' disciples called it the 'Holy Spirit' or the 'Word' (which is fromthe Greek word 'Logos,' meaning sound). 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Wordwas with God, and the Word was God.' After Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment,He spoke of this Sound too, calling it the 'drum of immortality'. Krishna equated Himselfwith the 'sound in ether'. Mohammed perceived this Sound in the cave at Gare-Hira whenHe had a vision of the archangel Gabriel, and Lao Tzu described the Tao as the 'Great

Tone'.... THERE ARE TWO KINDS of sound: the worldly sound, and the supra-worldlysound. The worldly sound is very important to our sensual and mental comfort, but thesupra-worldly sound draws us back to God. WITH OUR POOR worldly language, everytime I would like to speak about this great treasure within us, I feel so ashamed of doingsuch a poor job. But I have somehow to try to convey a part of this great wisdom so thatyou may feel interested, and find it out for yourself, and then you will know it for yourselfwithout any language.(78)

The holy advaita (or Indian non-dualist) sage Ramana Marashi makes a similar point:

To a question by a visitor which seemed to hint that Realised Souls lived only forthemselves, 'Why does not Bhagavan go about and preach the Truth to the people atlarge?' Maharshi replied: 'How do you know I am not doing it? Does preaching consist inmounting a platform and haranguing the people around? Preaching is simplecommunication of Knowledge; it can be really done in Silence only. What do you think of aman who listens to a sermon for an hour and does away without having been impressedby it so as to change his life? Compare him with another, who sits in a holy presence andgoes away after some time with his outlook on life totally changed. Which is the better: topreach loudly without effect or to sit silently sending out Inner Force?

Again, how does speech arise? There is abstract knowledge, whence arises the ego,

which in turn gives rise to thought and the thought to words. So the word is the great-grandson of the original Source. If the word can produce effect, judge for yourself, howmuch more powerful must be preaching through Silence.(79)

Through an extensive process grounded in the infinite void that harmonizes and purifies theenergy of body, soul and spirit, ultimately a person becomes one again with the infinite void viathe great monochord model of Pythagoras and the systematic principles of Taoist qi gong -harmonic principles that are universal. Being initiated by someone who is already successful atthis is of course very helpful. In the development of enlightenment and immortality, Taoist qigong Mantak Chia refers to new paradigm systems theory to describe the conserving, recycling,

and transforming of negative emotions, the main source of energy blockages, into positiveemotions-just like a healthy ecosystem or any healthy open system should operate-includinghuman societies. Through resonance and harmonization of the rhythmic patterns of energy, thepractitioner, as Chia describes, strives toward "combining all the virtues into the energy ofcompassion, the ultimate virtue and a necessary attribute for our spiritual being."(80) Chaossystems theorist Ilya Prigogine states, "there is a need for new relations between man andnature and between man and man. We can no longer accept the old a priori distinction betweenscientific and ethical values."(81) In order to develop the scientifically accurate open systemsapproach to reality we need to first examine the roots of today's western crisis.


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MUSIC THEORY-THE LOST LOGOS OF THE WEST

The founder of systems theory for social science Gregory Bateson remarked: "Pythagoras andPlato knew that pattern was fundamental to all mind and ideation. But this wisdom was thrustaway and lost in the midst of the supposedly indescribable mystery called 'mind.'"(82) As we'veshown above, through gestalt cognitive theory, there is a direct connection by mind and the

basic patterns of rhythmic energy vibrations. This connection though was fuddled and has beenthe fundamental root problem of the extreme global crisis induced by western lineardevelopment that mirrors western linear thought. Another facet of this point is that rhythmicvibrations of energy do not give primacy to material existence over consciousness as has beena mistaken critique of radical ecology open systems theory. Meyer states, "the ultimatefoundation of rhythm is to be found in mental activity." Even though, "the more order andregularity the mind is able to impose upon the stimuli presented to it by the senses; the morelikely it is that motor behavior does play an important part in facilitating and enforcing themusical experience."(83) Taoist qi gong makes the same point at a deeper level: "Whenbeginning to cultivate (essential) nature [enlightenment] and (eternal) life [immortality] it isnecessary first to develop nature....This is called fixing spirit in its original cavity which should bewhere (essential) natureis cultivated and the root from which (eternal) life emerges. "(84)From this primacy of energy as consciousness and virtue, we can begin to analyze the history ofhow the "wisdom was thrust away" in the West as Bateson describes. Starting with thefoundation of music theory for western analysis Bateson comments:

