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Passages similar to: Secret Teachings of All Ages — The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color
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Western Esoteric
Secret Teachings of All Ages
The Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color (19)
The far-reaching effect exercised by music upon the culture of the Greeks is thus summed up by Emil Nauman: "Plato depreciated the notion that music was intended solely to create cheerful and agreeable emotions, maintaining rather that it should inculcate a love of all that is noble, and hatred of all that is mean, and that nothing could more strongly influence man's innermost feelings than melody and rhythm. Firmly convinced of this, he agreed with Damon of Athens, the musical instructor of Socrates, that the introduction of a new and presumably enervating scale would endanger the future of a whole nation, and that it was not possible to alter a key without shaking the very foundations of the State. Plato affirmed that music which ennobled the mind was of a far higher kind than that which merely appealed to the senses, and he strongly insisted that it was the paramount duty of the Legislature to suppress all music of an effeminate and lascivious character, and to encourage only s that which was pure and dignified; that bold and stirring melodies were for men, gentle and soothing ones for women. From this it is evident that music played a considerable part in the education of the Greek youth. The greatest care was also to be taken in the selection of instrumental music, because the absence of words rendered its signification doubtful, and it was difficult to foresee whether it would exercise upon the people a benign or baneful influence. Popular taste, being always tickled by sensuous and meretricious effects, was to be treated with deserved contempt. (See The History of Music.)
Greek
Book IV (424)
Then, I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music? Yes, he said; the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals...
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Greek
Book III (403)
None whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of sensual love?...
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Greek
Book VII (531)
You mean, I said, those gentlemen who tease and torture the strings and rack them on the pegs of the instrument: I might carry on the metaphor and spe...
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Greek
Book IV (424)
That will be the best way of settling them. Also, I said, the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurtur...
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Neoplatonic
CHAP. XXV. (1)
Pythagoras was likewise of opinion that music contributed greatly to health, if it was used in an appropriate manner. For he was accustomed to employ...
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Greek
Book III (401)
Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning t...
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Greek
Book III (398)
We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or ...
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Greek
Book VII (522)
You are most accurate, I said, in your recollection; in music there certainly was nothing of the kind. But what branch of knowledge is there, my dear ...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XI: The Mystical Meanings in the Proportions of Numbers, Geometrical Ratios, and Music. (14)
Music is then to be handled for the sake of the embellishment and composure of manners. For instance, at a banquet we pledge each other while the...
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Neoplatonic
III, Chapter IX (1)
What you afterwards say is as follows: “ That some of those who suffer a mental alienation, energize enthusiastically on hearing cymbals or drums, or...
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Greek
Book III (399)
These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortuna...
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Neoplatonic
CHAP. XXV. (2)
Nepenthe, without gall, o’er every ill Oblivion spreads;—— and thus snatched his host Anchitus from death, and the youth from the crime of homicide....
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Greek
Book III (412)
That appears to be the intention. And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportions, and best attempers them to the soul, may be righ...
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Neoplatonic
CHAP. XXIX. (4)
This therefore was the form of his wisdom which is so admirable. It is also said, that of the sciences which the Pythagoreans honored, music,...
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Christian Mysticism
Chapter XVI: That the Inventors of Other Arts Were Mostly Barbarians. (8)
Nay more, it was late before the teaching and writing of discourses reached Greece. Alcmaeon, the son of Perithus, of Crotona, first composed a...
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Greek
Book III (404)
Exactly. There complexity engendered licence, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul; and simplicity i...
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Neoplatonic
CHAP. XXXIV. (1)
Since, however, we have thus generally, and with arrangement, discussed what pertains to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans; let us after this narrate...
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Greek
Book III (398)
You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like. These ...
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Neoplatonic
CHAP. IX. (1)
But when they had told their parents what they had heard, a thousand men having called Pythagoras into the senate-house, and praised him for what he h...
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Greek
Book VII (521)
Certainly. What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You wi...
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