sacred

CHANT AND THE ART OF CHANTING by Filippo Costanti

CHANT AND THE ART OF CHANTING by Filippo Costanti

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Everyone needs to express their feelings—now of joy, now of pain—and one of the most effective means is undoubtedly music, either played or sung. Chant is surely the most totalizing means of expression that man and woman have at their disposal. Learning to sing not only means letting vocal cords vibrate to reproduce notes in tune, but also tuning one’s mind and morale to the content of the sung melody. A good singer should be able to perfectly dress the idea and feeling that the composer has imprinted in the composition. In a way, he or she should make this idea his or her own, live it by giving it a body and transmit it to the listener. So it is with good musicians.

Certainly, one can sing just for fun, as a necessity or in order to feel better, but it is understandable that a deeper study of chant makes one aware of the phonatory apparatus (diaphragm, lungs, larynx, resonance cavity, etc.), and it allows for an active research in regards to the psychic, mental and latent capacities of man and woman in an overall sense.

The fact that chant, specifically melurgic chant, is capable of making us become aware of ourselves and use our voices in a harmonious and harmonic way, surely makes this art a powerful instrument for the formation of the individual as a whole, that is, physical and spiritual. “Melurgy”, from the Greek melos, melody or chant, and ergon, opus, means “the action of melody” or “the action of chant” and it indicates the action that a sacred melody, particularly one that is sung, has on man. 

The study of the voice mystery can lead to a profound knowledge of human nature and its relationship with the cosmos. Since ancient times holy chant has been one of the main means for the moral and spiritual education of man. In all traditions music and chant, associated with poetry, are found to be used to sing odes to the deity. Take the development of music in King David’s time in Israel (1 Chronicles 23:5; 25:1, 6, 7), or the use of musical instruments and of choir by the Greeks, of which Pythagoras was one of the founders. Even in early Christianity the gift of song among the Apostles and Disciples is known (Acts 16:23, 24), and of no less importance is the role of music as a liberal art in the Middle Ages.

The soul of man was conceived as a melody to be tuned to and harmonized with the melody of the universe, a reflection of a divine music or harmony. It is to this “tuning” of the soul that the chant in its melurgic-sacral sense, that is ascetic in the highest of meanings, can lead.

Costituzione invisibile dell'uomo e della donna - Invisible constitution of man and woman

MAGIC AND DIVINATION by Elisabetta Meacci

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The Magician, which can be associated with the Hermit tarot card

Talking about magic nowadays might seem inappropriate.  As soon as we hear this word we think of the illusionist, the magician who performs tricks and with special effects. Or we think about those fantasy film characters who are very eccentric and bizarre. In short, magic with fairy tales’ magic wand. 

Not magic in the ancient sense of the term, no, it doesn’t immediately come to mind, in fact it seems something very distant from modern society, from this civilization of machines and technology, where everything is practical, immediate, visible, tangible. 

A society where many call themselves “atheists” and are skeptical of everything which lies beyond their noses. 

Magic as ancient wisdom, as development of faculties that every human being possesses more or less latently, doesn’t come to mind.

In reality, magic is a current topic and is alive in every time and every place. One may say that it is innate in us. From the most insignificant sign of superstition to the rituals of the great religions, magic survives and becomes part of the life of each of us. As if with a gesture or a strange power we could change the course of events. But is it really possible?

We live in a world made of exchanges, of relationships, of harmonies. Energetic exchanges, vital, with the environment around us, with nature, and with the people who make up our circle of human relationships. 

We are bound with our physical body to the earth, to its radiations and its atmosphere, so it is necessary to learn to free ourselves from conditionings and to harmonize with the environment; our etheric body is related to the etheric body of the earth and the Cosmos, and we are influenced by it, so we must also harmonize with it, possibly using it; the same applies to the astral and the mental energy bodies, which have relations and links with those of the earth and the Cosmos.

One of the purposes of sacred magic is to bring all these forces into balance in order to open a path to the Celestial Spheres.

Invisible constitution of man and woman

The magical art knows the wise use of colors, of perfumes, of musical notes, of symbols, and of magnetic or vital currents of our body, for the purpose of transforming the human soul into  an immortal angelic being.

So divination gains an important role. In Chinese philosophy contained in I KING, the Book of Changes, one of the most important texts about divination, everything that happens in the visible world is the extrication of an image, an idea present in the invisible world. The seeds of everything are in the higher, invisible and spiritual worlds. Here on earth these seeds materialize, as it were, in time. If I can predict in advance, I can somehow act to have a better destiny. The ability to intuitively know, and discover these spiritual seeds is the prerogative of wise or holy people who are used to being in contact with these higher dimensions. It is through them that a sort of circuit is created between heaven or the supersensible world of ideas, earth or the corporeal world of visibility, and man.