This discovery hit the Pythagoreans squarely between the eyes and became a centralsecret (but why secret?), an esoteric tenet of their faith. Their religion had been foundedon the discontinuity of the series of musical harmonics--the demonstration thatdiscontinuity was indeed real and was firmly founded upon rigorous deduction. And nowthey faced an impossibility proof. [The Pythagorean Theorem] Deduction had said no. As Iread the story, from then on it was inevitable to 'believe,' to 'see' and 'know' that a

contradiction among the higher generalizations will always lead to mental chaos. Fromthis point on, the idea of heresy, the notion that to be wrong in Epistemology could belethal, was inevitable. All this sweat and tears-and even blood-was to be shed on quiteabstract propositions whose Truth seemed to lie, in some sense, outside the humanmind.(85)

Rothstein makes the same point, "When they [the Greeks] discovered that numbers exist whichare neither integers nor ratios of integers-numbers which confounded all their notions ofharmony and rationality-they were so horrified that the discovery was kept secret. Alogon- theunutterable-these numbers were called..."(86)To begin to understand the direct translation from the hidden secret of repressed one-dimensional music-math analysis and the development of inaccurate and destructive linearwestern logic and epistemology we can examine it's reflection directly in the structure of theWestern language. Music analyst Berendt made this rare connection so it's worth quoting him atlength as well:


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For a long time Western rationalists smiled at the notion that the sound of a single word [avowel mantra], a single syllable should have a formative, shaping, creativepower.....Aristotelian logic is based on the law of identity (A equals A), the law ofcontradiction (A cannot be equal to non-A) and on the law of the excluded third (A cannotbe equal to A as well as to non-A). Beside it stands (and has stood since ancient times)what is known as paradoxical logic; which postulates that A and non-A can both bepredicates of X....Our Western concept of logic is strongly conditioned by Western

language. It cannot be an accident that Aristotelian logic came into being in classicalGreece, in whose language the separation of subject and object, common to all Westernlanguages, found its first clear expression and was immediately realized, in a magnificentgraphic manner that was never duplicated by subsequent systems....The symbol of theWestern way of speaking and of western logic is the straight line...Argument anddiscourse in our Western way of speaking and thinking can be symbolized by twointersecting lines drawn with arrows at their ends, one pointing to the left and the otherone pointing to the right.... I feel that this excursion in to 'logics' is necessary in light ofwhat we have said about...mantras and their effects.(87)

Social systems theory analyst Bateson makes the same point, "logic cannot model causalsystems-paradox is generated when time is ignored....apart from language, there are no namedclasses and no-subject-predicate relations."(88) Berendt points out the difference in Asianlanguages from western language and the cultural analyst Nol Burch has examined thesubsequent different cultural interpretations of reality.(89) Similarly the translator of ancientGreek, philosopher and mathematician Robert Schimdt, has shown that western logos wasderived out of a broader language system of phasis--which is the means by which objects spoketo the Greeks. Phasis is a multiple variant language system, just as the Plato dialogues are--andthey have not been correctly translated. Schimdt contends that logos is an incorrectsimplification of phasis and that the western worldview has structural errors due to itsdependency on logos.(90)

Schimdt's position mirrors the lucid analysis of Peter Kingsley in Ancient Philosophy, Mystery,and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition, worth quoting at length:

...from the point of view of the history of philosophy we are presented with a verydifferent picture of prePlatonic Pythagoreans from the usual stereotype of them asimpractical dreamers, their minds fogged and obsessed with number mysticism, who hadno 'clear idea of the value of empirical research' because all that interested them wasdiscovering metaphysical principles....Pythagoreans could be far more practical than isusually supposed, sometimes deadly practical. For Plato this emphasis on practicalityremained a powerful ideal; and yet, ideals apart, practically speaking it went against thegrain of his temperament, his abilities, and against the conditions of the times in which he

lived. With him and Aristotle the philosophical life as an integrated combination of practiceand perception fell apart at the seams, and another ideal came to predominate instead: 'anew type of man, the unworldly and withdrawn student and scholar'. Certainly there hadbeen partial precedents in the ancient Greek world for this new ideal. But it was only withPlato and Aristotle that it received its most decisive turn, so as to become the definingcharacteristic of what was to prove the most enduring Athenian contribution to intellectuahistory: instead of the love of wisdom, philosophy turned into the love of talking andarguing about the love of wisdom.(91)


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Like Berendt and Bateson, Rothstein has recognized that both math and music follow the ancientdialectical reasoning that he traces to the Pythagorean-based work of Plato. He quotes Socrates,"argument itself grasps with the power of dialectic" and then follows, "the inner life of the arts isin the world of Forms, in the processes of dialectic and its argument by metaphor."(92) Batesonbuilt his social systems analysis, like the phasis of ancient Greek, around the dialectical syllogism

of metaphor-- "Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass" in response to the western logical paradox"Epimenides was a Cretan who said, 'Cretans always lie'". Bateson states in Mind and Nature: ANecessary Unitythat "syllogisms in grass must be dominant mode of communicatinginterconnection of ideas...." (93)In response to the deep epistemological error in the West, like Bateson's Pythagorean socialsystems theory, the foundation of radical ecology chaos and complexity, or open systemstheory, is also based from true music theory. As Capra describes inThe Web of Life

In the 1950s scientists began to actually build models of such binary networks, includingsome with little lamps flickering on and off at the nodes. To their great amazement theydiscovered that after a short time of random flickering, some ordered patterns would

energy in most networks. They would see waves of flickering pass through the network,or they would observe repeated cycles. Even though the initial state of the network waschosen at random, after a while those ordered patterns would emerge spontaneously,and it was that spontaneous emergence of order that became known as 'self-organization.'(94)

From the seemingly random network of nodes, ordered patterns create harmonic structures ofself-organization (i.e. negentropy or cymatics). The infamous "butterfly effect" of chaos andcomplexity, where small changes have wide-spread systemic build-up, is simply a change in thefundamental node of the multi-dimensional pattern of harmonic oscillations. The Cartesianphase-space dimensions of the musically and linguistically inaccurate closed clock-pendulum arenow, Capra states, represented by, "a curve spiraling inward toward the center" (i.e. an"attractor"-the Pythagorean law of growth) or a more complex multi-dimensional system wherethe fundamental is thus called a "strange attractor." The predictions of chaos theory are nolonger reductionist. Capra remarks, "The new mathematics thus represents a shift from quantityto quality that is characteristic of systems thinking in general....All trajectories starting within acertain region of phase space will lead sooner or later to the same attractor...The result is adynamical picture of the entire system, called the 'phase portrait.'"(95) Complex structures ofnature are modeled by chaos and complexity with fractals being a prominent chaotic andcomplex example. Martin Gardner describes the Pythagorean foundation behind fractals with"scaling noise" in Fractal music, Hypercards and More:"If you play a recording of such a sound

at a different speed, you have only to adjust the volume to make it sound exactly as before. Byadjusting the spectral density we obtain an auto correlation of zero-in other words the sameratio that expands."(96)Even with new paradigm science revealing this ancient simple foundation, the western religionof linear technology and its inaccurate one-dimensional symbolic reification, is just as strong inthe community of public intellectuals or academics focused on structural change and exposingdominant ideologies. For instance, while grand theorist Slavoj Zizek has done a brilliant jobclarifying dialectic thinking and crucially applying it to cultural analysis via Lacan's


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psychoanalysis, he devoted a large part of a recent book to attacking rhythmic vibrations ofenergy. It's not that Zizek's theory is incorrect but only that he refuses to systematically take intoaccount dialectic analysis beyond that of Hegel and Lacan-or beyond the limits of language asrepresented by the Freudian "primordially repressed."(97) (see below for further description ofprimordially repressed) Zizek writes, "Hegel's point is not a new version of the yin/yang balance,but its exact opposite: 'truth' resides in the excess of exaggeration as such."(98) What is missingfrom Zizek's understanding of Taoist qi gong is that the disease is considered the teacher for the

cure, just as Zizek states, "the wound is healed by the spear that smote it." In other words, thedialectical process, as expressed through music theory and Taoist qi gong, uses resonance-theexaggerated'comma of Pythagoras'--to achieve a new synthesis or a new form.

Zizek does recognize the meaning of music as "the pre-ontological texture of relations" when herefers to Plato's "chora" (i.e. chorus) from the Pythagorean dialogue Timaeus--calling it "a kind ofmatrix-receptacle of all determinate forms, governed by its own contingent rules."(99) Zizek alsoimpressively traces the history of the ego or the Subject as corresponded with the developmentof opera. The end of opera coincides with the beginning of modernism and the hysterical subjectas the object of psychoanalysis.(100) In a chapter on music Zizek writes:

What is music at its most elementary? An act of supplication: a call to a figure of the bigOther (beloved Lady, King, God...) to respond, not as the symbolic big Other, but in the reaof his or her being (breaking his own rules by showing mercy; conferring her contingentlove on us...). Music is thus an attempt to provoke the 'answer of the Real': to give rise inthe Other to the 'miracle' of which Lacan speaks apropos of love, the miracle of the Otherstretching his or her hand out to me. The historical changes in the status of 'big Other'(grosso modo, in what Hegel referred to as 'objective Spirit') thus directly concern music -perhaps, musical modernity designates the moment when music renounces theendeavour to provoke the answer of the Other.(101)

One of the main cultural criticisms of Zizek is that the dialectical process of Hegel has beenmisunderstood as a new Absolute Subject thus, as Berendt also points out, causing materialisticMarxism to be a distorted example of dialectical thought. Currently Zizek has pinpointed newage thinking as also being representative of a new misguided Absolute Subject through the goalof a new balanced order of harmonious nature or "New Age Consciousness: the balanced circuitof Nature."(102) A prominent analysis of qi gong provides an interpretation of Hegel very similarto Zizek and ironically distinguishes the interpretation from the common incorrect understandingof Hegel that Zizek has worked so hard to clarify:

The term synthesisin this context does not refer to polar opposites merging into a higherunity so as to be separately indistinguishable. (This form of synthesis was one of the goalsof the dialectical process identified by the philosopher G.W. Hegel in his development of

the Absolute). The method may be simply described as positing something as a thesis,then realizing that it can only be truly defined by taking other aspects or its opposite intoaccount (antithesis), and finally arriving at the explicit recognition that the thesis andantithesis are related on a higher level of objective truth: synthesis). To understandongoing process, which Chinese philosophy favors in the spirit of synthesis, we mightconsider the psychological concept of integration.(103)


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The true dialectical process, for which Zizek expends considerable energy to describe throughphilosophy, can also be approached through music theory in a manner that very specifically andsimply clarifies the correct interpretation that has been the focus of his very seriousinvestigation. As Zizek states, in dialectics first there is a thesis then an antithesis and as each istaken to their extreme logical conclusions, like Socrates would do, both points negate each otherby their mutual absurdity (called the dialectical reversal after the unity of opposites). Then thatnegation is affirmed as a new common ground that both points now hold in common. This last

formal step is like naming or recognizing the first negation and is called double negation ordeterminate reflection. The point not recognized in the dominant one-dimensional interpretationof dialectics is that it's "the very lack [void] they have in common" which enables a newsynthesis. As Zizek writes, "Being reveals itself as Nothing at the very moment we try to grasp itin its pureness," and in reference to Hegel, "the subject is precisely that which is not substance."Zizek then states that the dialectic process is the same "nodal" problem again and again. (104)

Taking Zizek quite literally is more appropriate then he may ever realize for it is exactly thenodes of music theory, by modeling different orders of information, that so precisely describethe dialectical process. The ratios of the fourth and the fifth are inverse opposites of the octaveovertone, in other words, both ratios cause a pull to resolve at the fundamental (and octave).When the ratios are explored at depth, the relation of their overtones are in dissonance. As

Rothstein describes, "These two consonant tones (fifth and fundamental) have stronglydissonant overtones...[and] are the poles of tonal musical drama."(105) It's this paradox of thepoles that defines the description of thesis and antithesis in the dialectics of music theory. ErnoLendvai states,

By taking a V-I cadence the essential notes in the five chord bear an equal tritonicrelationship according to their overtones. These essential notes are what cause the strongfeeling to I. By inverting these notes the same tritone relationship is formed...The tritones'overtones act as subdominants [fourths] and as dominants [fifths] at the same time. Thesetwo positions neutralize and again, the tritone's relationship to the tonic [fundamental] isfound, the two are acoustically interchangeable.(106)

Jeans provides the following on the topic: "In the case of wider intervals such as C and F# [thetritone] there are no beats to be heard, either pleasant or unpleasant, but Helmholtz assertedthat C and F# sound badly together because certain of their harmonics (e.g. g' and f'#) makeunpleasant beats."(107)The dialectical process is demonstrated through true music theory by the splitting of nothing (theroot of the fundamental) into two parts, the fundamental and the octave, that freely resonateinto the next multiple of the fifth, forming a complimentary opposites to the fundamental: thefifth splits the octave and fundamental in half but also pulls to the octave and fundamental. Then,

as described by Lendvai, the free vibration of the fifth and its overtone become extremeopposites to the fundamental, via the overtone, forming tritonic relations to the tonic (the tritoneis known as "the unutterable" or "diabulus in musica".)(108) But the tritone has no beats (zero)with the fundamental-thus forming the first negation. The tritone overtones then act as theoriginal consonant fifth to the fundamental (with no beats), as described by Lendvai, thuscompleting the double negation or determinate reflection for the new synthesis. This finalsynthesis is on-going, represented by the spiral of fifths(not the incorrect circle of fifths taught inthe west) that's basic to true music theory--or again, the same beautiful "nodal problem" againand again.


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While Zizek, like Bateson, does not stray from the limit of the primordially repressed, he doesdescribe that limit as being magical pre-verbal sound. The primordially repressed are myths that"have no 'original' in the language of intersubjective communication.'" He gives a verysignificant example,

at the very moment when the reign of (symbolic) Law was being instituted (in what Moses

was able to discern as the articulated Commandments), the crowd waiting below MountSinai apprehended only the continuous, non-articulated sound of the shofar [a trumpet-type horn]: the voice of the shofar is an irreducible supplementof the (written) Law.

Zizek defines the shofar as "a kind of 'vanishing mediator' between the mythical direct vocalexpression of the pre-symbolic life-substance and articulated speech...this strange sound...isstrictly analogous to the unconscious act of establishing the difference between the unconsciousvortex of drives and the field of Logosin Schelling."(109)The primordial supplement mentioned by Zizek is also the same Lacanian surplus of desire orthe "excess of exaggeration" that is crucial to the dialectical process. Those two key componentsof Zizek's analysis are analogous to the comma of Pythagoras-the inherent resonance patternsof fundamental vibrations are what create thejouissance(or the sublime enjoyment) that iscentral to psychological desire and to ideological fanaticism as analyzed by Zizek (the heresythat Bateson mentions). Rothstein states, "The music 'in itself' is the abstract model whoseessence defies even a purely formal analysis."(110) Ironically both the symbol forjouissanceand for the Pythagorean law of growth are the Greek character phi.(111)

Like Zizek's mythic source, George Frazer's classic cultural analysis,The Golden Bough, that wasa major influence on Freud, systematically documents the spiritual process of the "killing of theking" (sacrifice) that in the West became transferred to symbolic structures and reified into a

closed linear, one order system. The neuropsychologist Karl Pribram, who did pioneering brainand consciousness research and presented a open systems resonance interpretation of themind, made a similar case: "...when, because of linguistic and cultural affluence, the means-endsreversal occurs, these languages begin to live lives of their own. Thus complexity iscompounded and the original organization can easily be lost sight of."(112)Zizek's dismissal of social theories that critique western science as a repressive social institutionno longer holds because of the presentation of sound-current non-dualism. He refers toHeidegger, pointing out that,

...modern science at its most fundamental cannot be reduced to some limited ontic,'socially conditioned' option (expressing the interests of a certain social group, etc.), but is

rather, the [Lacanian] real of our historical moment, that which 'remains the same' in allpossible ('progressive' and 'reactionary', 'technocratic' and 'ecological', 'patriarchal' and'feminist') symbolic universes.(113)

This is the same theoretical limit of one-dimensional language that was emphasized by Bordwelland Flinn and to which sound-current non-dualism gives a formal answer. Zizek states,


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When typical modernist artist speak about the Spiritual in painting (Kandinsky) or in music(Schoenberg), the 'spiritual' dimension they evoke points towards the 'spiritualization' (or,rather, 'spectralization') of Matter (colour and shape, sound) as such,outsideits referenceto Meaning...it dwells in a kind of intermediate spectral domain of what Schelling calledgeistige Krperlichkeit. From the Lacanian perspective, it is easy to identify this "spiritualcorporeality' as materializedjouissance....(114)

By claiming spiritualization is outside the "reference to Meaning" Zizek falls into the sameepistemological trap and misses the crucial open systems connection between quantity andquality that the law of Pythagoras models. As music analyst Rudolf Haase puts it, "in nature animportant role is played by those quantities which in man can be transformed intoqualities."(115) Or as Zizek himself admits when analyzing Mozart's Don Giovanni, "the veryexternal form of the Count's melody, its discord with its own content (the words sung),articulates the unconscious truth as yet inaccessible to him, to his psychologicalexperience."(116)

Professor Richard Leppert also, like Zizek, examines the subsequent effects of Plato's conceptua

error. He connects music, nature and politics through a historical poetics of western art,analyzing how socially the role of music, used for control, has also paradoxically underminedrationalism of the West. Leppert states,

If Barthes is right, the radical political act of making music for oneself--in Victorian culture,this means especially women-involves a temporary reinscription of human 'totality' (mindwith body at art) in the lived experience of 'humanities' second sex. This reinscriptionmarks a refusal to abide by the terms of Cartesian dualism, the very foundation of thepolitics of gender, class, and racial difference-according to which certain men think and allwomen merely feel.(117)

Like Fraser, Pribram, Zizek and others, symbolic transference of spiritual power to linear thoughtand language is the problem traced by David F. Noble that has created the modern "religion oftechnology" which that we are now tracing back to its ancient western origins. The inherentwestern killing of heretics and "primitive peoples," by considering them "pre-cognitive," isexplained from by a purely formal analysis of repressed epistemological error. Unfortunatelyeven the successful grand theorist Ken Wilber falls into the trap of advocating linear westernevolution based on a deterministic brain model that does not fully process the findings ofPribram's resonance analysis.(118) Wilber subsequently incorrectly portrays indigenouscultures as inferior and backward-i.e. claiming that their sustainable indigenous knowledgesystems are merely accidents reflecting their lack Western technology. Ironically the central text

of Tibetan Buddhism, a philosophy from which Wilber draws heavily, commonly called "TheBook of the Dead," has its origins in the indigenous Bon culture and is literally translated as"Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State."(119) Wilber criticizes social theorists for"eulogizing" tribal cultures, when in fact currently 4 to 5,000 of the 6,000 human cultures areindigenous, still existing with distinct languages, but extremely threatened by corporate stateelite policies. There is extensive evidence of indigenous cultures commonly interacting in areciprocal relationship with the environment as a conscious value system. The outstandingexamples of unbalanced indigenous development patterns that Wilber incorrectly suggests arethe norm, are due to particular breaks in those cultures from extreme influences (like dramatic


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climate change and colonialism). Wilber does not recognize the fact that there has been a strongbacklash against indigenous research, precisely because of its psychological threat to the linearwestern worldview. His use of Hawaii to explain his theory of holons is an inaccurate portrayalof genocidal U.S. imperialism-in fact he claims the contrary occurred.(120)

Certainly neither Pribram, nor the global green movement that Wilber supports, are advocatinga "regressive" return to pre-industrial society as the immediate dominant fear arises, but instead

the societal model of an open spiral process that continually reaffirms the universal commonground of the void. From systems theory music analysis, Leonard Meyer calls this societalmodel "fluctuating stasis" based on "steady-state" systems theory, a prediction of the samerecommendation from radical ecologist open systems theorist Fritoj Capra.(121) In Noise: ThePolitical Economy of Music, Jacques Attali presents a similar societal vision-predicted by andachieved through profound music practices that challenge the hegemony of one-dimensionalrepressed symbolic abstraction of the western worldview.(122) John E. Peck, worth quoting atlength, documents how in fact indigenous cultures already enact concepts of sophisticated opensystems theory:

Given its sensitivity to time and place, indigenous knowledge would seem to be bettersituated to successfully adopt and apply a nonequilibrium perspective to ecosystemmanagement than conventional scientific thinking, particularly in settings unfamiliar towestern policy makers. Ecosystemic trajectories are so contextually contingent that anobserver can hardly afford to entertain a theoretical framework built upon universal"objectivity" and reductionist "rationality." In fact, the development and implementation ofsuch programs as intensive rotational grazing, biocultural restoration, preventativemedicine, and early disaster warning-to name but a few-in western and nonwesternsettings alike have relied heavily upon the indigenous knowledge of local people mostdirectly affected.(123)

The great contribution of Wilber is that he also models an understanding of the void and clarifiesmany of the same western epistemological errors--but the crucial qualitative difference ofmodeling the void with music theory is that the long-established immoral, genocidal bias againstindigenous cultures need not apply. The music analyst John Chernoff in his brilliant work withthe Dagomba, African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical Idioms, notesthat "The power and dynamic potential of the music is in the silence, and the gaps between thenotes, [the absolute void] and it is into this openness that a creative participant will place hiscontribution, trying to open up the music further." Chernoff realized that music serves as aconscious cultural practice to access the void and obtain transformative powers in thesecultures. He points out that "both [the dialectical Marcuse and Lacan] are suggestive of ways inwhich Western philosophical literature on alienation is addressed in the aesthetics of Africanmusic."(124) It should be emphasized, of course, that Wilber also draws heavily from the

Pythagorean tradition, as well as Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance. Parmenides,who plays a significant role in Wilber's work, was taught by "the Pythagorean Ameinias," henotes. Wilber's main analysis, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is, as he comments, the first part of atrilogy called "Kosmos," a Pythagorean term meaning "the patterned nature or process of alldomains of existence, from matter to math to theos, and not merely the physical universe, whichis usually what both 'cosmos' and 'universe' mean today."(125)One of the main arguments that Wilber uses to present the civilized worldviews over indigenoussustainable models is the concept of depth via holons-it is holons (or whole/parts grounded in


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nothingness, just as music models) that fill the Pythagorean Kosmos. Music theory also ironicallyproves, by modeling "depth" as well in a more direct manner, how the dominant post-Pythagorean western worldview is not as sophisticated or accurate as the majority of humancultures (i.e. sustainable indigenous cultures) that it's corporate-state policies aredestroying.(126) In the application of the law of Pythagoras and its derivative principles (ofharmony and growth) music analyst Berendt notes that "Each spin [of all particles] contains allprior whole-number spins....this is the process of differentiation and development...the higher the

spin, the higher the state of consciousness."(127) Thus the vortex or spirals express the sameconcept of Wilber's depth, and are a combination of the hierarchy (vertical) and heterarchy(horizontal) perspectives that have riddle radical ecology theorists-a topic Wilber gives greatattention to. But demonstrating this concept through music theory has another profoundimplication, as Berendt quotes musicologist Gerhard Nestler:

One-line music with an indefinite pitch and with its wide range of intermediate tones andovertones has a wider base of expression than polyphonic music with its definite pitch andits interval structure, than Conventional Western music, that is. In the final analysis, suchmusic is unhearable. What we hear is its symbol. The symbol is the tones that manchooses from the wealth of tones provided by the universe. Such music grows out of thepolar tensions between the audible and the inaudible.(128)

Nestler's point explains that the reification of the symbols of the first order of information (theratios of the scale and one-dimensional logos), by post-Pythagorean Greek epistemology, lead tothe loss of the open system spiritual music analysis originally derived from the one-note scalestypically found in indigenous cultures. Modal music, the true "classical" music found around theworld, has a "certain mental, spiritual attitude" because it is consciously reflecting the values ofthose sustainable cultures. As Berendt documents, "Many of the world's cultures have passeddown sagas and myths, legends and tales in which the world has its origin in sound, from theAztecs to the Eskimos, from the Persians to the Indians and the Malayans."(129)

To reiterate, this universal primacy of open system harmonic analysis was reflected by theancient Greek language of phasis of which logos was just one variant. Complexity and chaostheorists Marturana and Varela have argued, similarly to Pibram, that language itself is adevelopment of rhythmic vibrations of energy: Capra reports that they come to the samecultural implications:

due to resonance phenomenon...cognitive experiential states are created by thesynchronization of fast oscillations in the gamma and beta range that tend to arise andsubside quickly... Varela's hypothesis establishes a neurological basis for the distinctionbetween conscious and unconscious cognition...since language results in a verysophisticated and effective coordination of behavior, the evolution of language allowed

the early human beings to greatly increase their cooperative activities and to developfamilies, communities, and tribes that gave them tremendous evolutionary advantages.The crucial role of language in human evolution was not the ability to exchange ideas, butthe increased ability to cooperate. As the diversity and richness of our humanrelationships increased, our humanity-our language, art, thought, and culture-unfoldedaccordingly. At the same time, we also developed the ability of abstract thinking, ofbringing forth an inner world of concepts, objects, and images of ourselves. Gradually, asthis inner world became ever more diverse and complex, we began to lose touch with


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nature and became ever more fragmented personalities. Thus arose the tension betweenwholeness and fragmentation, between body and soul....(130)

The argument presented by the open systems theorists is backed by the historical analysis ofKingsley who also further confirms that Plato and Aristotle specifically instituted denigration of a

more complex Pythagorean language of meaning. As Kingsley puts it, "By the time of Plato andAristotle, the doors of understanding were closed;" "argument is more important thanappreciation, reinterpretation an easy substitute for understanding;" "[the denigration]destroyed the mythical dialectic." The Pythagoreans orally conveyed a language and lifestylebuilt on "see-saw oscillations and balancing forces" that create an accurate and sophisticatedsystem of meaning which integrates and explains in detail eschatology, cosmology, geology,mathematics and energy systems practice.(131) Included in this system was the "incantatoryuse of poetry for harmonizing emotions." Kingsley documents that the Pythagoreans were thesource for Plato's Phaedo, Gorgia and Orphic allegories-even the accurate heliocentric system ofastronomy. Plato was "indebted to the Pythagorean oral tradition" and Plato "himself was onlytoo aware of the limitation of the written text as a medium of genuine communication."(132)

The degeneration of complexity is well established, as is its intentionality:

...since the publication of Cherniss's work on Aristotle and the Presocratics in 1935 therehas been a deeper awareness not only of the fact that Aristotle and his school werefrequently capable of misunderstanding the Presocratics at a very fundamental level, butalso of the fact that he and his followers systematically used deliberate misunderstandingand 'shameless' misrepresentation as a way of silencing their predecessors.(133)

The formal reversal of the secret 'irrational' open-spiral of music analysis and its mirrored

inaccurate closed symbolic one-dimensional circle variant and linear written system can betraced historically:

We have already seen evidence of the role played by Archytas' school in reinterpreting-often quite radically-Pythagorean mythological ideas which were current in thegeneration of Philolaus;...it is quite possible that the idea of the centre of a circle , orsphere, as its most 'honourable' place [in the reinterpretation] is related to Archytas'exaltation of the geometric properties of the circle and sphere.(134)

Ironically the influence of Pythagoras has been so profound for Western culture that it is the

exact original spiritual source for the western elite degeneration to one-dimensional materialismthat also goes back to Aristotle. Kingsley writes, "Dieterich devoted a book to showing the extentto which the Christian Apocalyspse-found only in fragmentary form at Akmin in Upper Egypt andin a version in Ethiopic-is dependent on Orphic and Pythagorean traditions."(135) Pythagoreanswere also highly adept at creating sophisticated technologies. And like the self-fulfilling eliteenactment of the apocalypse described by Noble, for the Pythagoreans,


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it is not difficult to detect an underlying schema of descent into the underworld as preludeto a celestial ascent. This apparent illogic is the logic of myth. One dies to be reborn; onedescends into the depths in order to ascend....This fundamental idea was so strong that itmanaged to survive intact in spite of the cruder Christian dramatizations of hell-fire,suffering, and punishment,....(136)

The crucial difference between the Pythagoreans and the later Christians is that for thePythagoreans being reborn is a spiritual journey not dependant on a one-dimensionalrestoration of the Fall of Adam through a repressive controlling power over the Other (nature,gender, non-whites, the poor). The Pythagoreans, believing in God as immanent in nature, werefocused on preserving and utilizing nature in its multi-dimensional spiraled harmony. Like thepower of Pythagoreanism, Taoist qi gong has also been recognized by the elite-for instancewhen Dr. Yan Xin first visited the U.S. President George Bush requested that Master Xin visit theWhite House eight separate times! Similarly the military elite of Burma, home of the world'sworst regime, regularly look to the local spiritual masters as a hopes of maintaining power.(137)

The symbolic dialectics of Pythagoreans and the dialectics of Hegel (both modeled by a spiral or

a systems theory mobius strip for Zizek) are also directly connected to the dialectics of Taoist qigong. Kingsley notes, "In terms not only of formal and structural analogies but also of historicalcontacts, there can be no separating the Thracian Orpheus [of Pythagorean equivalence] fromcentral-Asiatic shamanic tradition." Just as the Taoist qi gong masters, the Pythagorean mastersstrove for immortality and were documented to work paranormal acts. This connection withTaoism is also made explicit by the motif of the Pythagorean Master Empedocles who, "dies amiraculous death by vanishing into thin air but who leaves a tell-tale item...A more classic Taoistconcept is that of achieving the divine state either by fashioning a spirit-body...thoughtfullyleaving a pile of discarded garments...."(138) According to qi gong Master Dr. Yan Xin, qi gong isactually older than Taoism and its shamanic roots are verified and clarified today by the use ofscientific dialectical thought. The global qi gong upheaval will, according to Dr. Yan Xin, achievea new global scientific and moral revolution-or energy monism. As Kingsley points out, "Onthese principles...the notion of sympathies and antipathies [the law of Pythagoras] in Greekmagic and alchemy and the analogies to both in China, see Needham [Science and Civilization inChina]."(139)Even still, as Berendt, Zizek have pointed out, the Hegelian dialectical process, just like dialecticamusic theory and Taoist qi gong, has been misinterpreted by the West as a goal of the closedAbsolute Subject. Similarly the dialectical theory of radical ecology where the limits ofrationalism are marked by "wildness" (akin to Kant's antinomies) have also been misinterpreted,by Zizek, and by Keulartz's "cosmic nature characterized by perfect harmony."140 Systemstheorist Gregory Bateson states,

To see myself as part of a system which includes me and the chaparral frames a reasonfor my action-to preserve the ongoing cycling of us (me and the chaparral) by activelyburning the chaparral. I think synchronic action-framed like that-is Taoist-it's a sort ofpassivity. There is no diachronic action in the Eternal Present. But to rush to preserve thehuman species against a galactic threat or to get ready for a biblical apocalypse, thatwould be diachronic.141


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Unfortunately, as Morris Berman has documented, precisely because of the psycho-spiritualrepression under a reified one-dimensional closed symbolic system, when the undercurrent ofnon-dualism is tapped, it is assimilated by the dominant reactionary forces.142 Corporate-statefascism has already promoted the guise of being nature-loving under the label of Nazism andnow eco-fascism, a term Berman uses, is the threat of a genetically-engineered micro-chippedsocial cleansing lead by the "life sciences" of Cargill, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto andtheir interlocking elite associates.143 Systems theory, ever since it was co-opted by the Rand

Corporation for the promotion of military jingoism and the corporate-state-has been applied inan inaccurate and thus immoral manner.144

Unlike the unified authoritarian structure of the corporate-state, radical ecology based in musictheory, does not call for an all-encompassing master plan but only basic principles--the mostimportant of which is that all energy derives from the common void that connects us. We areforced to literally accept nothing and its infinitely cycling potential. Or as Kelartz states, "Power isin the hands of the people, to be sure but it 'belongs' to no one; it retains its transcendent positionin an sense, but this position is necessarily vacant."145 Music theory and its resultant infinitelycomplex universal steady-state, uniquely emphasizes this fundamental priority, thuscounteracting the social Darwinis

epicenters of justice

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